Prof. Boerner's Explorations

Edited by Gerald Boerner

     
Commentary:

Commentary to be added soon… GLB

These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved

[ 1884 Words ]
    

Quotations Related to JUDY GARLAND:

“Behind every cloud is another cloud.”
— Judy Garland

“How strange when an illusion dies. It’s as though you’ve lost a child.”
— Judy Garland

“I’ve always taken ‘The Wizard of Oz’ very seriously, you know. I believe in the idea of the rainbow. And I’ve spent my entire life trying to get over it.”
— Judy Garland

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by Gerald Boerner

Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved

     
Commentary:

Jack, you have stepped across that threshold into another era of your life. I put together this page to recognize what you have done with your life and how proud I am to call you my brother. This is wishing you many more years of happiness with your family. Your Loving Brother, Jerry

    

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Quotations Related to BROTHERS:

“Affliction’s sons are brothers in distress; A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!.”
— Robert Burns

“All men were made by the Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers.”
— Chief Joseph

“And like I said, I appreciate my older brothers because they would not allow me to win. They made me learn to play with them, which I think is the most important thing that I learned.”
— Eddie Murray

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Edited by Gerald Boerner

Commentary:

To be added soon. GLB

These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved

[ 2111 Words ]

Quotations Related to (ENGLISH) CHANNEL & (IN VITRO) FERTILIZATION:

“Nobody knew in advance that in vitro fertilization would be, by and large, safe.”
— Leon Kass

“Each year thousands of embryos, no bigger than the head of a pin, are created in the process of in vitro fertilization, with the support of Congress, by the way.”
— Lois Capps

“It is a process of diverting one’s scattered forces into one powerful channel.”
— James Allen

“If a liberal News channel were launched it would fall flat on its face.”
— Paul Weyrich

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Edited by Gerald Boerner

     
Commentary:

To be added soon. GLB

These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved

[ 2111 Words ]
    

Quotations Related to TRINITY (NUCLEAR) and APOLLO (11):

“A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.”
— Margaret Thatcher

“But the nuclear powers still cling tenaciously to their weapons.”
— Joseph Rotblat

“He who commands an Apollo flight will not command a second one.”
— Wally Schirra

“At this point in my career, Apollo 13 is a million light years away.”
— Kathleen Quinlan

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Edited by Gerald Boerner

     
Commentary:

Most of us are fascinated with the amazing discoveries of Archeology. King Tut’s unopened Tomb, the lost city of the Incas (Machu Picchu), and Homer’s great city of Troy. Among these the discovery of the Rosetta Stone takes its place. Not only did it unlock the secretes of the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, a previously untranslatable ancient language, but it provided a bright side to Napoleon’s attempt to conquer Egypt at the end 18th century.

The Rosetta stone contained the same document in Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic script, and ancient Greek. While it would take another twenty-three years to beak the meaning of the hieroglyphs, it started a new era of scientific investigation in which discoveries like the Rosetta stone were duplicated and studied concurrently by scholars about Europe via Lithographic copies and plaster casts.

The breakthrough can when a brilliant but eccentric Frenchman, Jean-François Champollion, made his breakthrough in 1822. He was able to derive an association of the various glyphs with their equivalent Greek letters. This allowed not only the understanding of the hieroglyphics on this tablet, but for those glyphs on temples and burial sites throughout Egypt. A new era of Egyptology was enabled!

“Thomas Young was one of the first to attempt decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, basing his own work on the investigations of Swedish diplomat Åkerblad, but he failed to fully decipher the script but Young was able to translate some of the stone leading the way for Champollion to begin his own investigations. In 1822, Champollion finally published the first correct translation of the hieroglyphs and the key to the grammatical system. Young and all others praised this work.”  (Wikipedia)

So, let’s get on our way in exploring the history and role of the Rosetta stone… GLB

These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved

[ 4095 Words ]
    

Quotations Related to EGYPTIAN & GREEK:

“Evil hiding among us is an ancient theme.”
— John Carpenter

“Few of the great works of ancient Greek literature are easy reading.”
— Gilbert Murray

“In many ways we are all sons and daughters of ancient Greece.”
— Nia Vardalos

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Edited by Gerald Boerner

     
Commentary:

Racing is a sport that elicits a variety of reactions from the populace. And, in fact, some race fans are dedicated followers of some form of auto racing while the rest are followers of the sport of the Kings — horse racing. the two crowds tend to differentiate themselves along “class” lines. The auto racing crowd tend to be “good old boys” while the horse racing crowd tend to be more “gentile”. Much of this lies in the environment of the blue grass hills of Kentucky.

