Saturday, January 24, 2004
A HUBBLE BUBBLE?
I have heard a disturbing rumor recently saying that the celebrated Hubble Telescope - one of the truly great achievements of our generation - has been tagged by some as being "obsolete".
True enough, the Hubble has been out there since 1990 which is a long time in space gadget aging, and I will agree whole heartedly that it "has done itself proud”, and, thus, in a sense, made itself age beyond its years by the sheer immensity of information it has given us... far more than man of the most optimistic among us expected.
Hubble, you might recall, had a rather dismal birth when it was placed out there at six hundred kilometers away. That’s a mere three hundred and seventy-five miles which is just down the street a few block in space distance counting. You will remember that a major glitch was revealed at the time, becase the lens mounted in the telescope was of the wrong size or type. Many critics at the time, said that would doom the project but service mission was successful and even severe critics were won back to the fold of Hubble believers. The visionary modular design of the Hubble craft allows visiting astronauts to replace worn parts as they are needed, to make precise adjustments shown to be helpful by work the Hubble has been doing thus far. The count is out of date as I type, but the Hubble telescope has made a total of around three-hundred an d thirty thousand observations and relayed about twenty-five thousand photographs back to Earth for study, Someone has calculated that the information sent back by the telescope would fill your home computer every day for about ten years. Scientific scribblers have written about three thousand scientific papers for various publicaitions and the Hubble has traveled about l.5 billion miles - the distance for Earth to Uranus. It circles the Earth every 97 minutes and shows no signs of slowing down or stopping.
If it needs repair or servicing of any kind it’s close enough for us to do the work promptly and efficiently. The solar wings the Hubble wears were added in 1993 and enlarged by another service mission in 1997, Those wings are the largest structures every replaced in orbit. In a mechanical sense, the Hubble Telescope has been kept in a modern , state-of- the-art condition.
I have rather strong suspicions criticism is most often founded on petty political points. We will need to be careful during this election year when such faulty information downgrading any current project is bandied about quite freely and often accepted as Truth.
Inform yourself. Be prepared to “say it isn’t so.”
A.L.M. January 23, 2004 [c459wds]
Friday, January 23, 2004
FORT EVANS, OHIO
At the same time that we, the English settlers who occupied the Atlantic coast of North America, were busy building protective walls to our west, the French were busy building fortifications in their vast wilderness beyond the Appalachinan mountain range.
We are familiar with some such forts such as the larger ones such as the one at Fort Duquene which, in time, became the Pittsburg area occuring in our history annals a number of times. They served primarily as pylons aound which sheltered masses of migrating people expanding into the wilderness.
One such site can be seen today about ten miles west of Coshockton,Ohio, on U.S. Route 36. Until 1952 it appeared to be a random pile of scattered limestone rock which seems to have been quarrIed about a mile away and dragged to the site. The mysterious pile of rock was named "Fort Evans" because a man named Isaac Evas owned the land in 1806. The fort was restored as near to the way the Coochocton County Historical Society though it may have been when built. The acual date of construction is uncertain.
A single documentary reference has been found which mentions the construction of a new fort norhwest of the Ohio River. Other forts were of logs and of such material is probably it was menioned at all rather than it's strategic importance. The building has been reconstructed an now stands as a silent, small and sturdy symbol of the era we call "The French and Indian War”.
The finished building looked more like a small shed of some sort on a level site with thick forest all round at a dustance of a hundred feet or so. It was built of large, limestone slabs, thought to have been quarried at a point a mile away. It is twenty feet long, fifteen feet wide and sixteen feet high by outside measurements. The roof is of long, pine shakes. The walls are an average of twenty-two inches thick so that limited the space available for defenders inside. It had only one door, which would seem to be a mistake. A fort, large or small, needs a back door. The front door is of sturdy oak planks. There is no record to show that the fort was every used for its intended purpose. but it was part of a phase of construction which the French undertook to protect their Mississippi-Ohio valley holdings. That which they did helped to determine our future.
