Category Archives: Historical

Posted in Historical

The Interesting Month of April

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Ogden Nash

April has been the subject of many great writers from Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Robert Browning, T.S. Eliot to Edna St. Vicent Millay, to name a few.  But, for me, the zany Ogden Nash, summed April up best with his poem, Always Marry an April Girl (which I did!):

“Praise the spell and bless the charms,

I found in my April arms.

April golden, April cloudy,

Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;

April soft in flowered languor,

April cold with sudden anger,

                                                            Ever changing, ever true —

                                                        I love April, I love you.”

Nash is famous for his short poems and observations; the one that speaks to me the loudest is:

“You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.”

He also came up with:

“Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”

And, he also offers up some really good poetic marital advice:

“To keep your marriage brimming with love in the loving cup,

Whenever you’re wrong admit it, whenever you’re right shut up.”

and

“There is only one way to have a happy marriage, and as soon as I learn what it is, I’ll get married again.”

Here’s one he wrote many years ago, but is apt today:

“I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people”

Lots of other things happened in April, but before we leave Mr. Nash, an interesting factoid is that the city of Nashville, is named after his forebearers.

Many famous and infamous people were born in April, from William Shakespeare to Adoff Hitler; and of course, the most famous to me, my wife, Linda!

RMS Titanic

But what I really wanted to write about this week, was a great historic event that occurred exactly 112 years ago, on April 15, 1912, the sinking of the Titanic.  It took over 70 years to find her as she lies 12,600 feet under water.  Of the 2,224 passengers on board, 1,496 died, in part because the ship was supposed to have 64 lifeboats on board, but only had 20, and those ended up being filled to only 60% capacity!

Aside from the 13 couples who were celebrating their honeymoon on board, there were several famous people who died, John Jacob Astor, the wealthiest man on board and Benjamin Guggenheim, along with several other titans of industry in the day.  The luckiest people were those who purchased a ticket for the Titanic’s maiden voyage, but ended up having a conflict that kept them from getting on board – Milton Hershey, who gave us the Hershey Bar, J.P. Morgan and George Vanderbilt to name just a few of the eight very wealthy men who luckily didn’t make it on board.

Not the iceberg’s fault?  Recent evidence has shown that a fire of 1800 degrees had burned in the ship’s hull for three weeks prior to the ship’s departure, thus weakening the hull and ultimately was responsible for the hull splitting when it hit the iceberg.

The longest living survivor of the disaster was Millvina Dean, who was the youngest survivor on the Titanic at two months old. She died at the age of 97 in 2009.

Hoping your April is more Nutty Nash than Tragic Titanic!

 

Posted in Historical

Sadly This Will Be Our Last Blog

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by Bob Sparrow

Suzanne and I have made a tough decision, based on personal factors, after nearly 13 years of first, Morning News in Verse, which appeared every Tuesday and Friday from August 2011 to March 2012, then From A Bird’s Eye View, which has appeared every Monday morning from March 2012 until today, that this will be our last blog . . . this week.

 OK, when I haven’t been traveling, the history of the most current holiday seems to attract my attention, and this week, rather than try to explain why we celebrated the resurrection of Christ by hiding colorful bunny eggs, I decided to explore April Fool’s Day.  I know it’s not really a holiday, it’s a . . . well, I’m not sure what it is!!  But, I’m sure you are sitting on pins and needles wondering, “What the heck is the incredible history of this crazy day?”  Well, wonder no more.

Or maybe you better keep wondering, as April Fool’s Day’s true origin is unknown and probably unknowable.  What you may not know is that the day is celebrated around the world, in many different ways.  To wit . . .

In Ireland, it is traditional to entrust the victim with an “important letter” to be given to a named person. That person would read the letter, then ask the victim to take it to someone else, and so on. The letter when opened contained the words “send the fool further”.

Danes, Finns, Icelanders, Norwegians and Swedes celebrate April Fools’ Day with most news media outlets publishing one false story on the front page of their local newspaper.

In Poland, April 1 has been a traditional day of pranks, where very sophisticated hoaxes are perpetrated by people, media and even public institutions.  Serious activities are usually avoided; every word said on April 1st could be untrue, as a day of pranks is a centuries-long tradition, but it only lasts until noon.

