Posted 10:42 AM by Angie Schultz

Pro-Am Astronomy

Many moons ago (well, about a moon and a half), I wrote about an amateur astronomer who found a new nebula in a well-studied part of Orion, and got it named after him.

Well, now McNeil's Nebula has been observed by trained professionals at Gemini Observatory (North) in Hawaii. Spooky-lookin' beast.

Note that the Gemini telescope is 8 meters in diameter, whereas McNeil's was 8 centimeters (3 inches), one hundred times. smaller. Gemini took their image in three minutes. McNeil says his took 90.

This page has artists' conceptions and a picture of McNeil with his telescope. There's no picture of Gemini for comparison (unless you count the dome behind Bo Reipurth's head in the next picture down). Here's a picture of the telescope, but there's not much sense of scale. Those are handrails around the blue platform, if that helps.

Posted 4:43 PM by Angie Schultz

Book Review: Marsupial Sue

I've been hard at work on finishing up a paper, and there hasn't been anything in the news that's been egregious enough for me to want to write about here. I'm taking a day off from paper-writing (well, maybe), so I figure I should feed the blog. But what to write about? Well, when all else fails, when there's nothing else to read, read the cereal box.

And therefore I present this review of the book Marsupial Sue, by John Lithgow (yes, that John Lithgow), which I got in a box of Cheerios. Currently Cheerios is running a promotion where you get one of five (I think) children's books in slim paperback form right inside your cereal box. I love getting stuff for free in breakfast cereal, except usually it's something you have no earthly use for. Um, not that this is any different, but at least it's slightly better than a bobble-head sports figure.

Anyhow, the book:

Marsupial Sue,
A young kangaroo,
Hated the hopping that kangaroos do.

It rattled her brain,
It gave her migraine,
A backache, a sideache, tummyache too.

So Sue wanders off one May morning to find a more congenial lifestyle. First she runs into some koalas, and thinks living in a tree would be nice. But she falls out, and that puts an end to that.

Later, she comes upon a platypus, and decides that frolicking in the sea [sic] is just the thing. They sea makes her sick, however:

By quarter to two,
The poor kangaroo
Had typhoid, pneumonia, colic, and gout.

Finally, Sue comes across a tribe of wallabies (for the uninitiated, just like kangaroos, only smaller), and there she is happy, although it is unclear exactly how the wallaby life suits her better than the kangaroo. Throughout the book, the narrator harangues Sue:

Marsupial Sue.
A lesson or two:
Be happy with who you are.
Don't ever stray too far from you.
...
If you're a kangaroo through and through,
Just do what kangaroos do.

First let's dispense with the trivia. While Marsupial Sue is a charming title, both koalas and wallabies are marsupials, and therefore it's odd that Sue is singled out as a Marsupial.

Secondly, I do not believe platypuses live in salt water, but in rivers and streams.

Thirdly, both illustrator and author seem ignorant of the kangaroo homeland. The text places Sue's visit to the koalas in May, her expedition to the seashore in summer, and her adoption by the wallabies in the fall, suggesting that these events followed hard upon one another, or at least that they took place in the same year. Yet May is late autumn in Australia, and Sue would have to wait six or seven months to visit the platypus in summer.

Furthermore, the koalas are shown with baseball(!) equipment, and the wallabies are shown carving Halloween pumpkins in autumn (though of course Halloween is in the austral spring).

Finally, I doubt that even a kangaroo would contract "typhoid, pneumonia,...and gout" in two hours at the seashore (colic is possible, I suppose), and it might be unwise to suggest to children that this is possible. I would worry that they would be put off eating seafood (Sue contracts these diseases by swallowing "a scallop, a shrimp, and a trout"), except that I do not eat seafood (tastes nasty) and therefore have no brief for the practice.

I'll also point out that some of the words seem kind of hard for young children. I always shudder to see "pneumonia" in a children's book because when I was young I was reading an interesting book about an eccentric woman who had a monkey who died of pneumonia, and I couldn't figure out what that word was. Sounding it out did no good, and I returned the book to the library unread, saddened that it was too hard for me. That scarred me for life. Well, OK, for a day or two, but really, shouldn't children be able to read children's books on their own?

Silliness aside, however, the message of the book seems to be that ethnicity is destiny: If you're a kangaroo through and through, Just do what kangaroos do. Even if all that hopping makes you sick, other ways of living will make you sicker. So hop along with the crowd. Do not deny your 'roomanity. This is presented as a message of "self-acceptance". Sad.

(The book also features charming illustrations by Jack E. Davis. Aside from the above-mentioned ignorance of Australia, I find no fault with them.)

Posted 4:26 PM by Angie Schultz

Don't Mention the War!

George Bush is being criticized for including some images of 9/11 in his campaign ads. I saw a brief clip from one on Fox News last night, but they only showed the 9/11 bits, not the whole ad, so it was difficult to judge based on that. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it would be crass to exploit pictures of the burning towers or people jumping to their deaths; on the other hand, as others have pointed out, Bush is running on his record, and his reaction to 9/11 is part of it (a positive part of it, as far as I'm concerned).

(The story linked above includes a quote from the father of one of the 9/11 victimes, who claims, "I would vote for Saddam Hussein before I would vote for Bush", so we know he's a reasonable guy.)

However, in these matters it's helpful to have a little historical perspective. I went googling for WWII campaign posters, and didn't find a whole lot. There is this one, however, which suggests that Hitler and Tojo wish you would not vote for Roosevelt, lest he should finish the job of kicking their asses ragged.

(That poster is from the "Japanese American Internment Curriculum" from (dah-DUM, dah-DUM) San Francisco State University. Click around and be dutifully horrified at the cruel racist caricatures in some of them. Wonder at the caption-writers' emphasis on "white" women. And check out this one, which has got to be the prize winner in the Violatin' Our Wimmenfolk category. A complete slander on the Imperial Japanese army, of course. Not a bit of truth to it.

While you're there, you might also wonder what Tojo's granddaughter and Mickey Rooney are doing in a collection of "posters from World War II".)

Then there's this poster, which thankfully doesn't have any nasty mockery of other people's leaders, but which does suggest that Uncle Sam himself wants Roosevelt re-elected. Read the accompanying text. Note how it analyzes the poster in excruciating detail. Using really simple comments. Look! Oh! Oh! Look, Spot! Look at how the colors are red, white, and blue. Blue means reliable, to the simple-minded, while white is honesty and red is passion. See Uncle Sam's red "scarf" [sic, it's a tie]. This means he is passionate. See how the sponsors of the poster are in very small type at the bottom. It's a committee to re-elect Roosevelt! They put it in small type hoping people wouldn't see it. Our grandparents probably thought Uncle Sam himself had those printed up. Good thing we're smarter than they are, right, Spot? Er, Spot? Puff?