This small fort in Ohio is of special interest to many of us here in the Shenandoah Valley because the church in which we worship today - the very stone building itself still being used - Virginia was built of native stone in 1740 - dedicated in l746 - and it was built as a fort to protect the citizens from depradations of Indian tribes from the west.incited by the French in the time when Fort Evans was a reality.
There is another reason, geographic and governmental, which connects us with the fort on the northwest bank of the Ohio River. From 1738 to 1770 Fort Evans was, legally, a part of Augusta County, Virginia adminstered from the County Court House in Staunton, Virginia.
A.L.M. January 22, 2004 [c467wds]
Thursday, January 22, 2004
FIREFLY LORE
As children, we enjoyed chasing firefly lights across the lawn .
They came out shortly after the sun had gone to rest, and on quiiet, dampish nights. in particular, they were to be had in abundance. It seëms to me we always called them ”lightening bugs” but the books and magazines called “fireflys” or "fireflies".
They were different from all the flying things we knew.They were obvouisly not flies; certainly not glow worms to us and it was only later we discovered them to be a form of soft-shelled beetle. They emitted brilliant lights as they flew and we developed a syetm of catching them. The light was bright enough to fool your eyes for a second and you had to scoop your hand through the blackness ahead of where the bug had been when the light was shone. They moved faster than one might think, too. so it took some skill to gather the hundreds we often did. We put them in glass jars and hung them about the yard as "lanterns."
There was a special element of mystery about the firefly which had a special appeal for kids, I suppose. We wonder, of course, how they made such a bright light over and over again. We leared in a rather vague sense, that it was done by chemicals in their bodies which, when mixed with air, glowed as s brilliant burst of light. It was interesting to hold a bug on your hand and watch him crawl to the utmost end of the highest fingere to take off. If, however, you hnd down at the last moment, he reversed his path and started to climb once again to the highest take-off spot. We devised other ways of amusing ourslevs with them, and some of those acts, as we look back at it all, and as our parents sometimes told us, was "cruel ". When we had obtained piles of them we sometimes poured them on the sidewalk and ran over and throuigh and over them with our bikes or roller skates. It made a fabulous display of of flickering bike and skate wheels. If you "squshed" some on the sidewalk, the made a glow which stayed there until the chemicals were used up.
We had a list of superstiions about those bugs, too. The chemials were, of course, considered to be poisonous and if you got any of the goo in your eyes you would go blind. We noticed that birds did not eat them and you only rarely saw them entangled in a spider web.
How did this page come to be?
I read in a newsaperr that the 1928 record by the Mills Brothers quartet was the only song about a bug that ever became a popular song which stayed on the charts for weeks. The item said the song was all about fireflies. It was called "Glow Worm" : Thus far, I have not found that the glow worm is the transient stage of the firefly . They do not give off aa light, but they do glow a bit, very softly in the dark. I remember the tune and liked it, but I never associated it with lightning bugs over the years. I had to do some reading and I have learned a lot about the firefly - called "lightning bugs" the south. Maybe someone, somewhere, has called them glow worms.
There are over two hundred species in the United States and it will vary a great deal depending on climate conditions.They like dampness and in the pupae stage eat grubs and earthworms. There are about thirty-five species in our area and yours may have more or less. They emit various tints of light, too - some wtih a hint of green, other of blue, some bnight white and larger species specialize in a yellow-tined off-and-on light. If the weather is dry the rascal stays in the pupa stage until it gets wetter and warmer. They may stay in the earth two or three years before becoming adults. The usual life span is seven days.
All of our destruction of so many of them, and the civilized ways we have of gettig rid of them today by exessive spraying and by draining swamlands where they prosper, has no sign of them disappering. Their light is not a simple thing either. Four chemicals are involved plus air and water..
The tiny, fragile firefly is one of the most interesting creatures of all.
A.L.M. January 22, 2004 [c492wds]
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
SENTRY DUTY
If I had been able to choose the type of duty I might have had in World War days it would not have been sentry duty.
Ironically, as I glance though the notebooks I kept during the years as a G.I, some of the most durable memories are associated with being in such a spot.
