Science? Let’s Just Keep It Elementary!
The other day, Gompers High School junior Rachel Somerville won a first-place prize at the 36th International Science and Engineering Fair in Shreveport, La. Her project: “Microfossil Shape Analysis Using Laser Shadow Contouring.”
We don’t know what that means, so instead let’s look at some science fair projects displayed at Miller Elementary School in Escondido.
Like, “Will aspirin added to water prolong the life of cut flowers?” No, concluded Brian Peeples. (But, presumably, the flowers had fewer stem aches.)
Then there was Kendra Groves, who decided to challenge Coronado’s own popcorn king, Orville Redenbacher. She found that Premium Jolly Time popped more corn (5 cups) than Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popping Corn and the regular Jolly Time Popcorn (5 cups each). Sorry, Orville.
Brad Powers thought kids could figure out optical illusions quicker than adults because, he reasoned, “Children have fresher minds and eyes.” He tested kids and adults, and adults did better. Brad concluded, “I have proved something with my science report. The adult eye and brain are better equipped with information.”
For his project, Scott Gibson planted some marigolds in regular coffee grounds, and other marigolds in decaffeinated coffee grounds. The decaf marigolds grew better. And the entire classroom smelled of coffee for days.
Christy Kraber found that a golden pothos plant grew better at grandma’s house, where country music was on the radio, than the golden pothos that was sentenced to her sister’s rock ‘n’ roll music. But we could have told her that.
And then there was the fifth-grader with absolutely nothing to prove. “I have no question, no hypothesis and no conclusion, but here’s how a volcano works,” his poster board read.
History at a Price
The B-24 “Liberator” helped win the war in Europe. It was, until the waning days of World War II, the biggest plane flying. More than 19,000 B-24s were built in San Diego, at Consolidated Aircraft Co., which is no longer.
Fewer than a dozen of the planes are still around, and they are sought by collectors and museums.
One man in search of the plane is Ted Inman, curator of a war museum in Duxford, England. Inman tracked down a B-24 for sale in India and needs money to buy it. So the men and women of the Eighth Air Force Historical Society, whose president lives in Rancho Bernardo, have kicked in $11,000 to help Inman’s museum buy the aircraft.
The donation was a bittersweet one, suggests George Russell, president of the Eighth Air Force Historical Society, whose members helped fight the air war over Europe.
“We would like to have one of those planes here,” Russell said. “If there’s any place that needs to have a B-24, it’s here in San Diego, where it was built.
“We would buy one if we could find one that we could afford. We didn’t even know about the one in India. There’s one at March Air Force Base (near Riverside), but the guy wants $500,000 for it. We can’t afford that. But we don’t mind helping Mr. Inman buy his.”
Talk’s Still Cheap
There are court opinions and then there are court opinions.
Consider what the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego had to say the other day in discussing an appeal by a Solana Beach man. He had been convicted by a Superior Court jury of disturbing the peace by “uttering offensive words in public which were inherently likely to provide an immediate violent reaction.”
Specifically, the man directed some awful language at a police officer who was tending to a car accident in front of the man’s house. The police officer arrested the man for interfering with police work; the jury instead found the man guilty of being publicly foul-mouthed.
The three-man Court of Appeal overturned the conviction. We don’t know what the lucky man exclaimed when he heard the news. But about the man’s language in the first place, presiding Justice Gerald Brown wrote:
“A land as diverse as ours must expect and tolerate an infinite variety of expression. What is vulgar to one may be lyric to another.
“Some people spew four-letter words as their common speech such as to devalue its currency; their repetition dulls the senses; Billingsgate thus becomes commonplace. Not everyone can be a Daniel Webster, a William Jennings Bryan or a Joseph A. Ball.
“Some writers exalt sex and earthy words to sell their books. Not everyone is a Louis L’Amour, whose hero swears, if at all, under his breath and whose heroine’s suggestiveness, at most, is to walk away, her shoulders prim, her hips less so.”
Ends and Odds
As the Southwest Airlines flight from Phoenix prepared to land in San Diego, the steward announced over the public address system:
“Please return your seats to the most forward, upright and most uncomfortable position.”
Then there’s the bumper sticker for the ultimate cynic, as displayed on the back of a pickup in a McDonald’s drive-through:
“I know you’re lying ‘cause you’re moving your lips.”
