Bubba -y

I admit I'm still distracted by science stuff so before I tear off in another direction I want to briefly talk about those statues they dug up near Luxor, Egypt. Anyone see the news stories that ran mid afternoon about the two Pharaoh Amenhotep III statues that showed up while crews were excavating the pharaoh's mortuary.

According to AP, one statue is black marble and depicts him in a seated pose, while the other, carved from quartzite, shows him as a sphinx, (a la- his own head on the body of a lion).

Amenhotep was the ninth pharaoh of the 18th dynasty and ruled for 40 odd years around 1400BC. Apparently, he left more images of himself than any other pharaoh. Hmmm.

I've tried to find out just how big the damn things are but just about every story so far is based on the AP news wire. Bet they're bigger than a Volkswagen.

Science-y

I am so easily distracted. They shouldn't let people like me near things like old record shops and the Internet. I started to look up stuff about jet engines (going fast, lots of fire, skidding out of control) and got hung up on two cool science headlines. Both have their roots in history. Which is good because my wealthy patrons will shut up.

The first is well, we all knew this was true, but here we are again with some more tantalizingly almost for sure proof of water on mars.

According to Samuel Schon, a Ph.D. student in the geological science department at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, Mars had flowing water as recent as 1.25 million years ago. His studies of crater rims, and specifically water gullies, shows what he believes to be proof of running water.

Since you and I can't remember back that far, to put this news into perspective, this was a time when early humans were walking about and making very basic things, probably beer.

Now the other piece of science history is only a few days old, the actual item involved was much older. Did anyone happen to notice on Monday a kind of whoosh?Around 8:30am? It seems a rock, described by scientists as a "giant space rock" (glad they got that cleared up) passed by the earth about 72,000 kilometers away.

Oddly enough, the scientists can tell you to practically a car length how far away the thing is but estimate the rock to be anywhere from 21 to 47 meters across. A margin of error of over 2 to 1. And to make us feel better about it, they figure the Tunguska kaboom was caused by a rock about the same size.

All this science has me in a mood.

Some people name their kids after this. Sheesh.

Barbara Millicent Roberts is 50 years old today. That's Barbie to you and me. The first Barbie's came out in March 1959. There is much written about this iconic toy so I'll leave you to read the stuff that's out there.

I choose to look at a few of the duds and what were they thinking for Christ's sake anyway? Like the Barbie that came out in 1997 that featured an African American doll in the unfortunately named Oreo Fun Barbie collection.

Even more supportive and wholesome was the 1965 Slumber Party Barbie whose package contained a diet tips book that suggested kids don't eat to loose weight. Whoa.

How about the Rosie O'Donnell Barbie? I'm serious. And Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett. C'mon.

Gotta run. It's time for me to move away from the crabbing about so many consumer products and return to technological disasters. As fun as cereal was, it's time to turn my sights to more pressing historical chestnuts like the perfectly safe and family friendly development of the jet engine.

Oh, in case you have any questions, I direct you to the Breakfast Cereal Information Service (I am not kidding). Hey, they're online at http://www.breakfastcereal.org/ . Knowledge IS power.

See ya next time.

Up and down.

I was planning a nostalgic look at one my childhood TV shows, a French Canadian thing that ran after school and featured, among other characters, a clown named Patof. He referred to his head as a boot (la botine). That's the influence young ones need alright.

But, instead I was sidetracked by the news that Muzak has filed for bankruptcy. I thought I would have a look at the soul of elevator music. ( Just to put things into context, according to Bankruptcydata.com, 2008 saw 231 major bankruptcies, although notable, it is far short of the 2001 dot com fiasco. number of 383.)

Founded in 1934, that's 75 years folks, by George Squire, an engineer, inventor and somewhat of an adventurer (he was the first passenger ever on an airplane, when in 1908 he took a short ride on a Wright Brothers aircraft).

But it was his invention of transmitting phonograph tunes over electrical wires in 1922 that started the Muzak story. He sold the patent to North American Company who in turn bankrolled the original Muzak, called Wired Radio Inc. (what a great name!) but it took 12 years to get the thing into the American marketplace. So in 1934, voila, he looked around for a catchy name and coined Muzak, by joining music and Kodak (after super popular portable camera of the time).

In one of those damned life ironies, Squire died that year and never saw how Muzak would change and bother the world for 3/4 's of a decade.

3 Muskateers

I was gently reminded by a reader to cough up the names of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch bakers. Wendell, Bob and Quello.

Where's Waldo?

So I'm finally fed up with heading each post with "well this guy just died and he did some neat things so I think it's a good idea you know about it". I thought that while I prepare for another obsession I'd deal with some folks who are already dead and spare everyone the grief.

