The Amundsen Observatory

We all know what lies at the North Pole. Just mentioning it probably brings up images of a red and white barber pole with a triangular banner bearing the words ‘North Pole’. And of course in the near vicinity lives Santa and his elf settlement at this distant outpost.

Perhaps in 50 plus years, global warming will thin the ice up there enough so water finally pokes through and the whole paradigm up there might need changing.

But there is a more solid pole. Even if you melted the snow and ice of the South Pole, you’d have ground to to firmly plant your feet on. Finally Roald Amundsen’s expedition arrived to the South Pole almost 100 years ago, on December 14, 1911.

All that was reported there was snow and ice. Amundsen left a tent and a letter there in case he never made it back to civilization.

So there isn’t a red and white barber pole saying South Pole on a triangular banner in Antarctica. In those harsh elements I bet the tent and letter are long gone. Perhaps modern man should leave a permanent plaque to this victory in exploration.

Still, a simple plaque is hardly going to increase interest for the South Pole. Perhaps we could make a station there, maybe Amundsen Station.

But I have a better idea. How about a science station, nay an observatory to peer at the heavens. You see, the South Pole has an advantage over every part of the world except the North Pole. And as discussed previously, the North Pole might be underwater in 50 years. So the South Pole is the place.

Below, in the foreground, is a picture of a Dobsonian mounted telescope (thank you KW Telescope). The mount is what allows the telescope to point anywhere. The Dobsonian mount is free to rotate at its bottom. Just above the keypad thing is the other rotator. This rotator allows the telescope to move from horizontal to pointing straight up and every position in between. With these two pivots, the telescope can point anywhere at all in the sky.

All the other telescopes in the background use the more complex German Equatorial Mount. It’s more complex and involves counterweights. Such mounts are way more bulky and usually have smaller actual telescopes. So why use equatorial mounts?

A simple motor that makes the telescope turn 360 degrees in one day can be set up on such a telescope mount. You need this to counter the Earth’s rotation which moves the stars. It takes two motors to set something similar up on a Dobsonian. And the motors have to be adjustable and complexly programmed to follow a star.

This happens everywhere – except the South Pole. At the South Pole a Dobsonian mounted telescope can be powered by one motor that turns the telescope 360 degrees in one day. Perhaps a more massive telescope could be set up at the South Pole because of the simplicity of the Dobsonian mount’s design.

Of course the Amundsen Observatory at the South Pole would be useless half of the year. But during the half of the year it did work, it could run 24 hours.

So when pondering a tribute to Amundsen, at least think of a Dobsonian mounted telescope.

Update March 29, 2014: Apparently the south pole is lousy with telescopes. It’s not just the simple mount but it’s good viewing as well. I don’t know how long these observatories have been down there but I expect for a few years so I was already out of date when I posted this.

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To Colourize or to Decolourize

I know a number of cinemaphiles. So when colourizing first came about for black and white films, I heard some of the debate. The name that kept on coming up to not colourize was Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho. For some reason, the grittiness of the black and white, it was agreed, helped the film.

But now, thinking of these arguments again, I can’t help but taking on the rebellious attitude of wanting to see Psycho in colour. So, if I ever get the opportunity I would colourize Psycho. But not just with straight forward colour.

Wouldn’t it be fine to see the sky in every shot, instead of being a black night or an ordinary time of day, being the gaudiest oranges, reds and yellows of sunset that nature can come up with? Of course time might seem inconsistent in the movie if it is always sunset. But I say that’s worthwhile if we can get these glorious colours in every shot.

Can you imagine the iridescent colours of tropical butterflies making up the colouring of most of the interiors? You know, colour that would make gay pride flags jealous.

And that much talked about science fiction trope of having green blood – we can have that in the human death scenes. Which would bring about the question ‘Are the victims really aliens that the psycho is unmasking?’ It would add a whole new dimension to the movie.

And finally this movie contains Alfred Hitchcock himself in one of his cameos. Wouldn’t it be fun to give this famous director flaming red lips. A ruddy nose would be nice, too, because I’ve always imagined that Mr. Hitchcock liked to imbibe lots and lots of alcohol.

But wait, wouldn’t it be loads of fun to decolourize more modern movies?

I know your thinking you can just air it over a black and white television and you’re done. But no, I mean taking a much bigger commitment. I want to take the colour out but leaving as much detail as possible. After all we would complain if it didn’t have high definition in whatever form we watch these movies.