In France where the fool was called an ‘April Fish’ instead of an ‘April Fool’; due to the prank of taping a paper fish to someone’s back without them knowing it. (Replaced by ‘Kick Me’ in the U.S.)  On a possible historic note, in France, in 1564, Charles IX decreed that the new year would no longer begin on Easter, as had been common throughout Christendom, but rather on January 1. Because Easter was a lunar and therefore moveable date, those who clung to the old ways were the “April Fools.”

In Scotland, the day is Gowkie Day, a day for fools and may have been associated at one time with sexual license.  The PG rating for our blogs prevents me from any further explanation.

In England there is reference to April 1st in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, where the rooster, Chauntecleer is tricked by the fox.  Also in England, on April 1st, starting in 1698, people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to “see the Lions washed”.

Hope you had a Happy Easter, and if you were duped on April 1, you’ve joined a worldwide brotherhood of ‘Fools’.   And sorry for those who had hopes of not having our drivel pop up in their email every Monday morning, but we’re not increasing our prices!

 

 

 

Posted in Historical • Show Business • travel

Hollywood in the Desert

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by Bob Sparrow

Charlie Farrell and Dinah Shore

I spent last week in the desert . . . whining & dining, the whining mostly took place on the golf course.  Even though it was our 32nd year visiting our timeshare at Marriott Desert Springs in Palm Desert, I’ve found, unlike me, it never gets old.  But you won’t be hearing about my golf game (Thank God!) or the next great place to eat in the desert.  I have something even more mundane than that to discuss this week.

On our way out to the desert on Highway 10, as went by the road sign that read Bob Hope Drive, and it got me thinking about all the streets in this area that are named after celebrities, like Frank Sinatra, Burns & Allen, Bing Crosby, Barbara Stanwyck, Danny Kaye, Ginger Rogers, Dean Martin, Jack Benny, Liberace and many more.

And I wondered, who started all this?  Well, a little research revealed that it was Charlie Farrell, the tennis playing movie star turned hotelier turned mayor and owner of the glamorous Racket Club in Palm Springs.  He saw value in recognizing celebrities, so he and fellow actor, Ralph Bellamy, realized that many actors took advantage of Hollywood’s ‘two-hour clause’ in their contracts, which stated, in the event a ‘re-shoot’ was needed, actors had to stay within two hours of Hollywood – Palm Springs is just under two-hours away.  For those old enough to remember the old television series, My Little Margie, Charlie played Margie’s father.  And yes, of course, there is a Ferrell Drive in Palm Springs.

Other notable ‘street stories’ . . .

Which door does Monty Hall live behind?

Monty Hall Street – in 2000 former Let’s Make a Deal host Monty Hall had a street in Palm Springs named after him. Tourists were encouraged to guess which house he lived in. They were asked, “Does Monty live behind door No. 1, door No. 2, or door No. 3?

Fred Waring Drive – Another interesting resident of the desert was Fred Waring, an American musician, bandleader and radio and television personality.  Many of you, who have blended a Margarita, may have used a Waring Blender, and while he didn’t invent it, his name is on it because he was the money and marketing behind the product.

Gene Autry Trail – The “Singing Cowboy”, was a movie and TV star of the ‘40s and ‘50s and a Palm Springs entrepreneur.  He bought his first Palm Springs home in 1940, and a Palm Springs Holiday Inn in 1961, which he turned into the Gene Autry Hotel; his mid-century residence on the hotel grounds is an elegant guest suite.

Kirk Douglas Way – movie star Kirk Douglas, who passed away just four years ago at the ripe old age of 103, was a resident of Palm Springs for more than 40 years.  His house backed up to Dinah Shore’s house in the celebrity-packed Las Palmas neighborhood.

The ‘Singing Cowboy’

Dinah Shore Drive – the vivacious ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s singer, TV personality and avid golfer, put the LPGA on the map in 1972 when she founded the Colgate-Dinah Shore golf tournament at Mission Hills County Club (Now know as the Chevron Championship and it has moved to Houston).  Her Palm Springs house is now owned by Leonardo DiCaprio.  So look for a DiCaprio Drive soon!