So . . . . . lets spend a moment getting to know Alexander Humphreys Woollcott. Writer and critic for the New Yorker magazine and general sharp tonged wit who had a knack for for getting laughs and pissing people off. He was a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of New York writers who met to have lunch at the Algonquin Hotel. They just hung out and traded lines and story ideas. The result was a weird think tank for high functioning, slightly snooty artsy critics.

Born in 1887, Aleck, as he liked to be called, started life in a former commune. His first home was something called the North American Phalanx, a huge rambling 80+ room house that had been the centre of the Phalanx movement. It dissolved in the 1850's and his grandparents took over the home.

His family loved books and from an early age he knew writing was going to earn his living. Not having alot of money when he was in his youth was a problem, but with the help of the family doctor he was able to attend university and start his career as a critic.

By the 1920's he was drama critic for the New York times. His reviews seemed to be either gushing or crushing. Some theatres banned him outright from reviewing their productions.

He moved into radio in 1928 with ease and found a ready audience. Listeners perhaps, who were a little tired of reading his wordy articles. He hosted shows like The Early Bookworm and the Town Crier.

He is most remembered for his quotes "Seven suburbs in search of a city" in describing Los Angeles or "There is absolutely nothing wrong with Oscar Levant that a miracle can't fix." Or his famous review of a play that was simply one word "Ouch".

Dorothy Parker had a name for his apartment on east 52nd Street. She called it the Wits End.

Stamp collector

So with the news that Bernard Madoff mailed his family jewelery to the tune of a million smackers one gets the feeling that he's preparing for a move in the near future. The architect of a 50 Billion Ponzi scheme, bigger than the GDP of a third of the world's countries, is settling in for a battle.

So where did he get the idea anyway? From Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant who arrived on our shores in 1903. Not knowing what to do and having no special desire to get a crappy job he looked around for a way to make some bucks. He didn't have the people skills for customer service and got too many customers pissed off by either shorting them on goods (or cash) or by just plain old lying. He did a bit of time for forged checks and when he got out put his mind to a lazy way to riches.

He discovered there was money to be made with international reply coupons, or chits that could be turned in for postage stamps. These were commonly used in foreign mail when the sender wanted a reply. The idea was the recipient would cash in the chit for return postage and the sender was sure of a nice friendly letter back. The money to be made involved the difference in postage between some countries. Stamps could be bought and exchanged for higher value ones.

This was not going to make Ponzi his fortune but for a while he made amodest living. He decided to recruit more people into the scheme, the idea being that with hundreds, maybe thousands of stamp trading transactions he could really rake it in. But his dishonest streak looked a little beyond this. His new "recruits" bought into the "business" for a flat fee with a promise of doubling their money in six months. So many people thought it was an amazing deal that he was swamped with investors.

Trouble is, no one was selling postage stamps. He was paying out his investors with the money he raised from new subscriptions. So popular was his scheme it is estimated he did 4-5 million dollars a month.

Money like that will draw the feds to have a look. Actually it was Clarence Barron, the Wall Street Journal owner who smelled a rat. He used his newspaper and power to uncover the truth and shut him down. Oddly enough many of Ponzi's biggest supporters when he went to jail were his former investors, who hailed him as a financial wizard.

tube steak

Back at it after a week off on helping my employer out. Had to fly over to a new office and get the staff started on the right foot. Good to be back at my own desk and cosy bed.

Saw a nifty little video on the CBC web site about a London designer who has recycled old London subway carriages into office space. He's plucked then from the scrap heap and dropped on top of existing buildings. You may have noticed a soft spot for trains on this blog and particularly the goofier side of transport, (remember trains sucked through rubber tubes don't you?) so I'd thought I would dig up stuff on the the London Underground.

Anyway, the 1840's saw what was to be called the Railway Mania in England. Railways were where it's at then and everyone was tripping over themselves to by a stake in some new railroad. Speculative investing in new railways was crazy. Now it turned out that many never got off the ground, were gobbled up by bigger companies or were simply bogus, but the rage over railways was here to stay.

No wonder, compared to other investments there was a buck to be made. And more important, there was a middle class to invest their earnings. Propelled by the industrial revolution the railways were in demand and tracks needed to be laid and locomotives needed to be built. Not only was there an insatiable need to move goods, people had to be moved to. England was rapidly urbanizing and workers had to get to their jobs.

So back to the London Underground. There has been attempts to link suburban train stations in the 1840's by using shallow troughs but these never took off. The City was simply in the way. No one wanted hundreds of homes and roads destroyed to get even the beloved trains into downtown. Some lines were constructed, most notably to connect Paddington Station, but these were basically trenches that were covered over.

