Thoughts Before The Alarm Sounds

      Several stories of abridgement of free speech rights have been in the news lately.       Yesterday arch-conservative Carl Rove was shouted down during the course of a book-signing event in Beverly Hills, California. About 100 persons had paid $40 to hear Rove discuss his book, "Courage and Consequences: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight." One protestor called Rove a “war criminal,’” while another waved a pair of handcuffs with which she ostensibly planned to make a citizen’s arrest. Rove was forced to leave the stage without signing any books.       While I seldom agree with anything Rove has to say, I firmly believe shouting down a person trying to present his case, unpopular though his case may be, is about as un-American as one can get.       Rove was there to discuss his viewpoint. Anyone who disagreed with that viewpoint had an equal right to stand and discuss the diff...

      It’s time for my annual rant about the condition of science non-students at my alma mater. This happens whenever the winners of the North Museum and Science Fair are announced. At least it starts that way, although it expands a bit by the time I get to the end. Stay with me.       If this were about football, it would be a glowing review. Since 1992, Manheim Central’s record is been 215 and 29 – not too bad. A football scholarship to Penn State is considered a very successful high school career.       But it’s not about football.       I counted winners from 16 Lancaster County Schools at this year’s science fair. How many were there from Manheim Central? None, nada, nil, zilch, goose egg! Same as last year! I don’t think they even had anyone entered!       I have spoken to several of my classmates and other alumni about this lack, and what do I get? “We...

      I do not have an iPhone or an iPod, neither do I Tweet. But I have been seeing the commercials for apps, you know, the ones that say, “Yeh, there’s an app for that,” and I got curious to see what all is out there.       I found that there are many handy apps available: you can check your email, run some business programs, listen to music, you name it.       But in addition, there are many, many apps that do strange, weird or stupid things. Here are a few of them: iPhone Toilet Sound. If body sounds embarrass you when you use a public restroom, this app plays the sound of a toilet flushing. It can be set to run for 30 seconds to two minutes, and is loud enough to overpower those “nasty” sounds. iFart. The opposite of app 1 above. Needs no explanation. Makes a variety of sounds that keep juveniles giggling for hours. Runpee. If your bladder is not large enough to last throughout an entire movie, this app...

      When the Founding Fathers created the U.S Constitution, they did not agree on everything at the beginning. On the contrary, they discussed and argued and compromised for three and a half months. I believe that by so doing they set up a model for later generations of Americans to follow.       Of all the many freedoms they enshrined in the document, freedom of speech was basic. They knew that controversial matters would come up in later years, and free discussion and open debate between citizens was the way to resolve them. As far as I know, not one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention threatened, or even considered threatening, any of the others with whom he disagreed.       We seem to have forgotten that principle. This morning the media is reporting that politicians who voted for the Healthcare plan are being pilloried. They have been called vile names, spat upon, threatened and even had th...

      Capitalism: An economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.*       The basic idea underlying a capitalistic system is that of individual ownership and control of the assets of commerce. Using one’s innate abilities, energy, ideas, etc. to better oneself is the driving force, and success or failure is measured by the bottom line. The “rugged individual” and the “small entrepreneur” are the natural heroes. Individual freedom is paramount.       Unfortunately, unbridled incentive can lead to unbridled greed, which if followed far enough, can bring down the system. Let me give you an example:       When you buy a life insurance policy, you are buying a contract under which t...

      We lost a long time friend last July, a friend we have known for over 40 years. Claudia was a wife, artisan, chef and would-be mother to the world.       All the time that Barbara was in the OR, Claudia was in the waiting room with me. Barbara looked so little and helpless when she came out; Claudia took one look at my face and whispered, “Don’t worry, she’ll look fine tomorrow.” And she did. In the meantime Claudia took me home and fed me dinner.       Because of her ability to organize a kitchen, she was the “go to” person at church dinners, socials, etc., although she preferred intimate dinner parties of six to eight people. I can’t even estimate the number of such parties we attended at her home.       Her Coquilles St. Jacques, if not to die for, was at least to kill for. After I tasted hers, there was no other that was fit to eat, at least for me.     ...

      Since I have no college training in Driver Education, I am sure I would not qualify as an "expert witness" in a court of law. Nevertheless, over a period of many years I have diligently observed what other drivers do, and as a result I have compiled a list of rules of the road based on those observations. 1. No matter how fast I drive, everyone behind me wants to drive faster. This is especially true of the stupid driver directly behind me, who wants to do it without passing me. He practices what are technically called "tailgating" and "hornblowing." 2. The self-appointed guardian of highway safety directly in front of me always drives ten miles per hour slower than I wish to drive, except when I am in a hurry, in which case, he drives twenty miles per hour slower. 3. When waiting in line to turn right at a traffic light, it is a good idea to drive through the bays of a corner gas station in order to eliminate the wait. As a side benefit, this ...