As I thought about all these stars of the past, I thought that my kids would be somewhat familiar with most of the above names, but their kids will have no idea why these streets are named after these random people.  For me, it was an interesting trip down another street, Memory Lane; I hope it was for you too.

 

 

 

Posted in Family • Historical

It’s Just a Number . . . Albeit a Rather Large Number

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by Bob Sparrow

As someone who loves to travel, I am happy to report that I will complete my 80th trip around the sun this week.  So, it’s time to celebrate . . .

Don’t Let the Old Man In

The Wine: I’ll celebrate with an expensive wine (because I am now definitely too old to drink cheap wine) from my favorite travel destination, a Tokara ‘Telos’ a Cabernet Sauvignon from Stellenbosch, South Africa.

The Song:  Don’t Let the Old Man In by Toby Keith.  Here’s a verse from the song:

When he rides up on his horse
And you feel that cold bitter wind
Look out your window and smile
Don’t let the old man in

So, let me take a little time to reminisce about life back when I was growing up, back when the earth was still cooling . . .

TV programs we used to watch:  The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, , Sky King, Burns & Allen, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriett, Father Knows Best, The Life of Riley, Groucho Marx, The Ed Sullivan Show and Your Hit Parade.  

Ozzie & Harriett, David and Ricky

TV program I should have watched: Life Begins at 80 – If you’re not around my age, you won’t remember this television program, which ran from 1950 – 1956, and was on the radio starting in 1948.  It featured people 80 and over and their accomplishments.  I just remember them looking really old.

Radio Programs:  Following are the programs that my brother and I listened to on our bedroom radio as kids when we went to bed around 7:00 – 7:30 each night: The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, Fibber McGee & Molly, The Cisco Kid, Boston Blackie.  Later it was DJ, Wolfman Jack.

Favorite singing group: The Kingston Trio

Sports Heros:  Mickey Mantle, Johnny Unitas, John Havlicek, Arnold Palmer, Olympian, Bob Matthais, and my brother!

Popular Movies: Laurel & Hardy, The Road Movies with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, A Summer Place, Rebel Without a Cause, The Crimson Pirate, Titanic (the original), The Ten Commandments, White Christmas, King Solomon’s Mines, On the Waterfront, The Steel Helmet, Singng in the Rain.

Instead of new cars in ’43, ’44 and ’45

What was going on when I was born: That little skirmish called World War II, was just ending its second full year of combat in both the European and Pacific theaters.  If you wanted to buy a new car in 1943, ‘44, or ‘45, you couldn’t, the automakers were not making cars during those years, they were making tanks, jeeps and other military vehicles – in 1946 you could buy a new car for $1,800.  For car owners at the time, gas was 19 cents/gallon.  And while we’re shopping let’s pick up some eggs for 57 cents a dozen, a pound of bacon for 43 cents and a half gallon of milk for 31 cents.  At the time you could buy a three-bedroom house in Long Beach for $3,600.  Yes, great prices, however, the average annal salary in California in 1943 was $1,548; yeah, that’s not a typo, that was the annual salary!

But enough about the past, I’m looking forward to the next 80 years . . . OK, maybe not that long, but I’m at the age where I’m seeing too many friends and family cashing in their chips, so it’s more important than ever to understand that no one is promised tomorrow and to live life to its fullest each day.  I am hopeful that the future hold lots of time with my amazing family and allows me to experience some interesting places and cultures around the world that make me a better person and help me appreciate where I live.

Best Ever Kids and Grandkids

 

 

 

Jack, Suzanne and I believe we grew up with the best people, in the best place, at the best time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In keeping with the holiday spirit, I’d have to say . . .It’s a Wonderful Life!

Posted in Historical

All the News That’s Unfit to Rhyme

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by Bob Sparrow

Red Posey?

I haven’t traveled in several weeks, and there is not much of interest going on in my life currently, so my options for writing this week’s blog are significantly limited.  But you belong to a loyal following, who have come to expect something interesting, entertaining or thought-provoking each week.  That’s what you paid for when you signed up for our blog . . . oh, wait a minute, the blog is free!  But you understandably still have some expectations.

