Good evening, 919 Gang. In this age of scientific miracles,
could there not be some way that the crowd mike could be turned down and the
broadcasters’ turned up on Charger telecasts? Dan Fouts might say something I would
want to hear.
And while I am being grouchy: The same Nissan commercial
was played seven times in the first half and at least four times in the second
half. Okay, it’s tough getting sponsors for these lousy exhibition games, but
Nissan didn’t make any friends in this house.
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REBER: I’m hoping for a lot of eclipse
reports tomorrow. Some folks are excited about the eclipse and some not, as we
find out tonight.
DON
BARTLETTI writes:
Like a string of matched pearls, the
July 11, 1991 partial solar eclipse stretches across the mid-day sky above the
Palomar Observatory dome in San Diego County. The photograph spans 2 ½ hours as
the sun moved from left to right, progressing to a 50% eclipse, then back to
full again. Each sun is evenly spaced at 10 minutes apart except for the wider
gap in the upper right when I missed my shutter push by a minute.
Including
the image of people gazing skyward you’re looking
at 18 separate exposures on a single frame of Kodak Ektar 125 negative film.
I
chose Palomar Mt. for its astronomical symbolism and the massive dome was tall
enough to include in a perspective that looks skyward at a very steep angle.
Despite
the infinite number of technical challenges I solved, the suns are slightly
overexposed. The eclipsed “bites” aren’t razor sharp and the 17 cosmic pearls
are somewhat flared, (or should we just call ‘em dazzling?).
This
summer day 26 years ago was a tedious but satisfying self-assignment - with a
touch of romance. I made Page-1 deadline for the Los Angeles Times - and
married Diana, the girl on the right one year later.
MICHELE DAVIS
writes:
I think I may be the only person on the planet who has
absolutely no interest in the eclipse. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.
When I was in elementary school, around the aqe of 9, I
looked at an eclipse. I do not recall any warnings to the contrary, but
probably would not have understood the significance of them anyway.
The result is that I have scar tissue down the middle of my
left retina. If I look at something with only my left eye I have to look to
either side of the object in order to see it. I have no problem seeing objects
when using both eyes. For instance, if I look at a Stop Sign with my left eye,
I have to look to the right or left of the sign in order to see the entire
sign.
I will be spending my time during the eclipse inside my
home, probably sleeping, or redoing a back closet, far away from my
south-facing living room windows. The blinds will be partially closed to
protect my cats, but I suspect they will be clueless as they will probably be
asleep. If I do have any inclination to see the eclipse, I will watch via the
NASA web site.
JANET LOWE
writes:
Back
in the 1980s, thanks to dear Evelyn Kieran I went to Finland. A total eclipse
of the sun was due. Several of us travel writers ditched our handler and
climbed about five stories to the top of an ancient castle, where we found a
Finnish National TV crew dangling their feet from the top of the wall and
passing around a bottle of vodka. They were offering to share with us when the
handler came screaming up the stairs, scolding us for getting away. She stopped
the harangue in mid-sentence and looked around confused. Something in the air
had changed. The eclipse had started. A wind came up, the daylight gradually
faded. Birds stopped chirping and the world fell cold and totally silent.
Primal barely explains it. We were in a completely different world. Nobody
spoke as it progressed, or even after the light returned. I could only imagine
how terrified prehistoric people must have been when an eclipse occurred. Give
that God anything it wants!!!
FRED DICKEY
writes:
I am going outside tonight at 10:15 p.m. and pretend it’s
tomorrow 10:15 a.m. I also have a drum to beat. (I’m teasing. If all my
idiosyncratic impulses were made public, George Carlin would demand
resurrection to make a whole show about them. But they wouldn’t require a trip
to Wyoming. Enjoy the show.)
JACK REBER
writes:
My sister, Janet, is an administrator in the parks and
recreation department of Jackson County, Mo. I asked her if she was excited
about the eclipse.
“NO, I am not that interested in the eclipse – you would
not believe the number of people who have made reservations at our campgrounds
from out-of-state to be here. Some of them sound like kooks. Our three
campgrounds are completely booked. 250+ sites.
"But, oh, yes, it involves the MOON and I keep remembering
several associated words with Lunar. Lunatic, looney, etc. We have been
cautioned to not expect to be able to fill our gas tanks, and to anticipate
traffic jams, due to a high volume of visitors. (My gas tank is full).
"Tomorrow in order to be at the office by 8 am, I will start
my drive at 7 am (or earlier). It is a 15-minute drive. We are celebrating the
eclipse by having a ‘carry in’ luncheon at work. I have deviled eggs already to
go. The guys seem to really enjoy them, I take them in every few weeks, Between
8 -9:30 a.m. 2 dozen eggs always disappear. I guess I am famous for something!
It is really good to see them enjoy something that I can treat them to. Big
runners-up are brownies and shrimp cornbread. These are all referred to as a ‘10-5’
(something that is to be picked up and carried elsewhere). They talk about it
on the police radio – ‘Janet at AdMin has a 10-5.’”
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REBER: The discussion of
climate change started with stories about former KUSI weatherman John Coleman.
WALTER BARANGER
writes:
John
Coleman is a retired weatherman, not a climatologist, and his educational
background is entirely journalism, not meteorology.
