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Interrupted Journey: Part 11!

Tyleen Hackworth crouched beneath a camouflage quilt on a thin slab of a ledge overlooking the canyon. Positioned precariously close to the edge, he felt not the slightest compunction about being mere inches from a 500 foot drop; a thousand if a strong wind shifted his trajectory and he fell into a particularly deep depression in the canyon floor.

He scoffed at the danger. As a former recon trooper he had operated in worse environments. Besides, Hooper paid damned well. Hackworth held a multi-spectrum bi-scope to his eyes and zoomed in on smoke drenched areas where the Shatter Busters struck. He pulled back the focus and panned a broader section of the canyon, stopping when he picked up movement a mile from the first Shatter Buster impact site. He zoomed in, adjusting the bi-scope’s night sight to scrub away layers of darkness.

A figure climbing up a cliff wall. The armored man.

Hackworth tapped the subdermal comm next to his ear. “I’ve got a sighting. Lowtower’s scaling a cliff.”

“Copy that,” Hooper responded. “Keep an eye on him.”

“Not a problem.”

 

 

Five miles away, Hooper and Tunnel exchanged satisfied glances from inside the administrator’s command TVV. “I said he’d either be buried or flushed out,” Hooper remarked casually. “I’ll settle for the latter.”

Tunnel shined a venomous gaze through the TVV’s front window. “Let’s just hurry up and smite this bastard.”

Hooper grinned wryly and reached over to the console, tapping a link. “Standby. Deploy on my word.”

The Skyguard pilot’s voice responded: “Acknowledged.”

 

 

 

Dern reduced his suit’s power before ascending the canyon rockface. He wanted his Flare-enhanced muscles to endure the bulk of his climb up the cliff wall. With his suit’s power levels at less than optimum, he counted on the energy he conserved making a difference later.

He moved quickly when he found protrusions or small depressions to grip. Patches of smooth wall forced him in lateral directions until he discovered more protrusions to propel him upward.

He finally reached the top and hoisted himself onto level ground. After elevating his suit’s power level, he embarked on an accelerated run across a rocky plain.

A low rumble, increasing in volume filled his audio. Dern recognized the noise and cursed his bad luck. The goons had him right where they wanted him. A wide-open target in the middle of nothingness. He increased his acceleration, but knew that would do absolutely no good. He should have planned better…

 

 

The Skyguard soared directly above the fast moving target, releasing a spread of four Shatter Busters. As the bombs’ noses tilted downward in screaming plummets, the Skyguard shot up toward the stratosphere with the velocity of a bullet.

Four retina-searing blasts lacerated the darkness below.

The Skyguard pilot checked his scanner. Readouts didn’t pick up any movement from the target. The pilot had no intention of doing a flyover to assess the target’s condition. Not with the target’s rep. Instead he sent a transmission to Hooper. “Man down. Repeat…man down.”

 

 

That’s exactly what Hooper wanted to hear. He contacted his people in Routh, demanding reinforcements….

 

 

Dern awoke flat on his back with a daylight sun glaring down on his inert form like a giant angry eye.

Flare washed away his disorientation and he rose to waist level, freezing when he found himself enclosed in a ring of TVVs, their turrets directed on him.

“No sudden moves, Lowtower,” an amplified voice commanded from one of the TVVs.

Dern focused on the TVV directly in front of him; the source of the voice.

“Get up slowly,” the voice blared. “Keep both arms at your side. You so much as raise that weapon of yours and we’ll fry you where you stand.”

His suit felt heavier than normal as he rose very slowly to his feet. A quick glance at his display told him he didn’t have enough power to juice up a talking doll. The bombs didn’t pulverize him, but one landed close enough to knock him unconscious, rendering his suit inoperable. A large freshly gouged crater forty yards to his left reminded him of his recent peril.

Two Scythes flew toward him from the canyon’s direction.

“Keep those arms down,” the voice reiterated.

Dern sighed hopelessly. He had a better chance of squeezing water from a pebble than discharging a plasma burst.

The Sythes hovered threateningly above, ready to douse him with missiles at the slightest pretext.

Dern stood rock still. He wasn’t in the habit of providing pretexts.

The side hatches on the TVV facing Dern retracted. Out emerged four individuals in heavy armor of polished tan. Each armored figure wielded a wide barreled rifle with combined, high-energy emitting, rocket-launch features. The type of weapon an unarmored person, even if Flare-enhanced, would have had difficulty holding.

