Uncategorized

Around the World by Zeppelin

54 Comments

At about this time in the Summer of 1929 the German Airship Graf Zeppelin started on a voyage around the world.

In case you’re wondering what’s the difference between a Zeppelin, a Dirigible and a Blimp, I will tell you that only one of them is an easy word for Americans to say and to spell. Other differences are explained here, at a very thorough website called airships.net.

As you read about them, it becomes clear how Zeppelins are like Windex and Jello. The name is proprietary – only lighter-than-air ships made by a certain manufacturer can be called Zeppelins.

Another surprising fact – the German aristocrat who developed them, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, had his first flight and received his inspiration for creating his namesake airship as a young man traveling far from home in … where else?.

St. Paul Minnesota, naturally.

Graf Zeppelin over the U.S. Capitol.

I know the Hindenburg disaster gave zeppelins a bad name with the floating-in-midair public, but I’m entranced by the details of the Graf Zeppelin’s planetary circumnavigation.

It took three weeks. THREE WEEKS! Who gets three weeks off for a vacation? And of those 21 days from Lakehurst, New Jersey to Lakehurst, New Jersey, 12 days were spent airborne.

With all the rushing about that we do from day to day, imagine going around the globe at roughly 72 miles per hour, seeing everything pass about 650 feet below you. That’s low enough and slow enough to actually see things. What a luxurious way to spend your late summer!

Sure, there might have been some slight concerns about suddenly plummeting out of the sky, but this was 1929 and the Roaring 20’s were at full throttle. A profound drop was coming, but not until October. In New York. On Wall Street. In the meantime, why not live it up? About 65 stories up!

What’s the most interesting sight you’ve seen from the air?

Uncategorized

Dewey Scores in 2nd OT!

71 Comments

by Bud Buck

In a shocking echo of America’s most famous incorrect headline, the New York Times sent several dozen U.S. Olympic Soccer fans into fits of despair yesterday afternoon when the “paper of record” posted an incorrect score from London. Here’s proof:

As you can see, the headline mistakenly declares Canada beat the U.S. 4-3 in overtime, when in fact the reverse was true.

The error was quickly corrected within minutes, but Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) issued an even quicker accuse-o-blurt wondering if Canadians had infiltrated key editorial positions at the newspaper.

“We already know they hate America,” Bachmann said. “And I’m not saying that a legion of Canuck editor-moles tried to undermine our democracy and attack our national pride because they’re drunk on fermented maple syrup – though they would have to be just that to think their sly trick might change reality. I’m merely asking a question.”

Moments later, Bachmann’s handlers denied any knowledge of the above quote, or they would have, had I tried to reach them.

I didn’t even call the New York Times for a comment on the blunder because it’s just too difficult to get anybody to talk to you there. But I’m guessing they’d say something like – “C’mon. It was online for just a few minutes – no biggie.”

An any rate, all this will be lost to spirited arguing over the penalty calling decisions of that Norwegian referee. In fact, the comment string on this story in the Times was so intensely focused on complaining about the calls, no one spoke up about the botched headline.

That’s what the internet has brought us – more mistakes, faster, with less attention paid. That’s my kind of reporting!

This is Bud Buck!

Yikes, it’s turning into journalism week at Trail Baboon. Although he is an extremely untrustworthy reporter, I think Bud caught a genuine error here. But it was only for only a few minutes, so really, who cares? Especially something like this, where anybody who follows the sport knew the correct score already.

How much faith do you have in online information?

Uncategorized

Headline Writers Blast NASA

67 Comments

by Bud Buck

Newspaper headline writers across America, but particularly on the densely populated East Coast, have accused NASA of “trying to ruin us,” with the awkward timing of the latest Mars mission.

“For me, this is an above-the-fold feature from hell,” said Tim Lanyard, chief headline writer for the Baltimore Defunct Doorstep Times. “First thing Monday morning it has to be the top story. Everybody is going to be talking about this event that isn’t going to happen until 1:30 am Eastern Time.”

Lanyard was referring to NASA’s plan to land Curiosity, a car-sized automated rover, on the surface of the planet Mars. The attempted landing is the most complicated and risky extra-planetary mission ever attempted, and the space agency has spent weeks trying to manage expectations while simultaneously building anticipation about the mission.