Those of you who have been with us from the beginning (that’s the summer of 2011) know that we started out, not with a blog, but writing ‘tribute poems’ for people who would request something for a birthday, anniversary, or other special occasions.  That was called ‘Red Posey’ – I forget why.  It was fairly short-lived.  We then started a blog, something that, prior to saying “Let’s write a blog”. we’d never heard the term, but plunged in, writing a four-stanza poem, twice a week, following the format of the popular national newspaper of the day, USA Today, which had four sections, world news, business, sports, and entertainment.  This iteration of the blog was called, Morning News in Verse, with a by-line that read, All the News that Fit to Rhyme.  If we were still doing that today, it would look something like this:

 

We read of the soldier who escaped to Korea

And all of this year’s political diarrhea

Of flooding and fires and all that looks grim

Of airlines that cancel their flights on a whim

 

We hope that our stocks continues to rise

And that interest rates stop reaching those highs

We see that AI is improving with haste

As we’re praying to Google that we won’t be replaced

 

The Open was won by B. Harman with ease

Bringing the rest of the field to their knees

Sooner, no, probably later, baseball will end

Which means college football season begins!!!

 

The writers are striking the actors are too

With no movies or TV, just what will we do?

You could stop browsing your phone to find a new friend

Try face-to-face meetings and re-start an old trend

 

After reading that, it becomes fairly obvious why that format only lasted about six months and why we were ready to move on from poetry to prose – my Iambic has clearly left my pentameter!.  We moved on to the current format in March 2012.

We’ve seriously considered taking the blog off of Facebook, as we don’t agree with some of the information gathering algorithm they use (If you don’t see our blog next week on Facebook, you’ll know that they took us down after reading this!).  So, even though we’re not big fans of Facebook, it is popular with our peers (the ‘older’ age groups), and thus it is where most of our readers read our blog, so big tech wins again.

If you too are not that happy with Facebook, you can ‘subscribe’ to this blog by pressing the ‘Subscribe’ button in the right-hand column of this blog and have it go directly to your ‘Spam’ folder in your email.

Posted in Historical

Oprah Was Born Too Late

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by Bob Sparrow

King Henry VIII

Much of the world was watching Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral on TV – it is said to be the most watched event in the history of television.  I watched some of it, but soon tired of the bagpipes and pomp that accompanied the ceremony of a truly magnificent queen.  Queen Elizabeth II, may have been the longest reigning English monarch, but her reign was far from the most interesting.  Yes, we’re wondering if Harry and William will patch things up between them, if the ‘royal family’ will ever really accept Megan, or if King Charles will ever be forgiven for his distant relationship with Diana.  But if you think there is drama in today’s royal family – this is nothing!!!

Here are a few ‘royals’ that Oprah would have given anything to interview back in the day.

I’d say King Henry VIII is probably at the top of the list of ‘most interesting monarchs’. He took the thrown when he was only 17, six weeks later he married Catherine ‘The Cougar’ of Aragon – who was 23 and happened to be the widow of Henry’s brother, Arthur.  She was the daughter of Spain’s Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, and their marriage was an arrangement to strengthen the English-Spanish alliance.  Like a good king’s wife, she bore him three sons and three daughters, unfortunately all were stillborn except one girl – who would become Queen Mary I (Bloody Mary) – another great interview for Oprah.

Those who have a smattering of English monarch knowledge know some of the history of the five wives that ensued, each with their own story.  Although some of Henry’s wives lost their heads, several of the marriages were annulled, with Henry breaking from the Catholic church and forming the Church of England.  Additionally, Henry was known as the ‘Father of the Royal Navy’ – starting the dominance of England on the seas, that lasted for centuries.  There is so much more, but let’s move on.

The ‘Virgin (?) Queen’

Two years before Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, was beheaded, she and Henry had a girl, which he essentially disowned after the beheading because she was not a male.  Henry’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, encouraged Henry to bring the daughter back into the fold, which he did.  She, Queen Elizabeth I, became one of England’s most accomplished monarchs.  She was called the ‘Virgin Queen’, although we’re not sure about that, but we do know that she never married.

