Published December 10, 2009 | 
When a geologist tells you to get out of the way, do it. This stunning landslide footage shows a roadcrew working to clear debris from a previous slide. They got out of the way when state geologist Vanessa Bateman warned them that they were in danger.
As Geographile points out, learning geology can save your life. So can feminism. What if the roadcrew had refused to listen to a female expert?
Posted in current events, geology, heroes, Natural History, scientists | 
landslide, Tennessee, video | 
Leave a commentPublished November 30, 2009 | The Royal Society, entering its 350th anniversary year, is celebrating with a new website of 60 groundbreaking science articles. (Naturally, they published them all in the first place.) The first few articles may seem ridiculously obvious to the modern reader; the fact that dogs need air to breathe comes as no shock to us. But then, we’ve had the benefit of 350 years of science, instead of more than a thousand years of appealing to theology or ancient philosophers for explanations of the natural world.
The Royal Society was formed in 1660, just after the accession of Charles II. He became the society’s official patron, and his backing offered them powerful protection. In those days the scientific method of experimentation was not widely accepted. Instead, physicians and scientists appealed to authority. If Aristotle said something, it must be true, even if it was demonstrably false. His claim that males have more teeth than females could have been readily disproven merely by looking into a few mouths.
But opening a mouth requires an open mind, and the few people possessing those found them dangerous. Only a few years earlier Galileo had been tried by the Inquisition for spreading the heretical idea that the earth was not the center of the solar system. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest. He was lucky not to suffer the fate of Giordano Bruno, a scientist who was burned at the stake in 1600 for heresy.
Over the decades and centuries, the Royal Society published papers on every branch of science, from physics to medicine to astronomy. Some of the papers on the web site include Isaac Newton on the physics of white light, discussions of inoculation against smallpox, and an inquiry into whether the youthful Mozart was a true prodigy or a short adult. (Prodigy.) Every article is represented by a red dot placed on a timeline that also shows other important events in western history. Mouse over the red dots to get a brief commentary and images. The silver dots show contemporary events.
The final article linked on the site has an ironic ring. It’s James Lovelock’s paper on fighting global warming–a scourge resulting from heedless use of advances in science. There is no question that scientists have been incredibly wrong at times; a glance into the history of medicine makes that instantly clear. Yet if there is hope for humanity, it lies in science and the willingness to keep thinking, testing, experimenting, finding new ways to do things.
It might conceivably be possible to care about science without revering the Royal Society, just as a baseball fan may not care about Cooperstown, but it’s unlikely. I take my hat off to the men and women of the Royal Society and to the merry monarch, Charles II, who could so easily have driven it underground. May the Royal Society continue to flourish for centuries more.
Published October 28, 2009 | 6-1 Phillies! Robin Roberts, thou art avenged!
The Phillies made more runs in this game than they did against the Yankees in the whole four-game series in 1950. No game in that series was this kind of blowout — all but one were decided by a single run. And although the Yankees swept that Series, it was, in the words of one Yankee, “closer than it looked.” The games were tough, tense pitching duels.
A few of the Whiz Kids are still alive. Hall-of-Famer Robin Roberts is taking part in the festivities. Curt Simmons, who wasn’t permitted to play in the 1950 Series, having been taken by the military, is also still around.
I’m glad some of the Whiz Kids survived to see this. It is very, very sweet.
Published October 2, 2009 | Happy birthday, dear Julius Groucho.
Julius Henry Marx was the sharp-witted middle child of five brothers. His mother Minnie favored the handsome, fair-haired older brothers and the adorable younger two, but she apparently thought less of young Julius. The dreamy, slightly wall-eyed boy loved books and music, but he had to drop out of school early to help support the family. In later life he read voraciously and corresponded with authors and intellectuals like Carl Sandburg and T. S. Eliot. His own writing style ranged from the trenchant to the brilliantly absurd.
Depending on the source, he was a moody, mean-tempered skinflint who drove his wives to drink, or just a moody skinflint. His woman-chasing may have been a joke, but his misogyny apparently wasn’t. He was married and divorced three times. After growing up in poverty, he earned a fortune–and lost $800,000 in the big stock-market crash that heralded the Depression. Afterwards he never stopped being obsessed with money. In the 1950s he stopped by the New York Stock Exchange to entertain the dazzled stockbrokers — an act that literally shut down all Wall Street trading for fifteen minutes. He was determined to get his $800,000 worth.