“They’ve been promoting it like an action movie,” complained Tiffany Charmes, Viral Video Reviewer at the Hartford Au Courant. “Just look at this video,” she said.

“The production values, the dramatic music, the lighting – Whether the thing lands successfully or blows up, people are bound to be entertained,” Charmes whined. “It increases the pressure for us to cover it.”

But accurate coverage of this story is nearly impossible for old-school newspapers, given NASA’s timelines.

“There’s no way we can get anything about Curiosity’s successful landing or horrendous crash into the earliest morning edition. By 1:30 am, we have to have the dang paper printed and headed for the trucks,” said Jonah Perry, V.P. for S.T.P. (Stop The Presses) at the Boston Ink Stained Wretch. Right now, the headline I’m going with is ‘Mars Thing Happens!’ The sub-head is ‘Check Our Website’. It’s killing me to do that, but I’m nearly dead from a bunch of other bad habits anyway.”

Headline writers also ripped NASA for scheduling the showy maneuver so close to the mid-point of the 2012 Olympic Games.

“With a successful mission, the urge to go with something like ‘NASA Sticks Landing’ is going to be irresistible,” said Alice Strug, Manager of Originality at the Charlotte Breakfast-Placemat. “It will make our heads explode to avoid it, but we’ll have to. Conversely, she said, a botched landing will beg for some kind of auto-crash parallel. ‘NASA Car Hits Planet’ is a headline I’d both love and hate to run.”

All of this hand wringing is further evidence that printing current events on dead trees has become awkward and almost unmanageable in today’s constant news cycle. Of course, by the time you read this, up-to-the-minute and accurate accounts of what actually happened will be available online, which some readers will say makes this whole discussion pointless.

Maybe so, but my deadline was last night and I had to having something turned in. I’m not a morning person, so deal with it.

This is Bud Buck, reporting!

Bud Buck is a journalist of questionable merit. It is quite possible he has invented most, or all of his sources and quotes – something not unheard of in today’s (or yesterday’s) news environment. His work on Trail Baboon is featured as a favor to an old friend, and as a direct result of editorial laziness.

You know what really happened. Write your own Curiosity landing headline.

Uncategorized

Vote for Me! Like Me!

73 Comments

As speed picks up in the run towards election day, candidates, parties and interest groups will try to influence turnout among their loyalists. If you haven’t heard it yet, elections belong to those who show up. Or at least to those with the best legal team to manage the recount.

Ideas to re-arrange our system have ranged from two-day voting to voting on weekends to making Election Day a national holiday. Or simply requiring that everyone cast a ballot or be fined. All worthy of consideration, except that last one.

Right now it’s a chore and an interruption. You have to travel to some community room or a church that you only go to on Election Day, wait for the judge to find you on the printout, take your ballot to the tiny desk on spindly legs, remember how to use a pencil, and let the guessing begin!

Those who consistently go to the trouble of voting in the General Elections and the Primary (August 14th!) do so out of civic pride, genuine involvement in and respect for participatory democracy, habit, spite, and of course, the little red “I Voted” lapel sticker.

That sticker is the one frivolous and fun element in the whole process. What do we spend on those, anyway? Look for that municipal budget line to come under attack from the tax scolds, if it hasn’t already. Why are you wasting my hard-earned dollars on stickers for old people? Can’t they re-use the ones they kept from 1948? This is robbery!

Where’s the delight, the whimsy, and the outright fun in voting?

It appears to have moved online, where it is always Election Day.

Just yesterday, I elected to endorse a new Ice Cream flavor that I may someday have the opportunity to eat. Beth-Ann’s idea for Mini-sota Donut Ice Cream is before the electorate right now and they payoff could appear in my local freezer case by next year. In terms of how things move politically, that would be a speed-of-lightning result. Already it’s more satisfying than my vote for McGovern in 1972. And in the Ice Cream Election, you get to leave comments when you vote – something we won’t be able to do in the margins surrounding those Constitutional Amendments without spoiling the ballot.