Dern recognized the weapons. Tanner Duel App Blasters. Tanners, whether in rocket or high-energy mode, packed enough punch to cripple a battle tank. While Tanners were modern enough, the armor was obsolescent, dating back to the early years of Coalition existence some three centuries ago. Big, bulky, with little articulation, the Series A5 Active Mobility Suit was state of the art in its day. As the armored figures approached Dern with their stiff, plodding strides, he couldn’t help thinking how he would have run circles around them with each step they took.

That thought reminded him of his current disadvantage and he clenched his fists in anger.

The Suits halted twelve feet away and leveled their Tanners on him.

Dern unclenched his fists.

Two more occupants emerged from the TVV. Hooper and Tunnel.

“I appreciate your cooperation, Lowtower,” said Hooper, bringing his hands together in mock applause.

“I’m not interested in what you appreciate,” Dern retorted. “If you’re going to kill me, kill me.”

Hooper grinned, stroking his lustrous beard. “Tough talk. How fitting coming from an SD soldier. The famed elite of the elite.”

“Former SD. I’ve been a civilian for quite some time.”

“Yet, you can’t separate yourself from the armor, can you?” Hooper threw up a grand gesture. “Even in its reduced state.”

Dern said nothing. Maybe Hooper was right.

“Well, I have a solution to your problem,” Hooper stated. “Take the armor off. Be free of it.”

Stunned, it took several seconds for Dern to process the question before he settled on a decisive, “no.”

“I’m not surprised by your answer.” The crimelord raised a hand.

In reaction the hatches on three more TVVs opened and the sleeper ship crewmembers were shoved out onto the ground. Hooper’s thugs followed, kicking the downed prisoners. One thug grabbed Alita by the hair and jerked her head up. Another one placed a very large knife to her throat, its jagged edge snagging a piece of the sun. Alita’s eyes shimmered with an electric mix of fear and defiance. Then they locked on Dern and never wavered.

The rest of the crewmembers were lined up and forced to their knees. Hooper’s goons stood over them with assault rifles aimed at the backs of their heads.

“I don’t think I need to say anymore, do I?” Hooper asked, his gaze cold as an arctic frost.

With the message drilled in to him, Dern slowly pressed invisible releases on his arms and upper chest. Hyper dense overlapping plates covering his armor shrunk into invisible niches. The metallic inner layer reverted to a softer elastic material making it appear as if Dern were wearing a form fitting vinyl head to toe leotard.

He slowly unlatched the HIE and let it slide off his wrist onto the ground. Afterward, he pulled back the translucent mask that was his helmet and dropped it on the ground beside the HIE. He pulled a zipper that began at his shoulder, ending at his naval and stripped out of the armor, leaving it crumpled at his feet.

Most of the women in Hooper’s gang…and two or three of the men whooped salaciously at the sight of Dern’s mostly nude, well muscled physique.

He stood before this heavily armed procession, pared down to his shorts. Yet, he felt not a flicker of vulnerability.  Rage loomed too large in his soul to accommodate anything less than the delectable urge to erase these cutthroats.

Alita lowered her eyes and Dern could practically feel waves of her despair pummeling him.

“There,” Hooper said with a sardonic smile. “That wasn’t so difficult was it?”

 

 

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Third Exodus!

Africa has traditionally been a neglected landscape in speculative fiction. Terry R. Hill brings the second largest continent to the fore in a spectacular way in his compelling work of science fiction titled Third Exodus. In the novel, terrorists inadvertently unleash a chain of events on Earth that sparks a catastrophic conflict between humans and machines. The war devastates the planet, but leaves the African continent relatively unscathed. A visionary African leader, recognizing that life on Earth is doomed, proposes and eventually implements a plan to settle humans on Mars. Col. Zune Adamini, a famed military officer, is chosen to lead an expedition to the Red Planet.

All is not smooth sailing in this monumental endeavor to save humans from a dying Earth. Power, greed, and unbridled ambition casts a shadow over the evacuation efforts. Adamini is forced to undermine an agenda set in place by superiors he cannot trust, but he must do so with utmost secrecy and deception. He receives assistance in his efforts from an alien artificial intelligence. While Adamini understands the mentality of his human enemies and takes measures accordingly to thwart their plans for the Martian colony, the AI's intentions remain a mystery to him.

