Long Time, No See

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I was surprised to find quite a few sites discuss the origin of this phrase – I thought it would turn out to be a colloquial phrase with no origin.

Stackexchange found several uses in the early 1900s. William F. Drannan’s novel, Thirty-one Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, and Jeff W. Hayes’ novel, Tales of the Sierras (both 1900) put the words in the mouth of Native American characters. Other novels put the phrase in the mouths of Oriental characters. In fifteen years, Anglo characters in westerns used the phrase, and it continued to spread.

Some people suggest the phrase is a literal translation from Chinese – see the comments at englishforums.

Wikipedia includes Drannan’s usage, but also found “James Campbell’s Excursions, Adventures, and Field-Sports in Ceylon (published 1843): ‘Ma-am—long time no see wife—want go to Colombo see wife.'”

“How and why did such a grammatically awkward phrase become a widely accepted part of American speech?” asks NPR. They found the first print usage to be Drannan’s novel, but also report sources that claim sailors (maybe English, maybe America) picked it up in China.

“By 1920, the phrase makes it into Good Housekeeping magazine. The novelist Raymond Chandler used it in more than one of his books,” and today is seen as American slang.

Attack on Coal Mines

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The mining of coal in Colorado came under attack when WildEarth Guardians sued advocating that the environmental review for operating the Colowyo mine near Craig, Colorado did not consider the impact on global warming. “The Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation Enforcement issued its decision…five days before court-imposed deadline…” The review “…found that the burning of coal at the nearby Craig Generating Station would have ‘insignificant impacts’ on national greenhouse gas emissions and moderate impacts on emissions in Colorado. It also noted that only 20 acres of the 809 acres to be mined under the original permit still remain untouched.”

The ruling was good news to the 220 people who are employed at the mine, but the issue is a stark reminder of how far the environmental movement will go to shut down any generation of energy by any means other than solar and wind. Similar law suits have been filed against other coal mines, including the Trapper Mine near Craig and other mines in New Mexico and near the Montana-Wyoming border.

I find it frightening that some who are advocates of the dangers of global warming are willing to accept economic devastation of people who make their living providing the fuel that generates the energy that supports our lives. A smart friend has calculated that there would be an insignificant impact on global temperatures if the United States stops the use of all energy-producing methods that produce carbon dioxide emissions. (He allows for each of us to continue generating carbon dioxide in the breath we exhale.)

The friend posted a previous thoughtful and informative commentary on global warming. Part of what he wrote was that, “One of the major problems with the concept of global warming is, if it is caused by Man, the potential remedies could be catastrophic to society.  If we were to stop using fossil fuels, our society must change drastically.  It is only a dream that solar and wind power can replace fossil fuels.  There are some political facts that are “inconvenient truths.”  The three major CO2 producers are China, the U.S., and Europe, in that order.  China has recently agreed to consider curbing their fossil fuel use in the next few decades.  America has cut back significantly on the generation of CO2, but will have a real problem going much farther.”

Perhaps the environmental groups, such as the one who has been filing the lawsuits against coal mines, have discovered ways to heat their homes, drive their cars, power their computers, and recharge their cell phones without completion from the masses who aren’t as smart. There is no doubt that there will be severe energy restrictions if the only “allowed energy” is from solar and wind. Perhaps some antinuclear activists will be willing to consider nuclear if energy isn’t available to recharge their cell phone batteries?

Packing for Space – Oh, and Mars, too

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packing for marsMary Roach’s book Packing for Mars is not mostly about Mars. This annoys me. It opens hopefully with isolation studies aimed at all space travel, but in particular a mission to Mars; and the last chapter is aimed at Mars. But the subtitle is more accurate: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. The Void is zero-gravity.

Not everyone is annoyed like me. The book gets 4.5 stars on Amazon.

Roach presents the history of the US and Russia in space, from captured Nazi rockets to the International Space Station. She uses her signature method of digging into the gnarly nitty-gritty. “One of the things I love about manned space exploration is that it forces people to unlace certain notions of what is and isn’t acceptable. And possible.” This suits her style.

Zero-g and the human body
Zero-g presents a lot of problems for the human body. Roach is characteristically persistent in her exploration of how bodily effluvia are handled. Some of it is fascinating. Water, and therefore urine, acts very differently in zero-g where surface tension controls its movements. Urine builds up on the sides of the bladder, which fails to warn an astronaut it’s time to pee. The bladder can get so full it squeezes off the urethra and a catheterization is needed to avoid death. Imagine the obituary.

Poop is even ickier.

Space hygiene is an interesting contrast to all the gleaming white rockets and high tech equipment NASA likes to display.

Sex – shush
Sex in space is also explored and, since NASA won’t discuss the subject, Roach turns to marine biologists to learn about underwater mammals. She also includes stories of acknowledged hoaxes and pornography about sex in zero-g. That’s’ funny – for a while.

Sex is one thing and reproduction is another. Space-station research on rats suggests embryos may not be able to implant in zero-g.

