The Mystery of Prince Rupert’s Drop: A small piece of glass made amazing

This is six of the most fascinating six minutes of video on the Internet today. Both in terms of subject and presentation.

Stop and watch.

The Prince Rupert Drop is named after Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who I recommend you don’t spend any time reading about lest you end up feeling terrible about your own accomplishments.

The man was ridiculous.

For example, he was a soldier from a young age, fighting against Spain in the Netherlands during the Eighty Years' War and against the Holy Roman Emperor in Germany during the Thirty Years' War. At the age of 23, he was appointed commander of the Royalist cavalry during the English Civil War. He surrendered after the fall of Bristol and was banished from England. He served under Louis XIV of France against Spain, and then as a Royalist privateer in the Caribbean. Following the Restoration, Rupert returned to England, becoming a senior British naval commander during the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch wars.

That doesn’t even touch on his role as a colonial governor in Canada, founding member of the Royal Society of Science, and his work as a scientist, inventor, and artist. The man was also a cypher, a manufacturer of weaponry, and a metallurgist.

I’m all for over achieving, but Prince Rupert took it to an obscene level.

But he left us with, among other things, the Prince Rupert Drop.

There can only be one explanation for a Republican campaign ad as sexist and stupid as this.

I suspect that the Republican Party has been infiltrated by some undercover Democratic strategists who have convinced them that stupid, sexist political ads are effective. 

There can be no other explanation for the existence of this political ad (and others  like it, which are exactly the same except with different Republican candidate’s names). No right minded (or right leaning) person could watch this commercial and not see it as offensive and inane.

Right?    

September 26, 1983: The day a Soviet colonel and forgotten hero saved the world from nuclear destruction.

On this day, let us not forgot the man who may have saved the human race from possible extinction.

September 26, 1983. The Cold War is at its height. The United States and the Soviet Union have thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles pointed at each other. The two countries exist under the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.  

Tensions between the two countries are especially high. Three weeks prior, the Soviet Union mistook Korean Air Flight 007 for a spy plane and shot it down, killing all 269 on board, including a United States congressman. 

In a bunker near Moscow, Soviet Colonel Stanislav Petrov is monitoring for signs of a United States nuclear attack when his system detects a launch.

His country is under attack. 

In the case of a launch detection, Petrov’s orders are clear:

Report the launch immediately so that the Soviet Union can retaliate before being destroyed by United States and NATO missiles.

Petrov ignores this order. He does not report the launch to his superiors. Instead, he declares the system's indication to be a false alarm.

With the threat of intercontinental ballistic missiles already in the air, poised to destroy his country, Petrov examines all the data and makes a decision that may have saved the human race.

Shortly thereafter, it’s determined that he is correct. The computer detection system was malfunctioning. It’s subsequently determined that the false alarm had been created by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds.

Would the report of a US missile launch prompted Soviet military leaders to launch their own missiles in retaliation?

Thanks to Stanislav Petrov, we will never know.

The Louisiana Literacy Test of 1963 is astonishing. Impossibly difficult and truly evil. I think I’ll give it to my students.

The website of the Civil Rights Movement Veterans, which collects materials related to civil rights, posts samples of actual literacy tests used in the South  during the 1950s and 1960s.

These tests were designed to prevent African Americans from voting in local elections. They were purposely difficult and confusing, and many times, the questions were simply impossible to answer.

Slate recently ran a piece that included the Louisiana literacy test of 1963, which is “singular among its fellows.”

Designed to put the applicant through mental contortions, the test's questions are often confusingly worded. If some of them seem unanswerable, that effect was intentional. The (white) registrar would be the ultimate judge of whether an answer was correct.

The test was to be taken in 10 minutes, and a single wrong answer meant a failing grade.

The questions are astonishing in their Machiavellian degree of opacity. The people designing and administering these tests may have been racists, but they were clever racists.

Take the test, or at least take a moment and read the questions. It’s unbelievable.

I return to the classroom today to a new batch of fifth graders and a brand new school year. It occurs to me that it would be fascinating to give my students this test and see how the perform, and even better, how they react to some of these questions.

What better way to demonstrate the criminal inequities of the pre-Civil Rights era? 

 

New rule: Women should not make sweeping generalizations about women.

In listening to the most recent Nerdist Writer’s Panel podcast, the writer and show runner of the television show Trophy Wife, Emily Halpern, was asked if she ever fights with her writing partner during the collaborative process.

