THE SHOCKING SAGA OF R. C. SULLIVAN

Between 1942 and 1977, Shenandoah National Park Ranger Roy C. Sullivan was struck 7 times by lightning without serious injury. He had also been previously hit by lightning once as a youth, but this strike was not "officially" documented. 

The odds of the average person being struck by lightning once in his life time is one in 10,000.

 

Sullivan felt hurt and rejected by the fact that people, for some inexplicable reason, would avoid getting physically near him.  Sadly, he committed suicide when he was 71 years old.

By Griffinstorm (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

DEATH DEALS THE CARDS

In 1930, William Kogut committed suicide while on death row at San Quentin. He did so by cutting out the hearts and diamonds symbols from several decks of playing cards, soaking them in water, sealing the mixture in one of the metal legs of his bunk, and placing the leg next to the radiator in his cell. The watery paste composed of the red dye and the paper from the pieces of the card contained our old friend, nitrocellulose. The nitrocellulose, while relatively intact while wet, became highly unstable when it dried out, and it exploded.

Modern playing cards are usually coated with plastic and contain far more benign dyes, which makes this trick much harder to perform today.

For more information about Mr. Kogut's spectacular demise, click here.

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THE PARCEL POST BANK

The Bank of Vernal in Vernal, Utah was built in 1916 and is the only known building constructed out of bricks sent through the U.S. Post Office.  It was cheaper to have the brickyard mail thousands of packages (each containing seven bricks) than to have the approximately 75,000 bricks sent down by commercial carrier from Salt Lake City. Due to the extremely rugged terrain between Vernal and the rest of civilization, the Post Office lost huge amounts of money delivering this mail. In response, it finally imposed a requirement which, for all practical purposes, limited a customer to receiving only 200 pounds of mail a day without special dispensation.

The building is still in use as a branch of Zions Bank.

For more information on the "parcel post bank," click here.

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DE HAVILLAND COMET

The De Havilland Comet was the first jet aircraft used for passenger service. The original flights occurred in 1952 between London and Johannesburg. The BOAC version was the size of a Boeing 737 but only had 36 seats. The rest of the space was occupied with a galley for hot and cold meals, a bar, and separate male and female bathrooms. Unlike most US designs where the engines hang from the wings in pods, the Comet had its engines actually flush within the wings. This reduced the change of the engines ingesting bad things like birds; however, it increased the risk to the passengers should an engine disintegrate. The earlier Comets suffered from metal fatigue around their square windows, especially at the corners. These were replaced by aircraft with an improved oval window design which is now standard in the industry. However, by the time all the corrections were made, Boeing had taken over the passenger jet market, and the last Comet was produced in 1964.  The fact that the metal fatigue had resulted in several Comet crashes did not help matters.

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THE GRISLY SAGA OF THE WEST VIRGINIA THREE

One of the battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 was the West Virginia. Six months after the attack, the vessel was refloated and the remains of 66 crewmen were recovered. The salvage team made the ghastly discovery of the bodies of three crewmen who had been trapped under the water in a sealed compartment and who had survived until December 23, until either their air or water supply had run out. The doomed men had kept track of the time by marking through the days on a calendar.  

This discovery was not a surprise to the sentries who had been patrolling the damaged vessels in the harbor after the attack, as they had heard and had been tormented by the sounds of the slowly expiring crewmen pounding on the hull below the waterline.

The relatives of the 66 men were informed that all of the casualties had died on December 7. The story of the three trapped crewmen was not released until several decades later.

The West Virginia was eventually fully repaired and upgraded and served with distinction in several campaigns in the Pacific.  She was put in mothballs in 1947 and decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1959.

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THE CUR VARIABLE

It is fairly common knowledge that due to inbreeding, purebred dogs are often subject to various genetic maladies such as hip dysplasia. Mongrels, with their diverse DNA background, are far less prone to these ailments. In addition, these ordinary mutts also get still another advantage--they generally have a lifespan which exceeds that of their snotty aristocratic "I have papers" cousins by about ten percent.

THE MIDDLE-CLASS MICHAEL MOORE

Filmmaker Michael Moore achieved the slavish devotion of followers of the Occupy Wall Street movement a few years ago by his appearances at its rallies where he condemned capitalism as "an evil, evil system" which needed to end. He emitted the clarion calls of "Make the rich pay!" and "Tax them! Tax them! Tax them!" He also used the term "us" to include himself among the 250 million non-wealthy Americans. He specifically denied being in the upper-class "1%."

As part of a divorce settlement, he is now attempting to sell his modest home at Torch Lake, Michigan (which is not to be confused with his huge condo in downtown Manhattan or his seven other properties) for $5,200,000.00. You can view the listing on Zillow. Celebrity Net Worth estimated his total wealth at $50,000,000.00.