He had hit shows in vaudeville, on Broadway, in the movies, on radio, and on television. He wrote several books–and yes, he actually wrote them. He died at 86, more than 30 years ago, and he is still one of the funniest men who ever lived.
Many Groucho Quotations
Childhood
Although it is generally known, I think it’s about time to announce that I was born at a very early age.
I’ve got the brain of a four year old. I’ll bet he was glad to be rid of it.
A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
My mother loved children—she would have given anything if I had been one.
Because we were a kid act, we traveled at half-fare, despite the fact that we were all around 20. Minnie insisted we were 13. “That kid of yours is in the dining car smoking a cigar,” the conductor told her. “And another one is in the washroom shaving.” Minnie shook her head sadly. “They grow so fast . . . ”
I married your mother because I wanted children; imagine my disappointment when you came along.
Social Commentary
I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8. to educate America. They couldn’t educate America if they started at 6:30.
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
No one is completely unhappy at the failure of his best friend.
All people are born alike—except Republicans and Democrats.
In America you can go on the air and kid the politicians, and the politicians can go on the air and kid the people.
Politics doesn’t make strange bedfellows—marriage does.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
[when told that a swimming pool was off-limits to Jews] My son is half-Jewish; can he wade in up to his knees?
Why should I care about posterity? What’s posterity ever done for me?
Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.
Money
Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.
Money will not make you happy, and happy will not make you money.
Blood’s not thicker than money.
While money can’t buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.
I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.
If he (Chico) made ten thousand dollars a day, he’d spend ten thousand dollars a day. I don’t mind that. What I do mind is that he still sleeps better than I do.
The Arts
From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.
I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room and read a good book.
Humor is reason gone mad.
Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.
Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.
I didn’t like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions—the curtain was up.
I was so long writing my review that I never got around to reading the book.
I can’t understand why you don’t get any mail from me. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t been writing.
I write by ear. I tried writing with the typewriter, but I found it too unwieldy.
If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.
My favorite poem is the one that starts ‘Thirty days hath September’ because it actually tells you something.
Anybody who doesn’t like this book is healthy.
I’ll put off reading Lolita for six more years until she turns 18.
We’ll meet at the theater tonight. I’ll hold your seat till you get there; once you get there, you’re on your own.
Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you’re probably watching the wrong channel.
Fellow Entertainers
[after viewing Samson and Delilah (1949) starring Hedy Lamarr and Victor Mature] Well, there’s just one problem. No picture can hold my interest where the leading man’s tits are bigger than the leading lady’s.
I’d have liked to have gone to bed with Jean Harlow. She was a beautiful broad. The fellow who married her was impotent and he killed himself. I would have done the same thing.
[on Bob Hope] Hope? Hope is not a comedian. He just translates what others write for him.
[On Charles Chaplin]: The greatest compliment I ever got was from Chaplin. He came up to me and said ëI wish I could talk like you on the screen.’ I said ëI think you’re doing all right.’ He had made $50 million by that point. He was the best comedian we ever had.
Jerry Lewis hasn’t made me laugh since he left Dean Martin.
[asked in 1975 if he’d seen any recent movies] I saw Jaws. But I think it would have been funnier if a guppy had swallowed the boat instead of a shark.
[on Margaret Dumont] She was a wonderful woman. She was the same off the stage as she was on it—always the stuffy, dignified matron. And the funny thing about her was she never understood the jokes. At the end of Duck Soup Margaret says to me, “What are you doing. Rufus?”. And I say, “I am fighting for your honor, which is more than you ever did.” Later she asked me what I meant by that.
People
My experience is that people are most likely to listen to reason when in bed.
Years ago, I tried to top everybody, but I don’t anymore. I realized it was killing conversation. When you’re always trying for a topper you aren’t really listening. It ruins communication.
No man goes before his time—unless the boss leaves early.
I drink to make other people interesting.
Animals
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.
