Ever put a playing card in the spokes of your bike tire, or hear a noise in the engine compartment of your car that sounded like something was hitting something it wasn’t supposed to be hitting? Or maybe you’ve heard a regularly spaced bumping or scratching against the house on a windy night and your mind filled with images of zombies trying to get in, only to find in the morning that it was a tree branch rubbing against the roof of the house!

That’s the sort of thing that’s happening over Saturn, where one of the planet’s many moons, the caplet-shaped Prometheus, continues to bump into the rings, leaving a pattern behind. My favorite mechanical space explorer, the Cassini orbiter, took this picture in early June. It was posted on the Cassini website yesterday.

I say this “isn’t supposed” to be happening, but who knows what is and isn’t in the grand plan? Or if there even is a grand plan? Based on your personal beliefs, you could claim the beauty of this pattern is proof that there is a God. You could say it is proof that God is more like us because He can’t get the thingy to stop hitting the whatchamacallit. Or you could point to it as a clear signal that things are randomly arranged.

Here you can watch a video of Prometheus touching the “F” ring of Saturn, pulling a wisp of material out of it and leaving a dark channel behind. Look underneath the photo for a movie choice of Quicktime or MPEG. There is what appears to be a blackout near the end of the 13 second sequence when the scene passes through the planet’s shadow.

Because the video image is oriented with the surface of Saturn below the bottom of the frame and the F ring arched across the top, one can easily imagine from its upward motion that the elongated moon is some sea creature, just breaking the surface of the ocean and causing a ripple to run towards shore.

Ever go whale watching?

Dear Dr. Babooner,

Recently I fired an employee because others had been spreading lies about her – lies that I quickly believed because to do so was easier than uncovering the truth. Not a lot easier, though. If I had only talked to her first, I would have seen that something was wrong. Later, when I found out that the stories about this woman were exactly backwards, I had to go crawling on my knees to ask the employee to come back to work.

She refused.

Ordinarily I would never have dismissed this person, but I was worried about what people would say when they heard the lies and I thought quick, decisive action might protect me from criticism. And yet now I am being severely criticized.

Even the people who spread the lies are saying I over-reacted. These liars are also suggesting that my boss was behind the whole thing and that now I am lying to cover up for him. To be called a liar by liars – what misery! And the more I say about it, the worse it gets. Plus, the weather the past few days has been very, very hot and uncomfortable.

My antagonists made a terrible mistake, and instead of using it against them, I amplified it and made it my own. I feel like somewhere along the way I agreed to play a nasty, silly game with them, and now I can’t quit playing it even though I want to!

Dr. Babooner, how can I make this madness stop?

Secretary of Blunders

I told S.O.B. that it isn’t unusual to get drawn into a contest so deeply that you forget there is a larger world that operates under different rules than the fake ones that only govern the weird game you are playing. That’s why athletes wear uniforms. Football players know when they’ve got on their big shoulders, their tall socks and the lightning bolts or birds of prey or funny animal horns on their hats that they’re in an environment where it’s OK to knock people down. Soccer players know when they’re wearing shiny shorts they’re not allowed to use their hands. Costumes can be useful that way. Perhaps people in media and politics should wear extravagant uniforms too, especially when they’re pointing fingers at each other. That way maybe we’ll all remember this isn’t real, it is simply a game they can’t stop playing.

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

Next month Wal-Mart is going to start putting radio frequency ID tags (RFID) on some of the jeans and underwear sold in thousands of U.S. stores as a way to closely track what is on the shelves and to streamline the inventory procedures. In theory, an employee with a special gizmo will be able to wave a wand over a pile of Levi’s for men and tell you if there’s a pair in there with a 36 inch waist. It’s a shopping timesaver, if only you can find an employee to help you.

Privacy watchdogs are nervous about this development, especially if the tags become standard on consumer items of every kind. One scenario described in the Wall Street Journal had mysterious third parties driving down the alley, scanning your trash for discarded RFID tags in order to collect information about the kinds of things you buy. That’s assuming your online credit card receipts haven’t already spilled the beans. Scary? Perhaps. But as an unemployed person my first question was “Garbage Scanner … I wonder what that pays?”

Really, once you let go of any sense of privacy a whole new world opens up. RFID doesn’t have to be on a tag – it could be embedded in the clothing. Imagine a scanner that could tell you where every shirt in the house is located. On those frantic Monday mornings when you’re trying to find enough matching stuff to wear, this feature could come in handy. And what about the scientific advances? The scanner might be able to follow lost socks to a second and even a third dimension!

