Let this sink in a minute

Via Instapundit at Business Insider a "Beautiful Visualization Of Nobel Prizes By Country Since 1901.

It is beautiful, isn't it?

Suggestions for further reading:

Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Edward R. Tufte. Graphic Press, Cheshire, Connecticut. 1997.

Sign, Image, Symbol. Gyorgy Kepes, ed. George Braziller, New York. 1966.

The Great Books Foundation Set One Volume Four: Aristotle, The Federalist Papers, Adam Smith. Great a Books Foundation, Chicago. 1966.

Foundations of Liberty: Independent Study Materials. Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University.

Our Wonder World: A Library of Knowledge in Ten Volumes Volume Two Invention and Industry. Howard Benjamin Grose, ed. Geo. L. Shuman & Co., Chicago and Boston. 1914.

Being a Boy. Charles Dudley Warner. Hard Press at Amazon. Offprint originally copyright date 1877.

The Semmelweis Reflex

The Semmelweis reflex or “Semmelweis effect” is a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs or paradigms.

Or so say the folks at Semmelweis Society International.

From The Timetables of American History (1981):

1848: Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis, Hung. physician, discovers the cause of puerperal fever; medical students are carrying the infection ... to healthy women. He orders all medical students to wash their hands before examining patients; within months the mortality rate drops to near zero.  

1865: Semmelweis, his ideas rejected by the European medical community, dies of puerperal fever, the disease he fought to eradicate his entire life.*

Wash your hands. What a radical idea.

More from Encyclopedia Britannica Online:

In 1861 Semmelweis published his principal work, Die Ätiologie, der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des Kindbettfiebers (The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever). He sent it to all the prominent obstetricians and medical societies abroad, but the general reaction was adverse. The weight of authority stood against his teachings. He addressed several open letters to professors of medicine in other countries, but to little effect. At a conference of German physicians and natural scientists, most of the speakers—including the pathologist Rudolf Virchow—rejected his doctrine. The years of controversy gradually undermined his spirit. In 1865 he suffered a breakdown and was taken to a mental hospital, where he died. Ironically, his illness and death were caused by the infection of a wound on his right hand, apparently the result of an operation he had performed before being taken ill. He died of the same disease against which he had struggled all his professional life.

[As an aside, Semmelweis Ut. is one of my favorite streets in the W.W.W. (whole wide world).]

*What do you think? I'd have phrased it: "... the disease he fought his entire life to eradicate." 

Re-writing History.

This, Dear Friends, is why one does not rely solely on the World Wide Web for factual information. This is why one has books. 

I thought today would be a fine day to do a little reading at lunchtime and as I take some breaks from the ever-so-satisfying task of cleaning the workshop. And so I searched for "MLK I have a Dream." One of the top hits was from historywired.si.edu. I didn't stop to ask what university "SI" is, but I did give some credence to the .edu extension. Here's the content of King's speech at SI.

I had seen reference to and read portions of King's speech earlier this week. I did not read those portions at si.edu. I checked another site-- archieves.gov-- and downloaded the pdf. Sure enough, those missing portions were there. But just to be on the safe side, I checked a crappy old book, too. (A Documentary History of the United States, Seventh Edition. Richard D. Herrner. 2002.) And what do you know? Those portions were there, too.

SI has done some re-writing.

"It would be fatal for the nation ... ."

 The version on the right is the typewritten version held by the US Archieves which is word-for-word the text of the speech in the book. Comparing the two versions side by side we do not see word-for-word agreement. First, the word "Negro" appears nowhere in the SI version. Next, read the sentences beginning, "It wold be fatal" (the two are approximately across from one another). There are words added in the SI transcript. 

 

"... bright days of Justice emerge."

It's bright days-- plural on the right, and singluar on the left.

But that's not the worst of it. 

Re-writing history, three paragraphs at a time.

This isn't tinkering with style-- singular for plural. This isn't color-washed editing-- omitting "Negro." This is re-writing history.

And there's more!

"... unearned suffering is redemptive."

That sentence has been edited out in the SI version. 

Look also at the editing and re-phrasing leading up to "... I still have a dream."

Most interestingly, though, is the substitution of modern for Northern. 

Go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern modern cities,

I must say, all of this really bothered me. Read the whole, real, speech. It's good. Who the hell at what .edu university thinks he/she can take the liberty to re-write King's speech? 

