Pluto

Even as the mysteries of the dwarf planet CERES have yet to be explained, here comes another space probe that may turn out to be even more mysterious than CERES!

The mission was launched in 2006 and is called NEW HORIZONS and in about two weeks, for about a half hour,  it will take close up pictures of PLUTO!

That is, if they can find it.

Say what?

"If they can find it."

You mean after spending all that money (265 million dollars) and time (it was launched on January 19, 2006) and goes all that way (4.7 Billion miles) when they finally get "there"...they might not be able to FIND Pluto?

Yep, that's true.

According to an article in Nature magazine,

“Everything is pushed to the extreme,” says Bobby Williams, an engineer at KinetX Aerospace in Simi Valley, California, who heads the mission’s navigation team.  New Horizons must slip by just 12,500 kilometres above Pluto, a distance dictated by the spacecraft’s speed — nearly 14 kilometres per second — and how quickly it can rotate its instruments to look at the surface below. It must accomplish this manoeuvre even as Pluto dances a complex shimmy through space, pulled by the gravitational tug of its largest moon, Charon. After that closest approach, New Horizons must continue on a precise path into the shadows of both Pluto and Charon, for its sole chance to look back and explore atmospheres on those worlds.There is only one shot. “It’s not like an orbiter, where if you miss a day’s science you can make it up later,” says Williams.

If the probe does find PLUTO, NASA says we should expect

 to see Images sharp enough to resolve surface features

 as small as 200 feet across.  "If there is a football stadium on

 Pluto, NEW HORIZONS

 will spot it."


Back here on Earth, I'm still trying to solve a mystery that has

 puzzled me since the early 1940's.


What's the difference between PLUTO

and GOOFY?


-Ed

Akela, Tom Mix and...

I read somewhere that at our age, "getting lucky" means walking into a room and remembering why you went in there.

There's a lot of truth to that.

But I'm working on a solution to that almost universal problem for people over 70.

Logic tells me that our memory banks have gotten too full.

Nature in all its wisdom automatically deletes, or greatly reduces the intensity of bad memories. So that's not what is clogging up our brains.  It's those left over "bits and pieces" of the good times that are the problem.

"Artifacts" is the computer word for them. Little tiny memory "shavings' floating around in our brains that were simply left over from the deleting process. They serve absolutely no practical purpose.  All they do is take up space in the brain.

I know that's the case with me.

So, I'm working on a plan to find a way to totally delete these little buggers...in order to have more room for today's activities and events.

I don't see any reason whatsoever for my mind to be cluttered with such memories as:

Jake Barnhart told us once at a Cub Scout meeting that his great, great grandfather was Samuel Morse, the author of the Morse Code.

Or, according to the Cub Scout Law:

The Cub follows Akela
The Cub helps the Pack Go
The Pack helps the Cub grow
The Cub gives good will

(I lied. I copied that off a Cub Scout plaque that somehow followed me all these years. My poor old mind is not the only thing that is cluttered up.)

But, as I was saying, my mind is filled with flashes of useless memories and scenes of the past that serve no purpose whatsoever.

Such as:

Birthdays of old girl friends....and their phone numbers

....all with either the ED or FR prefixes.

Rememberng everything about the day Bonson Hobson and I rode our bicycles on a street that was in the process of being paved and literally got covered with black tar.

Remembering exactly when and where I was when I first tasted what later became my favorite foods.

Remembering the day Wilson Snell and I spent all day drawing a "reasonable facsimile" of a Ralston Cereal "box top" to send in for a Tom Mix secret decoder ring. We spent half the day trying to find out what a "facsimile" was.

Remembering chasing Martha Ann Caldwell and Judy Anderson around the Elizabeth School playground in the fifth grade.

Remembering how pretty those the girls at Piedmont Jr. High had become....

Remembering how beautiful and exciting the girls at Central High School were....and how wonderful their hair smelled!  I think the shampoo many of them used back then was called "Aqua Marine."

Remembering.....holding hands.....

and...that first kiss.....

and...


