Grumpy Editor

'Everyone' still talking about weather (climate change)

It was more than a century ago that Mark Twain, in a lecture, used the line, “Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it,” and today representatives from 200 countries start a two-week meeting in Doha, Qatar --- still talking about the weather (updated to climate change), notes Grumpy Editor.

Look for a number of stories from the conference over the next two weeks.

Seems many still remain fuzzy about meteorological conditions as well as the true source of that weather quote (originally in a Hartford Courant editorial written by Charles Dudley Warner, a friend of Twain).

Heat-trapping gases, fossil fuels such as coal and oil, plus other emissions are slated to be discussed.

Many feel the world is warming and see the change resulting in flooding of coastal communities and flat islands, disruptions in agriculture, spread of diseases and extinction of species.

But others maintain weather is always changing:  drought months followed by downpours, cold days followed by warm periods.

A recent World Bank projection cites temperatures are on track to increase by up to four degrees this century, compared with pre-industrial times.  Other observers feel that number is overblown.

 

Grumpy Editor takes day off to mark Columbus Day

Grumpy Editor is away from his desk today, observing Columbus Day, a federal holiday since 1937.

While the day was originally celebrated on Oct. 12, the day marking Christopher Columbus's landing in the New World --- when he went ashore from his flagship Santa Maria to Watlings Island (also known as San Salvador Island) in the Bahamas in 1492 --- it is now observed on the second Monday in October.

For those who like updates: The island’s population now is about 1,000.

Columbus’s journey, sailing with other ships Niña and Pinta across the Atlantic, started from Palos, Spain on Aug. 3, 1492.

Media miss UPI report on Russia hypoing missile defense

While print/broadcast media, focusing on a four-month old video, were wrangling yesterday over Mitt Romney’s correct mention that 47 (actually 46.4) percent of households paid no federal income tax in 2011, editors let interesting word out of Moscow --- relating to missile defense --- slip by, observes Grumpy Editor. 

Russia announced it was reactivating a ballistic missile defense system around Moscow as part of a modernization program, reported UPI.

(Yes, United Press International --- perhaps unfamiliar to some young editors --- is still around, feeding information to media outlets, businesses, governments and researchers worldwide.)

The former head of Russian Strategic Missile Forces told state-run news agency RIA Novosti that missile silos positioned to defend the Russian capital would be reactivated, UPI added.

The A-135 system is being thoroughly modernized with missiles and other elements, including upgrading of detection and tracking components, the news service amplified.

In addition, two other interceptor missile systems, deactivated in 2007, will be re-equipped, part of the modernization program.

Getting back to UPI, for those unfamiliar with the news service established in 1907, it is headquartered in Washington, D.C. with offices in Beirut, Hong Kong, London, Santiago, Seoul and Tokyo.

Among its famous alumni:  Long before becoming anchor of CBS Evening News on television, Walter Cronkite was a front-line war correspondent in Europe during World War II when the news service was known as UP or United Press.

Burma or Myanmar? Media still split on identification

Is it Burma or Myanmar? 

Media confusion continued this week in identifying the often-in-the-news southeast Asia nation, this time in connection with its government ending direct media censorship, notes Grumpy Editor. 

Labeling it as Myanmar were the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, among others. 

Going with Burma included the Washington Post and Associated Press. 

AP seems as confused in identifying the country as some other news outlets. 

That’s because AP adopted Myanmar into its 2006 Stylebook after weighing such factors as widespread international use and its recognition by the United Nations. 

The New York Times began referring to Myanmar in 1989, the year the country’s name officially was changed. 

Some media solve the country’s identification in news stories with phrases “Burma, also known as Myanmar” or “Myanmar, also known as Burma.” 

The country was a province of British India from 1886 to 1937, then a separate crown colony from 1937 to 1948.  After a military coup, the ruling regime renamed the country Myanmar in 1989.  Opposition groups in the country continued to refer to Burma.

U.S. old timers, war veterans and historians remember the China-Burma-India theater of operations during World War II.  The famous Burma Road was constructed to supply Chinese forces in the fight against Japan during World War II. 

The periodically-seen (on TV) 1945 movie, “Objective, Burma!” starring Errol Flynn, was a highly rated WWII thriller depicting a company of U.S. paratroopers assigned to wipe out an enemy post.