Her response:

We are two women, so we get passive aggressive. One of us may pout, and the other will ask what’s wrong, but we’ve never yelled at each other.

Either Halpern is right, and collaborative disagreements in female partnerships consist primarily of passive aggressiveness and pouting, or she has maligned all of womankind with her statement.

I tend to think it’s the latter.

I want to be surprised that someone like Halpern would lump women into this collective passive-aggressive basket, but one the same day I listened to the podcast, I read about North Carolina Representative Renee Ellmers’ remarks while speaking on a panel for the Republican Study Committee, the House's conservative caucus;

Men do tend to talk about things on a much higher level. Many of my male colleagues, when they go to the House floor, you know, they’ve got some pie chart or graph behind them and they’re talking about trillions of dollars and how, you know, the debt is awful and, you know, we all agree with that ... we need our male colleagues to understand that if you can bring it down to a woman's level and what everything that she is balancing in her life — that’s the way to go.

It’s hard enough for women already without the likes of Emily Halpern and Renee Ellmers portraying the female sex as a collective of passive aggressive pouters who are incapable of comprehending pie charts and graphs.

Serious geography geek material

I am a geography geek. When I was eight years-old, I was given an atlas and a globe for my birthday. I was in heaven.

Unfortunately, this was also was the first and only birthday party that I ever hosted for friends, so the three boys who attended my party stared in disbelief as I opened these gifts.

 

I later used my knowledge (and some free maps that I ordered from AAA) to help a friend plan an unsanctioned hitchhiking trip to visit his uncle in Ohio.

Thankfully that friend never made the trip, though the incident led to the plot of my second novel, Unexpectedly Milo.

If you are a geography geek or just generally curious about the world, I have two truly outstanding videos to share with you today.

The first brilliantly explains the American empire, with its many islands scattered throughout the world.

The second describes the surprising and bizarre border between the United States and Canada.

Posthumous vindication sucks.

On this date in 1456, Joan of Arc was declared innocent for heresy.

Unfortunately, she was declared innocent 25 years after she was burned at the stake.

Being incorrectly burned to death is certainly worse than losing your bout with cancer and dying just hours before being announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize for your work in cancer research that actually prolonged your life, but anything that happens posthumously to a person sucks.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Death is hardest on the dead. 

There are many reasons why the death penalty should be abolished. But one reason should be reason enough.

Will Saletan lists six reasons why support for capital punishment is evaporating in the United States. All six are perfectly valid, and I actually agree with all of them, but really, there’s only one that matters:

Innocence.

Since 1973, 144 death row inmates have been exonerated of their crimes.

It’s impossible to think that the our government has not executed innocent people.

As a person who was arrested and tried for a crime he did not commit, I understand the how easily an innocent person can be accused of a crime and how easy it is to be wrongfully convicted.

In my case, the judge said, “I think you’re probably guilty, but there isn’t enough evidence to convict you. I hope you realize how close you came to going to prison.”

The arrest and trial, which took almost two years from beginning to end, changed my life forever. Had I gone to prison, I can’t imagine where I would be today.

I will never understand how supporters of the death penalty are able to ignore the dangers of executing an innocent man or woman. In the past 41 years, more than three people per year on average have been released from death row after proving their innocence.

These are statistics that cannot be ignored. And yet they are. Even with capital punishment rapidly losing support in this country and executions on the decline, more than 50% of respondents to a recent Gallup poll expressed support for the death penalty.

I suspect that their opinions on the matter would change if they were arrested for a crime they did not commit.

Faced with the evidence that this is happening, these people are unmoved. I have to assume it is the result of one of two things:

1. An inability to empathize with people in positions different than their own
2. A failure of imagination. They are simply unable to envision themselves or a loved one in a situation that they know is routinely taking place in this country.

Either way, it’s ridiculous. We need to end capital punishment (as most Western nations already have) because we cannot be a nation that accidentally, unintentionally execute innocent people.

The demographics of the Republican Party are astounding.

There are currently 278 Republicans in both the House and Senate.

Every single one of them is a Christian.

Just 23 are women.

There is one African-American. That African-American, Tim Scott of South Carolina, was not elected. He was appointed to fill a vacant seat by the state’s governor.   

In fact, the only black Republicans to Congress since 1900 have been Oscar De Priest of Illinois, Gary Franks of Connecticut, Tim Scott of South Carolina, J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, and Allen West of Florida.

