The Iodine is coming!

I made the mistake of watching the local television news last night. The lead story was that there was a trace of radioactive Iodine detected in rain water (a puddle?) in Massachusetts. Then the news cut to the weatherman, presumably to give the story a proper scientific vetting, who explained that the radioactivity released from the Japanese reactors finds its way into the upper atmosphere where some of it gets caught up in the jet stream. The radioactivity is then carried across the Pacific Ocean, beneath Alaska and across the continental US to the East coast of the US. But the weatherman assures us, it is okay in the near term because no rain is expected for the next few days. We are saved! Or at least our demise is delayed. And what is the effect on our water supply? Officially, it is undetectable! In the air by the rain water? Undetectable!

Please, this is the lead news story? Perhaps worth a mention as an add-on to the proper news update of the tragedy in Japan, but the lead, the most important thing that we need to know for the day? Whatever happened to the phrase journalistic responsibility? Did the editors (I am making an assumption here) debate whether that was the lead or the imminent danger of an escaped cobra in a zoo over two hundred miles away?

Day Light Savings Time

It’s Daylight Savings Time. I often wonder what fool or politician, likely same thing, thought this up. You usually hear two reasons. Firstly, it benefits the farmer who now does not have to get up in the dark to tend to the chores. Here the farmer has let down the politicians badly. After decades, they, as a group, have failed to teach the animal and plant life to tell time by the clock. They persist on arranging their days around the rising and setting of the sun. How rude!

The second reason proffered is that school children now do not have to come home from school in the dark. However, they just have to go to school in the dark. Moreover, the same politicians want the school children to spend more of their day in school. So what is the benefit exactly?

Clearly, the benefit is that the politicians can provide the illusion, or delusion, that they can control time and dole it out to their constituents as evidence of the politician’s benevolence. How do the fundamentalists square this with the belief that only God can create and bestow time? Are they blasphemers?

Random Observations or Politics

Recently President Obama called for a renewed focus on education, particularly mathematics and science. At the same time politicians of all stripes are arguing over the budget and each seems to have its own set of numbers. Perhaps the renewed focus on mathematics should be on addition and subtraction so that there is some common ground on what the budget is exactly. But then again mathematics is short hand logic, which is anathema to a politician, particularly when manipulation is available. Worse still, there is only one right answer.

Back to the political debate: folks are always taking contradictory polls. It might be informative for the pollsters to ask our representatives (the inclusive small ‘r’) in Washington, what exactly they think the words, “general welfare and commonwealth” mean?

This morning in the Boston Sunday Globe, Ms. Vennochi asked a question that bears repeating. After his recent revelation about childhood abuse, how did Senator Brown endorse a candidate who had credibly been accused of ignoring the sexual abuse of a fourteen year old girl? Is this an after-effect of Brown’s original abuse?

Isn’t pseudo-science just grand?

The world of the zodiac has been turned upside down, or, at least, tilted on its axis. It apparently was discovered that the constellations have shifted since the signs were originally calculated because the earth has tiled on its axis.

I admit I do not know the intricacies of my sign. Its symbol shows fish chasing themselves in a circle, which it not the way I perceive myself – although others might. Or perhaps it is a schizophrenic trying to reintegrate itself. That may make sense.

I do read my horoscope most days. It’s on the same page as the crossword and Sudoku. If it indicates something positive, “Damn straight! Of course it’s right.” If it indicates something negative, “You telling me some planet or star or handful of cosmic dust imprints me with a personality because of its electromagnetic-gravitational field from hundreds of light years away more than the metal frame of the building?” Although it would be nice to have something to blame. Most of the time though the horoscope just makes no sense to me whatever. Now I have a reason. I’ve been looking at the wrong sign. I ratcheted back one and followed that one for a few days. Unfortunately I got the same result.

But the seers of the zodiac say that they have been aware of the problem and have been using a multidimensional fudge factor in their differential personality predictive equations. Besides, they say the problem is mostly not relevant because we here in the Occident don’t use a ‘sidereal zodiac’ (side + real), but a ‘tropical zodiac.” That explains it. I wasn’t born anywhere the tropics. Isn’t pseudo-science just grand?

Fourth Night

I went again to First Night in Boston and had a delightful time. For less than $20 I saw a several anime cartoons in the afternoon; attended a ‘procession,’ so called I suspect because it is half organized and half sort of not organized, not really a classic parade; had many excellent choices of classical music, contemporary music, jazz, dance performances, storytelling, early fireworks of the younger children, midnight fireworks and standup comedy. There were thousands of well behaved people, likely because there is no alcohol allowed, wandering through Boston, enjoying themselves. Frequently there were multigenerational families and familiar faces from First Nights of the past. It is a terrific way to spend an evening.

So I was thinking this First Night was fairly temperate, previous ones have been quite cold and still well attended, but why wait a year for the next one? Perhaps we can have a Fourth Night in July, when it is warm. It can be held on the third of July so as not to interfere with cookouts and the Pop Esplanade concert. After all First Night is on the last night of the year, so Fourth Night can be on the third night of July. Just thinking.

Keep them waiting

Of late I have been accompanying an older aunt to many doctor’s visits. At each of these offices we wait rather incredibly long times. I have been to one office with her three times and the earliest she has seen her doctor is ninety minutes late, once two and a half hours late and never an apology. Sitting in the waiting room, it is obvious that the vast majority of the patients are elderly. Surely, it cannot be a coincidence that it is an elderly client that is being kept waiting. Is it assumed that they have nothing else better to do than read out of date magazines? I see a variety of doctors and have never been kept waiting that long. Doctors are often late, but rarely by more that fifteen minutes or so and never without an apology. Is it because the medical staffs know that the elderly loathe to change doctors? Is it because Medicare pays too little? I assume that they do not mean to be insulting, but they are.

Reality Show Opportunity

I sat the other night to watch an evening of television when I was assaulted by a chain of political attack ads. Thank god for the mute button on the remote. But it got me thinking that we have the Nobel awards for important contributions to society from the arts to science and those that are unclassifiable, i.e., economics. We have the ig-Nobels for the science of the curious and often comical. But what award do we have for the inventions, such as the mute button, that make everyday life bearable?

If billionaires are donating significant portions of their estates to fight to extend life, perhaps they should set aside some for a prize that makes that life tolerable, maybe the Gates-way or Icahrn’s icons. Or perhaps they can fund think tanks for the politicians who have no thoughts of their own and hire consultants who have but one idiot thought.

This may also be an opportunity for yet another reality show. Submit inventions for viewer’s judgment. The winner gets cash and a free few hours with a patent attorney. Just a thought.