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THIS IS NOT YOUR FATHER'S DODGE

If you are tired of your wimpy Harleys or Hondas, then try stepping up to a manly motorcycle. 

The 2003-2006 Dodge Tomahawk was powered by the same 500 horsepower, 510 cubic inch 10-cylinder engine used in the Dodge Viper high-performance sports car. It could go from 0 to 60 MPH in 2.5 seconds and had an estimated top speed ranging from 300 to 420 MPH, depending on whom you believed. The actual top speed is unknown because to date no one has had the courage to attempt to reach it, especially in light of the likelihood that the wind generated would exceed that of an EF5 tornado (200 MPH and higher) and would sweep the rider right off of the bike. 

Dodge executives maintained that the Tomahawks were merely "rolling sculptures," were not street-legal, and were never intended to be ridden. Such a disclaimer was no doubt issued for liability concerns based on the belief that anyone crazy enough to try to ride one had a substantial chance of getting killed. Some folks have ridden them conservatively and survived.

It is believed that nine of these motorcycles were sold through Neiman Marcus at the price of $555,000.00 apiece. Hopefully, each buyer also purchased a decent helmet.

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SAPEURS

Sapeurs are gentlemen (and occasionally ladies) from Brazzaville (the capital of the Republic of Congo) who have made an art form out of dressing in very colorful yet very elegant French fashion kinds of clothes. They are not rich (the average income is less than $400 per month), but they save their money for designer suits and accessories. There are very strict and well-established rules (such as that a perfect ensemble may not have more than three colors) which distinguish a Sapeur from someone who merely dresses garishly.

They generally act as ambassadors for good moral conduct, proper etiquette, and peace in a country which had a bloody civil war in the late 1990s and which is still recovering from terrible poverty. They have normal day jobs but sometimes get hired out to appear at weddings or funerals. They are well revered in the community and provide onlookers with a momentary respite from the destitution around them. They welcome newcomers to their ranks.

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HUNGRY FOR JUSTICE?

A study of more than 1,000 parole rulings by experienced judges in Israel indicated that the judges ruled in favor of the prisoner about 65% of the time right after a lunch or snack break but that the favorable rulings dwindled down to about 0% as the day progressed. At the time of the next food break, the rate of favorable rulings immediately kicked up to 65% again.

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#262--THE EERIE U-28 ENCOUNTER

In 1915, the German submarine U-28 was doing what German subs were often doing back then--torpedoing British ships. One such unfortunate victim was the Iberian, which quickly sank below the waves. Approximately 25 seconds later, it exploded, sending debris into the air along with something else as described in the German captain's log translated below:

"On July 30, 1915, our U-28 torpedoed the British steamer Iberian, which was carrying a rich cargo across the North Atlantic. The steamer sank so swiftly that its bow stuck up almost vertically into the air. Moments later the hull of the Iberian disappeared. The wreckage remained beneath the water for approximately twenty-five seconds, at a depth that was clearly impossible to assess, when suddenly there was a violent explosion, which shot pieces of debris - among them a gigantic aquatic animal - out of the water to a height of approximately 80-feet [24 meters]."

"At that moment I had with me in the conning tower six of my officers of the watch, including the chief engineer, the navigator, and the helmsman. Simultaneously we all drew one another's attention to this wonder of the seas, which was writhing and struggling among the debris. We were unable to identify the creature, but all of us agreed that it resembled an aquatic crocodile, which was about 60-feet [18 meters] long, with four limbs resembling large webbed feet, a long, pointed tail and a head which also tapered to a point. Unfortunately we were not able to take a photograph, for the animal sank out of sight after ten or fifteen seconds."

There are a limited number of explanations for this phenomenon. The first, and most obvious one, is that the captain was lying. This theory appears problematical, both for the fact that there would be no reason for the captain to concoct such a tale and for the fact that the German Navy strongly discouraged its officers from using their official logs as works of fiction. 

It is equally implausible that all of the individuals who saw the creature suffered from some sort of mass hallucination.

Another alternative would be that the captain and the other crew members saw a whale or other ordinary large sea creature--again unlikely, as no marine animal known to be alive in modern times is sixty feet long and resembles a crocodile with a pointed snout, four limbs, and a pointed tail. 

A further possibility is that it was in fact a saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus)--the huge leviathan known to viewers of Paul Hogan movies and pictured below. Again this scenario is implausible, as the largest known examples are no more than 23 feet (7 meters) in length and only inhabit the warm tropical waters of the Southern Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Embed from Getty Images

Finally, the one remaining explanation is that the creature might have been a prehistoric animal who failed to realize that it was supposed to be extinct. One obvious candidate would be a mosasaur (pictured below), who viewers of Jurassic World will remember as one scaly guy who really kicked some butt. Mosasaurs reached (or, cueing in dramatic music, should I have used the present tense "reach"?) sixty feet long--150% of the length of an adult Tyrannosaurus rex--and do look very crocodilian. There are also many other reptiles from the past which, if not actually huge crocodilians, very closely resembled them.

