November 5, 2009

Penny for the Guy?

Fawkes_Political_Poster

“Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot.
We see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!”

Some holidays involve wholesome activities like picnics, feasts, or an exchange of gifts, others, like the English holiday Guy Fawkes Day (aka Bonfire Night) call for more exciting activities, namely effigy burning.

The first I ever heard of Guy Fawkes Day was while watching the “Depth Takes a Holiday” episode of Daria, so my impression of the holiday mostly concerned the word “bollocks.” Turns out, there’s a bit more to it than that. This holiday is no mere bit of American fascination with English vernacular for “testicles,” but is instead a commemoration of Britain’s turbulent and often rather nasty past.

Every November 5th for the last 400-odd years Brits gather around bonfires, watch fireworks, and burn effigies of the holiday’s namesake. Traditionally, children often paraded through towns with these effigies during the day, begging from those they met, “Penny for the Guy?” so they could scrounge up the money to buy fireworks. This practice has mostly died off in recent years as someone in the UK finally decided that selling fireworks to vagrant, panhandling minors ought to be illegal.

But where does such a holiday come from? Its roots go back to 1534 when Henry VIII, in rather cavalier fashion, split the Church of England from the Catholic Church so he could leave his wife and marry Anne Boleyn (but not that other Boleyn girl.)¹ This lead to a pretty high level of tensions between the numerous Brits loyal to the Catholic church and English Protestants.

In 1553, Mary I (aka Bloody Mary) reestablished Roman Catholicism as the official church in England and made a nasty habit of burning resistant Protestants to death. In 1559, after Mary I’s death, Elizabeth I once again made the Church of England separate from papal authority.

In response to Catholic resistance to her rule Elizabeth I eventually passed a number of anti-Catholic laws. These laws, combined with anti-Catholic sentiment stemming from the memory of “Bloody” Mary and Spain’s attempted invasion of England in 1588, lead to a prolonged period of harsh and sometimes deadly persecution of English Catholics.

By 1605, things hadn’t gotten any less tense. James I had succeeded Elizabeth in 1603 but did not let up on the persecution of Catholics. The Catholics, in turn, had not yet given up their resistance. A group of conspirators, so the accepted story goes, decided to murder James I and the members of Parliament by setting off a massive explosion of gunpowder on the day Parliament opened, November 5th.

Notified of the conspiracy by a letter of warning to one of the members of Parliament to stay home sick on the 5th, Guy Fawkes was caught in the basement of Parliament seconds away from lighting an obscene amount of gunpowder he and his coconspirators had stored in a room they had rented.² After being tortured, Guy revealed the names of those he worked with. A few were killed during a siege of their hideout, while the rest were rounded up, tortured, and (except for one lucky fellow who died in prison) were hanged, drawn and quartered.³

Of course, there is a second story that the conspirators were largely framed in order to justify continued persecution of Catholics. Even in 1605 its hard to imagine no one would have noticed a bunch of men, some probably known Catholics, just sauntering down into the basement of Parliament with barrel upon barrel of gunpowder.

Today, the Gunpowder Plot, as Guy’s conspiracy became known, and Guy Fawkes himself are remembered in a number of ways beyond the traditional celebrations. The most notable of these is the movie V for Vendetta based on Alan Moore’s dystopian comic-book series of the same name . He is also a powerful political symbol used both by anarchists and by conservative pundits.

1. Had it not been for Henry VIII’s infamous libido, there may never have been a Guy Fawkes Day.

2. Perhaps this is why governments no longer routinely rent out their important buildings to just anyone.

3. “Drawn and quartered” is the polite way of saying “had their guts ripped out and their bodies hacked into four pieces.”

October 20, 2009

When Galaxies Collide

Considering how long it’s been since my last post, I felt that this entry needed to be truly stellar. The trouble was, in doing research, much of the most interesting material I came across regarding stars seemed to be made up.¹ That wouldn’t do. Then, with expectations flagging, I found it: galactic collisions. Galactic collisions make for beautiful pictures and take place on a massive, galaxy-shattering scale that can only be described by words like “epic,” “monumental,” and “holy shit!”² They also take an interesting variety of forms. Some galaxies dance peacefully together, ever so slightly avoiding actual collision. Others merge like lovers, taking all the metaphor out of the phrase “when two become one.” For other galaxies, their collisions are more akin to hit-and-run accidents, or even cannibalism.

The Whirlpool galaxy and NGC 5195
The Whirlpool galaxy and its companion NGC 5195 are a wonderful example of cosmic dance. The little NGC 5195 has been passing alongside the Whirlpool galaxy for millions of years. The gravitational interaction of these two partners has likely had great effect on both, sharpening the larger’s two distinct spiral arms and contributing to the smaller’s own amorphous form.

antennae2
More intimately, the Antennae galaxies have forgone mere dancing, to merge together in blissful, if fiery, harmony. Once, they were two independent spiral galaxies, but hundreds of millions of years of courtship has brought them together so that they are barely distinguishable from one another. A few hundred million years more may find them merged completely, but give them time; in cosmic terms, they’re a young couple yet.

mice
Another young couple is the Mice galaxies. While they are expected to merge like the Antennae, the Mice are still in the less intense phase of their merge, still dancing around one another, interacting, but still relatively distinct, flirting with the idea of union.

