Southport back to Mooloolaba

February 10 - 17, 2007

After almost eight weeks in Bum's Bay, Southport, Billabong was finally on the move again!  It was a quick trip; our goal to get to Mooloolaba so that we could leave Billabong and discover Australia by land.  It was also an uneventful trip; some rain & thunder, crab hunting with no results, lots of midges & mosquitoes, and a few anchorages to ourselves and other's shared with hundreds!

Our journey went something like this:
2/10:  Still in Southport, but out moved of Bum's Bay
2/11:  Morning visit to Tippler's, then moved on to Tiger Mullet Channel
2/12:  Stayed in Tiger for the day w/ lightning storms (did some crabbing, but didn't catch anything)
2/13:  Slipping Sands (rain & lightning)
2/14:  Russel Island
2/15:  Tangalooma, where we hooked up with old friends on Gypsy Wind
2/16:  Arrived in Moolooaba by the afternoon.  We were treated to a BBQ and hot showers!





2/17 - 2/19:  Got the boat 'put away', packed, and were ready to hit the highway!

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Carnivals for the weekend!!

Here's some good reading for the weekend--

Georgia on My Mind has the 4th Georgia Carnival, with contributions from Alone on a Limb, Peach Pundit, The Spacey Gracey Review, and over a dozen more of the state's best bloggers.

The 48th History Carnival is up at Martin Rundkvist's Aardvarchaeology. Martin is a member of ScienceBlogs, an impressive bunch of folks and home of some of my favorite bloggers. Among his offerings for this carnival is a nice piece from Georgia's own History Is Elementary (who, by the way, will be hosting the next History Carnival!).

The Education Wonks have the 106th Carnival of Education, featuring Mike Bock's wonderful "The Education of John Adams" and nearly fifty other postings on education, from how to deal with ADHD parents, notes passed in class, and "new" student names, to discussions of assessment, "professional development," and textbook costs. Oh, and look at this-- History Is Elementary will be hosting the next version of this carnival as well! She's going to be busy, but we'll be looking for good things from her.

Finally, Action Skeptics gives us the 54th Skeptics' Circle, "as done by Mickey Spillane (or someone very much like him)," as Orac says.

Enjoy!

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Beat at my own game!

Last December, I posted a piece on how I found a use of the word “y’all” in 1858, a full half-century before the esteemed Oxford English Dictionary’s first citation.

Yesterday, Languagehat, a wonderful linguistics blog, linked to my posting, which means a lot of people who know a lot about words finally read it. Ben Zimmer, an editor for Oxford University Press’s American dictionaries, left a comment: “Barry Popik has found citations for y'all dating to 1856-57, from Alfred W. Arrington's novel The Rangers and Regulators of the Tanaha, or Life Among the Lawless: A Tale of the Republic of Texas.” I checked, and sure enough, Ben and Barry are right.

Here are the relevant sentences from Arrington’s book:

"Why, heern as how the regerlators wur guine to cotch y' all and swing y' up to dry, us thought we'd better heave to, and gin y' a lift; but when we fotch up in the dead man's grove, as them call it, and I guess as how 'twill bar a wusser name herearter, all in a twinkling, quicker nor y' could say Jack Robison, the bushes all blazed like a burnin' prairie, and the rifles roared behind every tree, and our boys dropped like pigeon-shootin'; and then the rest on 'em squalled fur mercy, and wur tooke alive” (p. 206).

He then made a small opening, and inquired, "ar y'all alive and kickin' in thar?" (p. 355).

Barry Popik, I salute you, sir!

And thanks, Ben, for passing this on.

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It’s a crazy, mixed-up world out there

From the Cartersville Daily Tribune News:

A Bartow County couple will go before a magistrate judge today to see if they will be arrested for allegedly stalking a Kennesaw police officer by installing cameras to track neighborhood speeders.

Lee and Teresa Sipple spent $1,200 mounting three video cameras and a radar speed unit outside their home, which is at the bottom of a hill. They have said they did so in hopes of convincing neighbors to slow down to create a safe environment for their son.

The Sipples allegedly caught Kennesaw police officer Richard Perrone speeding up to 17 mph over the speed limit. Perrone alerted Bartow authorities, who in turn visited the Sipples' home to tell them Perrone intended to press charges against them for stalking.

Something ain’t right here….

UPDATE: Seems like everybody already knew about this but me. I mentioned it to a couple of students today-- "Oh, yeah, I heard about that," etc. Apparently it was all over the radio and TV. If anyone is interested in a fuller story--and it's pretty interesting-- see here or here.

UPDATE II: World returns to normal; rogue cop agrees to drop charges.

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Me, a "thinking blogger"?

Will you look at that-- I've just been given a Thinking Blogger Award! Unexpected, perhaps undeserved, but there it is-- thanks to Brian, at Primordial Blog. Now, according to the rules, I have to nominate five bloggers whose postings make me think. Let's see, there are so many....

