Pox perspective . . .

OUR WELTANSCHAUUNG: how much of it has been shaped because somebody creative had a dose? You know, the gift-that-keeps-on-giving, aka syphilis, aka "The French Disease"?  Creative types, like Schubert, Schumann, Baudelaire, Maupassant, Flaubert, Van Gogh, Nietzsche, Wilde and Joyce and their crotch critters?

Sarah Dunant, at The Guardian, has a fascinating look at the historical effects of 'The Pox', with an article, "Syphilis, sex and fear: How the French disease conquered the world" that is worthy of your attention. You sure did not want to live before the discovery of antibiotics, syph is a nasty way to die.  As pay-back for Smallpox, this New World invader cut a hell of a swath through Europe, you just took years to die and enjoy the process.

Historians mining the archives of prisons, hospitals and asylums now estimate that a fifth of the population might have been infected at any one time. London hospitals during the 18th century treated barely a fraction of the poor, and on discharge sufferers were publicly whipped to ram home the moral lesson.

The Critter: Treponema pallidum
on cultures of cotton-tail rabbit epithelium cells

Again, until the discovery of antibiotics, there was no cure. What's old, is new again:

Much of the extraordinary detail we now have about syphilis is a result of the Aids crisis. Just when we thought antibiotics, the pill and more liberal attitudes had taken the danger and shame out of sexual behaviour, the arrival out of nowhere of an incurable, fatal, highly contagious sexual disease challenged medical science, triggered a public-health crisis and re-awoke a moral panic.

Not surprisingly, it also made the history of syphilis extremely relevant again. The timing was powerful in another way too, as by the 1980s history itself was refocusing; from the long march of the political and the powerful, to the more intimate cultural stories of everyman/woman.

Perspectives . . .

WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU A LEMON, make lemonade. It's an old aphorism, but wise advice. A case in point: Examiner.com has a fascinating article by Gregg Clemmer, "The unexpected legacy of Washington's first Civil War amputee".

That would be James Edward Hanger; born in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley in 1843. Apparently, Jimmy lost his leg to a six pound cannon ball in the first land battle of the civil war at Phillipi, Virginia (now West Virginia) on June 3, 1861. That unfortunate encounter made him the war’s first amputee.

Hanger survived the operation, recovered in a nearby residence, and in August was released in an exchange of POWs, hobbling his way home to Churchville, Virginia, on crutches and a crude peg-leg. Asking his mother for privacy, he secluded himself in an upstairs bedroom, requesting only food, a knife, barrel staves, and a few limbs from the willow tree in the yard. He seemed to be literally whittling his time away. Or so his family thought.

But Jimmy had a surprise . . .

Creativity persists . . .

IMPROBABLE RESEARCH has a report of interest: research into motorized pogo sticks is alive and well. Delightful site, lots of neat things.

No foolin' — and Canada is doing its part, too, with Université de Sherbrooke, Canada and its PSEUS project (Pogo-Stick Extreme of the University of Sherbrooke), which you see, above. The Americans are also jumping into the act, with efforts by University of California, Berkeley, US – The Pogomatic, and Carnegie Mellon University, US – The Bowgo. Then again, maybe they got inspired by the late, great John Entwistle.

In case you missed it . . .

THIS PAST WEEKEND, AMIDST ALL THE POLITICAL BUMMER, the 25th Annual World Punkin Chunkin Championship was held with glee in Sussex County, Delaware. According to Wiki, there's even a European punkin chunkin association, in Belgium.

The Science Channel has a series of awesome videos (you won't believe the centrifugal catapults in action) that can give you an idea. Consider: currently, the record for the Air Rifle class is 4483.51 feet, and 2737.69 feet, for the Centrifugal class. That's chunkin', folks.

ONAGER ONLINE is a cheerfully enthusiastic site of one of the international competitors, Onager, who came in second place in the European championships. Love the team logo in the foreground: nails the spirit of the endeavour.

July 10, 1856: Nikola Tesla's Birthday

Thanks to Google's masthead for the reminder (and my old friend Cubby), here's the WIKI on the man, who probably did more to shape the world we have than anybody since James Watt. Indeed, Tesla was credited as the man who brought us the "Second Industrial Revolution".

Here's a list of what the man worked on:

• Various devices that use rotating magnetic fields (1882)
• The Induction motor, rotary transformers, and "high" frequency alternators
• The Tesla coil, his magnifying transmitter, and other means for increasing the intensity of electrical oscillations (including condenser discharge transformations and the Tesla oscillators)
• Alternating current long-distance electrical transmission system (1888) and other methods and devices for power transmission Systems for wireless communication (prior art for the invention of radio) and radio frequency oscillators
• Robotics and the "AND" logic gate
• Electrotherapy Tesla currents
• Wireless transfer of electricity and the Tesla effect
• Tesla impedance phenonomena
• Tesla electro-static field
• Tesla principle
• Bifilar coil
• Telegeodynamics
• Tesla insulation
• Tesla impulses
• Tesla frequencies
• Tesla discharge
• Forms of commutators and methods of regulating third brushes
• Tesla turbines (eg., bladeless turbines) for water, steam and gas and the Tesla pumps
• Tesla igniter
• Corona discharge ozone generator
• Tesla compressor
• X-rays Tubes using the Bremsstrahlung process
• Devices for ionized gases and "Hot Saint Elmo's Fire"
• Devices for high field emission
• Devices for charged particle beams
• Phantom streaming devices
• Arc light systems
• Methods for providing extremely low level of resistance to the passage of electrical current (predecessor to superconductivity)
• Voltage multiplication circuitry
• Devices for high voltage discharges
• Devices for lightning protection
• VTOL aircraft
• Dynamic theory of gravity
• Concepts for electric vehicles
• Polyphase systems
  

It terms of creativity, this is about as far from Stevie as you can get. Tesla's three-phase rotating magnetic field is shown below. The Conservative Blue arrows are probably indicative of something.