Letters to the science editor, 2016

Posted on January 31, 2012 by | Comments Off on Letters to the science editor, 2016

Now that the average American has taken a  serious interest in science,  we’re seeing all kinds of new debates.  People  worry about radiative forcing and the use of the Stefan-Boltzmann constant in global climate models, among other things. So it’s not hard to imagine that there will be a lot more of this ersatz erudition in the media. Here are a few of the letters to the editor we will probably be seeing soon:

  • The so-called Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction theory is ridiculous!  Iridium does not kill dinosaurs !! Show me just one tiny bit of evidence that a dinosaur ever keeled over after being exposed to iridium! You cant, can you? Stupid ass scientists.   —  BJR, Lubbock, Tx.
  • It’s hard to believe anyone but an outright moron would accept the Kepert model as a modification of the valence shell electron pair repulsion theory. VSEPR theory is practically written in the Bible.  You will fry in hell, Kepert model fools! — TD, Richmond, Va.
  • Bateman’s biological principle is clearly an abomination in the sight of God. I cant tell you how repulsive it is to have this taught to my children in school.  If people didn’t believe in Bateman’s principle, biology teachers would be cast out of their lucrative $40,000 a year jobs.   When oh when will these lying scientists ever learn? — BZ, Bozeman, MT.
  • Quantum Field Theory? Ha! Just a plot by montrachet swilling mathematicians!   — YN, Portland, ME.
  • And that goes DOUBLE for the Banach–Tarski paradox!  — YN, Portland, ME.

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Posted in humor

A Fleet Street relic strikes again

Posted on January 30, 2012 by | Comments Off on A Fleet Street relic strikes again

Scientists worldwide were alarmed  Jan. 29 when the London Daily Mail reported — inaccurately — that British Meteorological Office had released “temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.”

The Met Office immediately issued a press release saying the article contained “numerous errors in the reporting.”

In other words, the Mail just seems to have just fabricated the data they attributed to the Met Office.  They just made it up. Invented it.  Pulled it out of the air.  Lied.  (Could it be any clearer?)

This would be outrageous for an actual NEWSpaper, but it’s standard procedure for the Daily Mail —  one of the grotesque and humble relics that once adorned Fleet Street the way gargoyles have graced Notre Dame cathedral.

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Posted in Flashbacks

April 17, 2012 – Global Day of Action on Military Spending

Posted on January 20, 2012 by | Comments Off on April 17, 2012 – Global Day of Action on Military Spending

On April 17, 2012, people all over the world will join together for the second Global Day of Action on Military Spending. We urge you to join us!

The economic crisis has put pressure on the world’s governments to reduce spending on critical human needs: confronting climate change, battling deadly diseases, achieving the MDGs. But most national governments continue to waste enormous resources on the military…$1,630 billion per year – and rising. If spent differently, this money would go a long way to resolving the real challenges facing our planet. For more information see this  Call for Participation (PDF):

Regional perspectives:     Jan. 20 column in Roanoke Times about military spending 

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Posted in Events

Yes, Virginia, and Robin, there IS a Santa Claus

Posted on December 2, 2011 by | Comments Off on Yes, Virginia, and Robin, there IS a Santa Claus

Thomas Nast 1892.

Chicago Fox news anchor Robin Robinson played the Grinch this week by advising parents to tell children the “truth” about Santa Claus.  (At about 3:30 on the video).

“Stop trying to convince your kids that Santa is Santa,” Robinson said on the air.  “That’s why they have these high expectations. They know you can’t afford it, so what do they do? Just ask some man in a red suit. There is no Santa. (Tell them) as soon as they can talk — There… Is … No … San… Ta …”

Outraged parents threatened to roast her like a chestnut if she didn’t rein it in.

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Posted in Flashbacks

Classroom Wars

Posted on December 2, 2011 by | Comments Off on Classroom Wars

Dwight Simon, a middle-school history teacher, reflects on the seductive stories of mankind’s battles.

As a teacher of history, as a teacher of wars, imagine the knotting of  stomach and tightening of chest that occurred when I encountered, seven years late, Drew Gilpin Faust’s article ‘“We should grow too fond of it’: why we love the Civil War.” Faust writes:

War is, by its very definition, a story. War imposes an orderly narrative on what without its definition of purpose and structure would be simply violence. We as writers create that story; we remember that story; we provide the narrative that by its very existence defines war’s purpose and meaning. We love war because of these stories. But we should ask ourselves how in the construction of war’s stories we may be helping to construct war itself.  (Faust, Drew Gilpin, “We Should Grow Too Fond of It”: Why We Love the Civil WarCivil War History – Volume 50, Number 4, December 2004, pp. 368-383).

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Posted in Reflections

In memory of Joseph Pulitzer and Charleston Bay

Posted on November 2, 2011 by | Comments Off on In memory of Joseph Pulitzer and Charleston Bay

By Bill Kovarik

Years ago,  when I worked as a reporter at the Charleston SC News & Courier, I would often look out over the bay and think about Joseph Pulitzer.  

Out there, where the muddy Cooper River met the great blue Atlantic,  Pulitzer died 100 years ago this week ( Oct. 29,  1911).

He was hidden away on his yacht, as usual, suffering from an extreme hyper-sensitivity to sound.  According to biographers, even the sound of a person’s voice was painful, and his last words were to ask that an assistant reading to him speak more softly.

Pulitzer’s sickness is astonishing — for a journalist, at least.  Most editors and many reporters have the opposite problem. Their lack of sensitivity, in both physical and moral terms, approaches outright deafness.

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Posted in Flashbacks

Peace video from Governor’s School, summer 2011

Posted on September 8, 2011 by | Comments Off on Peace video from Governor’s School, summer 2011

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Posted in Events

Niles Register's 200th Anniversary

Posted on September 4, 2011 by | Comments Off on Niles Register's 200th Anniversary

Its not often that anything in our relatively young nation turns 200, especially not a newspaper of the caliber of Niles Weekly Register, the most influential publication of the early 1800s and an enduring source of documentation for modern historians.

On Sept. 7, 1811, Hezekiah  Niles published the first of a series of weekly news  summaries that would grow to 75 volumes and 30,000 pages by the publication’s end in 1849.   As a paper of record for news in the United States, it is only matched by the New York Times, founded in 1851.

Great credit goes to Bill Earle, a Maryland historian who has spent years cataloging and researching the Register.   Earle’s publication history of the Register and other online resources have proven extraordinarily useful.   Continue reading →

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Posted in Currents

World peace breaking out?

Posted on August 31, 2011 by | Comments Off on World peace breaking out?

“Armed conflict has declined in large part because armed conflict has fundamentally changed,”  writes Joshua Goldstein in Foreign Policy this month.

“Today’s asymmetrical guerrilla wars may be intractable and nasty, but they will never produce anything like the siege of Leningrad.”

We hope.

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Posted in news

Happy Wayzgoose

Posted on August 24, 2011 by | Comments Off on Happy Wayzgoose

August 24th  is the traditional holiday for  printers, editors, reporters, engravers and others working at a newspaper or printing company.

The Wayzgoose printers holiday was August 24

The centuries-old holiday has largely been forgotten in the late 20th century, but it was still very much alive a generation or two ago among printing unions in the UK.

The holiday has its origins in the feast day for St. Bartholomew, the patron saint of scribes and, later, of printers and writers.

The odd name for the holiday, Wayzgoose, refers to the centerpiece of this holiday meal: a goose that had been fattened on stubble (or wayz) from a harvested field of grain.

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Posted in Flashbacks