Another online electoral process I’ve enjoyed lately is the opportunity to send Target Gift Cards to schools. Each Facebook “like” equals one dollar. Every group of 25 “likes” releases a $25 gift card and you get the chance to vote once a week between now and September 8. Each school is limited to a total haul of ten thousand dollars, but so far no one is close. The leading school so far (a faith-based Pennsylvania Prep Academy) is just over 800. My personal choice is Craigmont High, a public high school in Memphis, Tennessee, where my son Gus will start work as a math teacher this Monday morning. They’ve just earned their first gift card – enough for six 12-count boxes of Crayola Erasable Twist Colored Pencils.

If these ideas seem too frivolous, you can always direct resources to famine relief in Africa by taking a moment to “like” the two-person Olympic team from Somalia. Both members of the squad lost their races yesterday to people who didn’t have to train on city streets pockmarked by explosion craters. But their participation in London means you still have the opportunity to vote for humanitarian aid with the click of a mouse.

Remarkable.

How would you change Election Day to make it more engaging and fun?

Uncategorized

Easy Crafts for a Summer Afternoon

85 Comments

Today is do-anything-yourself maven Martha Stewart’s birthday. She’s 71.
We had a party for her at the house but of course she wasn’t able to come, being occupied with numerous projects and always on call for emergencies with her company, which is so far reaching and ever present it is not merely about “media”, but “Omnimedia.”

You can make something useful out of these!

Since Martha always enters our house through the black box in the corner, I ran down to the basement looking for raw material and fashioned a festive TV frame in her honor using discarded cereal boxes, pine cones, twine, golf balls, crafter’s clay, shoelaces, clothing scraps, dog hair, beach toys, sun-bleached chicken bones, pocket games, VCR tapes, Elmer’s Glue and lots and lots of glitter. I would show you a picture of the finished product but in the terrible mess that was left behind I seem to have misplaced the camera. And my phone.

Also, I haven’t see the dog for a few hours.

But Martha is an inspiration, whether she’s throwing a fabulous party, making a delightful memory book, or trading on insider information. You also have to give her credit for not letting a stint in the hoosegow break her, even though small people like me keep bringing it up. We also tend to point to unflattering articles that make her out to be some sort of irrational control freak. Some folks are so gauche.

Still, things haven’t gone so well of late. The company has lost money in nine of the last ten years, and stock values have fallen off 21% in the past year. But with some push pins, rubber bands and a little bit of adhesive tape, you can make those slumping shares look perky and fresh!

And speaking of simple things done quickly and well, musing about Martha and exploiting all those tired stereotypes about her craftiness has made it possible for me to put together this lovely, lovely blog in just a few short minutes on a beautiful summer afternoon!

How absolutley charming!

What do you make from scratch?

Uncategorized

Globular Clusters

70 Comments

I was delighted to find this treasure in my mailbox yesterday – a photo of a clump of stars about 20 thousand light years from our solar system.

Image credit: ESA/NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope is responsible for capturing the image of these very old stars known under the title “Messier 107“. They’ve been blazing away in the night (and daytime) sky for billions of years.

Messier 107 is a globular cluster – a defining name given to about 150 collections of stars located around the Milky Way.

Globular Clusters would also be an excellent name for a breakfast cereal.
All that’s missing is the technology to make crunchy bits that glow with an intense light when milk is added. Dark chocolate milk of course – to keep the deep space feel of things.

How hard would that be?

I know cereals don’t have jingles anymore, but this one should! Although you’ll have to make up your own tune.

Globular Clusters can’t be beat.
You can eat ’em with sugar, with fruit, with meat.
They’ll twinkle and sparkle and rock your bowl
‘Cause each box comes with a free black hole.

Globular Clusters every day!
They’re bright as stars in the Milky Way.
They’re packed with energy, there’s no doubt.
And time itself cannot snuff them out!

Globular Clusters – count them all.
There’s great big taste in each blazing ball
A fusion of flavor in every one!
Your breakfast will shine like the morning sun.

Globular Clusters!

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Uncategorized

The Gaffe App

63 Comments

Today’s post comes from the elected representative of all of Minnesota’s water surface Area, the Honorable Loomis Beechly.

Beechly Harangues Anglers

Greetings Constitutents!

I see that Presidential Candidate Milt Romney is going to announce his Vice Presidential pick through a special Veep App, and he’s offering his followers and adherents a chance to be among the first to know by downloading the software pronto!

