2. Only once, in 1972, has a professional football team gone undefeated the entire season and then won the Super Bowl. What team was it?
3. The Canary Islands, located off the west coast of Africa, is a territory of what country?
4. Petrology is the scientific study of what?
5. What is the world’s largest lizard?
The Answers…
1. Cynophobia is the fear of dogs. Curiously, the word is pronounced syno, not kyno, although derived from kyon, the Greek word for dog. Kyon, also curiously, is pronounced cue-on.
2. The Miami Dolphins.
3. Spain. The Canaries are a major tourist destination due to the balmy weather, pristine beaches, and spectacular mountains and forests. The islands, population about two million, get over 12 million visitors a year.
4. Sorry, nothing to do with fuel. Petrology is the branch of geology that studies the formation of rocks. The Greek word petros means rock.
Another scientific study is out that finds a correlation between higher intelligence and liberal political beliefs.
What? Smart people tend to be liberals? Golly! Knock me over with a feather.
The new study was by psychology researchers at the University of Minnesota. They examined siblings with the same upbringing, raised together, seeking to identify factors that influenced their development.
Specifically, the researchers studied 200 families with multiple children. In some families, the kids were biological siblings. In others, they were adopted. In some cases, they were a mix.
The key finding: within families, a sibling with a higher IQ is more likely to be politically liberal than a sibling of lower IQ. This was consistent in both biological and adoptive families.
The study concluded that being smarter “is correlated with a range of left-wing and liberal political beliefs.” It said the results imply that “being genetically predisposed to be smarter causes left-wing beliefs.”
The researchers were careful to add, “There is no law saying that intelligent people must always be supportive of particular beliefs or ideologies.” How intelligence affects us “is likely dependent on our environment and culture.”
Also, I should point out that we’re talking about psychology here, which is an inexact variety of science. Physics or chemistry, it ain’t.
“The Sound of Silence” is a heck of a tune. Better than a lot of poetry. It excels in message, melody, harmony, and the wonderful imagery it evokes.
Paul Simon wrote the song at age 21 (in his bathroom, because it was private and the tile generated neat echos). According to Simon, it is essentially about how people go about their lives in silence because society has become materialistic and people are obsessed with consumerism. When the narrator implores others to wake up, he is greeted with silence.
Garfunkel said the song addresses “the inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly intentionally, but especially emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other.”
A bummer, but still a masterpiece.
The Sound of Silence
By Simon & Garfunkel, 1964 Written by Paul Simon
Hello darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again, Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping, And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains, Within the sound of silence.
In restless dreams I walked alone. Narrow streets of cobblestone. ‘Neath the halo of a street lamp, I turned my collar to the cold and damp, When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light That split the night And touched the sound of silence.
And in the naked light I saw 10 thousand people, maybe more. People talking without speaking. People hearing without listening. People writing songs that voices never shared. No one dared Disturb the sound of silence.
“Fools,” said I, “You do not know Silence like a cancer grows. Hear my words that I might teach you. Take my arms that I might reach you.” But my words like silent raindrops fell, And echoed in the wells of silence.
And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made. And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming. And the sign said, “The words of the prophets Are written on the subway walls And tenement halls And whispered in the sounds of silence.”
The US Forest Service oversees 370,000 miles of unpaved roads. If that number doesn’t impress you, consider that the federal highway system — the Interstates plus all the numbered US highways — totals about half that.
Most forest roads were built by lumber companies over the years and abandoned to the government when the logging was done. The roads are used minimally, and they are a huge detriment to animals and ecosystems. They erode and channel silt into waterways, divert rainfall, and allow traffic, people, and noise to invade the backcountry.
Lately, people with good sense are proposing that we get serious about decommissioning forest roads. The idea is to plow them up to aerate the soil, get rid of the unneeded ditches, bridges, and culverts, and let Mother Nature do her thing. I’m in.
Dune
“Dune: Part Two” is big in theaters right now, but I’m not sure I want to see it. Part one was a pretty good Lawrence-of-Arabia style epic. But I can’t get past the fact that, in my arrogant opinion, the story is simply unpleasant and distasteful.
In a depressingly dark and violent feudal society in the future, opposing forces try to outflank and kill each other. Finally, a messiah arises and sets off a galaxy-wide holy war, killing 61 billion people. The Star Wars universe is bleak, too, but at least it has good guys. Dune kinda doesn’t.
In addition, it doesn’t help that the novels were written by Frank Herbert, a writer with some commendable ideas, but also a right-wing nutjob. Herbert believed that the feudal world he described is the best model for human society. Seriously.
Herbert said all forms of government are corrupt, and the most efficient solution is authoritarianism; in exchange for power, strong figures will take care of the common folk.
If Herbert were still around, he’d be a fan of Putin, Erdogan, and Xi and probably a MAGA.
Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. (1920-1986)
Pythons
Snakes are reptiles. In effect, legless lizards. The python is a nonvenomous snake variety of about 40 species found in Africa, Asia, and Australia, plus that pesky invasive population in the Everglades. Pythons squeeze their prey, suffocate it, and swallow it whole.