Lets jump ahead a few years and have a look at the first real tube train. The tube train could only exist once deep tunneling could be accomplished safely (sort of for the time- the construction of some of the shallow trenches, the so-called "cut and cover" was crazy. At one point they dug through the Fleet Ditch Sewer system near Farringdon). By 1970 tunnelling shields allowed deep excavation to proceed and a tunnel was bored under the Thames near Tower Hill. This was barely a railway in the true sense, just one car hauled back and forth on cables, but it was a start.

More improvements and access to electric locomotives made subways practical, and the first one showed up, The City & South London Railway in 1890. It was powered by an electric locomotive and had some 5+ kilometers of track in service. The ride was no hell and for some reason, probably due to the dark tunnels, the carriages had no windows. Could not imagine a weirder little ride. Patrons called them padded cells.

Dad.

Father of the Delta blues, Charlie Patton was a true homegrown talent. Born in 1891 (there is debate over this, with some musicologists suggesting he was born earlier, that is 1885 earlier) on the Mississippi delta. He moved with his family to the Dockery Plantation at the turn of the century. A couple of other real cool cats found out about the Patton magic, maybe you've heard of them: John Lee Hooker and Howlin Wolf.

Music has to come from somewhere, and Patton learned his craft from local Dockery musician Henry Sloan. Blues wasn't invented yet but this guy had it going on. Two of Patton's future sideman, Son House and Tommy Johnson learned at Sloan's feet. Unfortunately there are no known Sloan recordings.

Patton's first real composition was "pony Blues". Known as a song writer and developer of the the delta blues style, he was comfortable playing many genres and toured all over the Southern United States. Toured is being generous. He was a Black musician in turn of the century times so he played plantations and beer halls.

Crowds came from all over to see the show, and a show it was. Way before the antics of Pete Townsend or pyrotechnics of Hendrix, this guy played the guitar below his knees and behind his head wowing the crowns who had never seen anything like him before. There were no amps or PA systems then, but his voice was as legendary as his playing. He could blow out candles at the back of the hall.

Patton moved to Holly Ridge Mississippi with his partner, fellow musician Bertha Lee, where he lived until his death in 1934. He has also been known to go by the name Elder J.J. Hadley.

Look up, way up, and I'll call Angie and Fiddle

Doing research into expedition artists (the folk who paint and sketch the things that explorers go looking for before cameras were useful) landed me on quite few web sites devoted to things that fell from the sky.

There is a long history of objects pummeling the earth. Pretty much from ancient times onward man has seen stones, cinders, toads, fish (quite a few actually) and especially since air travel is common, the odd plane part and frozen poop.

And then there is meat. Seems that meat has fallen lots of times. Lets see starting in 1851 near San Fransisco troops reported seeing pieces of meat, apparently beef (how did they check?) falling from a cloudless sky.

Sampson County, North Carolina reported that in the same year meat as well as liver, brains and blood fell from the sky. No mention as to what cut of meat it was. Again in 1884 meat fell from the sky in Chatham County.

In 1869 on a farm near Los Nietos, California, more meat came down. This time in strips.

We move now to Bath, Kentucky when in 1876 cubes of beef (what else?) landed on the Crouch family farm.

Every meat fall occurred on clear cloudless days. Think I'll use the grocery store.

Spud nik

It's October already and I feel terrible that over three quarters of the year has slipped by without celebrating you know what. Come on, this is an event we all should be involved in. Family, friends, co-workers. Make some time for the potato.

2008 is the International Year of the Potato. So says the United Nations, and they ought to know. We pay how much to keep them running?

According to the official website http://www.potato2008.org/ (you'll love the logo) we owe everything to Lake Titticaca. Peru actually. There may be some argument from Bolivia. Those damn Bolivars. It's a potato.

I won't repeat the potato lore amply abundant on the web site but I do want to tell you about a neat little potato product called chuño. Dating back over a thousand years it's a freeze dried potato food eaten by the Incas. Small potatoes work best for this stuff. Once dug up they are laid out over night to freeze for at least a couple of days. They are laid out in the sun during the day and walked upon to squeeze out the moisture. Finally, they are frozen for a few more nights. And voila! a portable food that looks remarkably like crap. But hey, they did walk on it first.

And just so you feel real bad here are a few potato celebrations we all missed. In September the Spokane Valley Fest was the site of the launching of a potato shaped balloon. Thuringia Germany had their annual potato festival where the celebrated potato dumplings. And finally to cap a month choc a bloc with activities France hosted PotatoEurope 2008. Billed as Europe's "most significant potato industry convention". Lucky bastards.