Oh, forget it.

I'm going to hold on to my useless memory fragments.. What's so bad about forgetting why you walked into a room.....anyway.

-Ed

But Wait...There's More

Sounds like a commercial on late night television, but it's not....it's my translation of the latest NASA update on our friend, the dwarf planet CERES.

The Dawn probe is  in its second orbit now and is only 2,900 miles from the surface of CERES....and the latest photographs show not only more strange "lights," but a PYR AMID.

Well, not the kind the Egyptions built, but a PYRAMID shaped object...like a mountain popping out of a flat surface.  Three miles or so high.  Plus more lights.

NASA SAYS"

"Ceres’ story is only going to get more interesting. Dawn will continue to orbit 2,700 miles above the dwarf planet’s surface until June 30. Then, it will edge even closer, entering orbit at an altitude of 900 miles sometime in August.

When that time comes, it’s safe to say another strange chapter will be added to the book of Ceres."

The SCIENCE DEPT here at CHS54 will continue to keep you up to date on CERES.

-Ed

v

Bruce

From the Internet:

Blaze

I was sad to learn of the death of Blaze Starr last Monday morning.  She was perhaps the most famous "stripper" in the world in the late 1950's and early 60's.
At 15, Ms. Starr began performing at a club near the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va. In 1950, after moving to Baltimore, she stepped onto the runway of the 2 O’Clock Club on the Block, that city’s famous strip of adult entertainment shops and stages. 

She gained national recognition when she was featured in Esquire magazine in 1954, hailed as the successor to Lili St. Cyr on the burlesque circuit. Unlike Ms. St. Cyr, however, she made many of her own costumes, part of a stage wardrobe, including three mink coats, that was valued in 1967 at $20,000 (about $142,000 in today’s money).

You may remember the story I wrote on this site  5 years ago about that night shortly before my wife and I were to be married:


 Washington, DC  September 1963

Linda and I had gone together for a little over 2 years, and I knew
she was a very bright and sophisticated lady......with a great sense of humor, and we were both in love, but........she didn’t have any idea how certifiable one of my best friends was.

His name was Paul Niven, who very few people remember now, but at the time was part of Ed Murrow’s team of reporters at CBS. He was moderating Face the Nation in the early 60’s and I was the announcer on that show as well as a number of Paul’s radio newscasts throughout the week.

Broadcasting was his job.

But practical jokes...the more outrageous the better...were his life!

Both of us were bachelors during that time....and since our work schedules were more or less the same.......we ran around together a lot doing things bachelors do....going to bars....acting stupid...and a few times wandering 40 miles up the road to see the sights in Baltimore’s notorious Burlesque district known as “The Block.”

Paul was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known.....and one of the funniest.....and kindest.

But I knew that like all of Paul’s friends, I had a target on my back. And an up coming wedding was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

I was convinced that the “terror attack” would come right after the wedding or perhaps during the honeymoon.

So, a couple of weeks before the wedding,  I didn’t think twice when Paul asked us to meet him and his date at a very exclusive restaurant (The Rive Gauche) in Georgetown.

I spotted Paul right away when we entered and as Linda and I were being led to his table........Suddenly, I began to realize who his “date” was. I recognized her even without her “boa.” It was the “Queen of the Block” and probably the best known xcydiast in the country, Blaze Star.

This was ground zero....and the attack was about to begin.

Blaze performed her part well.....telling Linda that she had been sent by the city of Baltimore to plead with her not to marry me....because the entire economy of the “block” would collapse without my many trips to the bars....."have pity on the strippers’ hungry children," she pleaded......Paul had also paid a couple of waitresses to come by our table with picket signs...with similar "unfair to Baltimore's working girls".....messages.

I was dying.

Linda thought it was hilarious.

Whew!

I figured after that, the next 50 years would be a breeze.

They were.

  -Ed


(After the initial shock....the rest of the evening was great. Blaze told us about beginning her career when she was 15.........and how she had been supporting her Mom and sisters in West Virginia ever since..and talked about her long-term romance with then-governor Earl Long.
It was, to say the least, an unforgettable evening.