Cartwheel galaxyIn stark contrast to these lover galaxies is the Cartwheel galaxy, who looks like a hit-and-run victim. The Cartwheel’s distinctive ripple-in-a-pond look is the result of a nasty head-on collision with a smaller galaxy, which then continued on its merry way, leaving the Cartwheel galaxy to sort itself out alone.

Andromeda galaxyOn the flip side of the smaller galaxy’s David-versus-Goliath drubbing of the Cartwheel, is galactic cannibalism, which occurs when large galaxies devour their smaller companions whole or in part. This can be seen in the nearby Andromeda galaxy which has stripped stars from its satellites M32 and NGC 205. It even appears to be syphoning off stars from the Triangulum galaxy, from a distance of a million light-years.

The same can be seen in our own Milky Way galaxy, which has numerous star streams and clusters that could be the remnants of dwarf galaxies slowly being digested.

The cannibalism of Andromeda and the Milky Way may serve as a common interest when the two galaxies meet, as they are expected to, in a few billion years. Perhaps they will slam together merging themselves like the Antennae, or perhaps they will dance around each other for a time, merging slowly and cautiously like the Mice galaxies. One thing we can know for sure: it will be a love affair of astronomical proportions.


1. Many of the interesting and bizarre types of stars and stellar phenomenon, like fuzzballs* and Quark stars* are purely hypothetical, or in rare instances theoretically confirmed only by the scantiest of evidence. My favorite is the preon star, a hypothetical star made up of a hypothetical type of particle known as preons. Seems like someone would confirm the preon’s existence before pretending things can be made out of it.

2. Yes, I know “holy shit” is a phrase, not a word.

More Information/Sources:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/10/13/the-beauty-of-cosmic-collisions/
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/galaxies/colliding.html

The Whirlpool:
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/html/heic0506a.html
http://usproxy.bbc.com/2/hi/science/nature/1263664.stm
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090526.html

The Antennae:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1086.html
http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0615.html
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=25413

The Mice:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2002/11/image/d
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/Mice.html

The Cartwheel:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1995/02/
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010612.html
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/galaxies/Cartwheel.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Cartwheel_Galaxy_Makes_Waves_In_New_NASA_Image.html

Cannibalism, Andromeda, and Milky Way:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/andromeda_010705.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17728-milky-ways-twin-caught-dismembering-neighbour.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14549-eleven-new-streams-of-stars-found-in-milky-way.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Sloan_Survey_Identifies_New_Dwarf_Galaxy_Inside_Milky_Way.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jan/05/galaxy-collision-space-milky-way

August 28, 2009

Let’s Get Quisical

While “Benedict Arnold” remains in use in American parlance as a way of referring to a traitor, the much more noxious sounding quisling has largely fallen by the wayside. An unfortunate fate for a word that has been described by the London Times as “a gift from the gods…something at once slippery and tortuous.” Like Benedict Arnold, quisling originates from a historical figure, in this case Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling.

Quisling the man was born in 1887 in Norway. As a child, he was something of a mathematical prodigy. As an adult, he achieved the rank of major in Norway’s army. He worked frequently in Russia aiding in relief work during the famine of 1921 and protecting British interests in the fledgeling Soviet Union.

His time amongst Russians led to two amorous encounters and the first hint of his traitorous leanings. In 1922, he married a seventeen-year-old Ukrainian before replacing her the next year with his second wife a Russian woman named Maria.

He served as Norway’s minister of defense from 1931 to 1933, where he used military force to quell a strike. He then went on to form Norway’s Nasjonal Samling Party, which propounded fascist ideology and met with little popular support. In 1939, he began courting a Nazi invasion, which took place in April, 1940. He quickly declared himself head of the Norwegian government. In 1945, after facing years of popular resistance and resentment, Quisling was executed as a traitor.

Quisling, the word, was born in 1940 in England. the April 15th edition of the London Times first put it into print. A month later Time printed the word for the first time as lowercase. Much more popular than its namesake, it was used during World War II by such figures as Winston Churchill, George Orwell, and H. G. Wells. It would go one to spawn the the verb to quisle, quislingism, quislingize, and other rarely used words, which have all gone the way of old Vidkun himself.

More about Quisling:
The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Quisling.html
http://www.word-detective.com/2008/04/24/malarkey/
http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/3965/42/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisling

August 13, 2009

Cake or Defenestration?

Some words just capture people’s fancy. They amuse the mind and tickle the tongue. This was never more true than during my time in junior high. As my classmates and I entered this new academic world from elementary school we found that there was indeed a vocabulary beyond the “yo mama” jokes that captivated us only a year before. Along with the awfully unwieldy antidisestablishmentarianism,¹ the word that most dazzled our malleable minds was defenestration.