Back to Elizabeth’s first cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic, who many thought should be the Queen of England.  Her relationship with Elizabeth was rocky, at best, in fact ultimately Queen Elizabeth had her imprisoned for 19 years!  After her release, Mary was plotting to overthrow Elizabeth to become Queen of England, but Elizabeth found out and had her beheaded.  Oops!  Elizabeth’s reign was looked at as ‘The Golden Age’ of British history, both in exploration with Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh, as well as literature, with William Shakespeare.

Plump ‘Queen Victoria’

Then there is Victoria, the 18-year-old, 4 foot 11, portly queen, who married her first cousin, Prince Albert.  They had nine children and she sat on the throne for 63 years, (obviously a very sturdy throne!) a record broken by Queen Elizabeth II, who was her great, great granddaughter.  But the record for all monarchs is held by Louis XIV of France, who took the throne at 4 years old and served for just over 72 years.  They say, “Long live the king”, but Charles would have to live to be 145 to break Louis’ record!

And who can forget King George III, the king who married Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a German, whom he met on their wedding day?  Their marriage lasted . . . are you ready for it?  Got ya!  Fifty-seven years!!!  They had 15 children!  We, here in the colonies, of course, know George then best, along with the ineptness of the Earl of Sandwich, for losing the Revolutionary War.

Oprah would have had a field day!

Posted in Historical

The Bard by Any Other Name

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by Bob Sparrow

Just a friendly reminder that there’s a special birthday coming up at the end of this week, on Saturday, April 23rd.  No, don’t worry that you only have a few shopping days left, he’s virtually impossible to shop for, plus . . . he’s dead.  Coincidently, he died on his birthday in 1616.  Yes, it’s my old friend, William Shakespeare.  OK, he’s really not my old friend, I’m old, but not that old!  Like most of us, I was introduced to ‘The Bard’ in high school.  I remember sleeping through class, as English teacher, Miss O’Brien, droned on about a guy who, I think, sold deer meat, called ‘The Merchant of Venison’.  I clearly wasn’t paying much attention during most of my high school years.  That fact was recently brought to my attention on a Zoom call with a number of my former high school classmates, a few weeks ago.  Our former student body president, Billy Dale Hall, who was on the call and reads our blog, said, in a most respectful way, something like, “I’m surprised that you write a blog, could you even write in high school?”  OK, maybe it wasn’t that respectful, but to his point, I could barely read in high school.

Dr. Viola Chapman

Fast forward to Westminster College where I was fortunate enough to ‘have’ to take a literature class from a Dr. Viola Chapman (Yes, in this photo she looks a bit like Norman Bates’ mother, but she was a really good teacher); fortunately, I had discovered a love of reading a year or so earlier, and in her class, I was learning to recognize and appreciate good literature.  Before I graduated, I had taken every class in English and American literature that Dr. Chapman taught, and ended up with a minor in English.  I was particularly drawn to Shakespeare because she made him so interesting.  Thank you, Viola!!

After reading most of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets and visiting his house in Stratford-upon-Avon, England (he wasn’t home), I started reading things about how Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare’s plays and speculations about who might have.  Why, you ask, would anyone question the authenticity of William Shakespeare as the greatest writer in modern history?  Here’s a few bullets:

  • There’s no record of him ever attending grammar school, much less a university
  • Both his parents and his three children were illiterate
  • He writes intimately of kings and queens, yet had no access to the royal court
  • He wrote in detail about foreign places, but never personally left England
  • There was no public mourning at the time of his death
  • His will, which listed several gifts, did not include a single book from what would presumably be an extensive library

There’s more, but I think you get the drift here.  Those who have followed this ‘cold case’ for any length of time, know many of the likely suspects who might have or could have written Shakespeare’s plays.  My favorite is Christopher Marlowe, not because I think he’s definitely the one that wrote the plays, but because he has the most intriguing story.

Marlowe or Shakespeare                                      Who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays?