      The following excerpt is from Newsweek, March 15, 2010:       In 2006 John Celmer's body began to break down. He was diagnosed with oral cancer and had to undergo surgery to remove the tumor and then radiation therapy to kill off any remaining malignant cells. The radiation ravaged his jawbone and the surrounding tissue, leaving a hole in his chin. Fluid leaked onto his clothes. His teeth began falling out. He had difficulty eating and speaking. As Celmer's jaw began severing from his face, doctors attempted moderate treatments, but all of them failed. So in 2008, they sought to reconstruct his chin and jaw using tissue from his chest and bone from his lower leg. The procedures appeared successful, but five days after the final operation, he was discovered dead in his Cumming, Ga., home.       At first everyone assumed he'd died of natural causes. Yet as Celmer's wife, Susan, sifted through his belongings...

      The following information has been gleaned from various Texas sources with the exception of the section that begins with the words "Among the new Texas directives..." and ends with the words "...separation of church and state." That section was taken from an editorial in The Keene (N.H.) Sentinel of the same date. I don’t think it needs any comment.       For several years the Texas Board of Education members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state. Last Friday the board approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Fo...

      According to recent polls, Joe Sixpack and his friends are overwhelmingly against President Obama’s healthcare plan. I must say I can hardly blame them; the pharmaceutical industry has made a $12 million dollar investment in negative advertising in order to defeat it. Joe and his buddies should consider this: At today’s price of medicines, can what is good for the drug companies also be good for Joe and his friends?       In addition, a group of businesses led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent $11 million in this month alone, trying to influence 40 Democratic lawmakers to vote against the bill. Follow the money, Joe.       The advertisers have been trying to sell three myths about the plan: 1.) The President is proposing to take over one-sixth of the U.S. economy; the portion of the GDP which is currently being spent on healthcare. Actually, the government already controls half of that amount th...

      Last night (technically at 2:00 am), we went through the annual ritual of turning the clocks forward one hour. Actually we only changed the alarm clock at bedtime; we got most of the rest of them in the first half hour after we got up. (I will probably be changing various watches for the next couple of weeks.) It was pretty cold this morning – we should have changed the thermostat along with the alarm clock. Live and learn.       I never thought of this before, but in the Southern Hemisphere they turn their clocks backward on the same date we turn ours forward, and vice versa.       TVs, DVRs, computers, etc. change themselves overnight. I didn’t get up at 2:00 to make sure they did it correctly, but they were all changed by morning, so I guess it worked OK.       During his time as an American envoy to France, Benjamin Franklin, ahead of his time as usual, anonymously published ...

      Before the “green” revolution caught on, “ecology” was a hot subject. According to Wikipedia, ecology is defined as “the interdisciplinary scientific study of the distributions, abundance and relations of organisms and their interactions with the environment.” It includes the study of ecosystems: “the web or network of relations among organisms at different scales of organization.” Since ecology refers to any form of biodiversity, ecologists research everything from tiny bacteria's role in nutrient recycling to the effects of tropical rain forest on the Earth's atmosphere       The subject today is conservationism, as distinguished from conservatism. Although I will be using a quote from Charles Darwin, it is strictly an illustration of ecology in action; it has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution. If you are a creationist, please bear with me.       Anticipating the science of ecology by a hundred ye...

      When Bill Clinton was running for the presidency against George H. W. Bush, the catch phrase for his campaign was “It’s the economy, stupid.” Just as James Carville hung a sign containing that slogan in Clinton’s campaign headquarters, so should Barack Obama have the same reminder on banners all over the White House.       Obama’s campaign promised change and hope, but change has gotten out of control, and hope seems to be retreating into the hills. Every poll indicates that healthcare is way down on the list of voters’ concerns. Now the primary focus is on jobs, jobs, jobs.       Presently there is a bill in the Senate which would grant an exemption to an employer for each new hire during 2010. In addition, if the employee stays on the job for 52 weeks, the employer will get a $1,000 business tax credit in 2011.       I have a bit of trouble understanding how this will do much t...