Historywired.si.edu is the Smithonian Institute:

Welcome to the Smithsonian Institution's HistoryWired: A few of our favorite things. This experimental site introduces visitors to some of the three million objects held by the National Museum of American History, Behring Center. 

With less than five percent of our vast and diverse collection on public display in our exhibit halls, we hope that Web sites like this will bring many more of our treasures into public view. The initial 450 objects, selected by curators from across the Museum, include famous, unusual, and everyday items with interesting stories to tell. They are not intended to be representative of the Museum's entire collection.

Design and navigation for HistoryWired were generously provided by SmartMoney.com using its Map of the Market technology.

Background

HistoryWired can be likened to a private tour through the Museum storage areas. Visitors select the objects that interest them; curators explain the items' significance. Like an actual tour at the Museum, information is presented conversationally and is backed by the impeccable scholarship of Smithsonian curators. And, like a real museum experience, visitors can share with others their enthusiasm (or lack thereof) about what they see and learn.

And there you have it. The impeccable scholars work hard to re-write history so you don't have to.

University Campuses & Our Ever-Evolving English Language: Two Exhibits

I had occasion to be on a University Campus this afternoon to attend a celebratory event. More on this event in the next post. While my camera & I were wandering around, I snapped a couple of pictures.

EXHIBIT 1:

From dictionary.com:
de-lamp - no dictionary results

Furthermore:

cut  [kuht]  verb, cut, cut·ting, adjective, noun
verb (used with object)
1. to penetrate with or as if with a sharp-edged instrument or object: He cut his finger.
2. to divide with or as if with a sharp-edged instrument; sever; carve: to cut a rope.
3. to detach with or as if with a sharp-edged instrument; separate from the main body; lop off: to cut a slice from a loaf of bread.
4. to hew or saw down; fell: to cut timber.
5. to trim by clipping, shearing, paring, or pruning: to cut hair.

I do not see "reduce" anywhere in this list of five, do you?

Plus, it's pretty funny that the machine only dispenses 20 ounce Cokes. If The Coca Cola Company really wanted to help to "cut" energy consumption, maybe they should stock their machines with 12 ounce Cokes. But hey. It's a Free Country! If you want to shell out $1.25 for 240 calories (20 oz.), consume only 140 calories (12 oz.), and contribute the remainder to your local landfill, what do I care if the machine is lit up or not?

I'm just objecting to the display of nonsensical words on Campus.

[GMOYA: Think about the cost-- in any way you want to think about cost-- $, energy, man-hours-- of what you throw away.]

By the way, we have lettuce for the taking!

EXHIBIT 2:

Well, which is it? "Ladies or Men's"?

I don't claim to know them, but there are rules regarding the proper use of "and," "or," and/or my favorite, "and/or." Since I don't claim to know these rules, I got nothin' to say about the "OR" here. That said... .

As Trisha commented, no doubt an embarrassing moment motivated this sign. But surely that moment couldn't have been more embarrassing than the sign it motivated.

1. Parallelism. Ladies and Gentleman. Men and Women. This is not an and/or choice. Pick one. If Females are to be "Ladies," then Males are to be "Gentlemen." If Males are "Men," Females are "Women." Every freaking restaurant in town gets this right.

2. Plural Possessives. According to the eight English grammar books in my library that I've catalog so far, we've known how to properly construct plural possessives since at least 1936.

3. Underlines & Squiggles: You cannot tell me that ORMen's doesn't have a red squiggly line under it because I'm looking at a red squiggly line under it right now. Proof Read. Insert Space.

My point.  Students will grab a soda from a machine that uses nonsensical words to make them feel good about conserving something in a closed system (how much sense does that make?) and then they will go to the Ladies ORMen's restroom to piss it away. And then they will take a test or write a paper. And their profs will wonder why they cannot think or write.

Go figure.

The 0.10% Sure are Smart!

This should really surprise regular readers. We are having company!

One of the things I like to do when company's coming is to slightly modify the crappy old book selection in the guest room's colorful library. (Many books were chosen because of the color of the cover or spine-- who can resist a book with orange on the cover or spine?) For this particular guest, I've chosen the crappy old book, A Study of Rural Society Third Edition by J.H. Kolb (College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin) and Edmund de S. Brunner (Teachers College, Columbia University), edited by William F. Ogburn (The University of Chicago) published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1946.