Paul Niven died in a tragic house fire in 1979. Linda was pregnant with our third child at the time......and since our other two children were boys, we were confident the new one would be too...so we decided to name him Paul, after our friend.

But, our third child turned out to be a girl, so we named her Kendall, which was Paul's middle name.

At Paul’s funeral Daniel Patrick Moynihan gave the eulogy. Among other things he said,

“A journalist’s life revolves around stories. And stories of Paul will be heard as long as any who worked with him or knew him gather in those barrooms around the world where the day’s brutality is somehow surmounted with laughter and a comradeship of equality and honor.”

Rest in Peace, Paul.  -Ed)


Blaze Starr

Blaze Starr was a classy lady!  So was her "act."
Remember, this was the early 60's, before this country went insane.

Everyone who knew Blaze, knew her as a loving, generous, kind, and very savvy business person.

With a great sense of humor.

The Baltimore Sun newspaper reported that shortly before her death, she had been very worried about her pet dog, who died shortly before she did.

I have no doubt that contributed to her passing.

-Ed

'I think, therefore I am"

Rene Descartes

The "father of modern philosophy," The French philosopher Rene Descartes said that sometime around 1625.

But that's "sooooo  yesterday."

Todays enlightened philosophy might as well be "I am what I think I am."

Back in the 1940's there was a popular childrens radio show called "Lets Pretend."

That could be what this period in American Cultural history will eventually be titled.

Although "Alice in Wonderland" will come in a close second.

I want to share this photo collection that's going around the internet with you.

My thanks to my old friend from Piedmont Junior High, Dick Ratcliffe for passing it on to me.

-Ed

AUTODIDACTISM

(Autodidactism = self education)

My two oldest grandchildren (the twins) started college last Fall.

Although I kept my big mouth shut, I was really conflicted about it.   The education racket today, particularly at the University level,  is very little more than anti-American indoctrination.

However, they've got us between a rock and a hard place.  A liberal Art degree from most colleges isn't worth the paper it's
written on (as far as true knowledge is concerned), but without it, very few companies will hire you.  They use that piece of paper as an invitation to be interviewed by prospective employers.  It's simply a "shortcut." 

It's a Hell of a price to pay for an "admission" ticket.

Some of the smartest people I've ever known were those with the least “schooling.”

I'm not talking about the “least educated.”

The ones I'm talking about are those who are “self educated” going way beyond what any “formal institution can offer. There's a big difference.

The solution is "self education."

But realistically, that won't work, because it goes against "human nature."  It takes a very special person to discipline himself enough to become truly "educated."  

Besides, you still won't have that paper ticket.

I've heard it said that all we ever “learn” is what we teach ourselves. I think that's true. Even with the help of “professors and instructors” it's up to each one of us to “hit the save button” in our brain.

One of the best examples of the modern “self educated” man is perhaps Eric Hoffer,

the “Longshoreman Philosopher.”Before he burst onto the National Screen with his first book, “The True Believer,” Hoffer had worked as a migrant laborer in the California fields and after being turned down by the Army because of his eyesight in 1942, he became a Longshoreman in San Francisco.He lived by himself in a single room, owned next to nothing except his work clothes, some writing supplies and a library card.

No one is sure of Hoffer's early life.  His own tale of his mother falling while holding him as a child resulting in his being blind for his first 15 years for example doesn't pass the "smell" test.  It would, however, explain the absence of any school records. Most other records of his early years are also missing.

I think the best guess is that he was an illegal Jewish immigrant from Germany and was hiding that fact since back then he could have been deported at any time.

Whatever...we are richer for having had his wisdom.

Enjoy

"To grow old is to grow common. Old age equalizes...we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time. When we are young, we act as if we were the first young people in the world."

"The greatest weariness comes from work not done.

"An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.”

"In a world of change, the learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned shall find themselves perfectly suited for a world that no longer exists.”