Few words roll of the tongue quite the way defenestration does. (Go ahead; try it. You know you want to, if there’s any joy left in your heart.) The fact that this word means “the action of throwing someone or something out of a window” makes it all the more delightful. Defenestration stands head and shoulders above other words for acts of violence.² Murder, punching, kicking, beating: boring. Defenestration has the added advantage of confusing an opponent. By the time they figure out what “I will defenestrate you!” means, they’re already flying through the nearest window.

But where does such a word come from? The boring answer is Latin. Defenestration can be broken down into de meaning off or from and fenestra meaning (and this should be pretty obvious) window.

The longer, and imminently more interesting story is that, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it was coined in 1620 to describe an event that occurred two years prior, the Defenestration of Prague.³

The early 1600s were a time of religious unease. The Protestant Reformation had been running amok in Europe for about a century. Bohemia, the area around Prague, had been been home to its own religious reform movement since the early 1400s. While Bohemia boasted a streak of religious independence, it lacked political independence. Since 1526, Bohemia had been part of the Habsburg Empire, which ruled much of central Europe. The ruling family, the Habsburgs, were Roman Catholic, which caused some amount of worry among Protestant Bohemians. In 1609, in a document known as the Letter of Majesty, Emperor Rudolph II guaranteed religious freedom. His gesture would only briefly quell tension in Bohemia. Five years after Rudolph II’s death, Roman Catholic officials halted the construction of two Protestant chapels in 1617. This turned out to be a terrible idea.

Enraged Protestants tried two imperial regents, William Slavata and Jaroslav Martinic, for violating the Letter of Majesty. Finding them guilty, they tossed the two men (and, for good measure, their secretary) out of a window of the Prague Castle on May 23, 1618. Miraculously, the three defenestratees sustained no serious injury due to landing in a moat full of manure (or at least a pile of manure in a moat.)

This act of defenestration was no small to-do. It sparked a rebellion in Bohemia which boiled over into surrounding areas. By the time this rebellion was crushed in 1621, the war was beginning to spread, having already embroiled Spain and to a lesser extent to Ottoman Empire. It would continue to spread, involving most of Europe and becoming known to history as the Thirty Years War. (Thirty years, coincidentally, is how long it lasted.)

While the war should have ended with the defeat of the rebels, the Bohemians did not know the word quit. The remnants of the rebellious forces under their leader Frederick V, the Winter King, continued to battle Spanish forces in Frederick’s German territories. Although defeated by 1623, Frederick’s continued fight made clear the power of Spain and the Habsburg Empire to the rest of Europe. Now the French, English, Dutch, would unite to convince Christian IV of Denmark to fight against the two powers while they watched. In 1630, after watching the Danish forces get thoroughly trounced, Sweden’s king Gustavus Adolphus decided to step in.

Sweden, subsidized by France, did well for a time. They conquered numerous German territories and seemed to have the Habsburgs on the run until Gustavus Adolphus died in battle in 1632. After that their efforts faltered. By 1634, Sweden’s army was on the ropes and ready to say uncle.

After meddling for almost entire conflict, France finally entered the war in ernest. From this point on France and Sweden were largely successful on the battlefield while Spain and the Habsburg Empire were less so. On October 24, 1648, the Peace of Westphalia was declared, ending the Thirty Years War in what basically amounted to a draw. The only real losers would be the German people who, being caught between the Habsburgs and everyone who hated them, lost a devastating 20% of their population, roughly 7,000,000 people.


1. Contrary to my prior belief, antidisestablishmentarianism wasn’t just a word coined to be stupidly long (although those do exist.) It has its roots in British religiopolitical debate. The term was first used in 1838. The Church of England at the time was “established” in England, Wales, and Ireland, meaning it was the official state church. Those who opposed the union of church and state were disestablishmentarians. Those who opposed them were, rather redundantly, known as antidisestablishmentarians (they could have just as easily, and much less awkwardly, been called establishmentarians.) While the Church of England was disestablished in Ireland and Wales, the debate is is still all the rage in England, as demonstrated by this amusing article from The Times.

If you feel like wasting about one second of your day, you can always visit antidisestablishmentarianism.com.

2. Except for fisticuffs. Fisticuffs is awesome.

3. This was actually the Second Defenestration of Prague. The lesser known First Defenestration of Prague took place on July 30, 1419, when an angry crowd of religious dissidents threw seven town councillors to their deaths from the windows the New Town Hall.

You can view Lego recreations of the First Defenestration of Prague and of the Second Defenestration of Prague. No. Really. I’m not kidding.

August 1, 2009

Recommendations R Redux

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a recommendations list and it turns out I’ve built up quite a backlog of links. So without further ado (not adieu) here are some lovely websites you might like:

ty.rannousaur.us

This one just may have my favorite domain name ever. It also sports an enormous, adorable website header. Aside from being aesthetically pleasing ty.rannousaur.us also sports an array of interesting links and amusing articles, mostly about the less savory or downright bizarre aspects of various historical events and figures. Part mental_floss and part Cracked, all awesome.¹

The Frontal Cortex

If you like brains (no, not in the zombie way²) then this is the blog for you. From psychology to neuroscience, this blog has what you want, and might even be able to explain why you want it.

