richard saunders vs. titan leeds

I've just started to read a book on Benjamin Franklin, titled Bolt of Fate: Benjamin Franklin and his Electric Kite Hoax (by Tom Tucker). The book basically argues that Benjamin Franklin never conducted his famous electricity experiment, in which he flew a kite during an electrical storm. I haven't gotten to the bulk of the argument yet, nor have I decided whether I buy into this author's argument. But I was interested to learn that very soon after Franklin was extolled for his experiment in May 1752, a scientist in Russia tried to replicate Franklin's experiment, and ended up dying.¹ According to Tucker, Franklin histories have dismissed this Russian man as "foolishly unaware," but "Russian and Estonian sources...reveal the victim to have been a brilliant, very aware scientist...and a skilled linguist who followed Franklin's every word in English."² Hmm. So can one really survive flying a kite in an electrical storm?

Although I'm not very far into the book, I have been most amused by its discussion of Poor Richard's Almanac. I knew that Franklin published this almanac under the pseudonym of Richard Saunders, but I didn't know much else about the publication. I had no idea it was so humorous!

Poor Richard's Almanac burst onto the market by predicting the date for when his competitor Titan Leeds (another almanac writer, who did not publish under a pseudonym) would die. This publication caused a lot of back-and-forth writing between "Saunders" and Leeds over the next few years. You can read a little bit of the episode on pages 7 -10 the Electric Kite Hoax book (see here). I laughed out loud when I got to the top of page 10. Franklin was quite clever.

The portrait of Ben Franklin was painted by Joseph Siffred Duplessis, c. 1785. For more information on the portrait, see here. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

1 Tom Tucker, Bolt of Fate: Benjamin Franklin and his Electric Kite Hoax (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003), xix.

last day to vote!

I'm sure people are getting tired of my requests to vote for Fictionist, but this is a big deal for my friends. This is the last day that you can vote for the band, and it looks like they are really close against another band, "The Sheepdogs." Please vote for Fictionist HERE, and give them five stars. And if you want to tell others about the contest, that would be fantastic. Oh, and if you could like the band on FB and tweet about them through the Rolling Stone page, that would be much appreciated (they get added points in the competition for those two things).

Thank you! I sure hope they go through to the next round!

mother's day

I came across this nice picture of my mom this afternoon, while looking for pictures of her in my scrapbook. My mom put most of my childhood scrapbook together, and I like that a lot of the commentaries are in her own handwriting. From what I can tell from this picture's placement in my album, this photo was taken in the beginning of 1986. So, in this picture my mom is about a year younger than I am right now.

Since my mom's death about 18 months ago, I have had difficulty deciding how I want to honor my mother on Mother's Day. Last year I didn't know what to do; I remember that I ended up calling my dad to let him know that I was thinking about mom. Although I know that many people buy flowers to put on their mothers' grave, I don't know if that's the approach I want to take each year.

This year I thought I'd just write something on here: Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you and miss you. I think about you every day. I continually grow in appreciation for all that you did for me (and all of your children), even though you aren't with us anymore. Mom, your memory is very much alive, not only on this Mother's Day, but on every day of the year.

happy spring!

The other day we took a break from the daily grind and visited the local Tulip Festival. We're looking forward to spring and the cheerful colors of the season. Hooray for warmer weather!

easter traditions

With Easter coming up, I have spent a little bit of time trying to decide how we will treat Easter (and the Easter Bunny) in our house. This is the first year that Sam will really understand what is going on, and I realize that this year will set a precedent for future Easter holidays.

When I was young (but old enough to remember), my mom wrote a letter to the Easter Bunny, asking him to not bring candy to our house anymore. Instead, she asked the Easter Bunny to bring small toys and books to the kids in our family. This letter won't be surprising to people that knew my mom and her interest in healthy food. In fact, the gesture is so characteristic of my mom, I wanted to write it down here so that I would remember it.

I can't remember if my mom's letter explained why the Easter Bunny shouldn't bring candy (she may have explained something along the lines that we didn't eat sugar or that "we have allergies"), but I remember that gathered all the kids and had us sign the letter. I guess she wanted to make sure that we didn't entertain false expectations for what the Easter Bunny would bring that year.

Yesterday I was asking V if she remembered the letter, and she said she only had a vague recollection of signing something. I'm going to have to ask A if he remembers the letter; I bet he and I were more distraught over the loss of candy than anyone else. I wonder if my mom ever kept the letter, too. It would be fun to see it again, especially with all of our signatures at the bottom.

That being said, though, Easter was still a fun time in our house. Even though we didn't get candy, the Easter Bunny took great pains to bring us special things. I remember getting a rubber stamp collection one year (remember when stamps were huge in the '90s?) and a fuzzy bunny keychain that could actually hop. The Easter Bunny would also try to bring things that were religious as well - as we got older, we used to feign surprise that the Easter Bunny had given us something exclusively available at Deseret Book.