"You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.”
― Eric Hoffer 

"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.” 
― Eric Hoffer

“Anger is the prelude to courage.”

It has often been said that power corrupts, but it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness too corrupts.  Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance and suspicion are the faults of weakness.  The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them, but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them.  They feel our generosity as oppression."

"Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy...the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation."

"Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength."



Finally,  Hoffer on education itself:




"The central task of education is to implant a will and a 

facility for learning; it should produce not learned, but

learning people. The truly human society is a learning 

society 

where grandparents, parents, and children are students

together.

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the 

future 


The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a

 world that no longer exists."

Mr. Hoffer's first book, ''The True Believer,'' was published in 1951. He continued working along the docks as a member of the International Longshoreman's and Warehouseman's Union and wrote between work assignments.

He left the docks in 1967. In 1970 he withdrew from public life, saying: ''I'm going to crawl back into my hole where I started. 

“There is no greater threat to sanity than the taking of one’s life too seriously. No one will miss us long when we are gone. No one will lose his appetite because we are no more.”

Eric Hoffer left this world in 1983.

-Ed

Other famous autodidacts:

• Playwright George Bernard Shaw left formal education while still in his mid-teens to become a clerk at an estate firm. He compared schools to prison and said that "I did not learn anything at school."^[8]

• Ernest Hemingway, the American novelist and short story writer, was primarily self-educated after high school. "... he read for hours at a time in bed", recounted his sister Marcelline. "He read everything around the house—all the books, all the magazines, even the AMAJournals from Dad's office downstairs. Ernie also took out great numbers of books from the public library."^[9] His father wanted him to go to Oberlin for college, but Hemingway decided to become a reporter for the Kansas City Star.^[10]

• Louis L'Amour, an author who left his home at the age of 15 to expand his horizons and worked many jobs while educating himself.
• Ray Bradbury, author of fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery novels, graduated from high school but did not attend college. In regard to his education, Bradbury was quoted as saying:

“

Libraries raised me. I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.[11]

”

• Rudolph Dirks, one of the earliest and most noted comic strip artists, was an autodidact.^[12] He sold his first cartoon to a local newspaper when he was 13. For a while, he mainly designed ads. 17 years old, he sold cartoons to magazines like Life und Judge. With jobs like cover images for pulp novels he made his living until the New York Journal hired him, where he earned fame as creator ofThe Katzenjammer Kids.
• Alan Moore, creator of the graphic novels V for Vendetta and Watchmen.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• William Shakespeare He did not attend university, but read widely and had a broad knowledge of politics, history, literature, law, and many other subjects as evidenced by his plays.
• etc. etc. etc...

Loose Ends

As soon as I start telling someone a story, the rubber band that controls the memory section of my mind begins to unwind often resulting in a veritable flood of memories that I had forgotten I had remembered.

That sentence may someday make the English Language textbooks as the worst opening to an article every written. Oh well, Maybe I'll be famous for something yet.

Anyway, I'll add a couple of things the  WSOC story reminded me of.  First of all,  I hope I didn't leave the impression the COX management's clumsy handling of the takeover of WSOC-TV is typical of their entire operation. Indeed, that's not the case. They are a highly respected media conglomerate who own 14 Television stations and just about everything else you can think of.

So they must be doing something right.

Their mishandling of the WSOC transition in my opinion had to be simply the result of a temporary case of poor judgement by probably no more than one or two executives. I heard that everything improved and pretty much got back to normal at the station not long after I left.

Mmmmmmm.....maybe I was the problem.  ?

But I'll mention one more bizare thing they did....which was hilarious....and, in fact, might have been the straw that broke their "we are superior and you boobs don't know anything" backs.

Remember, early on they actually told us that they didn't want our ideas or input. That was actually written, in so many words, later in an official memo.

In fact, that was the internal announcement that informed us about a big promotion they had dreamed

up.  They were going to hold a citywide contest to Name the WSOC Building!   You know, something "big time"....like "30 Rock"  or something. Anything but just plain old WSOC-TV.