Five black Republicans have been elected to Congress in the past in 114 years.

I had no idea.

I am not a Republican, but if the Republicans hope to have any influence over the political system in a near future where whites are no longer in the majority and the country is vastly more diverse, they will need to find a way to elect non-white, more religiously diverse members to Congress.

They need to find a way to do so today. While the Democrats demographics are not exactly admirable, of the 255 Democrats currently in Congress:

• 101 are women
• 43 are African Americans
• 36 are non-Christians

Nothing to brag about, but also not appalling.

I still can’t believe these numbers.

Remember Tank Man.

Twenty-five years ago today, a man stood before a column of Chinese tanks on the morning after the Chinese military had suppressed the Tiananmen Square protests by force. In doing so, he became a symbol of courage for the rest of the world.

His name and his fate remain unknown. Some have identified the man as Wang Weilin, but lacking confirmation, he has simply become known as Tank Man.

In April 1998, Time included the "Unknown Rebel" in a feature titled Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century.

I’ve been speaking to people over the course of the past week about Tank man and the events in Tiananmen Square, and a disappointing number of people are either completely unaware of who he is or recognize the images but have no sense of the context in which it was taken.

The Chinese government censors all coverage of the Tiananmen Square uprising, going so far as to block all Internet access of images, video, and reporting on the protests, but Americans have fewer excuses to forget this man and the millions of protesters who he has come to represent.

If you’ve read my first novel, Something Missing, you might know that I’ve always been interested in the idea of ordinary people doing extraordinary things and never being recognized for their courage and sacrifice.

It’s a great tragedy that a man who has become a symbol of bravery and freedom for so many and who was likely executed for doing so may never be named.

It’s an even greater tragedy if the people of the free world forget this man  and the sacrifices made by him and his fellow protesters a quarter century ago.

Do me a favor:

Talk to someone about the events of Tiananmen Square today. If you don’t recall them well enough or were born after the uprising took place, read about the Tiananmen Square massacre today. Educate yourself. Then educate someone else.

We will probably never know the name of Tank Man. This breaks my heart. But we can honor him and his fellow protesters by remembering them on this day and all the days to come.

The fascinating history of Softsoap: A lesson in ingenuity and tenacity

Some people are simply more clever and tenacious than others, and this is why they are successful.

In 1980, Robert R. Taylor began selling Softsoap through his company, Minnetonka Corp.

Up until that time, soap had not been sold in a pump bottle, even though the design and patent of such a bottle had existed for more than 1oo years. 

Taylor knew others would quickly copy the soap-in-a-pump-bottle idea, so he purchased 100 million small bottle hand-pumps from the only two U.S. manufacturers that made them, so that any competitors wouldn't be able to buy any for one year. This, he hoped, would give him enough time to establish the brand name.

It worked.

In six months, he sold $25 million worth of Softsoap. The package made it very easy to spot on store shelves when nearly all other soaps were in bar form.

Taylor sold the Softsoap brand to Colgate-Palmolive in 1987 and retired.

The brief but surprising history of Uggs

A student recently asked me if Uggs were invented in colonial times.

Good thing we started our colonial research recently.

In researching the origins of Uggs, I found some interesting bits of information.

Ugg boots originated in Australia and were originally designed solely for  warmth. They were most often worn by Australian surfers during the 1960s who needed something warm to wear after emerging from the ocean. 

Their name is derived from the fact that they are ugly, or at least were perceived as ugly when first invented.

They still are ugly, of course, but I try not to criticize another person’s choice of clothing because I am not an infantile scumbag.

After movie theatres in Sydney banned ugg boots (the name not yet trademarked) and ripped jeans in the late 1960s, the footwear became popular in the youth market as a sign of rebellion.

Making something illegal is often the best way to make it even more popular (a lesson that conservatives don’t seem to ever understand).

In the 1970s, the boots were introduced to the surf culture of the United Kingdom and the United States by local surfers returning from surfing competitions in Australia.

Then in the late 1990s, Uggs became a fashion statement in America, mostly because a few women who pretend to be other women decided that they wanted to keep their feet warm by wearing Uggs, and Uggs were mistaken by women who want to be other women as fashion forward.

Small boy. Big words. Enormous inspiration.

There have been many inspirational speeches throughout history.

Knute Rockne’s “One for the Gipper” speech.