That’s super clever! Social media is the future – at least that’s what I hear people saying around the old water cooler and over the backyard fence! Any politician who has something that people really desperately want should be like Mint Romney and have an app written to deliver it. By doing it that way, current and would-be office holders can get a head start with all their digital socializing – collecting names and addresses and matching those names up with pet issues and hot buttons so they can tailor their campaign pitch to appeal to each individual voter.

That’s where we’re going – political marketing on a person-by-person basis. Of course, selling any candidate is super-difficult because most politicians don’t have anything that the people really want.

I know I don’t.

One exception would be if I suddenly had a bunch of money to hand out.
Or if I had some good-paying jobs to bestow on people. But if I had those, I’d probably want to set up a patronage system where bootlickers and sycophants would give me campaign contributions to get the jobs for themselves or their relatives.

Aside from forking over really sweet gifts like money and jobs, politics is pretty much all about inside baseball. I don’t think your average app consumer is going to get very hyped up about being the first one to know whether the Veep is Pawlenty or Portman. How could anyone? The news just isn’t that compelling.

One thing politicians do have that people find fascinating – we have the ability to create gaffes. So don’t say Government can’t produce anything!

Gaffes are small or large-sized mistakes that turn into content engines – drawing eyeballs to websites and even old-style analog media platforms. I have no idea what I just said, but I’m told that a good gaffe can be worth millions to the media company that’s ready to exploit it. And one great Gaffe Fact – they’re always part of the GDP (Gaffe Domestic Product). Even if you manufacture a bunch of gaffes overseas like Mutt Romney just did, they’re always going to be American made.

And that’s why I’m thinking I should create an app to serve that need – a Gaffe App. Think of it – the Loomis Beechly Gaffe App would notify you whenever I’ve insulted a foreign head of state or belittled an entire city or nation, or if I’ve made policy off the cuff, or if I said something incredibly stupid or misinformed or if I just got somebody’s name wrong! The information would come to you so fast, you’d know I’ve goofed up even before I do!

I’m not sure Miff is savvy enough to come up with that kind of technical innovation, but I think I am! I just don’t know if I’m as good as he is at creating the gaffes. But I’ll try, because I think an Amercia that produces things is the kind of place I want to be from, no matter where I say or what I go!

Your Dedicated Public Servant,
Loomis Beechly

Have you ever produced an app-worthy gaffe?
If not, try to identify all of Congressman Beechly’s gaffes in today’s post!

Poems

The Song of Hotter Water

38 Comments

Lake Superior, the coldest of the Great Lakes, is warmer right now than many old timers can remember at the end of July. And it may set a record for high surface temperature yet this year.

Which turns tradition on its head.

But one thing remains the same. Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha” is still the easiest poem on Earth to parody.

By the shores of Gitchee Gummi
By the boiling big sea water
Wrapped in towels there stood the bathers
Wrapped so not to moon the neighbors

There to feel the heat of sauna
There to feel the water bubble
In the Summer of the hotness
Came they there to sweat together

Watched they as the waves came crashing
Crashing on the rocks of Tofte
Black rocks baking in the sunlight
Water turns to steam at contact

Clouds of steam like in a sauna
Ancient steamy wood enclosure
by the lake it sits, neglected
With an A/C in the window

Father Nature pours his waters
on the rocks and steam arises
Now the Lake itself so hot
that bathers cannot breathe beside it

Now they’ve cooked themselves completely
Now they look for cooling waters
Waters right for skinny dipping
What the Lake once gave them freely

Gitchee Gummi, boiling cauldron
is the sauna now, a devil!
So the bathers run instead
inside where it is air conditioned

Shrieking as their skin is shocked
by air from Kenmore in the window
Shrieking as they did before
when jumping in the lake of yore.

Will this be the hottest summer ever?

Uncategorized

Pirates at Seats

58 Comments

The London Olympics has an empty seat crisis. Fortunately, professional usurpers are standing by. Today’s post comes from International Fugitive From Justice Captain Billy of the pirate ship Muskellunge.

Artist’s Approximation of Captain Billy

Ever go to a thing where ya thought yer seat was reserved, only to find another booty in th’ bucket?