Here are my choices:

Bitch Ph.D.

Confessions of a Community College Dean

Boston 1775

History Is Elementary

Clio Bluestocking Tales

There they are: Five blogs that I find not only interesting but insightful and thought-provoking.

Congratulations, folks. You're my Thinking Bloggers!

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Parti Gras!

Parades! Beads! Booze! Boobs! Costumes! Birthday Suits! Kids! Toys! Boys!

Yes there is a little bit of everything here in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. And this year, we were all a part of it. My brother came to visit, along with Lil John (from Costa Mesa), Big Jon (from Beantown) and Rachel (Nashville), who is a permanent "guest" of ours.

What did we do? We saw a lot of parades, each very cool, with great floats, marching bands and lots of loot. Our favorites: Muses, Baccus and Zulu. We drank a lot of booze, but that just can't be helped..it is Mardi Gras! We showed our boobs to everone passing by...Just kidding! Only Doyle did that... We got TONS of beads...what do you do with them all when it is all over? I have enough beads to kill a small horse. Or should I say "FILL" a small horse. We went to the Maringy, the French Quarter, Uptown, Downtown and all around...

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Day 73: I am Not Dead Yet!

…And it keeps getting easier. Last Friday, we ran 11 miles. The week before that, we ran 10 miles. After that 13 is just another drop in the bucket.

We began to do this after looking at a map and realizing that from the office to our hotel was roughly 10 miles. We have since switched hotels and now it is 11 miles to our new destination, which is even better. It is a nice run too – from the office, we run along the levee for about 5 miles, then cut over to the park, run along the park for about half a mile, then cut over to the street and run up St. Charles Ave the rest of the way. St. Charles Ave is where the streetcar used to run along before the hurricane and so now there is a nice area right in the middle that is not being used and is a perfect running trail.

Last Friday, everyone was getting ready for the Mardi Gras parades, so it was quite an adventure. People with BBQs, kids, booze, food, chairs, tents and dogs were setting up all over the place. There were cops everywhere; in fact I think the average was about 5 cops for one block. I did not know that there were that many cops in New Orleans! I think they must bus them in from Disneyland or something.

We arrived at the hotel in about 1 hour and 50 minutes, which is consistent with our 10 minute per mile pace. I think we are ready for a full 13 miles!

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Happy Birthday, Darwin and Lincoln!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, Abe and Charlie,
Happy birthday to you!

Today is the birthday of both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. Both were born on the same day of the same year: Feb. 12, 1809. Quite a coincidence, ranking up there with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both dying on July 4, 1826. (Actually that's a neater coincidence, being the 50th anniversary of the approval of the Declaration of Independence.)

Has anyone done a Lincoln/Darwin parallel thing, like what we used to see for Lincoln and Kennedy? You know: Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846; John F. Kennedy in 1946. Lincoln was elected President in 1860; Kennedy in 1960. The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters. Both were particularly concerned with civil rights. Both wives lost a child while living in the White House. Both Presidents were shot on a Friday, and both were shot in the head. Both assassins, John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald, were known by their three names. Both names are composed of fifteen letters. Both Presidents were assassinated by Southerners. Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson. And so on. (And on and on.... Some of these lists have dozens of “parallels.”)

Students sometimes ask me about that. Pretty spooky, huh? Well, No. John Allen Paulos, author of A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, wrote that these lists of parallels are really meaningless coincidences. Paulos told how John Leavy, a computer programmer, constructed a similar list for two other assassinated presidents, William McKinley and James Garfield. “Both of these presidents were Republicans who were born and bred in Ohio. They were both Civil War veterans, and both served in the House of Representatives. Both were ardent supporters of protective tariffs and the gold standard, and both of their last names contained eight letters. After their assassinations they were replaced with their vice presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Chester Alan Arthur, who were both from New York City, who both sported mustaches, and who both had names containing seven letters. Both presidents were slain during the first September of their respective terms by assassins, Charles Guiteau and Leon Czolgosz, who had foreign-sounding names.”

Such lists invite parody. Someone came up with the parallels between Elvis and Jesus. Jesus said “Love thy neighbor”; Elvis said “Don’t be cruel.” Jesus is the Lord’s shepherd; Elvis dated Cybill Shepherd. Jesus was part of the Trinity; Elvis’s first band was a trio. Jesus walked on water; Elvis surfed. Both were Capricorns (December 25 and January 8). Jesus was called “King of Israel”; Elvis was called “King of Rock ’n’ Roll.” Both had five letters in their names. (For some reason, these people put a lot of stock in how many letters are in a name.) Jesus lived in a state of grace in a near-eastern land; Elvis lived in Graceland in a nearly eastern state. In good taste or not, these sorts of connections (coincidences) abound.