Marlowe was born in the same year as Shakespeare, 1564, but supposedly died at the age of 29, around the same time that Shakespeare started to write his plays. One theory is that Marlowe was a spy in Queen Elizabeth I’s secret service and his death, in a bar room fight, was faked to save his life and put him under cover.  After he went into hiding on ‘the continent’, he continued writing and sending his work to an actor/playwright broker in London named William Shakespeare.   Pledged to keep Marlowe’s identity a secret, Shakespeare submitted the plays with his own name on them.   It is also speculated that ‘Slick Willie’ collected plays from others who were high in the queen’s court and didn’t want to put their name on anything that might have jeopardized their position or their life!

For the lay person, the reading about ‘who wrote Shakespeare’s plays’ may be more interesting than the plays themselves, and for those of us who who even care about this, we hope that some day a ‘Rosetta Stone’ will be discovered that will solve this mystery once and for all.  In the mean time, our birthday boy, William Shakespeare, enjoyed a great life and an even greater after-life.  So I guess, All’s Well That Ends Well!

 

Posted in Historical • Science

Time, Space and the Dinosaurs

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by Bob Sparrow

Sputnik

I have been fascinated with space from an early age, and as I have mentioned in previous blogs, my teachers always referred to me as the kid who just took up space in school, but that’s another story.  Most who read our blog are part of the generations who have eye-witnessed the exploration of space first hand.

We remember the Russians, back then it was the U.S.S.R., as the first to explore outer space, as opposed to today’s Russian heart-breaking exploration of Ukrainian space. They opened the ‘space age’ in 1957 with the first satellite to circle the earth, Sputnik, which translated from Russians, means ‘satellite’ – hey, it’s not rocket science . . . well, actually I guess it is!  (Note how small Sputnik is in the attached photo).  A few weeks later, they were the first to send a living creature into space, a dog named Laika, but typical of the Russians, they neglected to send ‘poop bags’ with him, so he returned quite messy.  Subsequently, Americans feared they were falling behind in the ‘race for space’, which we were, so after two mulligans, we finally launched a satellite, called the Explorer, into orbit in January 1958.

In 1961 the Russians etched another notch in their ‘space belt’ by being the first to put a human in orbit around the earth, Yuri Gagarin, which in Russian translates to ‘Neener Neener’.   The Russians had a few other ‘firsts’, one of them being sending the first woman into space, although some say she has still not returned.

“One giant leap for mankind”

President, John F. Kennedy in May 1961, in an effort to put an end to Russia’s dominance in space, made a speech that challenged our scientists to land a man on the moon (and get him back safely) before the decade was over.  While most of our generation remembers where they were when they heard that Kennedy had been assassinated, we also remember where we were in 1969 when we watched Neil Armstrong deliver on Kenney’s promise, and walk on the moon, as well as proving, once and for all, that the moon was not made of green cheese (it was a rumor at the time, kids!).

Clearly the moon landings have been the biggest event so far in human space travel, but since then the launching of various satellites and telescopes that enhance communication and observation, as well as explore other galaxies have taken over the headlines.  In 2017 I wrote here about the satellite Cassini, that took nearly seven years to traveled over 4.9 billion miles to Saturn, made nearly 300 orbits of the ringed planet, took over 450,000 photos (Not all of them got Saturn smiling) and then crashed into the planet that it knew so well, and remains there today.

70 x 46 feet. The sunshield is the size of a tennis court

The next big thing in space happened in 2003 with the launching of the Hubble Telescope, which has provided astronomers with countless new observations about the vast regions beyond our solar system.

And now, we have the James Webb Space Telescope, which was just launched in December of last year (2021), and has now reached its final destination about a million miles from earth, where it will now orbit around the sun.  To say the least, astronomers are giddy!  Why?  Because with this giant telescope we can see further back in time than ever before.  OK, if that statement just made you shake your head, here’s a quick study on the space-time continuum that even those who didn’t take up space in school should be able to grasp. Light is not instantaneous, even though it seems that way when you turn on a light switch, but it is really fast; it travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second.  OK, you still with me? The moon is our nearest celestial body in the universe, a short 238,900 miles away, it takes light about 1.3 seconds to travel from the moon to the earth, so we are seeing what the moon looked like 1.3 seconds ago.  Expanding that same logic, the Virgo Cluster of galaxies is the largest

I think that’s me in there somewhere!

nearby collection of galaxies at about 60 million light-years from the Milky Way. Still with me? The light we see today from galaxies in the Virgo Cluster started on its path toward the earth at the same time as the age of the dinosaurs was ending on Earth. So, if you were in a Virgo Cluster galaxy today, and you had a telescope powerful enough to study the Earth, you would be able to see the dinosaurs roaming the earth.  What?!!!  Yeah, I don’t fully understand it either!  But I’m thinking that perhaps one day they will be able to figure out how some of us old dinosaurs that are roaming the earth today will be able to actually travel back in time!  Naah, I’m not sure I want to relive all that all over again!!