That film wouldn’t sound right as “Objective, Myanmar!”

National Lighthouse Day allows time to sniff sea air

In offsetting the “heavy” news this week, Grumpy Editor reminds that today is National Lighthouse Day --- a happening probably overlooked in your local newspaper or broadcast outlet. 

For those near the water, it’s a splendid time to visit the beacons that guide ships to harbors, especially vital during foggy or stormy periods. 

Check your local Coast Guard office for tours and activities marking the establishment and importance of lighthouses. 

Not sure about the location of the closest lighthouse? 

Go to www.us-lighthouses.com that lists 432 sites with guiding lights for sailors. 

On this day in 1789 Congress approved an act for the establishment and support of lighthouses. 

Well before that date, still-functioning Boston Light was built in 1716 on Little Brewster Island in outer Boston Harbor.  It received a facelift in 1783 after Revolutionary War damage. 

Another old timer guiding ships over the years is Sandy Hook (N.J.) lighthouse.  It went into operation in 1764. 

Maine, where two dozen lighthouses overlook its rocky shores, celebrates its own lighthouse day on Sept. 15. 

More than 15,000 people visited light stations in the Pine Tree State at last year’s annual event.

 

Obama hustles to North Korea border for photo op

Within hours of Air Force One’s landing in South Korea, President Barack Obama --- sensing a photo op with the presidential election less than eight months away --- was peering through binoculars toward North Korea yesterday in his first visit to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) which has bisected the peninsula since the Korean War cease fire almost 59 years ago, notes Grumpy Editor. 

Chances are North Koreans had binoculars trained on the president who wore an identification badge reading:  Barack Obama, Commander in Chief. 

Reuters said Obama “spent about 10 minutes on a viewing platform at the DMZ, talking with some of the soldiers on guard as the flags of the United States, South Korea and the United Nations flapped loudly in the brisk, cold wind.” 

With print and broadcast media trailing his movements, the president visited the DMZ on the eve of a global summit on nuclear security hosted by South Korea. 

“You guys are at freedom's frontier," Obama told about 50 troops crammed into a dining hall at a U.S. camp near the DMZ, one of the world's most heavily fortified frontiers. 

The Korean War remains open ended with no peace treaty signed. Battles ended with a cease fire on July 27, 1953.  

The Korean War, also labeled the “forgotten war,” erupted when 135,000 communist North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea in pre-dawn hours of June 25, 1950. 

For the U.S., the war resulted in 36,940 military deaths, 103,000 wounded, 8,142 missing in action and 3,746 prisoners of war.  

Prolonging the war were entries of communist Chinese soldiers battling U.S. troops on the ground and Russian pilots in Soviet-built jets fighting U.S. airmen.

Chinese troops killed or captured thousands of U.S. military personnel and managed many prisoner of war camps in North Korea. 

Obama was threatening to cancel planned U.S. food aid to North Korea following its announcement that it plans to launch a long-range rocket next month.

 

Details from 1940 U.S. census go on Internet April 2

Not as speedy as the monthly U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ employment figures currently released for the previous month, the U.S. Census Bureau on April 2 makes available --- via the Internet --- details of the 1940 census from the National Archives, notes Grumpy Editor.

Why the extra long delay?

Official reason:  “Strict confidentiality laws ensure that census records are only unsealed after 72 years have passed."

The 1940 census involved more than 120,000 enumerators who tallied information on 132 million people of which an estimated 21 million are alive today.

Compilation was done the old-fashioned way --- without computers.

It wasn’t until 1951 that the first large-scale computer --- a UNIVAC 1101 with a price tag close to $1 million --- was delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The UNIVAC, short for Universal Automatic Computer, was considered to be the first capable of storing and running a program from memory.  (UNIVAC became a division of Remington-Rand Inc.)

The census form in 1940, a year before the start of World War II, contained 34 questions directed at households plus 16 others aimed at 5 percent.

After the lengthy Great Depression (which started in 1929), one of the most sensitive questions in 1940 dealt with personal income.

So it was placed at the end of the survey.

