HERENEED COMPOSER! At end, with second wine pic?
Good Morning to all the Gnus of Gnuville, here for the Good News of the Day. I’m the New Kid on the Block, your host, WineRev, making his first tour of duty writing the GNR. All glitches, “say what??” moments and other non-text thingies that should not have happened are all my fault, so I take responsibility in advance. And all those text thingies? (Typos, mangled punctuation---a personal specialty---, liberally sprinkled commas, all known spellings of its (e.g its, I’ts, it’s, its, and the Middle English Mangle of apostrophes outnumbering letters: ‘I’t’s’---the only case in English; our revenge on those other languages with diacritical accent marks, umlauts, schwabs and tongues with implied or understood vowels)---these are all mine as well!
Green Science News
Let a million solar panels BLOOM! Even down on the farm and out in the countryside. Too good a story to miss:
I have often heard anti-solar energy voices talk about solar installations taking farm land out of production in an attempt to create a food vs green energy conflict. Forward thinking farmers have tried mixing solar with agriculture and, happy surprise, the two go together like peanut butter and chocolate.
Farmers are trying out mixing agriculture with solar panels and the results are awesome.
ON THIS DAY, October 21 in another solar and wind moment:
1805 Atlantic Ocean off Cape Trafalgar, Spain Napoleon has assembled his Grande Armee at the English Channel to invade England. A combined French & Spanish fleet of 33 ships left Cadiz, Spain on October 18 to ferry them across and give cover against the British Navy. British Admiral Nelson intercepts them here with a fleet of 27. Using innovative battle tactics and powered solely by wind and solar, Nelson smashes the Napoleonic fleet, sinking 22 opposing ships while losing none of his own. Nelson is fatally wounded but lives long enough to see the victory: "England expects every man to do his duty." The crew fittingly preserved his body in rum to bring home for burial. (Next guy to try invading England from France was Adolf in 1940…..and THAT one didn’t happen either.)
Good News Research
Meanwhile, in Australia, there could well be endless commercial uses for a new method (already scaling up) of carbon-capture that shows immense promise for curbing, even stopping CO2 emissions, converting that molecule to solid carbon and O2---you know, the component atoms!
Research has been going on for centuries, not just last week. For instance, ON THIS DAY:
1824 Leeds, England After three years of experimenting and research, self-taught chemist Joseph Aspidin, a receives a patent for “Portland cement.” (Named for a type of prized limestone from Portland, England.) While this was rather more like the cement we use for stucco, it was still the first step (in about 30 years) toward what Aspidin called “Artificial stone”, the pourable, shape-able, steel-reinforce-able concrete we now use to build everything. (My dad was a structural engineer. Concrete was his stock in trade, complete with spalling characteristics, slump rates (srsly!) and how soon before a pour the ingredients were mixed---all of which and more affected structural integrity.)
And no, not everything about concrete has been invented.
A new way to reduce emissions levels caused by concrete use has been proposed and proven to work by Professor Ippei Maruyama and C4S (Calcium Carbonate Circulation System for Construction) project manager Professor Takafumi Noguchi, both from the Department of Architecture at the University of Tokyo. They have found a way to take waste concrete and captured carbon dioxide, and combine them in a novel process into a usable form of concrete called calcium carbonate concrete.
Read more about it HERE.
Medical research
is also producing Good News. Of course, this has been going on a LONG time. For instance, ON THIS DAY
1854 London, UK Florence Nightingale, daughter of a prominent, wealthy family, had studied in Germany and become enamored of redeeming nursing as a profession from its low (prostitutes during slow days----srsly) and superstitious level. Two years ago she returned to England and devised a scientifically based training program (later a formal curriculum). She defied professional arrogance (a poll of 60 doctors working at a London hospital found only 2 in favor of “trained or educated nurses”), military red tape, and social slurs by the bushel (behind her back, to her face, to her parents and family, and in print). On this day she and a staff of 38 other young women in her charge sailed to the British military hospitals in Crimea, Russia to treat the wounded and the sick. Her example and their success (attested to by the military) established Nightingale as the founder of modern nursing and the inspiration for decades of women (Clara Barton, Dorothea Dix, Mary Bickerdyke from the US Civil War, e.g.) to enter the field.
Not to be outdone, or perhaps proceeding with Nightingale’s determination,
in cultured human neurons derived from stem cells, bumetanide reversed gene expression changes associated with Alzheimer’s, and the electronic health records of millions of patients point to a link between the drug and reduced odds of being diagnosed with the disease.
This could be Really Good News for beating Alzhimer's!
Goofy #1 (It wouldn’t be a History Corner without certain off-kilter, historical nuggets embedded from years past, right?)
1858 Paris This evening marks the world premiere of Jacques Offenbach's opera "Orphee aux Enfers." While you have likely never caught this opera, one of its show-stopping tunes has become famous. A troupe of exotically dressed dancers displayed their tail feathers, boldly visible as they performed a high-kicking routine to Offenbach’s Tune “Infernal Galop”, but which was immediately nicknamed, the “Can-Can.” “Can-can” was a diminutive form of “canard," the French word for duck, whose evenly displayed feathers were instantly likened to those of the dancers.
Jetson Research?