The Saint Crispin’s Day speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V (which sounds surprisingly like the speech that the President gives before the final battle against the aliens in Independence Day).

Winston Churchill’s address to the House of Commons following the evacuation at Dunkirk.

Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream.”

 

And now this.  Unnamed boy’s speech upon learning to ride a bicycle:

The greatest source of discontent in my marriage may be this Cadillac commercial, which I adore.

My wife and I do not fight.

It’s not that we are opposed to fighting, and we’re certainly more than happy to argue a point when the time is right, but we just don’t disagree on much at all. When we disagree, we listen to each other and usually reach resolution absent any emotional response.

I don’t think either one of us as ever yelled at the other or even raised our voices.

This commercial, which first aired during the Oscars, might be one of our greatest sources of disagreement in our marriage. At the moment it ended, I turned to Elysha to declare my heartfelt affection for the commercial, only to be stopped as she was already declaring her hatred for it.

We discussed our differences of opinion. We each made a case for our position. She forward me a piece by a writer who supported her view. I watched the commercial again and again, reaffirming and strengthening my opinion each time.

We cannot agree on this commercial.

I won’t attempt to argue Elysha’s position here other than to say that the focus on materialism was just one of the elements that she despises.

Many agree.

But I love this commercial. For years, I have listened to a handful of friends describe the joys of the Spanish, French, Greek or Portuguese lifestyles, complete with long, afternoon lunches, siestas, shorter work days, copious amounts of wine, late night dinners and a slower, much more measured pace.

All of this sounds lovely until the Germans roll into your country with tanks and occupy it for years until those crazy, driven, hard working Americans and their fast-paced, high-stakes, never-stop lifestyle come to save you.

All of this sounds lovely as long as someone, somewhere is busy inventing air travel, telephonic communication, artificial hearts, television, lasers, the cure for polio, toilet paper, space ships, nuclear power, the Internet and everything else that those non-siesta loving countries are not.

All of this sounds lovely until your unemployment rate hits 27% (as it has in Greece and Spain) and your banking system nearly collapses the European Union and requires an international bailout.

I am one of the least materialistic people I know. I am writing this sentence on a hand-me-down table while sitting in a hand-me-down chair and staring into a living room of hand-me-down furniture. My car is twelve years old. My iPhone is at least two generations old. The television in our home is 13 years old and incapable of streaming Netflix. I don’t wear jewelry of any kind and refuse to wear any item of clothing that displays a name brand.

I am not interested in the accumulation of things.

But this is not a commercial about things. It’s a commercial that celebrates the driven, goal-orientated lifestyle that so many Americans lead. It’s a lifestyle that can result in great luxury (like a backyard pool and a Cadillac, which both sound lovely to me), but it’s also a lifestyle that sent astronauts to the Moon. It’s the lifestyle that liberated Europe, invent countless technologies, advanced countless others, cured diseases, halted Communist aggression and made America the wealthiest nation on the planet.

We are certainly not a perfect country. We have many problems and have created many, many more. The American lifestyle has certainly contributed greatly to climate change, and our decisions about where and when to deploy our military might are not always wise or just. We live in a society where the gap between rich and poor widens by the day, and our educational system is failing our children.

We have many, many problems. 

But if an asteroid is suddenly discovered on a collision course with Earth, which country will the world turn to for salvation?

If a nation rises up and threatens to take over the world by overwhelming military force, who will the world turn to for help?

When natural disasters strike, which nation, more than any other, sends supplies, rescue teams and cash?

We do.

We do it because we can. We can because we are not eating long lunches and enjoying afternoon siestas. We do it because we are those crazy, driven, hard working Americans who seem to suddenly make all the sense in the world in times of crisis.

We work hard, we make our own luck and we believe that anything is possible.

Sometimes it works out, and you are able to afford a backyard pool and a Cadillac. I can’t, but I’m working on it, and good for those who can.  

My daughter attributes her difficulties with sharing to the assassination of MLK

I told my four year-old daughter that I don’t have to work because it’s Martin Luther King Day. “That’s a day when we celebrate the life of a man named Martin Luther King.”

“I know,” she said, almost dismissively.

“You know about Martin Luther King?”

“Yes,” she said. “We read a book about him in school. And we talked about him.”

I was impressed. “What do you know about him?”

“He was a man who was shot and and had to die,” she said. “He helped a lot of people.”