The Word Detective

On previous occassions, I’ve waxed poetically about World Wide Words. More recently I stumbled upon another lovely site in the same vein: The Word Detective. This site is every bit as informative and delightful. An added benefit for any patriots out there, its an American-made product unlike the lovely, but limey World Wide Words.

Planet Slade

If you’ve got some spare time to read, especially if you love music history, I recommend Planet Slade. The website of journalist Paul Slade, it features some seriously in depth articles about the history of three classic songs as well as some other interesting looking articles I have yet to tackle. His nine-page essay on Stagger Lee served as a main source for my post about (surprise) Stagger Lee.

xkcd

While I normally try to keep my recommendations strictly to educational sites, I’ve got to give props to xkcd. This is the only comic, web or otherwise, that I often have to do research to understand. Its a nerdy little gem, particularly if you like math and computers. Its also hilarious.

If the above links weren’t enough for you, feel free to browse these other recomendations:
Delightful Documentaries
Omniglottal Stops
Recommendations R Us

1. Full disclosure: I did write an article for ty.rannousaur.us, so I may be biased, but then I also liked the site enough to submit something, so you decide.

2. If you do like brains in the zombie way, you might want to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith. I haven’t read it yet, but I want to.

July 21, 2009

Baseball, Airplanes, and Metaphysics

Alfred W. Lawson

Alfred W. Lawson

If Walter T. Varney was not obscure enough for you, here, perhaps, is air flight’s oddest character, Alfred W. Lawson.

Alfred William Lawson was a man of many hats. His life would see him transition from working class boy to hobo to baseball player and manager, from aviation enthusiast to aviation engineer, from economist to prophet. Lawson’s life was marked by a dramatic desire to excel, and a constant inability to attain his lofty goals.

In 1886, at the age of 17, Lawson took up the life of a tramp, traveling by hopping on freight trains. This, however, was only to be a brief sojourn in Lawson’s journey. By the spring of 1887, Lawson had taken up his first trade, baseball, in Frankfurt, Indiana. During his baseball career, Lawson would play as a pitcher and outfielder for a wide host of teams, ranging all across the country from Washington and Oregon to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and Virginia. He even organized some teams, acting as manager, and helped pull together a short-lived league in Florida. He played for the National League in 1890, in one disastrous loss for the Boston Beaneaters and two losses for the Pittsburgh Alleghenys. He also organized several international ventures most plagued with financial difficulty, including two tours of Cuba¹, two tours of England, and a solo world tour that took him to South Africa and India. By 1895, Lawson left the field, his arm shot, but continued to manage up until the 1907, including a few more games in South Africa.

Though the majority of his baseball ventures had ended in failure and poverty, Lawson’s ambitions had not abated. In 1904, he wrote a utopian novel called Born Again, which displayed his growing prophetic bent. In 1907, after seeing an airship in flight, he had a whole new passion: aviation. In 1908, in Philidelphia, he began publishing the magazine Fly. Two years later, he relocated to New York City, renaming the magazine Aircraft. He also contributed to the 1912 edition of the New Websterian Dictionary. He made another startling display of prophetic talent when he stated in 1916, “Prior to the year 1970 air traffic will be practiced to such an extent that traffic rules of the air will have to be enforced, certain routes being charted altitudinally, the larger, long-distance ships being given the right of way at the higher altitudes.”

In 1917, he started the Lawson Aircraft Corporation, and worked on a design for the military, that after the end of World War I, they no longer wanted. Undeterred, Lawson started the Lawson Airplane Company in 1919, where he commissioned a 24-year-old Vincent Burnelli to design and build the C-2, what Lawson incorrectly termed the first airliner². His first prototype crashed after only a few minutes in the air, but he took his second C-2 on a national tour. At one point he carried 16 Senators, including future president Warren G. Harding. Despite a successful tour, no airline wanted to pay for the C-2. In 1920, Lawson was awarded one of the first airmail contracts in the United States. That same year he decided to build an even larger, more expensive plane, L-4, but when, in 1921, the plane crashed into a tree on its first attempted takeoff, Lawson’s second aircraft company crashed as well, taking its airmail service with it.

By the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, Lawson tried his hand at economics. In 1931, he published Direct Credits for Everybody and founded the Direct Credit Society. In his book, his society, and his newspaper, The Benefactor, he advocated for an abolition of interest on loans, government control of banks, and a government monopoly on lending. He also advocated something similar to (but much more generous than) Social Security for the elderly and those unable to work. This movement actually gained Lawson a strong following, the society claimed 150,000 members at its peak. Gradually the fervor surrounding direct credit dwindled.