It is mind-boggling, but so fascinating for those of us that are still just taking up space.

 

Posted in Historical

Did You Miss Earth Day?

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by Bob Sparrow

If you’re not sure, you probably did!  It was two Thursdays ago, April 22nd.  With everything else going on in our world today, don’t beat yourself up if you missed it.  But in an effort to ‘keep you informed’, as we here at From a Bird’s Eye View, are committed to doing, I’ll provide you with a brief history of celebrating the day we honor our planet (hang in there, it will get more interesting . . . maybe!).  Inspired by students in the anti-war movement, former Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson and others helped to organize the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970.  It inspired about 20 million Americans to come out and demonstrate against the impacts of industrial development on our environment. OK, brief enough.

If you forgot to celebrate, worry not; you’ve probably already been doing your part by staying home this past year and thus lowering your total carbon emissions. Good for you!

While listening to the Darren Hardy’s ‘Darren Daily’ episode on Earth Day, I learned a few interesting facts about our ‘Mother Earth’ and thought I’d share them with you.

What’s in a name?  How did we get the name ‘Earth’?  While all the other planets are named after Greek or Roman gods, we get our name from both English and German words, ‘ertha’ and erde’ which means ‘ground’.  Pretty sexy, huh?

Flat Earth

Earth flat?  We all know that the earth isn’t flat, right?  Ok, there is the ‘Flat Earth Society’ that believes evidence to the contrary is fabricated by NASA and those ‘Round Earth Conspiracy’ theorists.  But the earth is not round either, it’s oval, like a squished ball – fatter at the equator.

Who’s tallest? That aforementioned ‘squished ball’ visual, begs the question, what is the tallest mountain in the world?  You’re thinking Everest, right?  But, depending on how you measure, there could be two other answers.  Everest is the tallest, 29,033 ft from sea level, but, if you’re looking for the mountain that is furthest from the earth’s center and thus closest to the moon and stars, it would be a mountain in Ecuador, Mt. Chimborazo – it’s right on the earth’s bulging equator.  However, if you’re measuring from the ocean floor instead of sea level, it’s Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, which measures 33,496 feet from the ocean floor to its summit – told you it would get more interesting!

What?! We’re not the Center of the Universe!  When asked who was the first to discover that the sun, not the earth was the center of our solar system, you’d probably respond with the name of that Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus, who published his work in 1543.  But you’d be wrong.  Did you say, Aristarchus of Samos, the Greek astronomer and mathematician, for his discovery around 270 B.C.?  Nope, but he was influenced by the first to proffer the idea that the earth was not the center of the universe, Philolaus, another Greek philosopher who lived around 400 B.C. and was the first credited with originating heliocentrism, the theory that the Earth was not the center of the Universe – much less the center of our solar system.

Mt. Chimborazo

How old is earth? The earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old – don’t ask me who was counting or when earth’s birthday is, but just to put our existence on this planet in perspective, let’s assume that the 4.54 billion years was converted to a 24-hour day.  Homo sapiens (that’s us) would have been on the earth for . . . wait for it . . . 4 seconds!

How fast are we going?  The earth is hurling through space at a speed of 66,000 miles per hour as we travel around the sun.  It is also spinning at a rate of 1,040 miles per hour.  Dizzy yet?  Thanks to a thing called gravity, we don’t fly off into space.

Land & Sea One-third of the earth is desert – the largest desert?  Nope, it’s Antarctica, it gets only about 2 inches of precipitation per year.  Seventy percent of the earth is made up of water, but only 3% of that is fresh water.