Is it in fact possible that animals long thought to be extinct are still denizens of the deep? There is a lot of ocean out there, and the vast majority of it has never been explored below the surface. As Sherlock Holmes stated, "When you have eliminated the impossible, then what is left must be the truth."

By Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com) (Own work)
[GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) via Wikimedia Commons

WHY SANTA DOES NOT LIVE AT THE SOUTH POLE

A common misconception is that the temperatures at the North Pole are really cold. In reality, the average temperature in the Arctic is a relatively warm and balmy -30 degrees F (-34 degrees C). If you want to get where it is really frosty, go to Antarctica, where the norm is a -80 degrees F (-62 degrees C). In fact, the lowest official natural temperature recorded in the world was in 1983 in Antarctica, where it plummeted to a -128.6 degrees F (-89 degrees C). Carbon dioxide freezes into dry ice at -109 degrees F (-79 degrees C).

The difference between the temperatures of the two poles is attributed to the fact that the North Pole is at sea level and insulated by the surrounding water, while most of Antarctica is at an altitude of 9300 feet (2800 meters) or more.

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NOT CRAZY ABOUT THE CRAZY HORSE MONUMENT?

Carving commenced on the Crazy Horse Monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1948, and the project today is far from finished. Crazy Horse, of course, is the Sioux war chief who handed General Custer his butt at Little Big Horn. When the monument is completed, it will display Crazy Horse pointing his finger allegedly to where his dead countrymen are buried. While it is sincerely intended to be a tribute to the Sioux people and also to Native Americans in general, many of them are less than thrilled for a variety of reasons, including:

1. The massive sculpture will require the destruction of a mountain sacred to the Sioux.

2. Crazy Horse will actually be pointing his finger directly at a luxury hotel.

3. Finger pointing is considered very offensive by many Native American tribes. Their spokespersons have indicated that it is similar to depicting George Washington on Mt. Rushmore picking his nose.

4. Crazy Horse avoided having his picture taken in his lifetime, and he probably would not have wanted to be the subject of what will be the largest sculpture in the world--even bigger than Mt. Rushmore.

The below photo displays the model for the sculpture, with the actual mountain in the background. You can see that the sculptors have completed the face and top of the arm on the mountain. 

To the credit of those behind this project, no government money is being used to fund it.

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THE PERILS OF SINGING "HAPPY BIRTHDAY"

No doubt you have all read the stern admonitions on movie DVDs you have rented which indicate that copyright infringement could bring down the wrath of the FBI and land you in the federal pen for years with along with the imposition of a huge fine. What you may not have realized is that the singing of "Happy Birthday to You" could have the same consequences.

The melody to "Happy Birthday to You" was composed in 1893 as "Good Morning to You" by Patty and Mildred Hill, two Kentucky spinster sisters, for use by Patty in teaching her kindergarten class. In 1934, the Summy Company obtained a copyright for the song with its current birthday lyrics, although these lyrics were probably used for more than twenty years previously. After various corporate shuffles throughout the years, the rights to the song are now owned by Warner Music Group, which is owned by Access Industries, which is a private company owned by billionaire Len Blavatnik. The copyright is not due to expire in the USA until 2030.

The only maggot in the broth, at least from Blavatnik's viewpoint, is a case currently pending (at least as of the date of this factoid--September 2, 2015) in federal court in Los Angeles alleging that the song is in fact in the public domain (for reasons too boring to enumerate here) and that the rights are not owned now by anybody. If Blavatnik's companies lose the decision, he will no longer receive about $2 million a year in royalties, and the Hill Foundation (founded by the Hill sisters and now controlled by the non-for-profit Association for Childhood Education International) will lose a 50% share of the royalties which Blavatnik has been donating to it.

"Happy Birthday to You" is the most widely recognized song in the English language for everyone from pre-schoolers to Presidents. Will you get in trouble for singing it to your sister at home on her birthday? Probably not (although relying on legal advice on anything from anyone on the internet, including me, is the height of stupidity). If, on the other hand, you want to make a feature film which contains a rendition of "Happy Birthday to You," you would have to pay up to $10,000 to the Warner Music Group for the privilege of doing so.

9/23/2015 UPDATE--The federal court in Los Angeles determined on September 22, 2015 that "Happy Birthday To You" is in the public domain and that the copyright is invalid. You are now free to use the song under any circumstances (unless, of course, the decision is reversed on appeal). A copy of the opinion of the court is here.