The author does a seamless job of imagining a manned journey to Mars and its eventual colonization. His background in NASA confers an authentic feel on the narrative, infusing his description of space tech with an engineer's eye. Add to the hard science element his skillful use of science fiction's popular tropes: the sentient AI and FTL travel, and what you have is a well rounded adventure with interesting, well developed characters. Third Exodus envisions a desperate migration from a world that can no longer sustain life. Hopefully, a real world exodus will not be saddled with that level of urgency.

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RSL...

Dark flow like features called Recurring Slope Lineae emanating from bedrock exposures at Palikir crater on Mars during southern summer. These flows are observed to form and grow during warm seasons when surface temperature is hot enough for salty ice to melt, and fade or completely disappear in cold season. Arrows point to bright, smooth fans left behind by flows.
Credit: NASA/JPL

Martian experts have known since 2011 that mysterious, possibly water-related streaks appear and disappear on the planet's surface. Georgia Institute of Technology Ph.D. candidate Lujendra Ojha discovered them while an undergraduate at the University of Arizona. These features were given the descriptive name of recurring slope lineae (RSL) because of their shape, annual reappearance and occurrence generally on steep slopes such as crater walls. Ojha has been taking a closer look at this phenomenon, searching for minerals that RSL might leave in their wake, to try to understand the nature of these features: water-related or not?



Ojha and Georgia Tech Assistant Professor James Wray looked at 13 confirmed RSL sites using Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) images. They didn't find any spectral signature tied to water or salts. But they did find distinct and consistent spectral signatures of ferric and ferrous minerals at most of the sites. The minerals were more abundant or featured distinct grain sizes in RSL-related materials as compared to non-RSL slopes.



"We still don't have a smoking gun for existence of water in RSL, although we're not sure how this process would take place without water," said Ojha. "Just like the RSL themselves, the strength of the spectral signatures varies according to the seasons. The signatures are stronger when it's warmer and less significant when it's colder."



Science Daily: Flowing water on Mars appears likely but hard to prove

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OK everyone!

It is time for us to make some Afrofuturistic 3D Action Films!

We are down to our last few weeks on our campaign to raise funds for the Earth Squadron movie.  We need everyone that reads this to please donate to make this a reality. Whether it is $5, $10 or more, each donation ads up. We often see depictions in movies and TV shows that are stereotypical or less than flattering to say the least regarding women and ethnic groups.

 

Earth Squadron is a film about what happens when planet Earth's rejects are the only ones that can save them from an unknown alien foe bent on world domination. We want to produce films that show positive images for our kids to emulate. We believe you do as well.  Please click this link and play your part in this great project. Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.

 

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/earth-squadron-movie-project

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Once Upon A Time...

Post 9/11/2001 to encourage national unity:

Super Bowl commercial celebrating our changing demographics and diversity (E Pluribus Unum):


The obligatory troll responses...

More Neanderthal/Troglodyte musings here



Acts 17:26 "And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,"...(I doubt they've read this one)


BTW: as complained, American The Beautiful penned by Katharine Lee Bates is not the national anthem. That distinction belongs to the Star Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key. Civics is lacking, as ignorance is glorified and abounds...

New Colossus (The "Statue of Liberty poem")

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles
. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus

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Future of Higgs Boson...

Figure 2. The Mexican-hat potential energy density considered by Jeffrey Goldstone in his seminal 1961 paper. 2 The energy density is a function of the real (Re) and imaginary (Im) values of a spinless field ϕ. In the context of the electroweak theory developed later in the decade, the yellow ball at the top of the hat would represent the symmetric solution for the potential, in which the photon, W bosons, and Z boson are all massless. The blue ball in the trough represents the solution after symmetry breaking. In that solution the W and Z bosons are massive and the photon remains massless. The steepness of the trough is related to the mass of the Higgs boson.
Citation: Phys. Today 66, 12, 28 (2013); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.2212

Symmetries and other regularities of the physical world make science a useful endeavor, yet the world around us is characterized by complex mixtures of regularities with individual differences, as exemplified by the words on this page. The dialectic of simple laws accounting for a complex world was only sharpened with the development of relativity and quantum mechanics and the understanding of the subatomic laws of physics. A mathematical encapsulation of the standard model of particle physics can be written on a cocktail napkin, an economy made possible because the basic phenomena are tightly controlled by powerful symmetry principles, most especially Lorentz and gauge invariance.