Wouldn’t it be fun to see Top Gun in black and white. Or Apocalypse now. Or any of a number of movies that have wonderful colour cinematography. Imagine Avatar with grey aliens. Perhaps the grey of the blue skinned aliens would match the grey of the pinkish humans.

We could also go back to a couple of the first movies that used colour. Now I take the opposite position as earlier – wouldn’t it be better to watch Gone With the Wind without garish sunsets? And who needs to see the colours of all that clothing and Tara?

Or how about decolourizing the Wizard of Oz? Oz is so pretentious by glorying in colour while Kansas stays black and white throughout. Cutting Oz down to size rightfully puts it at the same level as Kansas. And I think that more should be expected of the audience. We should have to take the actors’ word for it that the yellow brick road is yellow and that the emerald city is green.

Aren’t colourizing and decolourizing great when used in the proper way? It’s yet another tool at our disposal to make life and cinema more grand.

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Northern Dominance

It seems to me that northern nations have more than held their own against southern neighbours. Even when those southern neighbours outnumber their northern cousins. (Full disclosure: I am a Canadian, the second most northern land there is. That’s right I’m a stinking northern latitudinist – you have the freedom to become a southern latitudinist and dispel all my theories and come up with points of your own.)

In the middle ages the Vikings scared much of maritime Europe. As well as being dominant on the sea (they were the first Europeans to discover the Americas) they also made straightforward land invasions like on the isle of Britain. Vikings were seriously outnumbered by their enemies but instead of losing militarily, they seem to have died out on their own.

Northern raiders like the Mongolians were so feared by the Chinese that they built their huge wall to defend against them. In the 1200’s the Mongolians took China (as well as what is now most of Russia). Again a small northern population had a large southern population at its mercy.

Historically, Canada has fended off the Americans and kept its national integrity. In the early years, Canada relied on Britain to keep the Americans at bay. But sneakily, when the British were warring against Napoleon, the Americans decided to strike. With only some British soldiers stationed in Canada, Canada fended off the Americans in the War of 1812. Americans were surprised that there was any fight at all. After a couple years of fighting, nothing was settled and Canadian/American borders were left unchanged. Gradually tensions eased and eventually Canada became a full fledged nation and the border became the world’s longest undefended border.

I also believe that there is not just a northern dominance, there is also a southern one. In other words, I think this dominance flips on the other side of the equator. More southerly South Africa, seems to dominate its less southerly neighbours. But in that case, South Africa has the population advantage. Argentina seems to manage to keep its territory just fine even though less southerly Brazil has a much larger population. It’s not like there is no antagonism between these two countries.

There seems to be a pattern here. What do I make of it? I think that more northerly people don’t mind a warmer climate whereas the less northerly do mind the colder winters. I know I say it about different people in my own country. The lowest temperatures we get where I live, southern Ontario, are -25 degrees Celsius. Whereas the Canadian prairies can get temperatures as low as – 40 degrees. I promise to myself that I’ll never visit in the winter. But those same prairie people don’t mind visiting me in the winter.

As well there are technological changes you have to deal with if the weather gets colder. Those prairie people have cars, too, and at -40 degrees their cars just won’t start. So they heat their engines on those cold days.

And in the biggest war of the last century, colder Russia fended off Nazi Germany which had the resources of most of continental Europe, but which also has a nicer climate. I think the Germans were unprepared for war in a colder climate.

Not only are there technical differences, but warmer countries probably see the cold alone as a hardship. So what happens when you successfully invade a country? You have to hold it. Those German soldiers would have to be stationed in Murmansk and Siberia in order to hold their gains. Not a pleasant long term thing for those Germans.

But things have changed since World War II with south to north immigration. Northern strongholds became so pleasant and nice places to live that people from the south have immigrated to Northern Europe and North America. They have handled the elements as well as any northerner and gradually become technically adept at everything in these lands. I think the north might have lost its edge. Should we northerners be worried? Will those southerners want revenge?

But maybe these newcomers are just part of our new society. Perhaps the north has kept its edge due to the fact we have to keep civilized. Else we won’t survive the winter. Southern places are just that much more forgiving.

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Socialism Puts the Social in Social Democracy

I keep hearing some of the political discourse from the United States. Apparently socialism is worse than any of the dirty words. I’m surprised the FCC doesn’t bleep the word on network TV.

Did Americans forget they are a Social Democracy? This means that the US is mainly a capitalist state, but it uses socialism to smooth over some of the rough spots of capitalism.

In fact all the developed countries do this. But since the Americans do this slightly less than their developed country brothers and sisters they have convinced themselves in their discourse that socialism is evil.

