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FEBRUARY
14, 2025 When I was a child, I heard the word thermometer spoken. I learned it's pronounced ther-MOM-uh-ter, though it has nothing to do with mommy. (Nor do kilometers have anything to do with killing oms.) Then later I saw the word in print. I realized that though it obviously means THER-mo ME-ter, or temperature measurer, it isn't pronounced that way. Whatever. Later I saw the word circadian in print. I read that it describes bodily rhythms that tend to repeat every 24 hours. I also knew a little Latin, so the meaning was obvious: circa dian, about a day.
Then
I heard circadian pronounced. Shouldn't it be cir-ca-DEE-un?
How could it be cir-CAY-dee-un? I suppose that's because it's
easier to say. But every time I hear it, I first think of a noisy insect with a much different rhythm. A new generation of ci-CAY-das emerges in about 17 years.
FEBRUARY
11, 2025 Christian fundamentalists worship their perfect and inerrant Bible. In particular, they accept the word of the unchanging and eternal God that He personally created the world and everything in it, male and female, just as they exist today, and it took Him only one week. From Scripture, they've calculated that the Creation happened in 4004 BC.
Since
Charles Darwin's day, scientists have worked out the real
story. The world has formed and changed over billions of
years, a process that still continues. In biology, these
changes are called evolution. The fundamentalists are outraged. They don't want their precious children's minds poisoned with the lie that some things in the Holy Bible are not literally true. Also, they don't want their kids taught that they and their friends and families are to blame for climate change. On the contrary, we must obey our dear leader when he says it's time to drill, baby, drill. In 2015, the Iowa Department of Education (DOE) adopted standards for science teaching in the state's middle and high schools. Those policies closely follow the Next Generation Science Standards currently used by 20 states and the District of Columbia. The standards are to be updated every ten years. But now in 2025, because of hostile Christian opposition to the devil's word evolution, a DOE committee has recommended censoring the standards. Their proposal was released for public comment on January 14. It would weaken the science by replacing evolution with fuzzy pseudonyms and removing the mention of humans' impact on the environment by adding a sentence noting that the Earth has experienced natural warming and cooling throughout history.
From Iowa City, University of Iowa education professor Jeff Nordine, a member of the standards team, reports that there was language in that document that referred to the Earth's age as 4.6 billion years that has been removed. I don't know how that happened. I don't remember being informed that was going to happen. From Cedar Rapids, KCRG News asked why the alterations were made. The DOE answered that climate trends is an appropriate term used by other government agencies. But that's not completely true. When KCRG checked with Iowa's neighbors, all mention climate change and only Nebraska mentions the term climate trends. And The Gazette reports that the team has now been discharged so a second team can review public feedback. From Sioux City, retired teacher Bruce Lear calls the language an attempt to trick students into believing a political opinion. Those on the right don't want to admit humans have any role in climate change. But refusing to acknowledge humans contribute to climate change is like pretending there's no correlation between smoking and lung cancer. And many fundamentalist Christians favor a literal Biblical creation story. But the Biblical creation story isn't science. It's a belief.
The National Center for Science Education will be observing Darwin Day tomorrow. NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch said the adoption of Iowa's revised standards wouldn't prevent teachers from discussing evolution and climate change, but it would make it harder, especially for teachers who don't feel comfortable because they haven't had sufficient preparation for doing so or because they fear community backlash. However, he said, there are encouraging trends. Surveys of public high school biology teachers reveal that more is being taught about evolution and substantially more is being taught about human evolution. In 2007 a bare majority of these teachers reported that they emphasized the scientific credibility of evolution while not emphasizing creationism as a scientifically credible alternative, but in 2019 it was a commanding majority, 67 percent, who did so. What accounts for such a striking improvement? Partly the improved treatment of evolution in state science standards, which specify what knowledge and know-how students are expected to acquire in the course of their K-12 science education. Acceptance of evolution became a majority position among the American public more than a decade ago, according to multiple independent polls, and there are signs of a shift even among religious communities that have been traditionally hostile to evolution. There's now reason to hope that someday every student in the U.S.'s public schools will be in a position to appreciate that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.
FEBRUARY
8, 2025 If you're friends with a deer, be sure to remind her and all her cousins that if they ever hear someone lurking in the woods with his camera even if it's kindly Jim Stonekettle Wright they should prepare for the possibility of needing to get out of there in a hurry if a flash goes off. Each doe should freeze in the flight pose: front feet together, left rear hoof raised in readiness.
Actually the billboard now advertises a nationwide law firm whose partners include Sam Pond and Jerry Lehocky. But those attorneys don't write wills, or handle divorces, or defend clients in criminal court, or draft legislation.