"That was soooo.....yesterday!"

The memo went on to remind us that they didn't need...or want....our help.

Well, they had the contest...and made a big production out of announcing the winner...and the winning name....was:

 GREEN ACRES!

I'm sure that sounded pretty good to our new bosses from Atlanta, but any Charlottean could have told them that name was already taken way back in 1900 by our famous County landmark, the OLD FOLKS HOME aka Green Acres.

Someone must have mentioned that to the new management people, because I never heard WSOC -TV referred to by that name.

I think the geniuses from Atlanta just pretended the contest never happened.

You could almost hear the Camel's back breaking.

Meanwhile I was trucking on up highway US 1 toward Washington.  54 years later, I can still almost see my 25 year old self walking totally cold into the big CBS Television Station in Washington and asking for a job.
I was told there had been an opening for a "summer replacement announcer" ...but unfortunately it was filled the week before.

As I turned to leave, the man said, 'However, since you drove all the way up here from Charlotte, we will at least let you make an audition tape."  (That was like saying, "We will keep your resume in our files.")

Well, with all the "pressure" off of me, knowing I wasn't going to get the job, I must have "nailed" that audition tape, because 2 days later after I had returned home, WTOP called and offered me a "full time" job.  Of course, I accepted.

The job opening that had been filled the week before I went to Washington was for a summer replacement announcer only, which meant, it would most likely come to an end in the Fall.  The summer guy and I had become good friends by then and I hated to see him go, but station management reminded him that Ed Myers/Lee Shephard had been hired to fill the full time spot so his contract was up.

However, there was an opening in the News Department for a reporter...and that was offered to him. But Sam had a problem with that because news reporters were paid almost half of what announcers made at that time since announcers were the backbone of Television stations; performing as kiddie show hosts, news anchors, public service shows...anything locally produced involved an announcer. WTOP TV had a staff of 10.

But I strongly advised him to take it, and like to think that I might have played a small role in convincing Sam Donaldson to go into the TV news business.

For years Sam was the highest paid journalist in the entire country.

-Ed

Sam Donaldson

Six Marines

My first job after college in 1958 was with the "almost brand new" TV station in Charlotte, WSOC-TV.
I took over the job of the 11 o'clock "news reader" from Brooks Lindsey, who, the station would discover later was "born" to be Joey the Clown.

I was proud to become part of channel 9's announcing staff which

included Jimmy Kilgo, Jack Callaghan and Bob Provence, who was also the "program director."  Bob was the fellow who actually hired me.  The station had been on the air for only a year when I got there and we were operating out of the transmitter site off highway 29, while our new headquarters were being built on North Tryon Street, right behind the WSOC Radio building (which I noticed recently is no longer there.)

  Channel 9 was owned locally by a group of investors by the name of the Jones Group along with Earl Gluck (a real radio pioneer who helped start WBT and WSOC radio) and Larry Walker (an entrepreneur and WBT musician) and a few others.

I saw it as the perfect place to plant my flag and dream of a gold watch someday.

But just about a year and a half later the station was sold to a big conglomerate out of Atlanta called he "Cox" Corporation and they almost immediately transformed it into their image. Instead
of "hanging around" after broadcasts, brainstorming and sharing ideas, the new bosses let us know that we were to leave the premises immediately after our shows or shifts....and to make sure we did, they installed a "Time Clock."

Well that Time Clock did it for me.

As soon as I got a few days off, I drove up to Washington to check out the job market in that big time town and hit it at just the right moment.

My life was forever changed.  That's not to say there weren't plenty of "ups and downs"...after all, that 6 year old little boy on East 5th street had already determined that I was going to be in that topsy/turvy business of radio and TV...come Hell or high water.

Well there was plenty of that too, Hell and high water, but probably not much more than everyone else has had to deal with.

At least, I never had to punch a time clock again.

But that part of this WSOC-TV story is merely bitching compared to the truly tragic story of what happened to one of the other announcers around that time.