The East coast horse racing crowd has, over the years, developed several races that are particularly more important. Among these has emerged the three races of the Triple Crown —  Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes. These three races pose a major challenge to the three-year-old qualifiers. To date, there have been only eleven horses have won all three legs in the same year.

Today we take a look at Citation who is included in this list. Over his career, he earned over a million dollars in purses and won twenty-seven of twenty-nine races in which he was entered. He returned to racing as a six-year-old in the Santa Anita Derby in 1951 to move into the Million Dollar Club, quite an accomplishment!

“The Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing (although sometimes shortened to Triple Crown, the full name is used to avoid possible confusion with other sports) consists of three races for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses. Winning all three of these Thoroughbred horse races is considered the greatest accomplishment of a Thoroughbred racehorse. Different nations where thoroughbred racing is popular each have their own Triple Crown series. In recent years, winning a Triple Crown has become a very rare achievement, with most horses specializing on a limited range of distances.”  (Wikipedia)

So let’s get on with out exploration of the proud career of Citation… GLB

These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved

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Quotations Related to RACING:

“A difference of opinion is what makes horse racing and missionaries.”
— Will Rogers

“Horse racing is animated roulette.”
— Roger Kahn

“A good horse should be seldom spurred.”
— Thomas Fuller

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Edited by Gerald Boerner

     
Commentary:

To Americans, the French Revolution of 1789 is less well-understood than our own. Most Americans know that the colonists fought against the British Redcoats and their mercenaries. The French revolution was fought with internal forces. Basically, the situation was this: France, like most European countries, was ruled by an absolute monarch, Louie XVI; a Nobility Class, the 1st Estate, who owned most of the land and managed the poor farmers; a Class of Clergy, the 2nd Estate, that managed the Catholic Church’s property; and, an underclass of the common people, the 3rdEstate (sans-culottes), who paid the taxes to support the King and other class by tending the fields, ran the shops, and were the craftsmen.

By the late 1780s, the Third Estate were paying high taxes to keep the Monarch, nobility and clergy with a luxurious lifestyle while they starved, suffered from a varieties of illnesses, and barely surviving. This was a “ripe” environment for a revolt. This started on 4 July 1789 with the people rushing the Bastille Prison to obtain gun powder and other armaments. The leaders of the people fell into two groups: the Girondin faction and the radical Jacobin group that prosecuted the “enemies of the people” & came to power in June 1793. The three main leaders of the latter group included Jean-Paul Marat, Georges Danton and Maximilien Robespierre. The latter two led the “Reign of Terror”.

“Marat only emerged publicly on the 10 August Insurrection, when the Tuileries Palace was invaded and the royal family forced to shelter within the Legislative Assembly. The spark for this uprising was Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg’s provocative proclamation, which called for the crushing of the Revolution and helped to inflame popular outrage in Paris.”  (Wikipedia)

The present posting explores the murder of Marat, the Jacobin prosecutor of the “enemies of the people”, was assassinated by Charlotte Corday, the Girondin moderation advocate, while Marat was bathing to treat a skin condition. Corday was tried, convicted and executed on the guillotine. So let’s get started… GLB

These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved

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Quotations Related to JEAN-PAUL MARAT:

“God has always been hard on the poor.”
— Jean-Paul Marat

“All true patriots will that favored a constitutional Monarchy similar to England and themeet in heaven.”
— Charlotte Corday

“Five or six hundred heads cut off would have assured your repose, freedom and happiness.”
— Jean-Paul Marat

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Edited by Gerald Boerner

     
Commentary:

Ronald Reagan will be remembered as the United States President who did his best to bring the Cold War to an end. He supported a strong military that could stand up to the Soviet Union, especially to its General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev. His discussions with Gorbachev lead to a lessoning of tensions between the two Superpowers. Reagan was also well-known for his use of some questionable schemas to fund his favorite projects.

One needs to admire his adherence to his conservative values. These often made him unpopular with those holding more liberal and centrist political views. But his confrontations with guerrilla forces trying to take control of several third-world countries served to counter these movements.