A moose is an animal with horns on the front of his head and a hunting lodge wall on the back of it.
While shooting elephants in Africa, I found the tusks very difficult to remove. But in Alabama, the Tuscaloosa…
Women and Sex
Women should be obscene and not heard.
Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men, the other 999 follow women.
How do you feel about women’s rights? I like either side of them.
Behind every successful man stands a woman. And behind her stands his wife.
I remember the first time I had sex—I kept the receipt.
Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.
A man’s only as old as the woman he feels.
I wish you’d keep my hands to yourself.
Groucho: You know I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world?
Woman: Really?
Groucho: No, but I don’t mind lying if it gets me somewhere.
Funny, I’ve met a lot of pin-up girls, but I’ve never been able to pin one down.
Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.
A woman is an occasional pleasure but a cigar is always a smoke.
Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.
Marriage and Divorce
Will you marry me? Do you have any money? Answer the second question first.
Marry me and I’ll never look at another horse!
What do you say the three of us get married: You girls have everything, you’re short and tall, and slim and stout, and blonde and brunette. And that’s just the kind of girl I crave!
One of the best hearing aids a man can have is an attentive wife.
Wives are people who feel they don’t dance enough.
Some people claim that marriage interferes with romance. There’s no doubt about it. Anytime you have a romance, your wife is bound to interfere.
I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.
Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.
In Hollywood, brides keep the bouquets and throw away the groom.
Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?
Sickness, Aging, and Death
I’m not feeling very well—I need a doctor immediately. Ring the nearest golf course.
A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.
Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.
I’m going to Iowa for an award. Then I’m appearing at Carnegie Hall, it’s sold out. Then I’m sailing to France to be honored by the French government. I’d give it all up for one erection.
[in the late 1960s, on how it felt to be an elder statesman of comedy] Like an old jerk.
I intend to live forever, or die trying.
Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped.
I wish to be cremated. One tenth of my ashes shall be given to my agent, as written in our contract.
Bury me next to a straight man.
The Secret of Life
The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was born. These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity can bring diminution—this everlasting living soul, began. My mind loses itself in these depths.
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
It isn’t necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.
There’s one way to find out if a man is honest—ask him. If he says, “Yes,” you know he is a crook.
The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar.
Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.
Threats and Insults
Do you suppose I could buy back my introduction to you?
Don’t point that beard at me, it might go off.
Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
I’m 42 around the chest, 52 around the waist, 92 around the golf course and a nuisance around the house.
Why, I’d horse-whip you if I had a horse.
Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you.
I was going to thrash them within an inch of their lives, but I didn’t have a tape measure.
I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.
I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.
Why don’t you go home to your wife? Better yet, I’ll go home to your wife, and outside of the improvement, she won’t notice any difference.
Don’t look now, but there’s one man too many in this room and I think it’s you.
I have nothing but respect for you—and not much of that.
Absurdist
Go, and never darken my towels again.
I could dance with you until the cows come home. On second thought I’d rather dance with the cows until you come home.
I don’t have a photograph, but you can have my footprints. They’re upstairs in my socks.
Policeman: A hermit, eh? Then why’s your table set for four?
Groucho: That’s nothing. My alarm clock is set for eight.
Before I speak, I have something important to say.
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
I’m leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it’s not raining.
If I held you any closer I would be on the other side of you.
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.
Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.
You’re a woman who’s been getting nothing but dirty breaks. Well, we can clean and tighten your brakes, but you’ll have to stay in the garage all night.
Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?
Room service? Send up a larger room.
dropping acid with Paul Krassner
He told me about one of his favorite contestants “a gentleman with white hair, on in years but a chipper fellow. I inquired as to what he did to retain his sunny disposition. “Well, I’ll tell you, Groucho,” he says “every morning I get up and I make a choice to be happy that day.”
We had long periods of silence and of listening to music. I was accustomed to playing rock ‘n’ roll while tripping, but the record collection here was all classical and Broadway show albums. After we heard the Bach “Cantata No. 7 Groucho said, “I may be Jewish, but I was seeing the most beautiful visions of Gothic cathedrals. Do you think Bach knew he was doing that?”