Add GPS to the equation and when you donate your tagged clothing to charity, you could use satellite technology to watch it disperse around the globe. “Look, honey! My old Def Leppard t-shirt just landed in Ghana!”

Take it in the opposite direction and there’s a business opportunity there to create and sell (for cash only) non-RFID tagged garments under the name “Clandestine Clothing”. No one knows you have it except the people who see you wearing it! Is it worth paying extra for that?

How “smart” do you want your clothes to be?

Yesterday, Clyde told us this story about a photograph he’d seen in a book.

My extensive research* into the man in the song we know as Ol’ Blevins, is I am glad to relate, an actual historical figure, as I suspected. The tone of the song led my correctly to place him in the West, during that time when the Ol’ West was gone but a few cragged cowboys still hung around bars to tell their tales and panhandle for a few drinks, probably between 1890 and 920. And thus I found him and can tell you his full name. In 1917 in Oregon a man named Dinkler J. Blevins published and copyrighted a photograph claiming to show a miraculous appearance of the Madonna in the sky over a western landscape. Anyone who has spent an hour or two in the darkroom recognizes how it was done as a double exposure with the enlarger. Where he picked up the darkroom skills is anyone’s guess, but roving photographers were common and studios had sprung up everywhere by then. It is a rather cheesy and easy darkroom trick. No doubt he then traveled from bar to bar hawking these prints for drinks until he developed the slurred pattern of speech represented in the song.

* While waiting for my wife at the mall entrance to Barnes and Noble last night I picked up a book called “Ghost Photos” in the last chance 50% off last price rack.

Is there anything to this? Not yet. A real legend? Could be. But a ballad would help.

Of the characters who traveled o’er the dusty western plain
There was one who seemed unlikely as a candidate for fame.
With an understated wildness too submerged to ever tame.
A bespectacled sharpshooter. Dinkler Blevins was his name.

He was focused. He was deadly. With an artists’ careful eye.
He had come from out of Oregon and if you asked him why,
He’d say “Looking to record phenomena up in the sky.”
If you questioned Dinkler Blevins any further, you might die.

Every morning before sunrise he would head up out of town.
With a horse and wagon toting all that photo gear around.
He would go into the mountains where the spirit folk are found.
Dinkler Blevins would take pictures. Dinkler Blevins would come down.

You would find him in a tavern every evening without fail.
Sitting quietly encrusted in the grime from off the trail
Staring upwards towards the ceiling. Holding close his mug of ale.
You could see that Dinkler Blevins turned a whiter shade of pale.

He’d encountered things up there that no man living can describe
Had he found the holy grail, the missing link or the lost tribe?
Cowboys tried to loosen up his tongue with liquor as a bribe.
Dinkler Blevins sat as silent as the Sphinx as he’d imbibe.

Then a saucy barmaid, Rhonda, took a fancy to this gent.
She would mock his blank façade and question how his holster bent.
She would bounce and flounce and flirt but never seemed to make a dent.
Though next morning Dinkler Blevins took her with him when he went.

They were up there for a week or more behind the mountain’s shroud.
People gathered just to gossip. What a chatty, catty crowd.
When the couple came back down they were aglow and he was proud.
Dinkler Blevins said he’d seen the blessed virgin in a cloud.

When the photograph was published, it was to a trumpet’s blare.
People rushed to see and touch and buy and talk and point and stare.
Though she looked a lot like Rhonda people didn’t seem to care.
Dinkler Blevins’ apparition – The Madonna of the Air.

This needs to be refined and could use another verse to put Dinkler J. Blevins on his barstool, talking. If you have any changes, additions or alternate versions, feel free.
In the meantime, who is your favorite western hero?

Here’s a text message from the woods!

Hey, Bart here.

Not much time to text today. I’ve got family visiting from out east.

Yeah, bears go to see their relatives! And all bears are related, so I never know who’s coming. Seems like every bear that ever there was showed up last week, and with this group – it’s always “picnic time”! They like to gaily gadabout, play and shout and never have any care. Morning, noon, night, you name it – Picnic time. If you go down in the woods today you might see us, but you better not go alone!

Three of ‘em are talking about staying. This couple and their kid came from New Jersey where the crime is terrible, they say. Their place got broken into. Some girl wandered in because she was hungry. Ate their porridge and sat in their chairs and slept in their beds. They found evidence of the break in and signs that she messed with their stuff … and when they discovered she was still there she jumped out the window and ran away! What nerve.

So now they’re hinting that they can’t go home. Something about a mob of people with guns coming after them. In New Jersey? I had no idea.