Got a light?  Lightning strikes on earth about 100 times . . . per second!  That’s about 8,600,000 per day

Earth’s largest desert – Antarctica

Free Fall: If a large hole was drilled through the center of the earth, it would take about 46 minutes to free fall from one end to the other.  You’d need a pretty good ‘fire-suit’ as temperature in the middle of the earth is about the same temperature as the sun’s surface – 10,000 degrees.

Who Owns the Most Real Estate on Earth?  Not Bezos, not Musk, not Zuckerberg, Not Buffett (Warren or Jimmy), not Gates, not some Saudi prince, but . . . Queen Elizabeth – she is the ‘legal’ owner of 1/6 of the earth’s land surface.

Happy belated Earth Day!  Yeah, we’re too late for this year’s gala celebration of Earth Day, but you’ll be ready to wow them next year!

 

 

Posted in Historical

SUBTRACT THE ADS

By Comments:2 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Well, it’s been quite a week.  Finally…I think…the election is over.  The bonus is that our lives will not be filled with campaign ads every second of the day. Living in Arizona this year has been like living in an advertising vortex.  We’re used to the normal local campaign ads for dog catcher and county judges, but the races for President and Senator were tightly competed here and resulted in record spending on TV ads.  The only refuge was Netflix and shows we recorded that could be fast-forwarded.  Now that the election is over, watching TV feels like I’ve stopped banging my head against the wall.  This respite got me to thinking…how did political ads start and do they really work?

Historians believe that the genesis of campaign advertising began in 1791, when groups that supported and opposed Alexander Hamilton published competing newspapers in hopes of swaying the electorate. It’s been a downhill slide since then.  Today, almost all successful campaigns include a huge budget for television advertising. In late October CNBC reported that election spending would top $14 BILLION, doubling the previous record.  When all the dust has settled it will be interesting to see what the final tally is.  All I can think when I see that big of a number is how many schools it could improve, families it could house and feed, or potholes it could fill.

But, back to history.  Campaign slogans became popular in the mid-19th century.  In 1860 Abraham Lincoln campaigned on “Vote Yourself a Farm”, referring to a Republican party promise of free homesteads to settlers of western lands.  By1880 candidates had to rely on other means to get their message out so political songs were written and distributed throughout communities for inclusion in local gatherings.  That sounds pretty dreadful, given that most people sing like drowning cats.   In 1900 William McKinley promised “A Full Dinner-Pail”, only to be outdone by Herbert Hoover’s 1928 slogan, “A Chicken In Every Pot”.  Of course, the Depression hit the next year and this slogan was chided in 1932 by the Democrats with the addition of “…and two cars in every garage” to show how out of touch Hoover was with the average American.

Campaign advertising entered the television age in 1952, when the adman previously famous for M&M’s “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands” slogan, suggested television advertising to Dwight Eisenhower.  By making one trip to New York to record a commercial, Ike reached 19 million television sets.  By comparison, in the previous election Harry Truman travelled 31,000 miles in his famous Whistle Stop tour.  It’s impossible to know exactly how many people he spoke to on that tour but it was likely far fewer than 19 million. Today there is a specialization within the advertising industry focused just on planning and promoting candidates through the media.

So the question remains, do the ads work?  Apparently they do, at least for a certain segment of the population – the undecided voter.  Let’s face it, that was a very small number of people in this election but they were the ones who could make the difference in the outcome.  Online ads have become more popular – they can target specific voters with pinpoint accuracy and they are cheaper.  Television is just the opposite of that, but campaigns still pour the bulk of their budgets into it for one big reason:  it is still the easiest way to reach those people who are undecided and don’t necessarily seek out politics on their own.  And, unfortunately for the rest of us, it’s proven that in a short ad (usually 30-60 seconds) negative information about a candidate sticks with us longer than an uplifting message.

So my proposal for 2024 is that we round up the small number of undecided voters and put them all in one location.  The campaign advertisers can have a field day and the rest of us can keep our sanity.  In the mean time, my heart goes out to the good citizens of Georgia who no doubt will be inundated with campaign ads for the senatorial run-offs January 5th.  My guess is Netflix subscriptions will be the big winner in the Peach State.

Finally, my brother and I would like to send our appreciation out to all of those who have served on this Veteran’s Day week.