The largest is the Burmese python of Southeast Asia (you know, the location of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma). Burmese pythons can be nearly 20 feet long and weigh a couple of hundred pounds. Occasionally, a big one will consume a deer or an alligator.
The smallest species is Australia’s pygmy python (aka anthill python because they like termite mounds). Adults weigh about half a pound and are about 20 inches long. Typical prey: mice.
● The Hoba meteorite, discovered in Namibia in 1920, weighs 65 tons and is the largest found to date. The previous record-holder was the Cape York meteorite (Greenland, 1894) which weighed a mere 34 tons.
● The normal respiratory rate for a healthy adult at rest is about 16 breaths per minute. A rate of below 12 or above 20 per minute means you have a problem. 16 breaths per minute works out to 960 breaths per hour, 23,040 per day, and 8,409,600 per year.
● The red-billed quelea (kwell-ee-uh) is a small migratory bird of Sub-Saharan Africa. The total quelea population is about 1.5 billion, more than any other wild bird on the planet.
● Ladybugs, members of the coccinellidae (coke-sin-ell-eye-di) family of insects, are beetles, not bugs. In England a few centuries ago, they were called ladybirds, referring to “Our Lady” Mary, who often was depicted wearing a red cloak. In the US, the name evolved to ladybugs.
● Panthera is the genus of big cats that includes lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars. Technically, there is no panther species. There are leopards (Pantherus pardus of Africa and Asia), and there are jaguars (Panthera onca of South and Central America). The term black panther refers to black varieties of leopards and jaguars.
Also not a panther: Puma concolor, the big cat of the Americas variously called a cougar, puma, panther, or mountain lion. It is of the genus Puma, not Panthera.
● Saguaro cacti grow only about one inch in their first eight years. By age 30, they might be two feet tall. At age 35, they begin producing flowers. After 50-70 years, arms will appear. At age 125, they are considered adults. Saguaros grow to 40 feet or more tall and have a lifespan of 175-200 years.
● The first transcontinental flight in the US was made in 1911 by aviator Calbraith Rodgers, who flew a Wright Brothers biplane from New York to California over the course of 50 days (three days, 10 hours in the air). He was followed on the ground by a support crew that made repairs when Rogers landed or crashed, which he did 70 times.
● Bluetooth, the wireless technology introduced in 1998 that allows nearby devices to exchange data, is named for Danish King Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson (c. 910 – c. 987). Harald got his nickname from a dead and discolored front tooth. Harald unified various regional tribes into the nation of Denmark, and the founders of Bluetooth liked the unity symbolism.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.
— Oscar Wilde
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He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was a highly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic individual, full of empty childish fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everyone’s personality, in an overwhelming degree — and this is another reason why they fell for him.
— Carl Jung, describing Adolph Hitler
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If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
— Charles Darwin
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Cruel men believe in a cruel God and use their belief to excuse their cruelty.
My Aunt Betty was the last of the Smiths to live at 201 Kinzie Avenue in Savannah, the de facto family home for many decades. Betty lived there from age two until her death at age 89 in 2014.
When she died, the task of dealing with decades of accumulated family stuff fell to me, my sister Betty, and my brother Lee. In addition to day-to-day furnishings, the house was awash with family mementos and keepsakes — our grandparents’ wedding gifts, albums of newspaper clippings about the Smith brothers in WWII, boxes of cards, letters, and family photos.
The project was especially daunting because we three lived in metro Atlanta. We spent numerous weekends at 201 Kinzie, and a year passed before the house was ready to sell.
But in truth, the project was fascinating. So much history, so many memories. The surprises and revelations.
From the beginning, I fully intended to steal the house numbers over the front door — the weathered brass 201 on the green cedar siding. Those numbers were there all my life.
But then I found a sealed envelope in the back of a kitchen drawer. Written on the envelope in Aunt Betty’s handwriting was Original house numbers, 1926. Inside were three beautiful old brass numbers, 2, 0, and 1.
The numbers over the front door, then, were mere replacements. And now the originals were mine. I knew precisely what I wanted to do with them.
That afternoon, I removed one green shingle from a hidden spot under the back steps. When I got home a few days later, I mounted the house numbers to the shingle and added a hanging hook.
The shingle has been on display in my front foyer ever since.
2. How did Broadway in New York City get the nickname “the Great White Way”?
3. What is the last word in the King James version of the Bible?
4. Who was the first African-American actor to win an Oscar?
5. What is a jib?
The Answers…
1. First, the heat of the flame melts and vaporizes the wax. The wax is composed of hydrogen and carbon, which combine with oxygen in the air, forming carbon dioxide and water vapor — which, along with the heat, dissipate into the air.
2. The part of Broadway near Times Square, aka the Theater District, converted to electric lights in the late 1800s. The numerous bright marquees in the District led to the nickname.
3. Amen.
4. Sidney Poitier for Lilies of the Field, 1963.
5. A jib is a small triangular sail set forward of the mast on a sailing vessel. Experts say the jib helps the main sail utilize the wind’s energy more efficiently — a concept I don’t understand, but will accept.
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