I like my relatives and I sure feel bad for them but times are tough all over and I don’t want to have guests still hanging around when I’m getting ready for hibernation. How can get the message across that it’s time to hit the road?

Bart

I told Bart he should remind his visitors that “people with guns” also go looking for bears in Minnesota, starting September first according to this chart. I think most creatures would flee a new threat to get back to something equally dangerous but more familiar. Although things might be different in New Jersey.

How long should houseguests stay?

You have a legal right to read the notes your doctor writes regarding your office visits and your treatment, but few people do it and physicians and clinics aren’t always eager to share. But a test project is underway this summer to break down some of the barriers to doctor / patient communication by making the notes more accessible. The Open Notes Project was described in a Wall Street Journal article yesterday.

Imagine sitting down at the computer a few days after your last appointment so you can explain to your spouse EXACTLY how sick you are by reviewing your doctor’s notes together. Fun! With each passing day, prime time TV fades as an entertainment choice.

Doctors’ notes are said to be as varied as any other kind of writing, sometimes terse and puzzling, other times quite detailed and descriptive, occasionally funny, barbed and lyrical. At the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons there is a technique called the “Atchley History”, which, according to the Annals of Internal Medicine, commands that the doctor’s description be so complete that each patient should “leap off the page”. Leaping off the page might be asking a bit much, especially if you’ve got a new hip or problems involving dizziness. But one thing is clear – If you’ve been to the doctor a lot, there is a hidden book about you, and you’re entitled to read it.

That may be a risky choice. A person’s writing can be revealing in unintended ways, and both patients and doctors have voiced concerns that “Open Notes” could lead to misunderstandings and resentment. But the evidence so far indicates that this level of communication is helpful for both parties.

I’m not so sure. I haven’t seen my doctor’s notes, but I hear he’s a frustrated novelist.

Spawning symptoms and complaints the way a summer thunderstorm drops tornadoes, D trudged into my office today to ask that I examine his eye. His gloomy profile darkened the office door with a heaviness that spoke of larger issues. “Clear my calendar,” I told the receptionist. “It’s going to be a long afternoon.”

They eye was clearly infected. I asked if someone had stuck a finger in there and he proceeded to unpack a tale of woe related to work and God knows how many years of thankless labor with early hours sacrificed in the name of blah, blah, blah.

While he was busy talking I nodded in false agreement and casually examined his mouth. Discolored teeth, too-thin lips and a plump, dappled tongue spat myriad worries in my lap – needless concerns about aging and hairline and skin, skeletal problems, cognitive lapses, and something about a toenail.

I scribbled meaningless squiggles on my pad to reassure him, and then beneath that rat’s nest of illustrated ennui I drew a pirate’s chest, a saltwater soaked lockbox covered with barnacles and seaweed with a big rusty iron padlock, a place to put D’s demented ravings where they could be promptly and permanently forgotten.

It seemed that his infected eye had swollen to twice its original size while we had been sitting there. “You’re going to die,” I wanted to tell him. “We all are. Get over it.”

Would you want to read your doctor’s notes about you?

It’s Moon Footprint Anniversary Day once again!

Last year an appropriately huge fuss was made over the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s mission to land on the moon. The 41st anniversary is less of a party. Things (even footprints in the dust) can remain unaltered for a long, long time in space. Imagine the ho-hummity of the celebration for the 1,285,300th anniversary of Neal Armstrong’s step off the LEM’s ladder.
Will we even have feet by then?

My eye was caught by this photo of the plaque on the base platform for the lander. This was designed to last a long time, and will certainly still be on the moon when we are all long gone. Will our children’s children’s children’s children gaze on it directly, or through plexiglass as part of some Moon Based Museum’s Heritage Walkway in the Sea of Tranquility?

Here’s another amazing shot. I don’t remember seeing this one 41 years ago.
But how could anyone forget it?

Complete this sentence: “If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we …?”

Time for an update on the many ways GOATS are improving our world.

Goats are stepping forward to help golf courses manage weeds, especially leafy spurge.
A golf course just north of Bismarck, North Dakota has added goats to the maintenance crew, taking them to problem areas and allowing them to graze inside a portable corral. I’m guessing the corral is to keep the goats on task, and off the greens. But how do they protect these workers from the occasional errant shot? And how many strokes do you add if you shank your approach shot into the goat pen?

Hawktree Golf Club has some of the stark, windswept look of Scotland’s Old Course at St. Andrews where the British Open was played this weekend. St. Andrews has an impressive history and carries the majesty and the weight of a great tradition, but the Scottish course doesn’t have goats!

And in Maryland, goats are helping the highway department preserve an important environment for endangered turtles.