There was a point when our conversation somehow got into a negative space. Groucho was equally bitter about institutions such as marriage (“like quicksand”) and individuals such as Lyndon Johnson (“potato-head”). Eventually, I asked, “What gives you hope? Groucho thought for a moment …. . Then he said just one word out loud: “People.”
After a while, he started chuckling to himself. I hesitated to interrupt his reverie. Finally he spoke: “I’m really getting quite a kick out of this notion of playing God like a dirty old man in Skidoo. You wanna know why? Do you realize that irreverence and reverence are the same thing?”
“Always?”
“If they’re not, then it’s a misuse of your power to make people laugh”
And right after he said that, his eyes began to tear.When he came back from peeing, he said, “Everybody is waiting for miracles to happen. The human body is a goddam miracle.”
He mentioned, “I had a little crush on Marilyn Monroe when we were making Love Happy – I remember I got a hard-on just talking to her on the set.”
During a little snack: “I never thought eating a fig would be the biggest thrill of my life.”
He held and smelled a cigar for a long time but never smoked it.
“Everybody has their own Laurel and Hardy,” he mused. “A miniature Laurel and Hardy, one on each shoulder. Your little Oliver Hardy bawls you out-he says, ‘Well, this is a fine mess you’ve gotten us into.’ And your little Stan Laurel gets all weepy -”Oh, Ollie, I couldn’t help it, I’m sorry, I did the best I could. . . ‘ “
Groucho and cigars, by his son Arthur.
Quotes about Groucho from his fans, including Terry Southern, T. S. Eliot, George Burns, George Bernard Shaw, and Candice Bergen.
The young Jon Carroll interviews the elderly Groucho.
Published April 13, 2009 | Goodbye, Harry Kalas. I am so glad you lived to see your team win the World Series again.
From the time I was 12, Harry Kalas was the voice of the Phillies. Whenever we made the playoffs, I resented the national broadcast team who took over from the local guys. Why should someone like Kalas, who called wins and losses steadily, for decades, have his place usurped when the team was finally getting some glory?
If Harry wasn’t calling the plays with Richie Ashburn, it wasn’t really a Phillies game. Richie’s been gone a few years, but now his old partner has rejoined him. They’re both in the Hall of Fame — Kalas as broadcaster, Ashburn as player.
Harry Kalas collapsed in the broadcast booth shortly before the Phillies game with the Nationals. He was 73. Philadelphia won’t be the same without him.
Published April 10, 2009 | Emily Dickinson can wait a day. Today Mike Ford would have turned 52.
A poem from the comments at Making Light:
Goetia Naturalis
from “Wolfgang Puck of Pook’s Hill”No one sees us when they dine;
Loudly the forkfuls go past,
A bird and a bottle of wine,
And a tablet goes fizz in a glass.
No one knows that we are there,
They munch without question or pause;
We crouch on the haricots verts,
And lurk like a thief in the sauce.We are the condiments, we,
To julienne, chiffonade, grate;
But set us aside and you’ll see
The void that we leave on your plate.
We sit on the rim of the dish,
The spices nobody can name;
We stand by the meat and the fish,
Some bloke in a toque gets the fame.Eggs folded into a flan,
Sausages steaming in brew;
Chicken stretched on the divan,
How they must love what they do!
Yes — and we seasonings too,
We are as tasty as they;
We are the salt in the stew,
Watch as the chanterelles play.You may think we are not strong;
We know habaneros that are;
Some Worcestershire helps things along,
You know what wasabi is for.
Still we shall sit on the side,
Court-bouillon and bouquet garni;
Your tastebuds will not be denied;
No quarter and no MSG!
A toast to you, and may you feast forever at the right hand of Will Shakespeare.
Published March 24, 2009 | Florence Bascom became fascinated with geology while taking a driving tour with her father (president of Williams College) and a geologist friend of his. An unremarkable genesis for an earth science career, except that the driving tour must have been done by horse and carriage: Florence was born in 1862.
To put this in perspective: In the United States, 1862 was the second year of the Civil War, and one of the bloodiest: Shiloh, the Seven Days, Antietam. The Gatling gun and the iron-clad ship were the big military innovations.
President Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. He also signed into law the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Acts, which provided for the first transcontinental railroad, thus shaping the American West.
It was the year of Lady Audley’s Secret, Les Miserables, and Salammbo. Thoreau died at 44. Alice in Wonderland was written. Gustave Klimt was born (same day as Florence Bascom). The Albert Memorial and Westminster Bridge were opened. Princess Alice, Queen Victoria’s daughter, married Prince Louis of Hesse. Her daughter would become the last Empress of Russia.
In this world, higher education for women was a rarity. Nevertheless, Florence Bascom earned a BA and then an MS from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She became the first woman to be granted a PhD from Johns Hopkins.* She had to attend lectures behind a screen; women are not yet admitted to the university.
Then she started teaching at Bryn Mawr College, establishing their world-class geology department and training many of the great female geologists of the early twentieth century. Bascom is quoted as frequently saying that she didn’t want to be the only woman geologist. She did her best to make sure she was not.
Often, though, she was the only woman in the room or in the field. Her list of firsts is impressive:
- first woman geologist hired by the USGS
- first woman to present a scientific paper at the Geological Society of Washington
- first woman officer of the Geological Society of America
Florence Bascom isn’t important just for being the first woman. She made major contributions to earth science. She invented techniques that used microscopic analysis in the study of oil-bearing rocks. She was a major pioneer in igneous petrology. Her analysis of the complex orogeny of the folded-and-faulted Appalachians is still the basis for understanding certain aspects of Pennsylvania geology.
Nor was she merely an armchair geologist; she emphasized the importance of fieldwork. She also strongly encouraged independent thinking in her students, which is how she and two of her former students became involved in the Wissahickon controversy, the first all-female scientific controversy. They conducted their disagreement with scholarly courtesy. (Yes, Florence was right, although recent discoveries have fine-tuned the picture.)
Even after being acknowledged as one of the top 100 geologists in the United States, she continued learning. In 1906 she visited Germany to study theories of petrology. What she learned there helped her understand the formation of the Appalachian Mountains.
After her death, this observation was found among her papers:
The fascination of any search after the truth lies not in the attainment…but in the pursuit, where all the powers of the mind and character are brought into play and are absorbed by the task. One feels oneself in contact with something that is infinite and one finds joy that is beyond expression in sounding the abyss of science and the secrets of the infinite mind.
*One other woman had earned a PhD, but the university did not actually grant the degree until 1926. Male chauvinism or incompetent paperwork? You decide.
Published October 6, 2008 | knocking on wood, praying, begging, pleasepleaseplease.
Phillies versus the Dodgers, best of seven, for the National League championship and a shot at winning the World Series.
(Sorry, Cubs fans. Some of my best friends are disappointed.)
Published August 27, 2008 | It’s all over the Internet: Del Martin has died. She is survived by her widow, Phyllis Lyon. After half a century together, they were the first couple married in 2004, when San Francisco defied the state and started holding same-sex marriages. They were the first married this year, when the California Supreme Court struck down the barriers to same-sex marriage.
Four years ago, when their marriage was invalidated, Phyllis Lyon said:
Del is 83 years old and I am 79. After being together for more than 50 years, it is a terrible blow to have the rights and protections of marriage taken away from us. At our age, we do not have the luxury of time.
Thank God they had a few short months of legal recognition. But even that can be taken away, Don’t let it happen. Honor Del’s life and commitment by defeating the California marriage ban.
Published August 22, 2008 | Dottie Wiltse Collins, one of the best pitchers in women’s baseball and the moving force behind the alumnae organization of retired players from the women’s leagues, died on August 12 at the age of 84.
A powerhouse pitcher who could throw overhand, underhand, and sidearm, she pitched two no-hitters within a seventeen-day stretch. Collins won more than 20 games each of her first four seasons as a pro. In her best year, 1945, her record was 29-10, with a 0.83 ERA and 293 strikeouts. She once pitched — and won — both halves of a doubleheader, and in 1948, she played until she was four months pregnant.
Her work to gather and preserve the history of women’s baseball inspired the movie A League of Their Own. More important, the memorabilia she helped gather is enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, NY. Where she belongs.