 

It’s adieu to ‘mademoiselle’ on official French forms

Using “mademoiselle" on official documents in France is now banned and will be replaced by “madame,” learns Grumpy Editor.

Mademoiselle, since around 1635, was regarded as a title of respect, equivalent to “miss” and used in speaking to or of a girl or unmarried woman. 

This week, the French prime minister’s office --- after a campaign by feminist groups calling the word sexist --- announced mademoiselle will be gone from official documents and advised that all women should be referred to as madame, whether they are married or not. 

Now, while madame (or madam in the U.S.) is a polite term in addressing a woman, it also is defined as “the woman in charge of a house of prostitution.” 

French feminist groups, including Osez le féminisme and Les Chiennes de Garde in their campaign to ban mademoiselle, probably didn’t think of that. 

The alternative could have been the English word going back to the 1150-1200 era:  damsel. 

Damsel is defined as “a young woman or girl; a maiden, originally one of gentler or noble birth.” 

In the U.S., Mademoiselle was widely seen on newsstands since 1935.  But the popular Condé Nast magazine, socked by the economy, rolled out its final issue in November, 2001.

 

Will Feb. 23 North Korea nuclear talks make progress?

Look for media to play the long-running six-nation talks --- tomorrow in Beijing --- focusing on North Korea nuclear disarmament like something is finally going to break, but Grumpy Editor feels it’s likely to be ho-hum time again.

Nuclear talks regarding North Korea have been going on for years.

The only hope is the change in North Korea’s leadership since Kim Jong-il died in December.

The latest session will measure if Kim’s son and successor, Kim Jong-un, is more open to diplomacy.

The six nations --- South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Russia, China and the U.S. --- have been sitting around tables, off and on, for more than nine years trying to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.

Recent talks (last July in New York and three months later in Geneva) made no progress.

North Korea’s routine has been to talk, followed by pauses, then more talks, followed by no resolution. 

That’s been the Communist nation’s procedure since 1953 when the Korean War ended with a cease fire.  North and South Korea technically remain at war with no peace treaty.

One reason nuclear disarmament talks get nowhere:  North Korea, Russia and China are on the same side.

It’s been that way since the Korean War, in which Russia and China joined North Korea in fighting American and South Korean troops, among other allied forces.

After this week’s Beijing discussions, it will be interesting to see if media reports include (again) these words: deadlocked, impasse, inconclusive and recessed without agreement.

 

Lincoln’s birthday gets less attention as years go by

Few readers of Sunday newspapers were aware that yesterday marked Abraham Lincoln’s birthday ---  a sad reflection on modern editors who usually relish anniversaries as easy ways to fill up columns around ads throughout the year, notes Grumpy Editor. 

Just last week, much editorial space was filled with two lengthy Associated Press stories on English novelist Charles Dickens birthday --- three years after Lincoln’s in 1809. 

Marking Lincoln’s birthday, once widely celebrated on Feb. 12, is now combined with all other presidents on next Monday’s Presidents’ Day.

However, Illinois, in observance of the 16^th president's birthday, closes  government offices, courthouses and libraries today (since Lincoln’s birthday falls on Sunday this year).  Even there, though, honoring the occasion is limited.  A banquet, organized by the Abraham Lincoln Association, was held last night at the President Lincoln Hotel in Springfield.

In New York, the state designated Lincoln's birthday as a floating holiday in 2012 for state employees in certain bargaining units. 

Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., yesterday celebrated Lincoln’s birthday and the opening of the Center for Education and Leadership with a day of free programming and activities that started with the National Park Service commemorating the occasion with wreath-laying in front of the theater.

One of the noteworthy tributes to Lincoln came yesterday in a Christian Science Monitor story by Peter Grier, who reminded: 

“Abraham Lincoln may be the greatest of all U.S. presidents. He ended slavery, won the Civil War, and ensured that the United States would remain united in the modern world. His face is printed on the five-dollar bill and stamped on the penny. The Lincoln Memorial is one of the nation’s iconic sites. 

“But Lincoln’s Birthday on Feb. 12 is not a national holiday, and it never has been.”

In one of the few mentions on television, Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee, interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, greeted the host with “Happy Abraham Lincoln birthday.”  He responded by noting her birthday was the day prior (in 1964, at Sandpoint, Idaho).