In 1935, Lawson would publish the first volume of Lawsonomy his prophetic masterpiece. This book, the first of three volumes, outlined Lawson’s unusual ideas about physics and philosophy. These ideas were built on the principles of suction, pressure, and the loopily named “zig-zag and swirl” as the primary forces of the physical world. He followed it up with Mentality and The Almighty, which expanded his ideas to the realm of humanity, God, and whatever else struck his fancy. In 1943, he founded the University of Lawsonomy at the former site of Des Moines University³ in Des Moines, Iowa. The school was free, but allowed only males and expected a student to study Lawson’s teachings for 30 years before being granted the title of “Knowledgian.” Not satisfied with a philosophy he dubbed “the knowledge of Life and everything pertaining thereto” Lawson also founded the Lawsonian Religion in 1949. In 1952, Lawson was called before the Senate regarding financial practices at his school. After his death in 1954, Lawson’s University relocated to Sturtevant, Wisconsin, where its sign is still prominently displayed along Interstate 94.

While Lawson and his ideas have been largely forgotten, his adherents maintain a mostly out of date web presence here and here. There was evidently a student reunion in 2002 at the University, but its phone number (1-888-LAWSON-U) and email address are both currently out of service. So much for Lawson’s prophecy that by 2000 all of the world would be adherents of his ideas.

The last testament to Lawson's ambitions

The last testament to Lawson's ambitions

—-
1. Lawson abandoned his second trip to Cuba after financing fell through, forcing his teammates to make the trip themselves after securing backing from a new source.

2. The honor of first airliner goes to the only slightly more successful BAT FK26, designed by Frederick Koolhoven, which first flew in April, 1919. Lawson’s plane did not fly until August 19th of that year. Lawson did have the first American airliner.

3. This Des Moines University was a liberal arts college affiliated with the Baptist Bible Union of North America. It closed in 1929 and should not be confused with the current Des Moines University.

Asides:

If you go here you can find a poem about two of Lawson’s followers.

Favorite quote encountered in researching Lawson: “The force of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was no doubt caused by electron feces.”

More about Lawson:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,816203,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,802965,00.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20071008072424/www.lawsonsprogress.com/chapters.htm
http://www.humanity-benefactor-foundation.4t.com/index.html
http://www.lawsonomy.org/
http://www.squidoo.com/lawsonomy
http://www.davidaspitzley.org/MythicDetroit/#Lawson
http://oldbeacon.com/beacon/lawson/lawson_airliner.htm
http://www.aviationhalloffamewisconsin.com/inductees/lawson.htm
http://kenyonreview.org/blog/?p=987
http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/ear_01/ear_01_00190.html
http://www.onmilwaukee.com/sports/articles/lawson.html
http://www.pacifier.com/~dkossy/lawsonomy.html
http://oddbooks.co.uk/oddbooks/lawson.html
http://www.uwm.edu/Libraries/special/exhibits/hardie/hardie_digital/Lawson/Lawson_home.htm
http://www.koolhoven.com/history/fk26/
http://libertarian-labyrinth.blogspot.com/2006/10/alfred-w-lawson.html
http://www.fredgehm.com/humortimewastersandstuffthatsjustplainweird/alfredlawsonnutcase.html
http://www.insolitology.com/topten/alfredlawson.htm
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qsort=&page=1&matches=37&browse=1&qwork=7389288&full=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSOyOEbdQDI&feature=related
http://books.google.com/books?id=VkoZAAAAYAAJ&dq=1912+webster+dictionary&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=LK7Sa9199k&sig=eQXbLsSaaJf9EkGWojl2t_0PAFI&hl=en&ei=oWJOStG6M4iuNp2m2e0D&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5

July 7, 2009

The Little Aviator That Could


Few know of Walter Thomas Varney or his contribution to modern air travel. The man who would later be credited with founding two major airlines started small. Born a day after Christmas, 1888, Varney would go to fly for the U. S. Signal Corps during the first World War. After the war, Varney started an aviation school and air taxi company in San Francisco. Life did not seem to hold much promise of further excitement for Walter T. Varney, but 1925 changed all that.

That year, Congress passed the Contract Air Mail Act, opening up postal air routes to private operators. Many would bid on the lucrative airmail routes that serviced cities such as New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, and St. Louis, but Varney saw opportunity where no one else did. Believing that no one else would place a bid, Varney put himself firmly in position to win the airmail route that would serve Pasco, WA, Boise, ID, and Elko, NV. In October, 1925, he was awarded the 435-mile route uncontested.

For his newly created air service, headquartered in Boise, ID¹, Varney recruited another flight instructor, three student pilots, and four mechanics to work for him. He also bought six Swallow biplanes, which were unfortunately underpowered. The planes gave him enough trouble that he had to put in more powerful engines. Later, Varney would replace them entirely with planes made by Stearman.²

Over time Varney expanded his route, dropping Elko and replacing it with Salt Lake City and extending service at its northern end to Spokane and Seattle. He had managed to transform a route that no one else wanted into a lucrative air service. In mid-1930, United Aircraft acquired Varney Air Lines. Along with National Air Transport, Pacific Air Transport, Boeing Air Transport, and Stout Air Services, Varney Air Lines (the oldest of all these companies) would form the foundation of United Airlines.