How does our complex world come forth from symmetrical underpinnings? The answer is in the title of Philip Anderson’s seminal article “More is different.” 1 Many-body systems exhibit emergent phenomena that are not in any meaningful sense encoded in the laws that govern their constituents. One reason those emergent behaviors arise is that many-body systems result from symmetries being broken. Consider, for example, a glucose molecule: It will have a particular orientation even though the equations governing its atoms are rotationally symmetric. That kind of symmetry breaking is called spontaneous, to indicate that the physical system does not exhibit the symmetry present in the underlying dynamics.



It may seem that the above discussion has no relevance to particle physics in general or to the Higgs boson in particular. But in quantum field theory, the ground state, or vacuum, behaves like a many-body system. And just as a particular glucose orientation breaks an underlying rotation symmetry, a nonvanishing vacuum expectation value of the Higgs boson field, as we will describe, breaks symmetries that would otherwise forbid masses for elementary particles. Now that the Higgs boson (or something much like it) has been found at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC; see Physics Today, September 2012, page 12), particle experimentalists are searching for more kinds of Higgs bosons and working to find out if the Higgs boson interacts with the dark matter that holds the universe together. Cosmologists are trying to understand the symmetry-breaking Higgs phase transition, which took place early in the history of the universe, and whether that event explains the excess of matter over antimatter. The measured mass of the Higgs boson implies that the symmetry-breaking vacuum is metastable. If no new physics intervenes, an unlucky quantum fluctuation will eventually spark a cosmic catastrophe.


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Plato's Stepchildren...

Image source

In an era of #Scandal, it's probably hard today for kids to imagine this was as controversial as it was. It was groundbreaking, and made room for the creative talents of Ms. Shonda Rhimes (not "her only rodeo," as they say in Texas). I know it was BANNED in North Carolina and most parts of the south in the 1960's. Wikipedia seems to show an international bias as well:



"Plato's Stepchildren" is a third season episode of the original science fiction television series Star Trek, first broadcast November 22, 1968. It is episode #65, production #67, written by Meyer Dolinsky, and directed by David Alexander. This episode is one of the first scripted American television broadcasts to depict an inter-racial kiss between a white man (Kirk) and a black woman (Uhura).[1][2] This episode was withdrawn by the BBC in the UK because of 'sadistic plot elements' during the initial run in 1971 and was not shown until a repeat run in January 1994.

Ms. Nicols describes the scene:

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Hey BSFS! I am very excited this week. I am making my first appearance as Foundation Press publisher speaking to a local Atlanta group called ForeverFamily as part of its Black History Month program. I have the honor of encouraging kids 5-16 and their parents to consider writing as both hobby and profession.

Also on Feb 16 I am entering both my novels T'Schai and Enemy Space in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest, giving me two shots at the $50 thousand advance and publishing contracts. Wish me luck as I wish any of you entering the same!

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Source: Link below

Materials shape human progress—think Stone Age or Bronze Age. The 21st century has been referred to as the molecular age, a time when scientists are beginning to manipulate materials at the atomic level to create new substances with astounding properties.



Taking a step in that direction, Jens Bauer, at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and his colleagues have developed a bone-like material that is less dense than water but as strong as some forms of steel. "This is the first experimental proof that such materials can exist," Bauer said.



Ars Technica: New laser-printed material is lighter than water, as strong as steel

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Plasma Etching...

Image from Black Inventors

Plasma etching utilizes a gas excited/ionized in an electromagnetic field into a plasma - the fourth state of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma). Etching is how the semiconductor industry transfers a pattern in a photomask (a designed chrome mask) using UV light and photoresist. The resist captures the pattern, and is developed like photos (in old-style film and a camera). The plasma uses physical as well as chemical processes that react with the film to remove it leaving the exposed pattern. The resist is usually stripped away before subsequent processing in the wafer fab.

Plasma etch is used to transfer that pattern (s) becoming the integrated circuits in your cell phone; remote control; your thermostat in your home; your security system; your laptop; its mouse, servers for banks and the Internet: basically everything electronic you can think of.



You have the genius of this man to thank for it:



Physicist George Edward Alcorn, Jr. is best known for his development of the imaging x-ray spectrometer. Born on March 22, 1940 to working class parents, Alcorn was an excellent student and star athlete. He was awarded an academic scholarship to Occidental College in Pasadena, California, where he completed his B.A. in Physics in 1962. From there, Alcorn pursued graduate studies at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He earned his master’s degree in nuclear physics in 1963, and his Ph.D. in atomic and molecular physics in 1967.