Aye!

In all th’ realm of piracy an it’s various manifestations, attempted theft of a reserved seat is one of me most favorites! Why? Because it requires th’ perpetrator to do some actin’, an’ we pirates loves to act.

‘Tis a simple process. Ya picks th’ best empty seat ya can find an’ takes up residence there with yer best air of entitlement. If somebody comes along with th’ real ticket fer that seat, ya goes into yer act.

“Oh heavens me! That ain’t possible – this here’s me seat. Lemmee see th’ ticket. Hmmm. I’m quite certain me ticket has th’ very same numbers … though it ain’t in me pocket at th’ moment …”

An’ so forth an so on.

Eventually ya may have to move, of course. But along th’ way ya does yer best to get as many people as ya can to stand up an’ check their seat numbers. This time of confusion an emotion is th’ very best time to remove wallets from pants pockets an’ lift coin purses from handbags. Especially if’n th’ event is one of them what attracts th’ moneyed elite.

I can tell ya that there is nothin’ that calls out to me quite like a row of empty seats at a venue like them Olympics. All th’ majesty an’ pageantry of sport, plus all them Gold Medals! Not to mention Silver an’ Bronze! I reckon there’s got to be a vault somewhere on site what’s just loaded with precious metals, already festooned wi’ ribbons fer easy carryin’.

Aye! Me an’ me boys would surely love to be there.

I can assure ya that as spectators we is as lusty as they come – much more so than them English folks. An’ as men officially without countries, we’d be delighted to lift our voices for whomever. No petty allegiances will keep us from cheerin’ our hearts out fer th’ swimmer from Malawi, or th’ gymnast from Indonesia, or that random person who marched in with the team from India, minus credentials an’ wearin’ th’ wrong clothes.

An’ by givin Olympic tickets to th’ world’s pirates, there’s always a chance we’ll be so enthralled by th’ spectacle of sports, we’ll be tempted to join th’ law-abidin’ citizens of th’ world in livin’ upstandin’, responsible lives from here on out.

Har!

Yer Seafarin’ Buddy,
Captain Billy

I doubt the Captain and his crew will receive invitations to do spectator duty at these security conscious Olympic games, but it does raise the question – how big a problem is international seat piracy?

Ever find some stranger sitting in your place?

Uncategorized

Ask Dr. Babooner

75 Comments

Dear Dr. Babooner,

I’m happy when the Olympics come around, and also very, very sad.

I could have been on the U.S. Water Polo team at the Montreal Games in 1976. I had devoted myself to the task of becoming good enough – spending eight hours a day at the public pool in my town, pushing the other kids out of the way, taking their pool toys and throwing them out on the deck. I know it seems mean but these are the skills that lead to success.

Water polo is a surprisingly aggressive sport.

By the time the tryouts came along, I was toned and fit and fearsome. And things weren’t as systematic and regimented as they are today. There were no Water Polo Academies or WPL superstars saturating the gossip culture with their post-match escapades. It was a much simpler time when a common bully from the neighborhood pool could make the team, and I did!

I thought I was going to the Olympics! But I was wrong – our team was divided by infighting and several of the key players struggled with chlorine rashes. We didn’t make it past the qualifying round, and when the athletes marched in Montreal, I watched it on the black and white TV over the snack bar back at our local pool, crying while I took french fries off the plate of the kid next to me and dared him to complain about it.

I considered trying out for the 1980 team but my parents insisted that I get a job and then came the Moscow boycott. By the time the 1984 games came along, I had lost the kick in my legs and was useless in the pool.

I thought of offering myself as team equipment manager just to be in the arena, but water polo suits are so tiny there’s really not much there to manage. It involves carrying a suitcase, and anyone can do that. The coach had a girlfriend with a free hand, so my career was over.

Dr. Babooner, how can I learn to enjoy the Olympics, when all I can think of is What Might Have Been?

Sincerely,
Still Treading Water

I told Still Treading Water that he might be elderly, but he sure hasn’t grown up. He needs to get over himself and let go of the past. Participating in the Olympics is special exactly because not everyone gets to do it. Still’s failure to qualify actually adds to the prestige of The Games, though not in the way he expected.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?