I was perusing Chapter 5, Psychological Characteristics, which begins:

Because of the popular belief, among city people at least, that rural people are in some way inferior to their city cousins, it might not be impertinent to inquire at this point into the matter of rural and urban intelligence and characteristics, and try to analyze first, the scientific data now existing with regard to the question, and secondly, certain matters of common observation.

Let me be the first to tell you that these professors/authors are going to caution you smarty-pants city mice to not rush to any rash conclusions. After all, these country bumpkin rural folks might confuse the theatre (which they pronounce "THEE-A-ter) with a picture show (!), but they can tell you how many pecks are in a bushel!

I've looked through this crappy old book on more than one occasion and I can tell you that, caution aside, the tone does not please me. I had not noticed this table, under the chapter sub-head, Differences in Schooling, before.

Where is that editor from The University of Chicago when you need him?

Let's do some country mouse math!

253 children in one-room schools

0.10% = 0.10/100 = 0.0010

0.0010 X 253 = 1/4 of a student. 

Not 1/4 of the students. A student. (Wouldn't you like to read that methods section?)

Math is hard no matter where you go to school. And fractions are even harder!

STAY IN SKOOL! DONT" BE A DROPOUT! AND FER GAWDS SAKE'S LERN YOU SOME MATH or at least a bit or arithmetic. 

Seriously. Books-- new & old-- are full of typographical errors. But for gawd sakes'! This was the third edition. Wouldn't you have thought someone-- any one-- would have caught this?

~~
For the record (from the infallible source, Wikipedia):

A bushel is an imperial and U.S. customary unit of dry volume, equivalent in each of these systems to 4 pecks or 8 gallons. It is used for volumes of dry commodities (not liquids), most often in agriculture. It is abbreviated as bsh. or bu. In modern usage, the dry volume is usually only nominal, with bushels referring to standard weights instead.

Pecks & Pints below. 

If you're in the neighborhood

you may want to check this out:

Mississippi Philosophical Association Meeting Program 2013
Hosted by Mississippi State University

Theme: Philosophy of Biology

Schedule below the fold

Chapter 70 of Amy Vanderbilt's

New Complete Book of Etiquette is titled, "The New Resident in Washington."  I am not making this up. 

Amy Vanderbilt's New Complete Book of Etiquette: The Guide to Gracious Living (1967)

If I were writing a book on etiquette-- which I am certainly not qualified to do-- it would not have occurred to me to include a chapter on what to do if one is a guest of the President of The United States of America at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Just passing this along should any of you receive an invitation to the White House in the coming years-- come what may.

$750,000: Say What?

via Y'all Politics:

Universities land federal grant to pursue energy efficiency

Thanks to a grant from the United States Department of Energy, three public universities in Mississippi will be sharing funding to support energy efficient facility improvements in order to cut energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020.

An announcement came Wednesday at three succeeding press conferences in Oxford, Starkville and Columbus.

In addition to grant funding, the Tennessee Valley Authority will commit $150,000 to each of the three universities - Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women and the University of Mississippi - over three years.

Part of the Department of Energy's $7.9 million investment to reduce energy costs across 13 states, Mississippi's $725,000 State Energy Program grant was the largest amount awarded to any state in the Advancing Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings category according to Karen Bishop, director of the Mississippi Development Authority's Energy and Natural Resources Division.

Commercial Dispatch
7/26/12

From the full Commercial Dispatch article:

"This award will create a path ... to implement energy management strategies in the state in a creation of a retrofit strategy for all state universities," [Karen Bishop, director of the Mississippi Development Authority's Energy and Natural Resources Division] said.

Say what?

CORRECTED: Chris & Rocky weigh 228 pounds

Chris (one of our guests for Independence Day) and Missy weigh 256 pounds. Chris weighs 179 pounds.

Alix (another guest) kept the official record and she & Mr. Big Food did the math.

Before Chris fetched the bathroom scale, we all wrote down our guesses for what each dog weighed (we didn't guess on Chris' weight). The "winner" in out little Guess the Dogs' Weight contest-- which was after supper but before Apple Pie and Vanilla Ice Cream-- was the person whose guesses summed, was closest to the dogs' combined weight. 

UPDATED. So it has something to so with my phone

and the latest security updates to my computer.

It's after 8-- well after our bedtime-- and I've been trying to figure out why I couldn't log on to blogger-- i.e., access my blog-- for hours. And it finally occurred to me that I should try to log on using the mi-fi, instead of my phone. 

Here I am. 

My uneducated guess is that the security update I downloaded doesn't like something. 

