The Carnival Returns

That time of year again and as the rides and booths arrive and fill the parking lot across from the middle school the excitement builds (and my dread level rises as my wallet level looks at a big decrease). My grandkids have made comments about it the past two mornings in a row so I figured I’d mention this in my blog today.

The younger one just wants to go. The older one would easily fit in with the unsupervised teen mob that roams on weekend nights, the time I always avoid. Interestingly enough he doesn't want to go then because all his friends will want to ride rides he is too afraid to ride. Maybe that is putting it too bluntly. Perhaps the wilder rides (and stomach churners) are just not what he considers fun, but basically he doesn't want to chicken out in front of his friends. I used to love roller coasters but I am content with the Ferris wheel now and even that requires coaxing with these guys.

The other predominant comment was the one about the guy that was killed at the carnival last year. Didn't someone get killed by a ride last year? That was the question I decided to research. From personal experience I know a past student of mine actually broke a bone tripping on the way up the ramp to get on the Himalaya. This happened a few years back and could not be misconstrued and called a death. Apparently a worker was too close to a moving ride and did get knocked unconscious by one last year. According to all reports he was tended to by the local EMS peeps and survived. The only deaths I found in my extensive research were the mysterious deaths of goldfish won on the midway. The carnival does have a website you can go to (for a coupon-$5 off wrist bands, family packs and $2 off a ten dollar food purchase-they only take printed paper coupons no phone coupons) and the dates and times for this year’s appearance. Here is the web address, http://www.dreamlandamusements.com/. You can find the safety standard section too but no mention of the goldfish there either even though that’s the one thing other than an empty wallet and a tummy ache that my younger grandson will want to bring home.    

Don’t Forget DST Tonight!

Got this lovely email from my better half explaining tonight’s spring ahead! (He does a much better job with this than I did last year!)

Don't forget to set your clocks ahead one hour at 2 a.m. Sunday morning as we enter Daylight Savings.

American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin wrote an essay called "An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light" to the editor of The Journal of Paris in 1784. In the essay, he suggested, although jokingly, that Parisians could economize candle usage by getting people out of bed earlier in the morning, making use of the natural morning light instead.

A major contributor to the invention of DST was New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson. In 1895, Hudson presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society, proposing a two-hour shift forward in October and a two-hour shift back in March.

Germany was the first country to implement DST. Clocks there were first turned forward at 11:00 p.m. (23:00) on April 30, 1916. In the U.S., Daylight Saving Time - or "fast time", as it was called then was first introduced in 1918 when President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law to support the war effort during World War I. The initiative was sparked by Robert Garland, a Pittsburgh industrialist who had encountered the idea in the United Kingdom. A passionate campaigner for the use of DST in the United States, he is often called the "father of Daylight Saving". In the United States, DST caused widespread confusion from 1945 to 1966 for trains, buses and the broadcasting industry because states and localities were free to choose when and if they would observe DST. Congress decided to end the confusion and establish the Uniform Time Act of 1966 that stated DST would begin on the last Sunday of April and end on the last Sunday of October. However, states still had the ability to be exempt from DST by passing a local ordinance. The U.S. Congress extended DST to a period of ten months in 1974 and eight months in 1975, in hopes to save energy following the 1973 oil embargo. The trial period showed that DST saved the energy equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil each day, but DST still proved to be controversial. Many complained that the dark winter mornings endangered the lives of children going to school. After the energy crisis was over in 1976, the U.S. changed their DST schedule again to begin on the last Sunday in April. DST was amended again to begin on the first Sunday in April in 1987. Further changes were made after the introduction of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Daylight Saving Time (sometimes called Daylight Savings Time) is now in use in over 70 countries worldwide and affects over a billion people every year.

And now you know the rest of the story..... 

Linguistic Fingerprints

My husband has a saying about if you don’t have it in writing you don’t have squat. This is even more true now than ever before because textual sleuths find clues these days, not in fingerprints or handwriting, but in word choice, spelling, punctuation, character sequences and in subtle (and usually subconscious) patterns of sentence structure. Forensic linguistics has a controversial subspecialty, author identification, and authors are identified through these clues found in the treasure trove of written communication we create everyday…in email, in texts and in tweets. Private companies want to find out which disgruntled employee has been posting bad stuff about the boss online. Police and prosecutors seek help figuring out who wrote a threatening e-mail or whether a suicide note was a forgery and forensic linguistics seek to provide answers. There are debates about the acceptability of this new science in courts of law now but as error rates drop and techniques become more refined forensic linguistics will become more important. The new whodunit will become a who wrote it, something to think about the next time you consider posting a rant on Face Book!

Fight Blight? There’s an App for that!

In Jacksonville there’s a new app for fighting blight. You can put this app on your smartphone and then when you see blight you can just snap a photo, send, and the city gets the photo and location, no muss, no fuss, and no long wait on hold. The actual fight is then up to the city but at least by using the app you can get the ball rolling. The other, somewhat obvious, alternative would be to get down and dirty, and fight it yourself. In other words, go one on one with the blight. If it is litter you could pick it up and properly dispose of it or (here’s a novel idea) consider not littering in the first place. Maybe St. Marys needs an app like this…or just a few less litterbugs!

Rabbits with Reefer Madness!

Yep, wildlife living the wild life is just another possible side effect of the legalization of marijuana. Rabbits in particular are apparently attracted to and especially fond of weed. A DEA agent, Matt Fairbanks told a Utah state senate hearing about how in the course of his marijuana eradication work, he had encountered animals, including rabbits, that had developed a taste for the drug and how when under the influence these same rabbits lose their natural instincts to run away. This was presented as one of the most recent arguments against the legalization of medical marijuana there but it seems pretty moot since medical marijuana is supposed to be grown and produced indoors where a wild hare dare not usually travel. All I know is whenever I see a bunny nibbling away on the tender grass along the roadside you can bet I’ll be wondering whether or not it plans to take off as I near it and just what kind of grass it’s been nibbling on. And as for the Easter Bunny and what’s in your basket…..that’s a topic for another day!

Political Conservatives Going Green

Sundogs in St. Marys

Green renewable energy, like solar power is a movement that actually unites grassroots political activists from the left and the right, even though the issues involving the green energy movement in this country are more often associated with liberals. Getting both parties (Dems and Republicans) behind these renewable energy issues is a good thing because solar energy companies still need protection from the better funded (big business) fossil fuel people (the ones more often associated with Republicans). Even though the right and left have different motivations for seeing solar power succeed the simple idea that both political opposites actually support the same issue and find some common ground is a really good place to be. Hope it can be a jumping off point for bipartisanship in other issues too.

Blogger Hacked to Death with Machetes

I really wish this was just a funny title for a blog post but it isn't. Since 2004 four bloggers in Bangladesh have been attacked and most recently two writers murdered by those representing opposing religious extremes. I’ll be blunt. Avijit Roy received numerous death threats from Islamic militant groups prior to his murder by machetes last Thursday. Roy was the founder of the Mukto-Mona (Free-mind) blog, and he was killed inside Dhaka University, a bastion of secularism and free speech in the Muslim-majority nation of Bangladesh. The attack also left Roy’s wife seriously injured and is being condemned by the U.S. as a shocking act of violence. Rest in Peace Avijit Roy and may your killers know that though they succeeded in murdering you, your words live on and cannot be unwritten.