Look up, way up, I'll call Rusty and Jerome . . .

According to Harvard astronomer Tim Spahr, a small asteroid will burn up in the earth's atmosphere tonight. Damn, all the good cataclysms happen after my bed time.

Actually it's asteroid 2008 TC3 and it's on track to burn up over Africa. Lucky bastards. So scientists have complied this list of asteroids, 5681 of them, of which a mere 757, or 10% or so are big enough to cause us any trouble. Ah science has a way of taking the end of mankind and the start of the next ice age and making it all sound like comparing gas mileage on mini vans. And just to make us all feel better the chance of an object 1km in size or bigger striking the earth is about 1 in every half million years. What a load off. So all we have to do now is figure out when the LAST one hit.

So it got me started thinking about other hits and misses. One of the best known impacts is the Barringer Crater near Winslow Arizona. Also known as Meteor Crater it was formed about 50, 000 years ago by an object about 50 metres across. Interestingly enough it is the only privately owned crater on earth. The Barringer family own it. Just goes to show you that being at the right place at the right time . . .

In the less drama but more of them category we have the Henbury Meteorites Conservation Reserve in Australia's Northern Reserve. Actually a crater field of about 15 impacts ranging in size from as small as 7 metres across to the big one at 180 metres. Locals had known about the area for a long time but interest flared when a 92 kilgram meteorite crashed in neighbouring Karoonda in 1932. That woke 'em up.

On the other side of the world in Kaali Estonia we have the Kaali Craters. A series of 9 impacts produced craters as large as 110 metres across and 22 metres deep. The date of impact is sketchy but it's believed to be about 100BC.

And in Saudi Arabia we find the Wabar craters. Actually Harry St. John Abdullah Philby found them in 1932. You may remember a famous commie spy, Ken Philby? His Dad. Again this is an impact field with craters larger than 100 metres. This one is a new one, having occurred within the last 200 years.

Sleep tight.

I'm back.

Ugh. Finally. Had to do the business trip thing for 2 weeks. Limited time for keeping you all up to date on halfway decent TV viewing or introducing readers to the wonders of forgotton history.

First order of business is a beer update. From the good folks at Discovery Channel (and my wife for seeing the article) comes the tale of 45 million year old yeast.

Seems Raul Cano extracted the yeast sample from a piece of ancient amber. Now this was 10 years ago, so between then and now he has perfected brewing using the yeast originally taken from the sample of Burmese amber.

His beer, which he brews is sizable quantities , has caught the eye of aficionados and critics. Apparently it did good at the Russian Beer Festival, a yardstick by which better beers are measured, and garnered reviews like this one from Oakland Tribune beer critic (now there's a job) "weird spiciness".

It's safe to say that his ingredients are not off the shelf.

tune in to this

Marvin P. Middlemark was born on this in 1919. We owe Marv a debt of gratitude. You see in in 1956 (took him a while to get going) he invented the Rabbit Ears used on TV sets in the 50's and 60's.

This device alone identifies television to many folk. Even those too young to have ever seen a pair of them. Television was transmitted to most markets back then just like radio was, from atop a transmission tower. The signal varied with location and the weather so viewers stood on their head trying to get a clear picture. (There is a Mr. Bean episode where he winds up naked standing on his head in an effort to get a clear picture)

Mr. Middlemark's tidy little gizmo caught more signal for the viewers and made TV just that much more exciting. Until cable TV penetrated to most markets, Rabbit Ears were king.

He had a few more inventions up his sleeve but none hit the success nerve again. But they were the water powered potato peeler and the tennis ball rejuvinator. Go figure.

6'2"

Paul Child was a designer and artist closely attached to highest levels of command in the East. There were many opportunities to mix and mingle with all levels of staff as cocktail parties, dinners and at the very least, gin drinking, was common even when the war raged in the countryside.

By early 1945, the OSS headquaters was moved to Chungking, China. Julia, in her usual fashion, immedaitely set to work organizing filing systems and getting everyone on board with the program. Rumours circulated that she was in line for the spy corps.

Paul was present in Chungking too. As the war wound down, their romance started up, with Paul taking her to the best restaurants. Her love of cooking was born.

Mix in a little deception.

So as I read the days news and poked around the fringes of possible stories to use I came upon this gem. It's already starting to make the rounds of the news sites but it's still a fun little story.

Chef Julia Child's first big job was not as a chef, but as a spy. During WWII she worked for the OSS (it turned into the CIA). She and her team were tasked with creating a method to keep sharks away from underwater explosives. Seems the sharks were setting off underwater bombs that were laid to snare German submarines. Even if the sharks didn't set them all off, they sure as hell let the German's know where the shit was.