Ours was an unusual situation. We were a small groujp sent to England to prepare a new airbase for operational use by a Bomb Group which would fly in months later from the states. We were to set up basic frameworks for various functons to serve that groups needs. We were unaware of the fact that we were just one of nineteen such air bases which would spring to life in Norfolk County, England alone.
With the help of a small contingent of Royal Air Force personnel back from some rather severe beffeting on the isle of Malta who were there for a period of R&R before reassignment, we did some unusual things.
Sentry dutry required manning posts around the “aerodrome” we were starting, at the gates and certain vital installations such as two large, wooden water towers. One of our duties was, however, to "site-sit" fallen planes - all British and a few German at that time. The guard was needed to keep people from stealing the wrecked planes, especially at night. The wreakage of a crashed plane could all but disappear within a week if such care was not taken to ward off seekers after anything which could be resold on the various gray or black markets of the day.
One might think such a post would be acceptable, but the usual plan was to put a man "out there"
at eight in the evening and pick him up at about eight the next morning. It was a lonely, all-night duty. We had a carbine rifle, an ammunition supply totally two shots, and we did not have flashlights because “torches” were among the many items in short supply and those that were available were needed far more in other areas. We were there, you see, more as a deterrent to thievery than anything. The dismal foggy conditons most nights and planes overhead along the North Sea coast did not give a feeling of security.
In such situations a man does a lot of thinking.
We usually took a canteen full of hot coffee or tea with us. We stopped at the nearest fish ’n chips place and bought a double ration of that favorite food wrapped in newspapers, and an old towel or an extra jacket to ward of cold dampness if the night turned foul. One nibbled and sipped all night. Those who smoked did so a bit removed somewhat fromt the wreakage because the odor of petrol was often evident at such sites. One seldom hit the same such site more than one or two times, because reclamation teams moved by day and took it all away for safekeeping and salvage.
A favorite guard site was in front of a small, thatched, story-book cottage at one of the gates. of the base. The village constable and his wife lived there. Every morning the 5 A.M. the front door opened and a piping hot mug of tea was handed out with a cheefell greeting to, start the new day for the guard standing just outside the door under a small overhang of doorway thatch. That cottage had it’s wall lined with rows of carefully preserved, yellow-spined copies of “National Geographic Magazine” and every man who stood guard at that post was asked to write home to see if missing copies could be sent from home. I have often wondered if they ever got the copies they needed.
In a sense, I suppose, we all “pull guard duty” at some point in our lives. It can be a rewarding time, too. We are forced to take stock of and, perhaps, to re-evaluate our experiences in a positive sense as we ward off potential dangers, real or imaginary.
A.L.M. January 21, 2004 [c420wds]
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
TO HEAR/TO LISTEN
Hearing and listening are not the same thing.
We may fail to realize such a distinction when we get involved in politics, or social and religious affairs. Far too many of us are hearing but not really listening to what is being said at times.
We have become skilled in being able to have others - people who should know more about a given subject than anyone - to tell us what was said and what it means to us. We are hearing but not heeding.
Much is lost by this conditon. In the recent Democratic party primary in Iowa it quickly became obvious that a great deal was being said was heard by noting the reactions of those who did not get the support they though they had.
We met with it when we were children. Most mothers have a cruel memory of some time when their offspring seemed to ignore the guidance and parental instructon. That spirit of contenion is, in a way, a sign of growth and an indication that the child is to grow and become an individual apart from protective parental care at every moment. Then, it may but a few years when it seems they are too dependant upon parental care, until teen age years intervene and decisions are made which are often final. Some go to an extreme at this time and are forever lost from parental associations. They hear but are incapable of listening to exactly what is being said.
In Iowa those running for office seem to have heard supporting sounds from the crowds attending the caucus gatherings. One may hear such outward expressions but listening must be a bit more selective. Hearers were impressed with the glitsy, carnival-like qualites of the presentations, the noise, the bombast, cheering, the touching upon points with which they were concerned, but not always were they so impressed with the speaker's seeming capability to solve the problems they felt to be important. Isn't it odd that the two men selected, seem to have been less show and more tell without ego-centered gushing. They did their thing without screaming, without beating the air with their clenched fists and without a constant flow of villifications being heaped upon the incumbent of the office to which they aspire.