In each case, normal grazing turns out to be a powerful force. Lawnmowers be damned! Expressed as an equation, it would be Goats plus Green Stuff plus Grazing minus Gasoline equals Good. Or as one You Tube commenter said, “When things go wrong, bring in the goats.”

Consider any difficult problem, then add goats. What do you get?

I believe we have previously looked at the romantic aspects of the world’s worst underwater disaster with an anguished love letter from oil.

Now that it appears this unfortunate affair is coming to a close, there is hope that the hidden forces that have compelled such a powerfully bad and fascinating thing may have finally been capped. Already there are feelings of separation, and perhaps it’s time for a poetic lament from the point of view of the responsible party, whoever you suppose that to be.

Of all the mistakes
I have made down the line
There is nothing to match
That old oil leak of mine.

I knew well when we met
That the stars had aligned.
I had recklessly summoned
That old oil leak of mine.

We were doomed from the start
I was selfish and blind
With no place in my heart
For that oil leak of mine.

When they made us a pair
Called us two of a kind
I denied that I loved
That old oil leak of mine.

When they said she was bad,
And the worst of all time
I agreed. And I cursed
That old oil leak of mine.

I betrayed her because
She was so unrefined.
And embarrassing too.
That old oil leak of mine.

She amazed the whole world.
As an unabashed crime.
Millions watched as she spewed.
That old oil leak of mine.

Now at last she has gone.
Intervention, divine.
But she’ll never be over.
That old oil leak of mine.

I will search and I’ll drill
Many more wells I’ll find
But I’ll never forget
That old oil leak of mine

OK, it could be that even catastrophic and profoundly damaging relationships leave one feeling sorrowful when they finally end, especially if your role in it was less than noble. But there must be limits.

Dare we say “good riddance” to this one?

We’ve taken on a lot of biggies. In the past three days we Banished Blanket Statements, Gut-punched Gravity and brought Art to Asteroids. What’s left?

How about Financial Industry Reform? The Senate passed it yesterday so it’s all over the news today, which means it’s high time for some Uninformed Commentary from Bud Buck.

Finally Congress has passed a financial reform measure! This was sorely needed after the sub prime loan debacle and the collapse of major banking institutions that were Too Big To Fail. There was some other stuff that happened regarding money things that are too difficult to understand. Something about derivatives and bundling and credit-default swaps. Whatever.

But now all of that has been addressed. Or if it hasn’t been addressed, at least I can stop trying to think about it, and that provides some personal relief for me in these terribly stressful times. Thank you congress!

But there is one part of the bill that irks me, and that’s the section that creates a new Office of Financial Literacy. In addition to lowering the boom on predatory lenders and Wall Street Fat Cats, now Washington is going to try to make me smarter about money so I don’t squander so much of it! I don’t know what that will entail, exactly. I can be stubborn, so my first bit of money saving advice for the government is to not waste any resources trying to educate me! I’m doing great!

For example, I always read agreements and contracts completely before I sign anything, which is a real headache for sales people since they have to sit there and watch my lips move while I read and they wait. But over the years I’ve been able to speed up the process by skipping over the terms I don’t understand. Instead, I just go with the way the word “feels”. For instance, I always make sure my bank accounts pay “simple” interest instead of “compound”. Why? Because all simple things are good, and houseflies have compound eyes, which are creepy.

If I see that a loan has “balloon” payments, I sign it. Balloons are happy, colorful things, and so much of the other stuff that you see in contracts is gray and dismal. If the balloon payments can be shaped like pretzels or wiener dogs, all the better!

Investing is important to me, so I always go for the highest number when it comes to the projected return, especially if some fund or bank or individual is paying a whole lot more than the others, because that means there’s somebody super-smart involved – somebody who knows a lot more than all the other dummies on Wall Street. Like this guy I ran into on the street corner just outside my bank. Inside they were paying, like 2% on savings, but he said he could get me 22% on a special deal he called a “Ponzi”. That sounds like “Fonzi”, who was a very cool, very big star years ago on “Happy Days”. That’s proven celebrity talent, and if a celebrity says I should do it, I usually do. Being popular is their main job, so why would they lie?

Finally, I always make sure my finances are organized so I can get a big fat tax check back from the government in the spring. My paycheck is smaller, but what could be better than money in the mail?

So here’s a notice to the new Office of Financial Literacy – don’t fritter away those precious government dollars trying to improve my situation. Direct the money toward dealing with the truly important issues like Too Big To Fail, and leave me my Too Good To Be True.

This is Bud Buck!

Assess your financial literacy.