What Easter traditions did you have in your home? Any suggestions for how we should treat Easter in my little family? Did the Easter Bunny bring candy to you as a kid, or did your mom write him a letter as well?

nearly perpetual sickness

Something strange is going on at our house. I think our immune systems have decided to give out on us. Or maybe we're just turning into hypochondriacs. Over the past two months, it seems like at least one member of our family has been sick at any given time. Okay, it hasn't quite been that extreme, but we are usually sick or have just recovered from some sickness. And this past weekend has been no different. All three of us have a miserable cold. I just shot this picture of J, who has taken to walking around the house with both a Kleenex box and trash can.

Anyhow, I thought I'd jot down all of the colds/viruses that we've experienced over the past few weeks. I'm sure this won't be very interesting to other people, but I want to remember all of this drama. Maybe when this is all over, we'll be able to review this list and be slightly amused at all of our misfortunes:

• First week of February: Sam gets a high fever which lasts for several days. I've never seen my little buddy be so miserable in his life. We finally take him to the doctor and learn that he has an ear infection. He's put on antibiotics for the next ten days.
• Second-third week of February: I come down with a sore throat that turns into laryngitis. I have to cancel some of my classes and end up speaking in a constant whisper to J during Valentine's Day.
• Second week of March: Sam comes down with a really bizarre vomiting virus. He seems to act like he feels fine, and then the virus strikes without warning. 'Nuff said.
• Third week of March: Sam and I feel sluggish over the weekend.
• Fourth week of March: Sam comes down with a really nasty cough and cold. We spend a whole week trying to recover. J and I end up getting the cough too - and the cough has persistently lingered for all three of us (until present).
• Beginning of the second week of April (this past week): Sam comes down with a fever on Tuesday. He wasn't complaining about an ear infection, but did mention that he wanted to adjust his pillow so he could "sleep on his ear." I give him the remainder of the antibiotics which we got in March (see first bullet point), and the fever went down after two days. Hopefully we were able to stave off an ear infection while it was in its early stages.
  
• Latter part of the second week of April (this past week) - present: Sam's cough (see two bullet points above) comes back with a vengeance. The coughing wakes Sam up (and wakes everyone else) consistently every 15-30 minutes at night, and nobody gets much sleep. We all sleep a little better on Thursday night, but not by much. J wakes up with a cold on Friday morning, and stays home from work. By Saturday morning, all three of us are feeling miserable. Sam is feeling the best out of the three of us, J feels the worst. My voice is a little more hoarse (and my throat is more irritated) than the boys, and I'm paranoid that I'm going to get laryngitis again. Man, if I lose my voice during this busy school quarter, I'm going to be livid.

I've tried to boost our immune systems with anything and everything. A few weeks ago I stocked up on vitamins and Echinacea supplements, and I'm making us take them regularly. We've been trying to drink things that have a lot of Vitamin C, too. Nothing seems to work. J thinks that we just have more opportunity to get sick, since all three of us are going to different locations (and mingling with lots of people) during the week. That may be true, but I also worry that our furnace/heating system might need to be cleaned. Someone else told me that she thinks all of the sickness just has to do with this year - it's been a miserable winter for viruses and colds.

Who else has been battling sickness this past winter? Is my family an anomaly or have others been constantly battling viruses/colds?

how to raise the dead (students)

I had a slightly frustrating morning. I've just started the second week of a new quarter at school. The first class that I teach on Wednesdays is abnormally quiet. At first, I thought that the silence might be the fact that the students are adjusting to a new classroom/professor/course topic. But the adjustment period should be over by now, and these students are still insanely quiet. As in, silent as the grave. In all of the classes that I have taught, I have never had a class this quiet.

As I dance around the classroom, scribbling all over whiteboards, shouting about Michelangelo at the top of my lungs, these students look back with blank stares and expressionless faces. I almost feel like I'm lecturing in a different language and they can't understand me. They don't even laugh at my jokes (which aren't that funny in the first place, but my second section of the same course thinks that I'm pretty funny). Most importantly, it's hard to perceive if these quiet students understand the subject matter. If I ask if they understand a concept that was introduced, I'm met with blank stares. I have to plead with them to nod their heads if they understand, so I can have at least some kind of acknowledgment that we can move forward.

Anyhow, it's particularly frustrating for me, because I like to have my classes built around discussions. I want to encourage students to think critically about art, to share their ideas, and to sometimes have debates over controversial topics. And it has been so difficult to get these students to say hardly anything.

So what do I do? Give them a harsh "talking to?" Force them to speak by calling on individuals? I can do this if necessary, but I think that it makes the students uncomfortable and slightly resentful. These students already know that their grade for the course is contingent upon their participation in class discussions, but this doesn't seem to serve as much motivation. I suppose I could just give up and lecture to them the whole time (without asking for a single question or opinion), but this seems so boring. And students will just tune me out (or go to sleep) if I drone on endlessly.

Any thoughts? I realize that many readers of this blog are not professors or educators, but I'd still like to hear your opinion. What has worked to help you to participate or encourage participation in a classroom setting?