Otherwise, extending the Good News from researchers and experimenters, remember the Jetsons? All those flying cars? Well, we’re not there yet, but there is an interesting development making cars, trucks and buses WITHOUT TIRES.
The so-called Air Suspension Wheel (ASW) is the brainchild of serial inventor and structural dynamic engineer Dr. Zoltan Kemeny. The patented ASW is a mechanical wheel constructed mostly of steel with in-wheel pneumatic suspension through cylinders.
The future is arriving maybe before our very eyes!
You know, maybe the ASW people would like to shine a light on their work, and likely do. That’s all thanks to THIS DAY,
1879 Menlo Park, New Jersey After 14 months of research and testing (including plucking a hair from the beard of a grizzled friend) Thomas Edison finally finds a substance for a filament. His carbonized cotton filament light bulb is the first incandescent electric lamp. The bulb burned for about 13 ½ hours. (A revolution in lighting; the beginning of modern life and the massive expansion of electricity to create the modern world.)
Goofy History #2
1892 Chicago, IL The City of Broad Shoulders (well, it would be after Carl Sandburg was born) invited the world to a coming out party, the World’s Columbian Exposition. The opening ceremonies are this day, speeches were made, bands played and ribbons were cut! And then everyone went home. Because construction was badly behind schedule the Exposition itself did not actually open to the public until May 1, 1893……..but it was a handsome opening ceremony (“If we would have postponed we would have lost our deposit, and we haven’t invented freezers yet to save all the cupcakes we baked, so we went ahead with the splash……”)
Of course, we don’t need to go back to 1892 for public goofiness. After all, we have Lindsay Graham! That man blathered into new levels of lunacy the other day
Lindsay Graham, 40,000 Brazilians!
Still, if we are going to maintain a certain historical dignity alongside our hysterical dignity, we need to recall Goofy #3 ON THIS DAY
1918 New York City. The 69th Regiment Armory building, (Lexington between 23rd and 24th) as EVERYBODY KNEW, was the site of the Business College competitions, giving new meaning to Office Pools for the Super Bowl. There were head-to-head competitions for stenography, for completing an out-of-state phone call, (WAY more than “dial the number”) and for typists. On this evening Margaret Owen sets 2 world records. In the sprints, she wows the crowd (hot ticket for a hot date!) and the judges by typing 170 words in 1 minute. Then the distance event. the veteran keyboard man Emil Trefzger was there and defended his world title by typing at 129 words/ minute for 60 minutes. But Margaret Owen breaks the ink-stained, blue ribbon by firing off 135 words per minutes, so that after 60 minutes she had typed over 8000 words. (When you remember those keys had to be pushed down two inches or so each time against return springs, well, modern “keyboard warriors” don’t know what typing IS!)
And, speaking of New York City, they still know how to use Edison’s lightbulbs and correct spelling do LARGE to exercise free speech
Good News for Political Reform?
After all, today marks an 86th Anniversarie! Vive le Dames de France!
1945 Women in France were allowed to vote for the first time.
But also, there was an intriguing DailyKos diary HERE outlining the particulars of Expanding the Supreme Court. We could all use a primer on some of the particulars.
Good Artistic News
1959 New York City. Art collector Solomon Guggenheim died in 1949, bequeathing a legacy of modern art to a foundation he set up. The Foundation eventually hire architect Frank Lloyd Wright for a design to display the works. Wright produced a building that looked like a stacked, wound ribbon. Guests would take an elevator to the top floor and then take in the art while walking slightly down slope on a ramp all the way to the ground floor and the exit. (Wright died 6 months before it was completed, his last work.) On this day the Guggenheim Museum opens to the public (and as far as we know, all the pieces are hung right side up but with this modern stuff…….)
1975 Houston, Texas Back in 1911, Scott Joplin----the Ragtime King---- has done something completely different. The King of the Keys has written an OPERA! Entitled "Treemonisha," a scaled down version of it played for 64 performances at the Uris Theater in Manhattan. The prejudices of the time caused it to be forgotten. But not forever. This night, deep in the Heart of Texas, the Houston Grand Opera opens the first ever, full scale staging of “Treemonisha” paving the way for later performances in many locations since.
As you find reason (and there is ALWAYS a reason!) to sip a glass of your favorite form of grape juice or other libations, I can assure you that such imbibing goes much better with some music.
1807 Burlada (now part of Pamplona), Spain Birth of Hilarion Eslava Miguel Elizondo, composer. When he was 11 he and several friends were swimming and playing in the Ebro River. A passing priest heard them and picked out Miguel. The priest convinced his parents the boy had a real voice and he became part of the Pamplona Cathedral children’s choir. He not only sang there but learned organ, piano, the violin and composition. Eventually was ordained a priest and rose to choir master in a series of cathedrals. When the Spanish government cut support for various church positions, Eslava turned to composing. In addition to 8 Masses and 140 sacred pieces (some still performed on certain Holy Days in Spain) he also turned to secular opera. He wrote 4, to great popularity. The pious were aghast that a priest would compose something as gaudy as operas, but his popularity (and his very public defense of Spanish composers breaking the influence of Italian composers) kept him safe from the zealous and provided a good income the rest of his life.
May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring!
Shalom.