Tag: learning

Anterior poliomyelitis, mainly called polio (the old name was infantile paralysis) was a scourge for centuries, but was not recognized as a specific disease until comparatively recently.  This piece is in honor of the huge immunization program that was begun 56 years ago last week in the United States, that fact kindly pointed out by our good friend ek hornbeck at TheStarsHollowGazette.com a couple of days ago.

Most people do not know anyone who was infected with the paralytic form of this disease these days, partly because they either died or got better, but mostly because of the most successful vaccination program against an infectious disease ever attempted.  I have first hand experience with two cases, and will turn 54 on this coming Wednesday.  Few people younger than about my age will have known anyone who had it.

It is not often that I have such a ripe opportunity to combine TeeVee, politics, the FOX “News” Network, the horribly biased Governor of Wisconsin, and my own parody songwriting skills into a post.  As a matter of fact, it has never happened before.  Please allow me to explain.

I usually do not do purely political pieces here, there, or anywhere, because so many other are much more talented than I am at it.  But I do keep an eye out for popular culture, and this opportunity just hit me in the face.  I do not have to explain how Governor Scott Walker, a Tea Party wingnut, has probably disqualified himself for holding a position of trust, but I will!  

This is an installment of an extremely irregular series that I write when I begin to remember people from my childhood.  I grew up, for the most part, in Hackett, Arkansas, just about nine miles south of Fort Smith, Arkansas, almost on the border with Oklahoma.  This was quite the “redneck” part of the nation.

Hackett, when I was little, still had a sunset law on the books.  Those of you not from the South may not be familiar with such a law, but they were real (and likely still are on many books, but obviously not enforceable any more).  Essentially, a sunset law dictated that any black person (NOT the term used at the time) could not remain in the town after sunset, to prevent black families from moving into the town.

The penalty was, at least in my town, that being black and there after sunset was not just an offense, but a shooting cause, both by citizens and law enforcement.  I report this not to titillate, but just to illustrate how many southern jurisdictions were run until recently, and some still are.

Everyone is familiar with phase transitions even it they are not familiar with the term.  Amongst the most familiar is the melting of ice and the boiling of water to form steam.  Technically, these transitions are called fusion and vaporization, respectively.  There are more and we shall discuss some of them later.

All phase transitions are accompanied by changes in the free energy of the substance undergoing the transition, and this free energy has two components, the enthalpy of the transition and the entropy of the transition.  Unless very careful work is being done, the entropy change is often ignored because it, in many cases, is the lesser contributor.  However, it is never zero (except at absolute zero) and sometimes is the dominant factor.

Many of you will dismiss this installment as sentimental drivel about a TeeVee show that ran when Translator was a kid.  I beg to differ.  This program was much, much deeper than that, and was actually a shining example of how good TeeVee should work.

It had excellent writing, excellent production, and excellent acting from all of the principal players.  It also started the careers of several, now prominent, actors.

Please put up with me here and open your mind to what was a really wonderful situation comedy.  Also, I will pepper this with a bit of insight into the man himself and other roles that he has played that do not jibe with the kindly sheriff of Mayberry.

I was astonished at the response for the first installment for this series, and so decided that instead of just a couple of survey pieces, reader interest justifies a bit longer treatment, getting more into the weeds. Thus, I have come up with a bit more structured series.

Unlike rifled firearms like pistols and rifles, shotguns are smoothbore weapons. That is, they have no rifling to impart spin to stabilize the projectile, in the case of shotguns usually multiple projectiles. Shotguns are a relatively recent development in their current form, but the concept of firing more than one projectile at a time goes back a very long time.

Modern shotguns are designed to fire a relatively large diameter cartridge as opposed to rifles and pistols. In addition, a different system is used to state the diameter of the cartridge in most cases.

I do not often write about American artists, not because they they are no good (many, many are), but because British ones interest me more.  Here is an exception.  Not only is he extremely talented, he also wrote many of the books, so to speak, for the British Invasion.

The story about him being adopted by Jewish parents is just a myth.  There are elaborate ones about how the white, Jewish family adopted the poor little black boy when he was just a baby and, trying to keep him close to his roots, took him to a black gospel church.  That is nonsense!  Please keep with me to learn more about him, and to enjoy what is likely the very best fusion of rhythm and blues and rock and roll ever.

He did not only perform it, he wrote lots of it!  With no further ado, here is a glimpse into one of my favorite performers.

For good, for ill, or for neither, firearms are an integral part of American life.  Everyone knows in a general sense what guns are, but not so many know much more than that.  The conventional wisdom is that those of us on the left are less familiar with firearms than those on the right (a premise with which I do not agree), but the fact is that it important to have a basic understanding of how firearms work.

At the most basic, a firearm is a device used to deliver a projectile, usually at a high rate of speed, towards some sort of target using chemical propellants that are NOT carried onboard the projectile.  Firearms have evolved over the centuries from quite crude affairs to the highly sophisticated devices that are available currently.

Oysters are an interesting part of the Mollusc tribe.  They are bivalves, meaning that they have two half shells, which are jointed together on one edge and can open and close as the animal desires, or more properly, is instinctively demanded to do.

Unlike their cousins, clams, oysters are from infancy pretty much fastened onto some sort of support, so they do not move.  Clams are sort of solitary, and like to dig into sandy beaches.  Another relative, the scallop, is so free to move that jet propulsion is the norm for them!

Let us examine some of the natural history of these interesting (and often delicious) animals.  We will point out that edible oysters are quite different from the pearl oysters.

This piece was partially inspired by a conversation that I had with Kossack smileycreek in the comments after my most recent Pique the Geek installment.  That commentor’s sig line included words to the effect that all that the Republicans have is fear.

To a point I agree with that, but I would also add greed to it.  Greed has a component of fear in it, since greedy people always have the fear that they will not get enough of whatever their particular greed includes, but is enough of a distinct desire as to be included separately.

On Wednesday past, I logged all of the adverts on two TeeVee shows, Glenn Beck from the FOX “News” Channel, and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC.  I believe that most would agree that one is pretty right wing, and the other pretty left wing.

I was originally going to write about the ballistics responsible for sparing the life of Representative Giffords tonight, but decided that some might feel that to be offensive.  Please indicate in comments whether or not you think that this would be an acceptable topic.  The piece is very interesting (the draft is in the can), but I leave it to my readers to determine whether it should see the light of day.

The topic tonight is the physics behind cooking, in the meaning that how heat is added to food makes a huge difference in the rate of cooking, the taste of the final product, and even its texture.

One of the most popular, and in my opinion, most talented of the British Invasion solo acts was Donovan Philips Leitch, known simply as Donovan.  He had several monster hits both in the UK and in the US in the mid 1960s, and many people recognize the music but not necessarily the artist.

His style was more folk than rock, and I personally believe that if it had not been for Bob Dylan Donovan would be remembered as the greatest folk singer of the 1960s.  Fortunately, he is still with us and has a talented progeny as well.