For his support of military actions was rewarded by being the first living President to have a Navy vessel, the USS Ronald Reagan, named after him while still alive. This Nimitz-class supercarrier was launched after a ceremony at which Nancy Reagan broke the Champaign bottle on the bow.

“The Nimitz-class supercarriers are a class of ten nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in service with the United States Navy. With an overall length of 1,092 ft (333 m) and full-load displacements of over 100,000 long tons, they are the largest capital ships in the world. Instead of the gas turbines or diesel-electric systems used for propulsion on many modern warships, the carriers use two A4W pressurized water reactors which drive four propeller shafts and can produce a maximum speed of over 30 knots (56 km/h) and maximum power of around 260,000 shp (190 MW).”  (Wikipedia)

Its time to take a closer look at this supercarrier’s construction and deployment… GLB

These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved

[ 2960 Words ]
    

Quotations Related to SHIPS:

“A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.”
— Thomas Carlyle

“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”
— Grace Hopper

“A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.”
— Herman Melville

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Edited by Gerald Boerner

     
Commentary:

Shortly after the NASA’s successes in placing several sets of men on the moon, the Skylab orbiting space station was launched. It was in Earth orbit from 1973 through 1979. During that time it served as an orbiting science lab. Men and supplies were carried to Skylab by Command Service Modules (CSM) similar to that used during the Apollo program; the CSM was launched by Saturn rockets and docked with Skylab through a docking collar developed during the Apollo program.

A successor to Skylab, Space Station Freedom, was merged into the plans the plans for an International Space Station that was launched in 1998. The American venture with Skylab demonstrated the feasibility of a space-based manned laboratory. The launch of the Hubble Space Telescope gave us a new eye into deep space.

The end of Skylab was not dull, however. It fell from orbit and burned up in the atmosphere. The biggest fear concerned where any debris might land. Fortunately, no damage was caused from this reentry.

“The American Sky lab vehicle, nine stories tall and weighing 77.5 tons, is expected to slip into the earth’s upper atmosphere, then disintegrate into a celestial shower of flaming metal as spectacular as any of last week’s Fourth of July fireworks displays. Somewhere, probably at sea, ten fragments, each weighing 1,000 Ibs. or more, will crash to earth at speeds of up to 270 m.p.h. with the force of a dying meteor. Thus will be observed, after a series of miscalculations, the tenth anniversary of man’s proudest achievement in space, the walk on the moon.”  (TIME Magazine)

So, let’s get started on our exploration of the end of Skylab.. . GLB

These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved

[ 4145 Words ]
    

Quotations Related to SPACE STATION:

“Oh, I’m up here just hangin’ around, building a space station.”
— Jerry Ross

“What they’re really developing is equipment to do a rational space station and a Moon programme later.”
— Robert Zubrin

“So I just want to wish everybody down there happy Thanksgiving from the crew of space station Alpha.”
— Bill Shepherd

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Edited by Gerald Boerner

Commentary:

In 1889, three executives of the Dow-Jones Company started the publication of an international newspaper that would carry financial news and Stock Market results. Over the years this newspaper has become the largest newspaper in the United States according to circulation. They have expanded to include an European and an Asian editions. The WSJ has also kept up with the technology of the wen and using electronic communication technologies to distribute the finished paper content to printing centers throughout the country; there is one in my town!

Over the years the WSJ has won numerous Pulitzer Prizes for the coverage of events in the financial markets. That is not to say that the have not been articles that are controversial. There have been. But the news coverage and editorial sections have become a trusted and reliable source of financial news.

Probably the most controversial event has been the recent acquisition of the WSJ by Rupert Murdock’s New Corp. The latter is well-known for the ideological bias that influences News Corp’s reportage. This has seemingly been resolved by the following agreement:

“Mr. Murdoch told the Bancrofts that ‘any interference – or even hint of interference – would break the trust that exists between the paper and its readers, something I am unwilling to countenance.’ … Mr. Murdoch and the Bancrofts agreed on standards modeled on the longstanding Dow Jones Code of Conduct.”  (Wikipedia)

Let’s get started on this exploration of the founding and growth of the Wall Street Journal…. GLB

These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved

[ 3601 Words ]

Quotations Related to NEWSPAPERS:

“Don’t believe everything that you read in the newspapers.”
— Andrew Card

“Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte

“I have newspapers coming to me and saying, ‘Can we get in on the TARP?’.”
— Nancy Pelosi

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