      When it comes to hi-tech innovation, there is no doubt that the USA is among the leaders. Computers, the Mac and the PC - both American inventions - are ubiquitous throughout the world. And such items as the iPod, xBox and GPS all attest to the innovativeness of American technical know-how.       But there is one area of technical expertise where we are rapidly falling behind: toilet technology. According to an article posted yesterday on MCNBC, toilets outside the US are undergoing rapid technological upgrading, and as to the race to be first on the market, we are so far in the rear that we may never catch up. If we don’t do something, our toilet industry will be wiped out.       Not surprisingly, the Japanese are occupying the leadership throne in this field. Some of their public toilets almost require an instruction manual in order to handle their control panel. Likewise in Europe there are some really...

      Monty Hall was the emcee of the game show “Let’s Make A Deal.” The contestant had a choice of three doors to open; behind one was a prize, and goats were hidden behind the other two. After the contestant chose one of the doors, Hall, who knew where the prize was, opened one of the doors behind which was a goat. The contestant was then given a choice: he could either open the door which was his original choice, or he could switch and open the other closed door.       Not surprisingly, most people opted to stay with their original choice. It seems logical that since there are now only two doors from which to choose, there is a 50/50 chance the prize is behind either door.       Unfortunately, that’s wrong! The chances of winning are twice as good if one switches! In fact, this problem has been so often explored by mathematicians that it has been formally named the Monty Hall problem. For those not intereste...

      Most of the people who believe in a young earth think that the creation occurred on October 23, 4004 BCE at 9:00 o’clock in the morning. No such date can be found in the writings of the early church – it was calculated in the 17th century by Bishop James Ussher and Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge       How did the good gentlemen make this calculation? The original writing is extremely difficult to follow (See for example Bishop Ussher Dates the World: 4004 BC , but an explanation follows:       Ussher began his calculation by adding the ages of the twenty-one generations of people of the Hebrew-derived Old Testament, beginning with Adam and Eve. If the Bible is to be believed, they were an exceptionally long-lived lot. Genesis, for example, tells us that “Adam lived 930 years and he died.” Adam’s great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Methuselah, claimed the longevity r...

      In Kentucky, a recently introduced bill would encourage teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.” I agree that a discussion of the last item on the list is an excellent topic for a class in ethics, although I am not sure there is such a class in public schools. Too many right-thinking people think that is a job for the parents.       Perhaps teachers should take the legislature at its word and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories. Period.       The advantage, of course, is that such theories express the most up-to-date knowledge we have of how the universe works. And they work. Eliminate all scientific theories and we are suddenly back in the dark ages – no television, no radio and no travel that is not dependent upon horsepower, to name a few things.   ...

      According to a recent poll conducted by Yale University, the percentage of respondents who believe climate change is happening dropped from 71% in 2008 to 57% in 2010, while those who do not believe climate change is happening rose from 10% to 20% over the same period. The rest “don’t know.”       Given the assumption that climate change is real, the percentage that think it is due to human activities dropped from 57% to 47%, while those who think it is natural rose from 33% to 36%. Again, the rest don’t know.       This is in spite of the increasing barrage of dramatic pictures of cracking and shrinking polar ice caps at both poles, the poleward migration of warm water animal and vegetable species, and the gradual submersion of low lying islands. How much proof does one need?       I believe the decline in belief in climate change is due to the recent release of emails from U.K ...

      It’s no secret that people are dissatisfied with government – particularly the Federal government. Liberals are disappointed that Obama is not the great “across the aisle” leader who gets cooperation from everyone, thus making great populist strides possible. He reminds me of the Mugwumps of the late 19th century.       The word Mugwumps is from Indian derivation to suggest that they were "sanctimonious" or "holier-than-thou." But during the presidential campaign of 1884 it received another connotation: A Mugwump sits on the fence with his mug on one side and his tail on the other. He just sits, and sits, and sits…       Conservatives are also disappointed because Obama has tried to do too much. As a result, they have understandably dug in their heels, resulting in gridlock.       This no progress approach has resulted in various grass roots activity, not the least of which is th...

      The quadrennial sports orgy, otherwise known as the winter Olympics, is finally over. It’s not that I dislike the sports; it’s just that 17 days of nothing but skiing, sledding, snowboarding and skating is a bit of overkill as for as I am concerned.       As measured by total medals won, the United States had its best Olympics ever – 37 medals. The host country, Canada, won the most gold medals – 14.       Except for the last kilometer or two, cross-country skiing is my least favorite sport. It looks like a hard way to get around. My favorite winter Olympic sport is downhill skiing.       The athletes who participated are the world’s healthiest, most vigorous and probably the best looking young people that the world has to offer. Add to that the coaches, trainers, judges and other officials, and it is estimated that Vancouver hosted about 7,000 visitors who were directly connecte...