I was a little surprised that she even knew what being shot meant (and maybe she doesn’t), but I pressed on. “How did he help people?”

“He taught people how to share. No matter what color they are. That’s why I sometimes have a hard time sharing. Because someone had to shoot him, so now he’s not here anymore to help me anymore.”

She sounded annoyed as she said this. Angry, even. Like someone had taken Martin Luther King away from her, which is essentially true.

Not bad. A basic understanding of Dr. King’s message, wrapped up in the self-centeredness of a four year-old child. 

Let’s remember someone worth remembering

The next time you see an article or photograph of some reality television celebrity like Kim Kardashian, look away. Actively disengage from their nonsense. Make a purposeful effort to know as little as possible about people who have done so little to make this world a better pace.

It’s possible, too. If you asked me to pick Kim Kardashian out of a lineup, I would be hard pressed to find her. If you asked me why she is famous, I honestly can’t tell you. I know she was on a reality television program, but I have to assume that she was famous before that, but I don’t know why.

This is only because I choose to look away whenever possible. You can do the same.

Instead, turn your attention to someone like Irena Sendler, who most of us have forgotten, if we ever knew her at all.

Forget Kim Kardashian. Remember Irena Sendler.

Imagine what a glorious world it would be if everyone did this.

It’s okay to make fun of fat people, but only if they are really, really fat.

Sarah Palin stated that although she is against bullying, it's understandable people comment on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's weight because it's "been extreme."

Apparently there a designated threshold on mocking people who are overweight, and Chris Christie exceeds it.

I’m not sure what that threshold is, but thankfully Sarah Palin does. 

Palin has a new book out entitled Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas.

It’s not often that I advise people to not buy a book, but based upon her comments about Christie’s weight, she may not be qualified (as has been the case with most things that Sarah Palin does) to comment on the spirit of Christmas and the notion of good tidings.

It’s okay to make fun of fat people, but only if they are really, really fat.

Sarah Palin stated that although she is against bullying, it's understandable people comment on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's weight because it's "been extreme."

Apparently there a designated threshold on mocking people who are overweight, and Chris Christie exceeds it.

I’m not sure what that threshold is, but thankfully Sarah Palin does. Maybe she’ll share that magic number with us sometime soon.

Palin has a new book out entitled Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas.

It’s not often that I advise people to not buy a book, but based upon her comments about Christie’s weight, she may not be qualified (as has been the case with most things that Sarah Palin does) to comment on the spirit of Christmas and the notion of good tidings.

Frozen carrots on a stick

This is an excellent reminder about how fortunate we are.

I think I’ll show it to my students the next time they complain that the cafeteria has run out of chocolate milk.

The video is great, but the image alone speaks a thousand words.

No one is talking about the real problem with John McCain playing poker during his briefing on the possible use of force in Syria.

Senator John McCain was caught playing poker on his IPhone during a U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing where Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey testified concerning the use of force in Syria.

There was a small uproar over the idea that one of our lawmakers was playing a game while discussing our potential involvement in Syria, and rightfully so.

McCain attempted to excuse his behavior by attributing it to the length of the meeting, which was reportedly three hours long. Obviously, this is shameful, particularly in light of the topic being discussed.

But here is the real problem with McCain’s decision to play this game (and I’m completely serious):

Playing online poker for real money was banned in the United States in 2011. This means that McCain was playing poker with pretend money, and there is nothing more inane and ridiculous as playing poker without any real stakes.

Without actual money involved, the game ceases to be poker. Instead, it’s a game of “Look what I found!” You’re dealt some cards, and when they make a full house or a flush, you push all your pretend chips to the middle in hopes of winning. The game does not require any of the mental faculties that the real game demands.

And if you don’t get the full house or the flush, you probably push your chips to the middle anyway, since it’s not real and you can start over at any time.

It’s a stupid game. It’s so stupid. It’s so incredibly, awfully, frighteningly stupid. It’s the adult version of War, except it’s only suitable for brainless adults. I can’t imagine a bigger waste of time. I can’t imagine a more ridiculous game. Go Fish requires more strategy than pretend poker. Candy Land offers higher stakes than pretend poker.  Twiddling your thumbs demands more skill than pretend poker.

I know that John McCain is a skilled and thoughtful man, but I have a hard time respecting the intelligence or wisdom of anyone who is willing to invest even a second in a game that makes so little sense.