Personal injury law is one of the most competitive practice areas, which is why many lawyers in that field spend lavishly on advertising. Pond Lehocky Giordano is, according to their website, the largest workers' compensation and Social Security disability law firm in the country. They also handle long-term disability, short-term disability, personal injury, and all other legal needs. Local author and historian Virginia Montanez writes, I tend to hate when advertising mars our natural landforms and major infrastructure, especially when it's done by brands that don't have an iconic connection to the city. Looking at you, Acrisure [which purchased naming rights to the football stadium]. That said... man, Pittsburgh used to be awash in advertising. Even on our bridges! Look at the old Seventh Street bridge around 1915 (source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers).
FEBRUARY
3, 2015
At
five oclock the other afternoon, a waitress came up to me and
began talking about an unfortunate incident involving a little
boy. I couldnt catch everything Okay, I said, I guess I can give him a ride home. She explained me a few more details about what had happened. Thats too bad, I remarked. She kept on talking. Fine, I said, Ill go over and introduce myself. Whats the boys name? But she didnt answer me. She kept on talking. What is his name? I repeated. The waitress told me her name! And then she went away! What is the boys name? I called after her. No response. What is his name? I shouted to no one in particular, and no one in particular responded. I had a powerless feeling, as though I didnt exist. All the other restaurant patrons were staring numbly at a television set, from which I heard other voices speaking about other things. I got up and walked over to the big table on the other side of the room. There sat several adults and at least two kids who could have been the little lost boy. I asked whether somebody needed a ride home. There was no reaction. They were all glued to the big screen, where a weather report was now in progress. We were warned of sub-zero wind chills overnight. That was when I awoke from my nap. I had, of course, fallen asleep with the television on.
FEBRUARY
2, 2025
The epilogue, which is not in the story: 22½ years later the Big Ten launched their very own network, and I was honored to be part of their inaugural football telecast on September 1, 2007. In that game, Appalachian State upset Michigan.
FEBRUARY
1, 2025 This week there was a fatal midair collision near Washington D.C.'s Reagan National Airport. On this website I've recalled a personal encounter with the congested flight patterns there. In each incident, a regional airliner was flying from south to north (from right to left on this diagram) and planning to land on Runway 1 (green arrow).
In 1994 or so, my plane approaching from the south also diverted to the blue runway but did so by swerving the opposite way. The pilot went first to the left and then back to the right before landing on Runway 15 (that's what it's called when heading southeast). Fortunately there was no helicopter in the way, though I did experience what I considered a close encounter with the Pentagon.
JANUARY
30, 2025
JANUARY
28, 2015 Mommy, you studied engineering. When I make a right turn on my bike, it leans to my right. When you make a right turn in your car, it leans to your left. Whats the difference?
When your bike turns right, you keep your balance by leaning into the turn. Inertia is trying to keep you going straight and seems to be pushing you > this way, so you lean and let gravity pull you < that way. But I can't bank my car, because it has four wheels on the ground. I have no way to offset what people call centrifugal force. Itll roll my car over onto its side if I take the corner too fast. Oh. Another thing: I was looking at pictures of airplanes with propellers. All the way back to the Wright Brothers, the first props had two blades. Then they had three blades, four blades, and now even more. The engineers must have figured out that more blades are more efficient, right?
Imagine you're a dog walking on solid ground, but you suddenly notice that your paws are freezing and your feet are sinking into soft mud or snow. You've learned how to handle this situation. You react by stepping higher to lift your feet up out of the frigid muck.
JANUARY
23, 2025 Ideally, the messages of television commercials should be directed to the audiences that will see them. During a break for local commercials, viewers in the Carolinas might see an advertisement for North Carolina Blue Cross Blue Shield while viewers in Ontario might learn about Scotiabank. If those ad placements were reversed, the advertising would be useless. The sponsors would get no benefit. But sporting events also include ads that are seen not during breaks but during the actual competition. If a hockey game is being telecast from Toronto, can Carolina telecasters hide the arena's logos and sell the space instead to their local sponsors? They could make a lot of money that way. And yes, it is possible! And it's being done! My new article on Digitally Enhanced Dasherboards explains how I think this trick must be accomplished. I could be wrong.
JANUARY
20, 2025 This is Inauguration Day, but it's also a federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. He spoke at my college four times beginning in 1957. I was not yet enrolled there for any of those occasions, although I did meet his father a few years later.
There are 1,200 seats in Finney Chapel, and for the first of those appearances an estimated 2,500 people overflowed the building. Students and faculty were fervent supporters of civil rights. Then came the college commencement ceremony on Tappan Square in the spring of 1965, at which Dr. King encouraged the members of the graduating class to be, in today's terminology, woke. A great social revolution was taking place, and they must not sleep through it.