Not content to simply have his company be absorbed into a larger one, Varney founded Varney Air Service in 1931. In 1932, It became Varney Speed Lines Air Service. Unfortnately, by mid-1934, this company had folded.

The intreped Varney made one more attempt at the airline business. The same year his second air service collapsed, Varney teamed up with Louis Mueller to form Varney Speed Lines. This company served New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and California. Later that year, Varney ceded control to Mueller who renamed the company Varney Air Transport. Mueller later sold 40% of the company to Robert Six in 1936, who renamed the company Continental in 1937.

While Varney now is little more than a footnote in aviation history, one of many enthusiastic characters who bridged the gap between the Wright brothers and modern airlines, his influence was staggering. How many others can claim to have founded two major airlines?

Next time you look up up to see jet crossing the sky, give a little thought to Walter T. Varney.


1. A Varney Air Line hangar, dating from 1931, served as part of the Boise Airport terminal building until 2003.

2. When writing this article, there was an amusing story of how Varney pilots had to take off using trees in the Airline Builders, part of Time-Life’s The Epic of Flight series. While the tale was delightful, it also smacks of apocrypha. After lots of deliberation (and finding no other reference to the story in the scant sources I could find about Walter T. Varney) I finally decided to excise the story. However, on the off chance that the tale is true, here is the paragraph as it originally appeared:

For his newly created air service Varney recruited another flight instructor, three student pilots, and four mechanics to work for him. He also bought six Swallow biplanes, which due to their underpowered engines had to be launched in a rather novel fashion. On occasion, they would park one of the planes against a sapling, where the pilot could rev his engine to nearly full throttle before jumping the young tree. The intrepid pilot would then aim his roaring plane at a second sapling, using it to bounce his feeble little craft into the air. The planes gave him enough trouble that he had to put in more powerful engines. Later, Varney would replace them entirely with planes made by Stearman.

July 2, 2009

Hello, My Name is Stagger Lee

The above is an adorable music video for Lloyd Price’s “Stagger Lee,” that puts the fun back into back alley gambling and murder.

In 1959, Lloyd Price turned a traditional folk and blues song into a major hit for himself. His song, “Stagger Lee” (later to be ranked by Rolling Stone as the 456th greatest song of all time) brought the legendary title character into the mainstream of American culture. Stagger Lee, also known as Stack-O-Lee, Stack O’Lee, Stag-O-Lee, and numerous other variations, has inspired at least 284 recordings ranging from instrumental to a cappella and from jazz to reggae. His story in song and folklore, seems endlessly varied. Yet, as big as Stagger Lee’s story is, the story of Lee Shelton, his real life inspiration, is in some ways even larger.

Lee Shelton¹ was born on March, 16, 1865 in Texas, in the last days of the Civil War. By 1895, at the age of 30, he had established himself in St. Louis, MO. Lee was a man of many trades. He worked as a carriage driver, an occasional waiter, a pimp, and the owner of a tavern and gambling house known as The Modern Horseshoe. He was also apparently active in politics, as the head of a club for the Democratic Party.

On Christmas night, 1895, Shelton walked into a saloon owned by Bill Curtis in an area of St. Louis known then as “Deep Morgan.” There Shelton began conversing with the unlucky Billy, one William Lyons. Lyons worked as a levee hand, his age was either 25 (given in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat) or 31 (as listed on his death certificate). He and Shelton conversed in a friendly manner for some time, until the conversation turned to politics. The two men began to argue, hitting one another’s hats until eventually Lyon’s took Shelton’s Stetson hat. Shelton drew his .44, hitting Lyons with it. When Lyon drew a knife, “Stagger Lee,” so the song goes, “shot Billy.”

Lee Shelton returned to his home with his hat. He was arrested around 3 am. William Lyons lingered on at City Hospital until an hour after Shelton’s arrest.

While there 4 other murders took place that Christmas night in St. Louis, Shelton’s gained a peculiar prominence. His slaying of William Lyons came to symbolize the political and economic tensions within St. Louis’ African American community. Lyons had powerful connections. His brother-in-law, Henry Bridgewater, was a wealthy and prominent black Republican. He ran the Bridgewater Saloon only a few blocks from Curtis’ saloon. While Cutis’ saloon catered to lower class Democrats, the Bridgewater was a Republican stronghold that served a more upscale clientele and even garnered the occasional black celebrity.

Shelton soon found himself embroiled in a political feud that transcended a mere bar fight. When he was taken to the coroner’s inquest the next day, Shelton was confronted with a crowd of approximately 300 angry blacks, most likely connected to Bridgewater. Bridgewater himself agitated for prosecution of Shelton and hired the Assistant Circuit Attorney of St. Louis, Orrick Bishop, to head the case.

Not to be out done, Shelton used his own powerful connections to wrangle up a prominent lawyer for himself. He had engaged the services of Nat Dryden, a brilliant, opium-addicted alcoholic. Despite his substance abuse problems, Dryden had a reputation for winning difficult cases and had even secured Missouri’s first conviction of a white man for killing a black man. By the fourth of January, Shelton had managed to raise $4,000 and bailed himself out of jail. On July 15, 1896, the trial began. After two days of trial and twenty-two hours of deliberation, the jury was hung. Lee Shelton was a free man, at least until his retrial.