His
sole major accomplishments in meteorology are co-founding The Weather Channel,
which was a business deal not a scientific breakthrough — and from which he was
ousted after a short period — and his questionable claim to be the first to use
chroma-key ("green screen") to superimpose the weather map in the
background.
During
most or all of his KUSI tenure he was not a member of the American
Meteorological Society, or any other major professional meteorology
organization. Even as late as 2014, The Weather Channel occasionally issued
press releases disclaiming Coleman's opinions.
CJR
essentially debunked Coleman in 2010:
Snopes
pretty much shredded his credibility:
And
AMS was so concerned about Coleman's influence on the public that they
published a peer-review survey:
So who says Coleman is wrong? His peers, for one.
TOM GABLE
writes:
Scientific
research is steeped in politics and far from pure. Scientists have their own
agendas. They collude. They apply for grants to pursue areas of personal
interest. Funding drives the research. They report data they want to report and
withhold data they don't want to report. I've seen this over the years in
working for biotech and life science companies, biotech organizations,
government agencies and non-government organizations. Related to climate
change, there was a massive leak of internal emails from an English university
involved in climate research.
I've
attached a link to a NYT store from 2009 on the lack of scientific purity
involved. For a brief excerpt:
"The
email messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate
researchers, including prominent American and British climate researchers,
include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released,
exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual
comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their
skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays
climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which
dates back 13 years. In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a
statistical 'trick' in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. In another,
a scientist refers to climate skeptics as 'idiots.'"
FRED DICKEY
writes:
Jack, I suggest assuming the climate change debate is
non-political was a mistake. Not everyone who reads your blog argues like a
gentleman, witness this comment about Rex Salmon’s post. I don’t know Rex
Salmon, but he didn’t deserve this insult. What an inelegant, angry, heavy
hand...:
“I would suggest Rex stick with what he knows, and not what
he has no expertise in. Leave the science to the scientists, not to amateurs
quibbling about things they know nothing about. That should include Coleman and
Rex Salmon.
“Just in case I am
wrong, I want to be the first to nominate Rex for a Nobel Prize. The headline
should read: "Retired journalist solves climate change issue by visiting
an aquarium and reading an article." Until that happens, I am siding with
the climate scientists.”
I am now braced for an attack on me. Well, the fellow will
have to look for a spot that’s not already scarred.
PAT
FLYNN writes:
I
wish my dear friend Jim Okerblom would get to the point about what he thinks.
And,
on a different tangent, it is great to hear from some old friends like Hannah
Hui (one of my all-time favorites, and I can't believe you have two teenagers),
Steve Prosinski and Sandy Young, who don't post all that often.
And
that is not to diss Anne, Carl
and Michael.
REX SALMON Writes:
When
it comes to Ice Age thinking, Jim Okerblom, you wet your whistle over something
I didn’t say. I do appreciate your writing, however. In signing off to my
friend Ken Stone about John Coleman’s “off his rocker” comment, I said I was
indifferent (pinkies twiddled) to climate change by CO2 and was “waiting for
real science to work its way out.”
I don’t claim any expertise in anything except
maybe Nebraska Farm Life in the ‘40s. Google Rambling with Rex to walk with me
around the horse-and-buggy farm unchanged then since my grandfather homesteaded
it in the 1890s.
I
find it interesting that some 919 Gang consider weather a political
subject. True, some politicians cause storms and cast doubts of darkness across
the horizon, creating eclipses of the mind.
At
San Diego State in Spring 1964 when I was editor of The Daily Aztec, I recall
editing copy that cast doubts on the importance of a student’s major like “poly
sci.” Yes, “poly sci” sounds so innocent, like beyond the Realm of Science?
Those who pursue it are in fact a political scientist? Definition of Political
Scientist: someone who studies politics in a scientific way in an academia
cover. Wow! Hoop-de-do!
Are
climate scientists and political scientists brothers and sisters of the cloth?
Some in 919 must think so when asking Sir Jack the Ramonan why he didn’t pull
the No-Politics Rule when I questioned the validity of ice age climatology as
preached by adherents and questioned by nonadherents.
As
a Nebraska farm kid, I never met a tornado, but I believed in ‘em. And was
scared of ‘em. When tree tops start kissing each other violently and lightning
bolts were inventing tag games across the sky, my parents would drag us to the
fruit and spud cellar. Electricity hadn’t arrived at the farm, but we didn’t
need yard lights to see the farm at night.
Even
nearly 80 years later, I’m not for or against tornados or Ice Ages. They happen
or don’t happen because of Earth’s climate. In my letter to Ken Stone, I signed
off saying I’m indifferent (fingers twiddled) to ice ages. They’ll happen, like
tornados, whether I want spaghetti for breakfast or corn flakes. The climate
doesn’t care what I eat. So, if another ice age arrives I’ll put on a warmer
coat and go sledding and rejoice that it finally arrived.
If
no Big Ice cometh, I’ll avoid Earth where tornados like to flirt, plus I’ll be
satisfied waiting for climate to do its magic.
P.O. Box 2239
Ramona, CA 92065
U.S.A.