But Republicans and Democrats are both responsible for the latest advance in socialism. That is they bailed out some banks and other lenders saying that there will be a trickle down effect to every person in the US. This is corporate socialism or corporate welfare. There is no way that every Democrat and Republican didn’t realize this.

In fact, I think that large corporate entities are being treated better than each citizen in the US. Could it be because they give more to lobbyists and political parties?

Damning socialism as they might, Americans have welfare and unemployment insurance. (I know it’s a technicality but we Canadians changed the name of unemployment insurance to “employment insurance” recently – it makes more sense.)

Do Americans want to go back to life without these comforts? Do the banks, and let’s not forget the auto companies, want to lose their status of “too big to fail”? That’s right. If socialism is so horrible, how come these programs almost never get repealed. Want to know why there is so much anger against full medicare? If it ever passes in the United States, it will never be repealed. People never plan to become ill, it’s just something that happens.

And I would like to argue that even before these obvious examples of socialism, America was a social democracy.

Public defenders and public educators could also be considered socialism. Public defenders started as long ago as before World War I in the US but became a right in 1963. Inclusive public schools started at an even much earlier date. These two institutions are certainly other ways to smooth over capitalism’s rough edges. I argue that these are socialism, too.

In fact what about the police and justice system, including judges? Aren’t these another bit of socialism if funded by the taxpayer? But there is no outcry about these institutions. Of course this system might possibly predate capitalism. It certainly predates the democracy of the Greeks.

So enough of the socialism bashing. It can be used wisely to smooth over the problems of capitalism. I might also add that it can help to smooth over the rough edges of just being human.

But I’m probably barking at a brick wall. Americans will probably call me a liberal and think this somehow dismisses me. In my country, Canada, liberal is not necessarily a badge of dishonour.

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Traiters

Update: Here is a third influence of date of birth effecting people. In the article kids with birthdates later in the year are more likely to be on drugs for ADHD. And now that I’ve seen this, I bet back in the past these more immature kids were likely to be disciplined more.

Update the Second: A fourth example of date of  birth effecting people is the likelihood of being a CEO.

Perhaps you were aware of the recent kerfuffle in the news about astrological signs being about a month away from how astrologers know the zodiac is ordered. And that Ophiuchus was a constellation that over thousands of years had entered the zodiac. It wasn’t really news, it was just a new generation becoming aware of this discrepancy. The way I got told it is that astrologers had deemed 5000 years ago as being a ‘perfect’ time and those positions of the constellations in the zodiac became cemented as the ‘perfect zodiac’ which is supposed to be valid for any time in the future or past. So according to astrology nothing changes with this info.

The kerfuffle led to this site getting hundreds of search hits for my post ‘I Believe in Astrology‘. So despite that post poopooing much of astrology, I saw the power of the hold astrology has on the public. The largest amount of searches I got were “Ophiuchus traits”. I don’t know Ophiuchus’ traits, just that he is holding a snake represented by the constellation Serpens (Caput) and Serpens (Cauda) which I gather are the two ends of the snake. If you wish to find the traits of the serpent bearer, I suggest you look him up in Greek mythology. Astrology hasn’t taken Ophiuchus seriously so there aren’t official traits for people born under his sign.

So maybe there is interest in taking my position in ‘I Believe in Astrology’ further. I know more than I did at the time of that post. I wish to present my ideas to like minded individuals whom I will call traiters.

Traiter is my name for those people that believe the traits of signs in astrology actually exist. A traiter does not necessarily believe one thing else that astrology pushes.

Why the name traiter? It seems unnecessarily harsh because of its similarity to the word traitors. That is deliberate. You see in my case, I’m an amateur astronomer and some in the astronomy community think everything in astrology is hokum and that by pushing any part of it, I seem like a traitor to them. Similarly those who believe in the traits of the astrological signs but don’t swallow the rest of astrology may be considered to be traitors by the mainstream astrology community.

I have some backup, that the month of birth may actually lead to differences amongst different people. I’ve made mention of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers in my earlier blog post, which states that the majority of professional hockey players were born near the start of the year. The reason Gladwell gives is that hockey players starting at 4 or 5 years of age have a large advantage if they are 6 months older than their competitors. So these born early players make it into the ‘elite’ programs where they get more training than the other players. So the initial extra skill becomes amplified.