At NASA Alcorn developed the imaging x-ray spectrometer. An x-ray spectrometer assists scientists in identifying a material by producing an x-ray spectrum of it, allowing it to be examined visually. This is especially advantageous when the material is not able to be broken down physically. Alcorn patented his “method for fabricating an imaging x-ray spectrometer” in 1984. He was cited for his method’s innovative use of the thermomigration of aluminum. For this achievement he was recognized with the NASA/GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center) Inventor of the Year Award.



Alcorn is credited with more than 20 inventions, and holds at least eight U.S. and international patents, many of these related to the semiconductor industry. For instance, he developed an improved method of fabrication employing laser drilling, and a process for improving the process of plasma etching.



MIT Inventors of the week: George Edward Alcorn, Jr. PhD
Plasma Etching: Dr. Lynn Fuller, RIT
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NA62...


In autumn this year a brand new experiment at CERN called NA62 will start taking data and it will have the exciting goal of seeking physics beyond the Standard Model. The physicists working on it are now in the final stages of installing their 270-m-long experiment on the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) – which itself has a circumference of 7 km and feeds protons into the Large Hadron Collider. The NA62 collaboration comprises about 150 physicists at 20 institutes worldwide and its primary aim is to make an extremely precise measurement of the probability that a positively charged kaon will decay to a positively charged pion plus a neutrino/antineutrino pair.



Physics World: NA62 joins the search for new physics at CERN

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Diaspora, 7 February 2014 (Repost)


I've discussed my own past before, and on a recent visit to South Carolina, I found out how things haven't much changed. My cousin and our family historian were granted a tour of the plantation that my Great-Grandfather Julius and his wife Epsy lived. They toured the grounds and the slave quarters. They were then told they (and by extension, any other family member) were "invited to never come again." Sad...




This is not physics obviously, but the tabulation of the cost of service - never paid, mind you - is quite accurate, and it expresses the time-worn phrase: "living well is the best revenge" (George Herbert).
Escaped slaves in Virginia, 1862, Library of Congress


Source of letter: The Freedmen's Book and Letters of Note

Dayton, Ohio,

August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee


Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.




I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.




As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.




In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson

Jourdon: Touché!

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inserting the "A" into STEM

STEM, Science Technology Engineering Math. It is a wonderful concoction of techno giberish of the kind that is suppose to fix us but good. Can you imagine the cold hard logic and precision of the human mentality, analytical, circuits, machines, synthetics, bio-nano-techno-diversity. Give me the gadget, show me the numbers!! What happens when there is no longer a big red push button for stop? If you put STEM in your children, can you live with the results? When that child has to apply STEM to the real world you still live in. Ooh man, show me the shuttle so I can get off this rock.

Schools cut art first to save sports. Sports, the gladiator games, OK! You can learn teamwork and grunt for physical excellence. Gladiators are good for military stuff too. And sports make money and head injuries. He's a 4.0 athlete but head butting pulverized his brain to a palsy. Dr. So and so used to be a football player and.... Oh nurse, I'm want to check out of here!

To save us from becoming totally inert, add an "A" to STEM. "A" is for ART.

What does "art" bring to the table? Design, color, composition, human sensibility, humanity. Art is in the box and out the box and use a bag if necessary. Art is the application of STEM according to us, the elegant solution that is workable, accommodates who we are, makes us comfortable, improves us, gets the job done and were not dead or dying. Art is our fingerprint. Art is the application of STEM. Without art, STEM is just research, theory. Art is visualization, planning, prototyping, producing and deployment of the final piece.

Lots of mumbo-jumbo talk by educators about STEM. It's like tooting your own horn. But if you want to play a melody you need one more note, an "A". When art is in there you can apply your STEM to what is needed.

I'm not knocking STEM, just letting off a little STEAM.

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Gas Masks and Stoplights...