Hearing is not always listening and seeing is not always believing, either.
It could be that the losers in Iowa spent far too much time condeming each other which has created a debt which will be paid when a Democrat faces George W. Bush in November. Voters will remember what his own associates accused him of being in the early phase of the campaign. If they don't remember, they will be reminded.
We do very little listening compared to the flood of hearing available to us as voters. But, we do selective listening and seek out firm understandings of those basics which enable us to continue
our form of government to yet another generation of citizens.
A.L.M. January 20, 2004 [c467wds]
Monday, January 19, 2004
YOUR BEST BET
Your best bet is the one you never made.
To put any reliance in wagers, taking a chance of success, as many people have had to learn the hard way, is not the most rewarding way to go about living.
We all do it, even - or especially those who would insist they have never gambled. It seems to be a part of our very being as we plan our forthcoming steps and ,in so doing, trying to make progress in our lives at the least possible cost in money and effort.
Right now, millions of people of all walks of life are trying to decide what they would do were they the judge in the Pete Rose problem. We tend to see this as a special case in which a popular very capable baseball player was alleged to have engaged in betting on games in which his team played which was a forbidden activity by the rules of the game to which he had, tacitly, at least, agreed were a valid guideline in which he had to accept as an active player in the major leagues. The term "alleged" is a loose way of seeming to keep judgment on a firm footing, but the many of the sursvey seem to show that many believed all along that Pete Rose had, indeed, been guilty as charged.
At that point, many of us, were saying: "Aw c'mon now! Pete's not the first one to try such a stunt!" We looked around, hastily, for other seemingly valid reasons why the offence should be aside and that he be allowed back into the world of baseball and that his admittedly fine achievments of the past be properly entered into records of the game as in Baseball's Hall of Fame. To fail to mark what the man had accomplishment would be an unseemly action for us to take.
Then , to complicate the problem even more, Pete Rose took someone's ill-thought-out advice and "wrote" a book about it all. He has been condemned for having done so thus seeking to "profit on the whole affair." In that book, he told whoever actually wrote the book, that he had, indeed, engaged in illegal gambling at the time when he was actvely engaged in the sport. That in effect, admitted that he had been lying to all of us for a total of fifteen years during which he, repeatedly, claimed to be innocent of all such charges.
That, I feel, in my bones, did it.
Now, even if the popolar verdict comes out in favor of granting Pete Rose a second chance, as I think it will, he will in the memories of many baseball fans be forever branded as being guilty of a major transgression for which he might have well be denied those honors which would have been his to enjoy had he openly confessed and contritely said he was sorry for what he had done. Fifteen years of lying did it.
Lest we feel too confident be ready the next time you gamble and buy a multi-millon dollar lottery ticket to describe how your lifestyle will not change even just one little bit if you are the winner. That’s a time to check one’s nose for new length.
A.L.M. January 18, 2004 [c4l0wds]
Sunday, January 18, 2004
WHEN?
At what point in daily usage does an expression cross over the line and fail to be acceptable in polite society?j
The expession I have in mind is one which I have always been led to believe was not to be used daily in that it was sacrilegious to do so. I find many people, however, who do not cosider it to be profane at all, yet find it uncomfortable to make use of it because some others may think it to be a verbal affront to their religious faith.
You hear it almost daily on TV on major network channels and it is not restricted to cable or other add-on channels. One recent TV program which was presenting gifts to a needy guest "to make her every dream come true" elicited from that individual a total of twenty-one clearly spoken lines, all using the same words in the same order and about the same tonal emphasis. It contituted her entire on-air speech.