The other instance that I’m now aware date of birth makes a difference is for illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It has been found that the chance of getting these illnesses is greater if you were born in winter or early spring. It’s a small increase of only 5-8% but it has shown up in over 250 studies. There are various theories of why, including seasonal infectious agents. However, adding to the complication on traiter theories, it occurs in the winter and early spring of the southern hemisphere, 6 months removed from the north. So any traits may differ between hemispheres.

I’m thinking of doing a survey of astrological books and find which traits a consensus has developed among the astrological community. Hopefully I can find enough sources in Canada to keep the survey Canadian. If not I will move on to North American tomes and include the US.

I wish to keep the survey amongst the culturally similar. As should be obvious from my two reasons for a traiter viewpoint. The second reason gave the difference between northern and southern hemispheres. The first reason is based on the western Gregorian calendar. China and other countries use different calendars and might divide the population differently.

So maybe in concert with a traiter more on the astrology end of things,I would like to release a book with the traiter philosophy. You could easily just pick up those birth sign astrology books and not have to read mine. I’m hoping that the survey and consensus finding will be intriguing enough to hook some people.

If not, I intend to use half of the writer’s net profit to funnel into a study of birth date and common traits. At this point it would be better to involve a psychologist or social scientist who has experience with human experiments and might have ideas on how to eliminate the unreliable narrator in such a survey. As well, the psychologist/social scientist could give a heads up if any similar surveys had been tried.

Most interesting to me in such a study would be the Capricorn A’s and B’s. Or in other words, those born at the start of the calendar year and those at the end. I expect to see a difference because of our culture’s reliance on the calendar. If the seasonal interpretation that seems more common in mainstream astrology were more correct, they would be the same.

Things that also could be tested would be the earth, air and water rankings of the signs. Or the difference if any between the symbol’s generally accepted traits and the actual traits found by the survey. I think astrologers and non astrologers alike would like to see such a survey completed.

The findings could be published in another book. Or in other media. That I think would put some real evidence behind the traiter point of view. The southern hemisphere and the differently calendared could do their own surveys.

I’ve hardly done a complete survey of medicine, there might be more illness that depends on date of birth or season. Or there might be a whole host of other areas that the calendar year effects on date of birth. There might be other reasons for date of birth to effect the traits of people. If you know of any please leave a comment.

Maybe you like the philosophy of traiters but you don’t like the name. Perhaps we could use something close to astrology or astronomy. You know, to confuse even those who aren’t confused by the two close names. How about astrolomy?

Whatever, you can leave a comment if you need to be heard on this subject.

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Thoughts on What Really is Asian

It seems that using the name Asian to describe orientals is all the rage. Especially amongst the younger, more with it crowd. I think the name came from the oriental community, itself.

Sometimes I am all for people defining themselves. But when they do this while stepping on the toes of others, I am no longer for it. I’m against the Asian example in particular.

Asia is the largest of all the continents. It’s not surprising that it is also the most ethnically diverse of all the continents. It has Orientals in the east, Indians in the south, Turks in the west, Russians in the north and Eskimos in the far north. And what the bleep are Ainu? Apparently they are light skinned people of Japan but are also not closely related to the European Caucasian.

Orientals being called Asians just has too much of an expansionist flavour to it. Perhaps that is their intent. Perhaps they have the long term goal of owning every last bit of territory in Asia. Thousands of years from now when this is all complete, future people might look on us as wilfully ignorant for not seeing the threat. “They even told you. How daft can you be?” the future historians will ask.

As you can tell by my frequent use of the name Oriental, I am a living fossil of 43. Maybe we could use this term even if it is a bit old. But then again I’ve looked in my dictionary and the Orient means anything east of Europe. That’s why the famous train route is called the Orient Express even though it ends in just Istanbul. Granted my dictionary says especially east Asia. But Orientals may take this as meaning they have the right to all of Asia and Australia. They might develop this idea to be their manifest destiny.

So, for a non expansionist world, I think it’s best to call the largest ethnicity of the east, East Asians. In fact, to me, this goes back to my University days where York U. had an East Asian Studies. They knew how to name. You can call higher learning pretentious but sometimes it is just right when dealing with a sensitive issue.

And if East Asians don’t like this conciliatory name then perhaps we can divide them. Maybe East Asians ought to be called Han Chinese. Ethnically Han Chinese make up 1.2 billion people and are considered to be the largest ethnic group in the world. With this moniker, other East Asians might realize that the expansionist games can be played a different way.

So now please can we take a less threatening stance toward Indians, Russians, Turks, Eskimos, Ainu and even Australians. Especially since some of them have the atomic bomb.

