Things Brought To My Attention

     

Tucson Weather Today

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In an engrossing half hour video Bill Moyers talked with Neil deGrasse Tyson the astrophysicist about the nature of our mysterious universe and whether faith and science can be reconciled.

This is the second of three part interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson. It is titled: Science, Religion and the Universe

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E.L. Doctorow has written a new book titled Andrew's Brain which one reviewer  says is more like a therapy notebook than a novel.

I am not recommending this book, as I have not read it yet; I'm just calling it to your attention.

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Later this week there is to be broadcast an expanded American Masters edition, a documentary concerning J.D. Salinger... his disappearance from the public eye after the great success of his novel Catcher In The Rye.

It should be interesting.

The PBS edition of "Salinger" runs 135 minutes, 15 minutes longer than the film released in theaters in September, and serves as the 200th installment of the "American Masters" series.

More about that

Too bad it's coming on so late... 9 P.M. is rather late for me to be up these days.

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Did You Know . . .?

In Mexico, the act of escaping from prison is considered legal because the law recognizes that all people have a fundamental desire to be free.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1959, Carl Dean Switzer, the actor who as a child played "Alfalfa" in the Our Gang comedy film series, died at age 31 in a fight, allegedly about money, in a Mission Hills, California, home. Alfalfa, the freckle-faced boy with a warbling singing voice and a cowlick protruding from the top of his head, was Switzer's best-known role.

Our Gang revolved around a group of ragtag children and their adventures. Along with Alfalfa, other popular characters included Spanky, Buckwheat and Darla. Our Gang was considered groundbreaking in that it featured white and black child actors interacting equally.

At the Mission Hills home of Moses "Bud" Stiltz, a fight broke out, during which Stiltz shot and killed Switzer. A jury later ruled the incident justifiable homicide.

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WORD FOR TODAY

jeremiad  [jeh-ruh-MY-ahd]
noun
a long mournful lamentation or complaint

Wikipedia states that a Jeremiad is a long literary work, usually in prose, but sometimes in verse, in which the author bitterly laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone of sustained invective, and always contains a prophecy of society's imminent downfall.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas

(Jan 21, 1922 - Jan 22, 1994)

Telly Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz (1962).

His other movie credits include The Young Savages (1961), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Battle of the Bulge (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), The Scalphunters (1968), supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971), Inside Out (1975), and Escape to Athena (1979).

Virginia Elizabeth "Geena" Davis

(born January 21, 1956)

Geena Davis is an American actress. She is known for her roles in Stuart Little, The Fly, Beetlejuice, Thelma & Louise, A League of Their Own, The Long Kiss Goodnight and The Accidental Tourist. In 2005, she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a  Television Series Drama for her role in Commander in Chief.

Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill

(Jan 2, 1924 - Apr 20, 1992)

Benny Hill was an English comedian and actor, notable for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.

Short youtube Benny Hill clip

Jill Eikenberry

(born January 21, 1947)

Jill Eikenberry is an American film, stage, and television actress. She is best known for her role as lawyer Ann Kelsey in L.A. Law (1986–1994). She has won an Obie Award, been nominated five times for an Emmy Award and four Golden Globes, winning one, and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award in 2011.

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The curse of man and the cause of nearly all his woes, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.
--H.L. Mencken

NASA TV

This Is Who I Am

   

Are Scientific Proofs Really Proofs?

Neil DeGrasse Tyson hosts a website that's not to be missed if you are interested in science but, like me, you are not formally educated in scientific principles.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

This man's TV presentations on PBS and other media are fascinating. I can't help thinking that his apparent solid understanding of science is phenomenal, and I try to never miss his latest offerings.


I subscribe to official announcements from NASA and receive via email three or four of these memos each day. The latest, RELEASE: 12-007 was titled:

HUBBLE PINPOINTS FARTHEST PROTOCLUSTER OF GALAXIES EVER SEEN

Now I have to admit that sometimes the information I receive nearly overwhelms my ability to (blindly) accept what is presented as absolute fact. Such as this excerpt from RELEASE: 12-007:

In a random sky survey made in near-infrared light, Hubble found five tiny galaxies clustered together 13.1 billion light-years away. They are among the brightest galaxies at that epoch and very young -- existing just 600 million years after the big bang. (huh? 5 tiny galaxies?)

Wow! How mind-bending is that? The light from this galaxy cluster left the cluster and traveled toward Earth at approximately 186,000 miles per second for 13,100,000,000 years -- that's a LONG distance to travel and it took a LONG time to reach the Earth. And you know what? I, as a non-scientist, find it hard to believe that such a specific measurement is even possible, no matter how sophisticated the measuring instruments.

But then, I'm just an average non-scientific guy who in his average gut suspects that the fields of mathematics, physics, and astronomy are themselves probably being misused by overly confident, overly arrogant scientists who are after all only human and therefore perpetually prone to error.


Yes, I realize that a scientist must trust his instruments, but I know from personal experience that this trust (faith?) is at times inappropriately applied.


Another NASA memo, RELEASE 12-008 contains this paragraph:

Dark matter is material that can be inferred to exist through its gravitational effects, but does not emit and absorb detectable amounts of light. Dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all space and exerts a negative pressure that causes the universe to expand at an ever-increasing rate.

Does this mean that some scientific theories are nothing more than educated guesses?

More about Chandra X-Ray Observatory

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The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny..."
--Isaac Asimov