Lord. 

In the future, I will write something, mimeograph it, and mail it to y'all. Which assumes there will be a mail service.

CRITICAL THINKING!

UPDATE: It was my phone. And for quite a while I had the geniuses thinking it was Apple's fault that the update didn't like my phone. But in the end, and after quoting Sherlock Holmes to the genius (who knew the quote), it was what I thought was improbable, not what he thought was improbable. I hate to be wrong but I'd rather be connected than right.

If it takes all week I'm going to get this pile of old books off my desk

and back onto the bookshelf where they belong.

Crappy old books which have something to say about tool safety.

This is the 4th-- AND BY GOD, FINAL-- in a series of posts on the Department of Labor's attempts to protect children on the farm.

Here are the previous posts which include the relevant citations and links:

Farm Safety and Government Intrusion

Followup: Farm Safety and Government Intrusion

Safety through the ages

(It isn't as if I have four posts' worth of things to say. Let's just say there were a few challenges to getting to the point, including the sad fact that my new computer isn't speaking to my old printer/scanner.)

Picking up where I left off... .

From Mac M. Jones' Shopwork on the Farm (1945), p. 100-101

I focus on screwdriver safety because under the new DOL rules, kids would be prohibited from using, among other things, cordless screwdrivers. Although I have broken rules 2, 3, 5 (how else would you open a can of paint?), 6, & 7 from time to time, these all seem quite sensible, and not at all hard to follow. In fact, they seem like the sort of rules a parent would explain to a child just learning to use tools. 

Food for Young Children, especially 4-year olds

Citation information below

By now you've heard about the little kid who walked to work carried her lunch to pre-school only to be forced to eat a school lunch because her mom did not pack a vegetable in her lunch (banana & fruit juice but no veggie). If you don't know what I'm talking about, google "4-year old's lunch confiscated" or something like that.

Not having had any 4-year olds around for some time, I consulted a crappy old cookbook to discover just what Young Children should be eating. From the Introduction to Chapter VI in the Universal Cookbook, I see that

A little child who is carefully fed in accordance with his bodily needs (as these are now understood) receives every day at least one food from each of the following groups:

1. Milk and dishes made chiefly of milk (most important of the group as regards children's diet); meat fish, poultry, eggs, and meat substitutes
2. Bread and other cereal foods.
3. Butter and other wholesome fats.
4. Vegetables and fruits.
5. Simple sweets.

Caroline L. Hunt, Scientific Assistant, Office of Home Economics-- who wrote this chapter-- goes on to provide a "good rule" as to amounts and servings from the groups. Each group is then taken up in turn, with milk being dominant throughout.For example, Milk Toast is discussed at length in the Milk, etc. section and mentioned again in the Breads section. (My paternal grandmother used to make my dad milk toast and he tried to get my brother and I to like it. Didn't happen.)

What I'd like to know is how to properly understand the parenthetical, "as these are now understood." It is modifying "bodily needs," but can be taken one of two ways. On one reading, it says "as bodily needs are currently understood." This reading leaves room for changed understanding of children's nutritional requirements. For example, if the expert child nutritionist Nanny Bloomberg decrees it so, simple sweets get taken off the list-- at least until some future mayor of New York City who's also a child nutritionist puts them back on the list. 

Az ön egészségügyi!

Or something like that.

It's supposed to be "To your health" in Hungarian. But you know, I don't know you. Or better said, I know some of you better than others. So, assuming the subject line is approximately correct-- in a sort of gender-neutral, familial-neutral sense-- some of the characters will change, depending on how well I know you.

And people think American English is hard to learn.

~~

We had a lovely supper, Creative Cooking Sausage Rice Casserole, something we've never had before. I took some pics which I will soon post. have recently posted, along with the recipe. Before dinner, I treated myself to a Gospodin.

Aromatic drink for the afternoon
Rocks glass


1 ounce vodka
3/4 ounce apricot brandy


Mix the ingredients together, with ice, in the glass. Serve with a stirrer.

(From Peter Bohrmann's The Bartender's Guide, copyright 2001 and published by Salamander Books Limited, London.)

It was very good. On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the best, I gave it a 4.5. The barack pàlinka (as the Hungarians call apricot brandy) was very aromatic. 

Poor image grabbed from the world wide web.

Before I slammed this drink back and went on to have many many many many many many many more,* I toasted Dr. Keith Ablow and his Team of Life Coaches. 

[*Sarcasm]