Julia McWilliams, her maiden name, started her spy career shortly after Pearl Harbour. A tall (over 6 feet) good natured girl who enjoyed her fun, she was not exactly what the US military wanted, but through friends in the OSS she started as a clerk. her natural take charge attitude earned her promotions and got her noticed. One of the first real OSS type projects she worked on was to see if water could be squeezed from fish. Bleh. Apparently not. Downed pilots in life rafts would have to look elsewhere.

When a chance to work in the far east arose she was first in line. She arrived in Kandy, Sri Lanka and set to work with the other women in her unit. Although she trained as a file clerk, she in fact was privy to the highest secrets on a daily basis. Her good humour and obvious talents for quickly making sense out of chaos did not go unnoticed.

It was here that she met Paul Child. Check back tomorrow for part 2.

I can't help it

I was so depressed about not finding any good TV on tonight I went looking for some humour to cheer me up. In my usual lost while looking for something else way of getting at the truth I came across a bit of joke history.

Seems the ancient Egyptians had the jump on joking around. Picture based jokes (cartoons) were the most common. Animal cartoons the favourite. Many were very crude. Depictions of odd couplings with obvious reference to politicians of the day were very popular. Nothing new there.

Many of the animal cartoons weren't rude, but amazingly modern. Cartoons featuring cavorting monkeys playing musical instruments or ducks and cats biting people on the ass appeared throughout Egypt. Even the dogs playing cards and smoking was upstaged by the silly Egyptians. There is an ancient papyrus with a lion and an antelope playing checkers or something.

The ancient Greeks liked jokes too. Here's one from Philogelos or The Lover of Laughter, a 4th century joke book, replete with 265 jokes.

No.9"Wishing to teach his donkey not to eat, a pedant did not offer him any food. When the donkey died of hunger, he said "I've had a great loss. Just when he had learned not to eat, he died."

or

No. 203: Someone went to a charlatan prophet and inquired if his rival would come back from a voyage. The prophet promised that he could not. But the man found out a few days later that he had come back. "Well," said the prophet, "how shameless can you get?"

Aw, come on.

Found this on CNN. Good Lord, wonder if Toyota will be buying any of these little guys any time soon? http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/05/20/geo.metro/index.html

He was here a minute ago.

Harold Holt, prime Minister of Australia from January 26, 1966 till December 17, 1967, when he seemingly walked into the surf at Cheviot Beach and disappeared.

Not many heads of state do that you know. Many have been run from office, some shot at (successfully and not) and some have TRIED to hide, but Harold is the only one to simply go away.

Holt had only been in office a little less than a year, however his political career has spanned almost 30 years, with him holding cabinet posts for most of that time.

His disappearance sparked many a wacky theory including several having him as a spy for either or both China and the USSR. He was supposed to have swam out to a waiting submarine. Or faked his death to run off with another woman. Or abducted by UFO's. All sound plausible.

In the way life sticks one final joke your way, and you just can't figure out why, a swimming pool was named in his honour after his death, the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre.

This sounds nice.

So give me a sec to tie this all together, but this thread started with my son giving me a computer game about a really bad nuclear accident. Yeah, I know, sounds fun doesn't. Great kid. Anyway it got me going on the history of nuclear accidents, the real kind. Holy shit, we've had a few stinkers that nearly cost us.

As an aside, I was temporarily diverted by minor British political scandals (they are so close to nuclear disasters, it's entirely understandable.) I must recount the 1993 controversy by John Selwyn Gummer (I am not making this up) whilst he was Secretary of State for the Environment. He apparently refused to discuss acid rain causing pollution that was drifting over Norway with his Norwegian counterpart. The lusty Norwegian summoned his best diplomatic rhetoric and called Mr. Gummer a drittsekk, what we commoners call a shitbag. Nice.

Anyway, back to happier times. Just to get started I looked up how many nuclear disasters there have been and I was shocked to find there were so many they are divided into categories. Jesus. For example there are the ones that happen in the lab and kill scientists and unwary onlookers. Then there are the ones when they are building a reactor and they are (presumably) trying it out, and it goes wacko. Then there are the operational kind, like 3 Mile Island or Chernobyl.

But the one I'm gonna spend a few minutes on tonight is airplanes dropping the damn things by accident. This isn't gonna make anyone feel good, but have there been a few of those. Whoa. During the time period from about 1950 to 1980 there have been over 20 such accidents. Many involved B-52's. Engine fires, mid air collisions (!!!) and accidents while taxiing around on the ground. Some have never been found. Any weird green glow down by the tomatoes?