Well, if someone can do Elvis and Jesus, why can't we do Lincoln and Darwin? You know, Darwin sailed on the Beagle, Lincoln had a beagle, that sort of thing. It's too late for this year, but let me know if you think of anything; I’ll save them and post them on Feb. 12, 2008. That will help us all get ready for the big double bicentennial the following year!

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Moving On

Current Location: Southport, Gold Coast, Australia
Current Position: 27º56.81' S 153º25.39' E
Next Destination: Mooloolaba

Well, our weekly BLOG hasn’t been so weekly. I guess we’ve just been too busy; yes, I know what you are thinking … how could two people without jobs or any real commitments ever be too busy! So I won’t bother to try and explain. However, instead of writing our BLOGs we have been working on a catch-up web update. This will be posted in the next few days (www.neoscape.com/billabong). You can go their for the latest fun stuff; dating all the way back to Noumea and including our travels in Australia through January.

Tomorrow we finally pull anchor and leave Southport. It has been nice being in one location for so long, we’ve truly gotten familiar with the place and it has been terrific to be settled for a bit. We’ll spend the next week or two heading back north, to Mooloolaba, where we will leave Billabong for six weeks to do some land travel.

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Can't see the family forest for the trees

Today I read a press release from Family Forest (a play on the term "family tree," I guess; the company sells genealogical resources) announcing "its discovery that presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama's . . . mother, Ann Dunham, [has] a number of her ancestral pathways leading back to early colonial Virginia and New England." Obama's ancestors include his "12th great grandfather--the Hon. Laurence Washington, who built Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire, England. Over the course of five centuries, according to recorded history, he became the ancestor of President George Washington, General George S. Patton, Governor Adlai Stevenson, President Jimmy Carter, and Quincy Jones, Jr."

Wow.

Three years ago, Family Forest traced the family connections of George W. Bush and John Kerry, the two presidential candidates in 2004. According to that press release, Kerry and Bush are 16th cousins, three times removed. This means that the great (times 15) grandfather of one was the great (times 18) grandfather of the other. How far do we have to go to find this common ancestor? Probably to the early 1500s, probably somewhere in Europe.

This is amazing. I’ll bet not one person in a hundred today could tell you the name of one of his sixteen great-great-grandparents, and yet here are two families that can trace at least one of their lines back four centuries. (Actually, much further, as both Bush and Kerry can claim Marc Anthony as their 55th great-grandfather.)

Turns out that Bush and Kerry are related to a lot of people besides each other. The web site lists over sixty famous people, from Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart to Henry David Thoreau and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and their relationship to Kerry and Bush (usually both). Mormon leader Brigham Young was distantly related to Kerry (11th cousin 4 times removed), but more closely to Bush (5th cousin 6 times removed). On the other hand, Kerry is closer to Obama kinsman General George Patton (13th cousin once removed) than is Bush (17th cousin twice removed). Both are Charles Darwin's cousin: Kerry, 11th, 4 times removed; Bush, 14th, 5 times removed.

Between the two of them, they are related to 24 American presidents. They’re both related to 22; Bush is also distant cousin to another two. Abraham Lincoln was Kerry’s 20th cousin, Bush’s 7th (no longer bothering with the "removeds"); George Washington (another Obama kinsman) was Bush’s 11th cousin, Kerry’s 8th.

Some of these numbers, upon just a moment’s reflection, boggle the mind. Brooke Shields is Kerry’s 22st cousin, Bush’s 11th. Ernest Hemingway was Kerry’s 20th, Bush’s 22nd. Agatha Christie was Kerry’s 18th cousin, Bush’s 20th.

How many 20th cousins does a person have? The number varies, of course, depending on how many children your great (19 times) grandparents had, and how many children those children had, and so on. Let’s assume that each couple on the family tree had three children who grew up to have three of their own, etc. Historically, this is a conservative figure. In colonial times, the birth rate was double that or more. But let’s use three children per couple for our example.

With those numbers, one set of your grandparents will give you 6 first cousins. Your child will have 18 second cousins, then the next generation will have 54 third cousins, and so forth. By the time you get down to seventeenth cousins, the number would be 258 million, almost as many people as there are in the United States (just over 300 million.) Add three more generations, to twentieth cousins, and the number is nearly 7 billion, a little over the population of the whole planet today (6.6 billion).

Isn’t that amazing? We have more twentieth cousins than there are people in the world.

But there’s more. Those 7 billion are through just one set of common ancestors. You have two sets of first cousins, one through your mother’s parents and another through your father’s, and four sets of second cousins, and so on. Theoretically (it never works out this smoothly in real life), you would have over a million different sets of twentieth cousins, each set consisting of 7 billion people.

No wonder Bush and Kerry (and Obama) are related to so many people. I guess we all are.

But I still sorta doubt those press releases.

This posting originally appeared, in a slightly different form, in the Cartersville Daily Tribune News, Feb. 22, 2004.

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