What about Mars?
But I wanted to learn about a Mars mission. My ebook edition makes it easy to find all the mentions of Mars – seventy two times, in three clusters of references, within two hundred twenty pages of text. I’d become frustrated and started skimming in chapter four – Really? V-2 rockets and the first (unfortunate) monkeys in space? So counting made me feel better about the book.  Continue reading →

Sinister

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I’m deviating from expressions because I find the etymology of the word interesting. It refers to being left- handed, and both of our children are dominantly left-handed. The root of the word sinister is the Latin sinistra, which refers to being left-handed. Left-handed evolved over time to mean evil, threatening, or unlucky. It has also been considered as meaning the person has been touched by the devil. On the other hand (so to speak) another web site explains, “There is something righteous about the right hand: it is supposed to point in the right direction and do everything right.” I’ve not noticed that our children have suffered any more than other left-handed people who have to deal with right-handed tools, etc., and I noted in sports that being left-handed (and left-footed in soccer) was an advantage.

Temperature Changes in Alaska

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President Obama recently visited Alaska and stirred the urge to check into the global warming controversy. He visited the Exit Glacier and mentioned that it had retreated 1.25 miles in 200 years. I was inspired to check into temperatures in Alaska and found one web site that says it is managed by members of the “American Association of State Climatologists.” They observe that, “The topic of climate change has attracted widespread attention in recent years and is an issue that numerous scientists study on various time and space scales. One thing for sure is that the earth’s climate has and will continue to change as a result of various natural and anthropogenic forcing mechanisms.” (Bravo!)

The site presents a graph showing that temperatures since the late 1970s have trended upward. However, they point out there has been little warming “…with the exception of Barrow (on the coast above the Arctic Circle) and a few other locations. The stepwise shift appearing in 1976 corresponds to a phase shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from a negative phase to a positive phase.” That causes “…increased southerly flow and warm air advection into Alaska during the winter, resulting in positive temperature anomalies.” I don’t understand how increasing levels of carbon dioxide could have caused that, but I’m not a climatologist.

One article I read about President Obama’s visit to Alaska should have been checked more closely for errors before it went to print. It said (and I’m certain this must have been an error) that “The administration asked Congress to speed the acquisition of a new heavy-duty Coast Guard ice breaker from 2022 to 2020 and begin planning for the acquisition of additional ships that could help maintain year-long access to polar regions.” Why am I so convinced this must have been an error? It makes no sense to build ice breakers when the global warming models indicate polar ice will be mostly melted in the next few years.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center web site shows current levels of ice are less than those measured in 2013 and 2014, equal to 2011, and much more than 2012. A quick look at the graphs for the last five years indicates the levels of ice are about constant. Perhaps we should hope the data eventually will begin to track with the predictions from the global warming models and we can save money by not needing ice breakers.

Ponderer was kind enough to comment on the information above and points out that Dr. Strangelove would have wanted us to not have an icebreaker gap with the Russians reminiscent of the fallout shelter gap of that movie (not the exact words, but sorta close). Ponderer also thought it would be fair to show a chart of Arctic sea ice from the 1950s, which dramatically demonstrates that there is much less ice today. Point taken. However, I continue to have the suspicion that nature (including solar activity) has more to do with the extent of sea ice than the influences caused by man.

Japanese Art of Tidying Up

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TidyI read a strange little book – little at about 100 pages, strange because it’s a self-help book. That’s not the usual choice for this blog.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo, caught my eye first because I thought the word “tidying” was a funny choice – too cute. The book is translated from Japanese (by Cathy Hirano), so that may explain the choice.

The title looked like typical self-help hyperbole otherwise. But there was a long waiting list at my library. It’s a New York Times Best Seller, and has four and a half stars on Amazon with over 5,000 reviews. What could it be?

Best Parts

For me, the best parts of the book have little to do with its tidying mission.

I found several interesting bits of Japanese culture to enjoy. I don’t know how universal these scraps are – Kondo takes a fairly spiritual approach and most of her clients (she tidies for a living) seem to be single women. One client said tidying was “far more effective than feng-shui or power stones and other spiritual goods” for her life.

I’d be nonplussed if Kondo “greeted” my house on a consultation. She will “kneel formally on the floor… address the house in my mind… Then I bow.” She says this is based on the etiquette of entering a Shinto shrine and shows respect for her client. See what I mean about Japanese culture?

There are other tidbits:

  • Japanese people believe a clean home brings good luck
  • Dobutsu uranai is a popular form of Japanese astrology, and there is also “zoological fortune-telling.” (The whole world’s culture doesn’t descend from ancient Greece!)
  • Herbal tea is popular.
  • A typical young-adult apartment may be a “seven-mat room (seven tatami mats take up about ten by thirteen feet of floor space) with a built-in closet and three sets of shelves.”
  • Koromogae occurs in June – the annual switch to summer clothing. It “originated in China and was introduced to Japan as a court custom during the Heian period (794-1185 AD).” In the late nineteenth century it spread to schools and businesses, and later to homes. October goes the other way.
  • “The recent trend in Japan” is to attend early morning seminars and keep materials handed out by the lecturer as a “badge of honor.”

I also found small reminders of my own family and myself. Hey – I fold my socks that way (in “potato-like lumps”). My mother did that. I’ve tried this. Sometimes “right” and sometimes “wrong,” I enjoyed the memories.

I won’t burden you with my memories – read the book and enjoy your own. As Kondo says, “order is dependent on extremely personal values.”

KonMari System

You may be curious what her system is – it’s simple. Continue reading →