Garrett Morgan

In 1912, Morgan developed another invention, much different from his hair straightener. Morgan called it a Safety Hood and patented it as a Breathing Device, but the world came to know it as a Gas Mask. The Safety Hood consisted of a hood worn over the head of a person from which emanated a tube which reached near the ground and allowed in clean air. The bottom of the tube was lined with a sponge type material that would help to filter the incoming air. Another tube existed which allowed the user to exhale air out of the device. Morgan intended the device to be used "to provide a portable attachment which will enable a fireman to enter a house filled with thick suffocating gases and smoke and to breathe freely for some time therein, and thereby enable him to perform his duties of saving life and valuables without danger to himself from suffocation. The device is also efficient and useful for protection to engineers, chemists and working men who are obliged to breathe noxious fumes or dust derived from the materials in which they are obliged to work."



The National Safety Device Company, with Morgan as its General Manager was set up to manufacture and sell the device and it was demonstrated at various exhibitions across the country. At the Second International Exposition of Safety and Sanitation, the device won first prize and Morgan was award a gold medal. While demonstrations were good for sales, the true test of the product would come only under real life circumstances.



That opportunity arose on July 24, 1916 when an explosion occurred in a tunnel being dug under Lake Erie by the Cleveland Water Works. The tunnel quickly filled with smoke, dust and poisonous gases and trapped 32 workers underground. They were feared lost because no means of safely entering and rescuing them was known. Fortunately someone at the scene remembered about Morgan's invention and ran to call him at his home where he was relaxing. Garrett and his brother Frank quickly arrived at the scene, donned the Safety Hood and entered the tunnel. After a heart wrenching delay, Garrett appeared from the tunnel carrying a survivor on his back as did his brother seconds later. The crowd erupted in a staggering applause and Garrett and Frank reentered the tunnel, this time joined by two other men. While they were unable to save all of the workers, the were able to rescue many who would otherwise have certainly died. Reaction to Morgan's device and his heroism quickly spread across the city and the country as newspapers picked up on the story. Morgan received a gold medal from a Cleveland citizens group as well as a medal from the International Association of Fire Engineers, which also made him an honorary member.


Although he could have relied on the income his Gas Masks generated, Morgan felt compelled to try to solve safety problems of the day. One day he witnessed a traffic accident when an automobile collided with a horse and carriage. The driver of the automobile was knocked unconscious and the horse had to be destroyed. He set out to develop a means of automatically directing traffic without the need of a policeman or worker present. He patented an automatic traffic signal which he said could be "operated for directing the flow of traffic" and providing a clear and unambiguous "visible indicator."


Satisfied with his efforts, Morgan sold the rights to his device to the General Electric Company for the astounding sum of $40,000.00 and it became the standard across the country. Today's modern traffic lights are based upon Morgan's original design.



Black Inventor: Garrett Morgan

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The "Jackie Robinson" of P&G...

WCPO 9, Cincinnati, Ohio

From "The African History Network":



Did you know that Crest Toothpaste, Folgers Coffee, Bounce Fabric Softener and Safeguard Soap were all created by an African-American Man? I have talked about Dr. Herbert Smitherman Sr. before on The African History Network Show before. In 2011 I spoke at an 8th grade graduation and told the audience about him to show them their potential. Most of the audience including parents had never heard of him and were amazed by his story.



Dr. Herbert Smitherman was a pioneering executive and professional chemist at Proctor & Gamble who led the way for other African-Americans at the prestigious company in the 1960s. He was the first black person with a doctorate hired at Proctor & Gamble.



With a PhD in physical organic chemistry, Dr. Smitherman developed a number of incredibly popular patents, including Crest toothpaste, Safeguard soap, Bounce fabric softeners, Biz, Folgers Coffee and Crush soda, to name a few. Not only are they still on the shelves, but many of them are on display at the Cincinnati Museum Center in the featured exhibit, “America I AM: The African-American Imprint.”



Nicknamed the “Jackie Robinson of Proctor & Gamble,” Dr. Smitherman spent 29 years there before turning in his labcoat to work as a professor at Wilberforce University. But after serving at the historically black college, Smitherman turned his attention to starting a high school called the Western Hills Design Technology School to help black students perform better in math and science.



A child of the south, Dr. Smitherman’s family lived in Birmingham, Alabama, where his father served as a reverend. A young Smitherman would see his father’s church burn down twice during their push for voting registration and voting rights.



He died on Oct. 9, 2010.



Black America Web: Dr. Herbert C. Smitherman Sr.
Cincinnati Herald: Dr. Herbert C Smitherman Sr broke barriers
Cincinnati NAACP: Dr. Herbert C. Smitherman

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