JANUARY
17, 2025 Let's turn back the clock. Way back some 23,934 days back. The year was 1959, and I was 12 years old. My parents and I had driven west, and our vacation trip had reached Southern California.
We were staying at the Lamplighter Motel in Anaheim (above) and had visited Knott's Berry Farm the day before. Now, on July 10, we again ventured out. The famed four-year-old theme park called Disneyland was just on the other side of the avenue.
We ate lunch in Frontierland, but then the heat got miserable around 1:00, I noted at the time. The thermometer reached 103 degrees, a temperature that still stands as the record for July 10 in Los Angeles. We abandoned Disneyland to relax in our air-conditioned motel for four hours. That afternoon, a brush fire broke out 33 miles to the northwest in Laurel Canyon. Residents had only enough time to gather a few belongings before evacuating their homes, many fleeing on foot.
1959 was also the year when the U.S. gained an additional S. and then another one. According to all the newspapers, the 50th state was going to be Hawaii.
More
recently, Ive noticed that the preferred spelling seems to
include an apostrophe before the final letter. Even closer
inspection reveals that its a reverse apostrophe. Nor do I know why Bluesky seems to think a regular apostrophe is an abbreviation for ’
JANUARY
14, 2025 I saw an instructional video about the standard American accent.
Unlike languages such as German, in which words are pronounced approximately the way they're spelled, English speakers in America need to slur the letters the way their neighbors do. Likewise French speakers in France, where it would be a foe paw (spelled faux pas) to say fox pass.
Of course, this isn't going to happen. Workers and communities in both our countries, Canada's Justin Trudeau has tweeted, benefit from being each other's biggest trading and security partner. There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.
JANUARY
8, 2025
JANUARY
5, 2025
As I mentioned earlier, I like documentaries that answer questions scientifically. Specifically, documentaries that dramatize airplane crashes. What went wrong? It's usually possible to sort out the evidence in 15 or 20 minutes and, in the final minute, describe what changes have been made to lessen the possibility of the same things going wrong in the future. A one-hour program can solve three such mysteries. However, TV channels have lots of time on their hands, so usually a single case is stretched out to fill a full hour. That requires a lot of repetition. Several times we hear the co-pilot saying V1; rotate. Several times we hear an alarm sounding. Several times we see an animation of the plane smashing into the ground. Yes, we know, it was a major disaster, but let's find the black boxes and get on with the investigation.
Lately
I watched two extreme examples of this sort of stretching, one about
Amelia Earhart and the other about D.B. Cooper. While attempting to fly around the world in a Lockheed Electra in 1937, Earhart planned to refuel at tiny Howland Island in the south Pacific. But she radioed, We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet. The plane presumably crashed, but the wreckage has never been found. Military historian Michael Carra became intrigued with the story of an Australian patrol that encountered airplane wreckage in the jungles of Papua New Guinea during World War II. Could that be the remains of Earhart's Electra? Of course not; PNG is 2,500 miles west of Howland, so it would be unreachable if fuel is running low. But we're only asking questions. Folks still wonder about Amelia, so such speculation can still draw interest.
Carra
filmed a two-week expedition to PNG which did uncover some scattered
aircraft wreckage from the war, but not the Electra. He also
painstakingly authenticated the Australian patrol's map, down to an
analysis of the graphite in its pencil notations. Though
interesting, that proves nothing. But now we have a two-hour
documentary of his ultimately meaningless project. In 1971, an airline passenger calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked a 727, demanded money and parachutes, jumped out the rear door, and vanished. Who was he, really? The FBI processed more than a thousand serious suspects. A couple of researchers decided that Cooper must have been one Robert Wesley Rackstraw. They spent five years compiling a list of 93 circumstantial reasons. Those don't prove anything, said the FBI. Rackstraw's attorney called the allegation the stupidest thing I've ever heard. In 2016 the FBI suspended active investigation of the case because the Bureau had more important things to worry about. Nevertheless, documentarians put together a TV program fingering Rackstraw. It was two hours long and included a lot of repeated interviews. No, wait, that was only Part One; a similar Part Two followed. Four hours of television. A tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Bring back stories that come to a satisfying conclusion!
JANUARY
3, 2015 A sports headline told me the Panthers are playing the Cardinals today. Are the Pitt Panthers kicking off against the Louisville Cardinals in another of those bowls? Or are the Florida Panthers skating into the St. Louis Cardinals ballpark for another of those outdoor hockey games? No, this is the National Football League, so its the Carolina Panthers against the Arizona Cardinals. We need more uniqueness among nicknames. Coelacanths, anybody?
JANUARY
1, 2015
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