As each gift was revealed the recipient ackowledged by saying:"Oh, my God!" I counted twenty one such attempts plus one "Oh, my...." which was left uncompleted. This strikes me as wrong in several ways - other than as being an affront to my Christian religous sensibiliies. It depicts the recipient of the gifts, perhaps unfairly, as an ignorant, uneducated individual who does not haver sufficent vocabulary of terms to express apprecation. Some individIuals are presented as trying to say they are thankful; others are saying they cannot believe such a thing is possble; still others are suggesting there must be some mistake, while others are trying to say it can't be happening as it is. Only a very few say it as an expession whereby they are actually thanking God for the gifts. The same expression will be used if they see the garbage man spill a containter of waste matter on their driveway, or if their car has a flat tire in a tunnel during rush hour. The use of the expresion has little to do with being thanbkful for anything, It seems rather to be a cry of futility from deep within by which the speaker makes himself or herself. Rather, the person is expressing doubt saying "Am I worthy of this?" Or, " Do I deserve this?" or, something to that effect.
Many have toned it down. You will hear :"Oh, my word! in English plays, "Oh, my Lands! in down-on -the-farm epics, and "Oh, my Heavens!" ...all the way down to ”Oh, My Achin’ Back!”. Listen and watch for the expression "Oh, my God!" on TV. Oprah leaves them in. Bob Barker either bleeps them out or covers them with crowd noise. Contestant are apparently well-schooled by Pat, Vanna and Alex.before air time. Edited bits of tape cuting out those three words would stretch from here to the other side of nowhere.
Can't we do with less of this?
A.L.M. January 15, 2004 [c506wds]
A BOLD MOVE
A leadership group know as The Harvest Foundation, located in Martinsville,.Viirginia - Henry County in Southside Virginia is seeking to have a four-year public college established in their area. They stand ready to back such an effort with a fifty million dollar challenge grant to the commonwealth to get the institution started.
Two Martinsville developers have offered a one-hundred acre site, off Route 58 and the development of such a four-year college and the Foundation is urging the construction as "one of the keys to economic competitiveness in the 2lst century" The general public is supporting the effort more actively since the announcement of the grant, and it is encouraging to see that the members of the Board of Supervisors Henry County have unaimously agreed to support the plan and have set forth a resolution calling for the creation of a university in the area.
It is an encouraging thing to see a community, once again, alert to the potential of the future. To aspire to such a goal seems to have vanished from the American Dream, but it is very much alive, and doing quite well, thank you, in Martinsville, Virgjnia and surroudning Henry County. Their innovative approach to a real need is inspiring and I, for one, believe they will, in time, achieve their goal.
Another key to sucess in the future, should also be considered by these same groups of civic minded individuals. The reaction of Governor Mark Warner and the Commonweath of Virginia was supportive while seeming to be inderstandably hesitant. The Governor's statement, which he made recently in announcing the fact that "MasterBrand" Cabinets is to build a new plant in the area, holds another key for Southsiders..Whether it's for a new college, the Govermor said,"or some other new project, until the state gets its finanical house in order, it can't take on new financial commitments." He was right. The members of the Foundation would, I think, realize that, and seek other ways of bringing their dream about.
With that goal in mind, It is time to open Martinsvile and the Henry County area to new business success. It can be done by actively supporting plans build a totally new Piedmont Interstate Highway from the Triangle area of North Carolina, north to Martinsville, Lynchburg and into the Frostburg, Maryland area, Such a highway is urgently needed to take pressures of overuse from Interstates 81 and 95. Now is the time for Southside legislators and leaders to act while temporary modification shemes for I-81 are meeting with renewed opposition from both trucking firm,s and private car owners. The proposed plans call for making Intertate 81 a Toll Road and proposed "improveents" are largely cosmetic in nature such as widening some areas, adding an additonal lane - theoretically for "trucks only", other "make-do" and "fix-it" gimmicks creating safety hazard thus far unknown to the 300-plus mile passageway to northern market areas.
Right now there is an open window of opportunity for the same innovative leaders of Southside who have spoken out so boldly for a college in their area, to actively support a plan for such a new Interstate highway through the area. New economic advantages will come with such a veture and the dramed-of univeristy level school facility will become more feasable and certain.
A.L.M. January 16. 2004 [c460wds]
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