In the interim, Dryden died on August 26, 1897, after a drinking binge. That October, after being convicted in his second trial, Shelton was confined in the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City for a twenty-five year term.

Shelton was not to serve that full term, however, and was released in November, 1909, with the aid of fellow Democrats. His regained freedom would do him little good. In January, 1911, Shelton robbed a man and returned to prison that May for a five-year sentence. Once again Shelton would not serve his full term. In 1912, after a failed attempt by Missouri’s Democratic governor to have him paroled, Shelton succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 46.

Despite his ignoble end, Lee Shelton’s political career did not cease with his death. Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party and one of the Chicago 8, gave his son the name Malik Nkrumah Staggerlee Seale. For Seale, Stagger Lee represented the untrained, unfocused resistence of oppressed African Americans, which could be transformed into the focused, organized resistance of the Black Panthers and Malcolm X.

Though Stagger Lee continues to live on² in popular culture, Lee Shelton himself was buried in an unmarked grave in Greenwood Cemetery³ in Hillsdale, MO, just outside of St. Louis.

The Mississippi John Hurt verison of Stagger Lee.

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1. Shelton’s name is also occasionally given as Sheldon, as it appeared in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat article that detailed his shooting of William Lyons.

2. Fittingly, in 2004, ex-pimp Fillmore Slim recorded a version of “Stagger Lee” on his album Funky Mama’s House. His story was also made into a graphic novel by Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix.

3. If you’re interested in visiting his grave site, there’s more information about it here and here. You can also visit his house and the former site of Bill Curtis’ Saloon.

For more on Lee Shelton/Stagger Lee:
http://www.planetslade.com/stagger-lee1.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2003/may/09/artsfeatures
http://www.geocities.com/blueskat2000/stagger_lee_home.htm
http://media.riverfronttimes.com/938483.0.pdf
http://www.stackolee.net/public/onepage

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2007-06-27/news/the-story-of-stagger-lee
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/68016/the_lee_sheldonwilliam_lyons_story.html?cat=33
http://bobshannon.com/stories/Stagger.html
http://www.kwur.com/blog/2009/02/stagger-lee.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagger_Lee_Shelton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagger_Lee_(song)

June 14, 2009

Of Lemmings and Sheep

Lemmings get a bad rap. Commonly considered mindless followers and suicidal vermin, lemmings are a far cry from popular perception. The truth is these little rodents are more independent and less bent on self-destruction than they are given credit for.

Lemmings are basically solitary creatures. They live in tundra regions throughout the Arctic and sub-Arctic, where they feed on moss, lichen, grass, and other plants. On the occasions where they do meet up, its usually for a quick one-night stand to try and pop out another litter of little lemmings.

Due to predation, variations in food supply, and a prodigious ability to reproduce, lemming populations can fluctuate wildly, changing from near extinction to massive overpopulation in just one year. It is at these times of overpopulation when the lemmings embark on their legendary mass migrations. When there is little food left to be had and many competitors, lemmings, like most starving creatures, look for greener pastures. Large numbers of lemmings may disperse over wide areas, sometimes even braving bodies of water to reach new feeding grounds. In the course of swimming across various lakes and streams some lemmings often drown. Of course, this is also true of caribou, wildebeests, and just about any land animal that migrates across water.

The myth of mass suicide is an old one. The earliest published account I was able to track down puts the date at 1923, but the myth is probably much older. Considering that in the 1530s a hypothesis was put forward that lemmings fell from storm clouds and died out when spring came, the comparatively simple (and still believed) suicide myth probably also has a long pedigree.

In the 1950s the lemming suicide myth got a big double-boost due to Disney. In March, 1955, Disney published an issue of their comicbook Uncle Scrooge titled “The Lemming with the Locket” which featured a giant swarm of lemmings on an unstoppable quest to throw themselves into the sea. You can view the lemmings’ final moments here or read the whole comic here.

The lemming myth got an even bigger boost in 1958, when Disney released White Wilderness a supposed documentary about life in the Arctic. This film was successful enough to win an Academy Award for best documentary feature. Little did the Academy know that the documentary featured falsified footage¹, including its famous scene of lemmings jumping into the sea. The scene was filmed using creative editing and camera angles as well as outright fraud to create a scene of lemming suicide. It was filmed in southern Alberta, near Calgary, well south of the lemming’s natural habitat. The lemmings, which were captured by children, were flown from in from Churchill, Manitoba, for the shooting. In the footage (at the top of this entry) the film crew never shows more than maybe two dozen lemmings at a time. When it came to filming the lemmings jumping over the cliffs edge, that was just the film crew flinging the hapless rodents to their doom.

But while there’s no evidence that lemmings commit mass suicide, there are two documented cases of sheep doing just that. Sort of.