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How Art Made Me Fail a Science Course

Whereas my last post wast kind of boastful of my unique handwriting, this post is the opposite.

Being an artist, taking science courses is usually just a bit curious. Usually it only has slight ramifications. Like for graphing in 3D, the texts and teachers just used the below left axes. But I made my own, I thought more artistic axes, shown by the below right axes.

It even had its perks to be an artist in a science program. York University was divided into 7 colleges. Mine, Bethune College, was the science college. It also had its own newspaper – the Lexicon. The editor of this paper asked me, upon seeing some of my art, if I would be the political cartoonist for the paper. I had never done actual political cartoons before. I refused initially because I felt it would cut into my study time. But then he offered a sum of money at the end of the school year if I would do it. I figured out that at 3 hours a cartoon it would pay as much as a minimum wage job. So I agreed. And I was glad to do it, being a news junkie I had built up an intolerance to politicians. So I think it was successful.

My 3rd year Electromagnetism course started innocently enough. Early on they introduced a small r variable. Because I was enamoured by my new lowercase written r, I decided to use this r for the little r. Despite the fact that my lowercase written r is a smoothed capital r written the size of lowercase letters, it didn’t even bother me that they introduced a capital R variable. I just made sure to make the uppercase R blocky and large.

But mentally I freaked out a bit when later that semester they introduced a 3rd r. It was called a script r. It was basically a written small r. At first I didn’t know what to put it down as in my notes, but I felt I had to make a decision that class. Aesthetically and artistically I never liked my written small r. So I refused to use that. Instead I fancied up my small written r as shown below, last amongst all the r’s.

Now taking 3rd year Physics is a fast and pressured existence. And my passing cushion was never that high. I did okay in my other courses but when the dust settled at the end of the course I realized that I had failed this course and thus took it again the next year.

I had the presence of mind to keep my notes and looked at them at the beginning of the next year. I perused them to the introduction of the 3rd r. My suspicions were more than confirmed as I realized that in the first few pages I made a few slips and wrote the wrong r. I don’t know how bad my old notes got because I didn’t continue the autopsy. But I simply decided from the outset to stick firmly with the r’s as given and not do anything fancy. I passed that second time around. So that is how art made me fail a science course.

And I see the official Electromagnetism 3rd year script r up there that I wrote for this article and, still, artistically I don’t like it.

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Handwriting Ideas

Once upon a time I would laugh at my Dad’s handwriting. Oh you could read it if you squinted a lot and were persistent. And aesthetically it wouldn’t be considered visually pleasing.

Still, while going through early school my own handwriting wasn’t aesthetically pleasing either (although I thought it was more intelligible). So for years, I resorted to printing for my handwriting, which I thought looked better.

Finally, in my last couple years of schooling, I came up with a style of writing I liked. It incorporated a sort of twitchiness that I had better control of than in ordinary writing. To myself I called it “electric handwriting” because the writing kind of reminded me of the zigzags of lightning or the electric Jacob’s Ladder or even a plasma ball. In fact I’m so proud of my handwriting that I think it should almost be a font. Below I picture the capital letters of my writing so you can have a taste. Then there are the lower case letters, the biggest oddity among them being a small “capital” r for the lowercase r. I never could manage the normal written lowercase r. And thirdly I show an abandoned method of dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s. I figured at the time that not lifting the pen might be faster just as it is with the rest of writing. But then there are all the crossed letters like l and h. Plus dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s in antidisestablishmentarianism takes a longer time than I hoped.

But I had to write bigger than normal to show you all this (the blog sizing then made it smaller). Because almost 20 years out of school, my writing isn’t nearly as neat as it used to be.

In fact, my signature these days approaches the look of my Dad’s signature. I just don’t know how long I can pretend my handwriting is still superior. And in fact, when I first noticed my Dad’s bad handwriting, he was just a bit older than me and many more years out of school than I am.

Which leads me to the theory that with little or no practise, aesthetically pleasing handwriting goes the way of the dodo.

But you may well know of the obvious exception: doctors. They go to school longer than almost all of us and yet have worse handwriting than the norm. Indeed some even say that interpreting doctor’s handwriting for prescriptions can be one of the hardest jobs.

And I know the stereotype is true because of the only close relative of mine that could be called a doctor, well that is a PhD, my Uncle Lorne who was a professor of Geography. The first time I saw his handwriting was when he made a trip to Australia and sent us a post card. It was worse hand writing than my Dad’s. I spent a long time trying to read it and I think I guessed at about half of the words on the card.