Jack Callahan was 31 years old in 1959.  He performed as a "kiddie show" host on channel 9, calling himself  Captain Jack, an old and wise sea captain. He and Jimmy Kilgo also served as Channel 9's weather reporters.  One night after the 11 o'clock Report, Jack told me he had an awful cold and might not be able to do the show the following night.

I learned the next day that Jack's doctor had sent him to the hospital....suffering from Polio.

The "damage" was setting in at that very moment...and we wouldn't know how bad it would be until later that night.

It was bad.  

Jack would never walk again.

He was way past the age of most polio victims and in addition had been inoculated with the Salk vaccine which had become available in1955.

No doubt, the love and support of his wife and friends were of enormous help, particularly one of his boyhood friends from his hometown of Cleveland. I believe his name was Paul...I had met him a year or so before this all happened.  He was a few years older than Jack and served in WW2.

His was a fascinating story.  He was involved in the early fighting in the Pacific and for nearly 4 years his family had heard nothing from him.  The last thing they had seen was a picture of him in LIFE magazine lying "wounded" on some island. 
Meanwhile, he had been captured by the Japanese. His legs were in very bad shape and gangrene had set in.

To save his life, both legs had to be amputated above the knee. This was done by his fellow prisoners.

After he told me this story, I remember mumbling something like..."Oh my GOD.......did you have any kind of anesthetic...or....."

"Oh yes," he said.   "I had an anesthetic.......

Six Marines holding me down."

Before I left WSOC-TV, Jack had returned and resumed his announcing and weather forecasting with the help of a wheelchair.  I learned later that he was maneuvering so well with braces and crutches that people hardly noticed his infirmity.

I'm just guessing, but I think Paul's support might have been just the thing that pushed the button in Jack's brain that held up a sign saying, "WHAT THE HELL IS A LITTLE THING LIKE POLIO....AND ALL THAT CRAP...I'VE GOT THE REST OF MY LIFE TO LIVE"

Jack became Vice President and General Manager of WSOC-TV and served until his death 15 years ago.

Rest Well, Captain Jack!

-Ed

The "Magnificent Eleven"

A couple of the radio stations I worked for in the early 50's had a policy of telling announcers and DJs NOT to mention the word Television.  They were deathly afraid that TV was going to "Kill" radio.

Hollywood thought the same thing.

But all it did was change them.

Not so for Life magazine.  TV killed it.

But what a legacy!

Victory over Japan

Kent State

Learning of President Roosevelt's Death

 

Robert Capa

On June 6th 1944 Life Magazine photographer Robert Capa came ashore with the men of the 16th Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division.  He took 106 pictures in the first 2 hours of the invasion. He returned to London with the unprocessed rolls of film where, the story goes, a staff member at LIFE made a mistake in the darkroom and set the dryer too high and melted the emulsion on the negatives in three complete rolls and over half of a fourth.

Only eleven frames were recovered.

And all of those were blurry!

Frankly, that story sounds a little "fishy" to me.

Others a lot more knowledgeable than I have said the same thing.  However it's easy to forgive a man landing on a beach under such God awful circumstances  as those...for making any number of mistakes with his camera...that may have been the real cause of the blank footage.

Interestingly enough, he never said anything about it to the LIFE film lab involved.

Nevertheless, the frames that were exposed have become known as the "Magnificent Eleven"...and many believe that their "blurriness" adds to their dramatic impact.

There was also another LIFE magazine photographer who landed in the first wave of the invasion. His name was Bob Landry, but all of his film was lost....and even his shoes. 

Whenever great "War photographers" are mentioned, Robert Capa's name is usually first.  He
redefined the definition by joining soldiers in the trenches and documenting their battles in close up detail.

His first war assignment was the Spanish Civil war during which he became well known for his photograph of a soldier at the exact moment he was killed.

Perhaps Capa's most memorable quote is:

"If your pictures are not good enough, it means that you are not close enough."

Capa was killed in 1954 while in Viet Nam covering  the first Indochina War, when he stepped on a land mine.

So much for being "close enough."

He was 40 years old.

-Ed