In 2002, 403 sheep flung themselves to their death in southern France. These sheep were likely trying to escape a pack of wolves and because they are herd (or in this case, flock) animals used to mindless following they all went over the cliff together.

In 2005, a like-minded group of sheep flung themselves from a cliff in Turkey. Nearly 1,500 sheep leapt from the cliff for no known reason, to the horror of the 26 families that owned the sheep. Their is a silver-lining, though. While over a thousand sheep leapt from the cliff, only about 450 died. By the time the later sheep went flying from the cliffs edge, the woolly bodies of their fallen comrades cushioned the blow enough that most of them survived.


1. The film also featured the intentional hurtling of a polar bear cub over rocks. You can watch a lovely expose of all this here.

Another aside: the myth of lemming suicide helped spawned a successful series of video games, starting in 1991, entitled Lemmings.

More about the lemming suicide myth:
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.asp
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/04/27/1081903.htm?site=science/greatmomentsinscience
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/cruelcamera/fakery.html
http://www.wildlifenews.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlife_news.view_article&articles_id=56&issue_id=6
http://www.athropolis.com/arctic-facts/fact-lemming-jump.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/oct/31/internationalnews
http://advance.uconn.edu/2000/000612/00061214.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC1uhjku6ro&feature=related

More about sheep suicide:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/this-europe-shepherds-despair-as-wolf-packs-drive-sheep-to-suicide-649379.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2005-07-08-sheep-suicide_x.htm

May 16, 2009

The Large and Small of It

From National Geographic

From National Geographic

Most people have seen birds cruising on air currents, whether they be hawks, eagles, vultures, or crows, but few can imagine a bird the size of a small airplane gliding over the world’s highways and byways. Long before Big Bird began roaming Sesame St.¹ Argentavis magnificens did just that.

A colossal bird, Argentavis magnificens soared over parts of Argentina approximately six million years ago. It boasted a twenty-one foot wingspan and weighed an estimated one-hundred and fifty-five pounds. In comparison, the longest wingspan of a living bird is that of the wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) measuring in at a measly ten feet, while the heaviest flying bird, the kori bustard (Ardeotis kori) weighs only about forty pounds.

Argentavis’ great weight made for an ungainly take-off. Using computer simulations originally designed for helicopters, researchers have come to the conclusion that Argentavis could probably get airborne only by running downhill, or launching itself from a high point. However, once aloft, Argentavis used its massive wings to soar with the best of them. It is estimated to have been able to cover distances of up to two-hundred miles at a speed of just over forty miles per hour, with a diving speed of up to one-hundred and fifty miles per hour.

While Argentavis could by no means carry off lift an elephant into the air like the mythical roc it was likely a capable predator. Its head measured twenty inches and sported an impressive hawklike bill. Coupled with its impressive diving speed and fierce talons, Argentavis could take down large prey with ease.

from Birdfinders

from Birdfinders

Much less capable of catching large prey, but equally impressive in its own way is Cuba’s zunzuncito, or bee hummingbird, the world’s smallest bird. The bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) has a length of approximately two inches and weighs around .0635 ounces, with males being slightly smaller than females. It would take approximately 39,060 bee hummingbirds to equal the weight of one Argentavis magnificens. Not satisfied to be the smallest bird, the bee hummingbird is the smallest warm-blooded vertebrate.²

Unlike Argentavis, the bee hummingbird has no trouble taking off. With wing muscles that make up 22 to 34 percent of their body weight, they can fly at a speed of up to 30 miles per hour. Like other hummingbird they are adept at various aerial feats like hovering, vertical and backwards flight, and are even able to fly upside down.

These little birds feed primarily on nectar and small insects. Don’t be fooled by their humble diet, though; bee hummingbirds are as tough as they come. Males will establish feeding zones from which they aggressively chase all competitors be they other males, bumblebees, or hawk moths.

The bee hummingbird is also able to conserve energy during cool nights by dropping their body temperature. During the day their temperature is about 106 degrees Fahrenheit, but can drop down as low as 86 degrees in a sort of mini-hibernation.

Sadly, the bee hummingbird may go the way of Argentavis magnificens. While it is only considered Near Threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, its fairly small population is declining meaning its situation may worsen.

1. Big Bird has been roaming Sesame St. since 1969, played always by Carroll Spinney.
2. The honor of smallest vertebrate currently goes to Paedocypris progenetica, a tiny fish that lives in highly acidic swamps on the island of Sumatra. This little fish is only 7.9mm long, less than 1/3 an inch. It also sports a skull that leaves its brain unprotected by bone. Unfortunately, Paedocypris progenetica faces danger due to habitat damage caused by forest fire, logging, agriculture, and urbanization.

For more on this delightful relative of the carp:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2006/jan/news_7501.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jan/25/indonesia.science

More about Argentavis magnificens:

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1421

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3299302/How-the-dinosaur-bird-took-to-the-skies.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070702-biggest-bird.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11710794
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6262740.stm
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/30/12398.abstract

More about the bee hummingbird:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Mellisuga_helenae.html
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/index.html?action=SpcHTMDetails.asp&sid=2101&m=0