Deteriorating hand writing may be the standard way to go but perhaps doctors have developed so much disdain for the written word that this is how they show their contempt.

Then there is theory number two about handwriting. All 4 of my sisters had neater handwriting than myself before I adopted the “electric handwriting” answer. In fact I think on the whole the average female can write neater than the average male. You might guess at my theory from something I said earlier.

Remember I mentioned that I can write neatly if I make it bigger?

Well women have wee hands, arms and wrists. Writing neatly and in the standard lines given by a sheet of paper should come easy for them. If the lines were bigger, perhaps us large strapping males could be neat, too.

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Cut Off the Coattails

Most of what we call progress is brought to us through science. And that science is generally moved forward by scientists and technologists.

As science becomes more complex and is built upon more previous work, shouldn’t we as a society try to make life easier for those scientists and technologists so real progress can be made in the world? What I am about to suggest is cutting off some people and influences in society that have been getting a free ride on science’s coattails while actively inhibiting scientists and technologists.

Let’s take those people who pooh pooh carbon dating as a technique and claim the earth is only 6 000 years old. Since they don’t really believe radiation theory, perhaps when some of them develop cancer we can avoid radiation treatments and opt for something they are more likely to believe in like the power of prayer.

What about the bullies that worked against the nerds that were to become future scientists? Are we just to let the adult scientists and technologists possibly take revenge in later life? Or should we just make it automatic that the year the bully started his targeting of a victim, is the year he thought things had come to perfection. In other words all technology past this year should never be allowed to work in the bully’s favour. Or perhaps we can make him regress even further and live the life of an Amish person or Old Order Mennonite. Wouldn’t it be even more sweet if we could throw in the non violence part, too?

Scientists and technologists are sometimes also disdained by the people they would like a romance with. Perhaps potential lovers who spurn all scientists and technologists could be banned from undergoing all plastic surgery procedures and the like. Undoubtedly a lot of them are vain enough that this would hurt. A warning to the scientists and technologists: while maybe not being scientists, doctors and nurses are certainly technologists and romances with those in either field are usually considered higher than normal status. So it would be rare to find a person who spurned romance with all scientists and technologists.

Now, with the road clear from some obstacles in life, maybe the scientists and technologists could see life being less about man vs. man and more about man vs. nature. Then perhaps progress would move faster. But then again I’m a self admitted progress junkie.

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Of Rock Picking and Cow Tipping

Now anyone who has seen the dark comedy Heathers (1989) has heard of cow tipping. This is the “sport” of sneaking up on a sleeping cow and pushing it onto its side (cows can sleep standing up). It has a made up sound to it and Heathers never shows it actually being done.

Sounding equally made up is the activity of rock picking. Farmers go about picking up the rocks they find in their fields and put them somewhere that their farm implements will not be damaged by them. But after doing this once, shouldn’t a farmer have to never do this again in the same field?

One of these two activities happens regularly on farms. The other almost never happens. This is a test, city people. Which of these two things is more a part of rural life?

Don’t look down, decide right now.

Let’s look at cow tipping. First of all, cows are skittish of all movement near them. Maybe most or all of them will be asleep, but they hang out in herds. All it takes is for one to be a light sleeper and it will awaken the rest just by moving loudly away from the movement.

Secondly, if you can sneak up on one, cows weigh about 1300 pounds or 580 kilograms. It’s probably going to take a couple of strong men to tip one over. And you still can’t wake it.

Thirdly, dairy cows cost thousands of dollars. Do you think a farmer is going to stand idly by while you tip over his prize cow and possibly injure it?

Fourthly, cows are rounded up by night fall and sleep in the barn. How many cows have you seen outside at night?

I lived 16 years in a rural area and not once did I hear about a cow being tipped. I did however hear about rock picking. In fact I helped rock pick a couple times.

I tried looking it up briefly online but couldn’t find anything about rock picking.

I had heard it said once that rock picking was needed because of long ago ice sheets.

I forget exactly how it works, now, but I know that ice sheets, as they move, sheer off rock from some parts and bring them to non rocky soils. So that’s why rocks exist in the soil in the first place. But I am not sure about the mechanism that brings new rocks to the top of the soil every few years. Plowing only disturbs the very top of the soil.

So, quite probably, rock picking is not necessary in tropical or near tropical areas. But I live in the Great Lakes area and those five lake beds were supposed to also be carved by ice sheets that were as much as a mile high.

So, to me, cow tipping is an interesting fiction but rock picking is a sometimes necessary task.

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