…but the South Pole wasn't his home. He was a polar bear, and polar bears live in the North Pole.
Which is why he said goodbye and traveled 12,430 miles all the way back to the North Pole, where he belonged.
                                           written by Jean Willis
                                     illustrated by Peter Jarvis
                                  Nosy Crow/Candlewick, 2015
                                 accessed on YouTube 4/21/25

    Mom and Dad took us on day trips to interesting nearby places instead of long family vacations. Dad was an expert map reader. Mom was, too. My brother picked up the skill easily, but my sister got carsick so was excused. And I, well, left and right, directions like NSEW were (are) confusing. 
    Dad kidded me saying I could get lost backing out of the driveway. He was right, then. I always thought spatial relations was not my best thing. I’m lots better now, so maybe I just lived down to his expectations.
    Now, take the North Pole. Everyone knows the magnetic North Pole is different from the geographic North Pole. But I just learned that even though the geographic North Pole is stationary (even as Earth orbits and rotates), the magnetic North Pole strays.
    Magnetic poles (North and South) are located at the precise spot where the geomagnetic field is exactly perpendicular to the surface of the Earth. An imaginary line to the center of Earth’s core is called a dip pole.
    The imaginary line connecting the magnetic North and South Poles is not necessarily parallel to the imaginary one connecting the geographic Poles. Currently, the axis of the dip pole is inclined 9.32° compared to the rotational axis. This differential (that changes over time) only matters if a reversal occurs. That is unlikely and perhaps the topic for another day. 
    But where the Magnetic North Pole IS does matter. Back to that in a few minutes.
    In 1831, James Clark Ross (1800 - 1862), a British Naval Officer, located the Magnetic North Pole in the Canadian Arctic. It has been drifting slowly across the Arctic Plain and is now nearing Russia.
    You might wonder, as I did, Why does it move? Well, it’s complicated. Earth’s magnetic field is caused by Earth’s outer core. Unlike the solid inner core, the outer core is liquid. It is the movement of iron, nickel, sulfur, and oxygen sloshing around the huge solid core made of iron and nickel that creates the magnetic field. Think of opposite ends of a magnet. Opposites attract while like repels like.
    Since the magnetic field is constantly changing, so are the magnetic Poles. From 1831, when Ross first located it, to the 1990s, magnetic North drifted about 9 miles (15 km) per year. However, since the 1990s, it has been moving faster, lots faster.
    Using satellite measurements, scientists think they have figured out why. Information from the journal Nature Geoscience says “tussling magnetic blobs” in Earth’s outer core cause the ruckus. One blob is under Canada, and one is under Siberia. As they attract and repel each other, the magnetic field shifts. Here's an illustration from EarthSky.org. 
    Within the last 20 years, Magnetic North has been clocked between 30 and 50 miles per year, galloping South, toward Siberia.
    But about five years ago, movement slowed to between 30 and 22 miles (50 to 35 km) per year. EarthSky.org says, [it’s the] “biggest deceleration in speed we've ever seen.”
    GPS (Global Positioning System) Navigation depends on the accuracy of Earth’s magnetic field. Think of a magnet and a compass. Because Magnetic North is always moving, navigation is tricky.
    Experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) meet with their British counterparts every five years to develop a more accurate World Magnetic Model (WMM). While emergency updates are done as necessary, those five years may be too long to wait.
    While we still watch objects in the sky to tell where we are in space and how to get somewhere else, satellites (for the most part) have replaced “navigation by the stars.” NOAA's website tells us we depend on “[o]ver 30 GPS navigation satellites [that] are whizzing around the world, orbiting at an altitude of 12,000 miles, to help us find our way.  
    The new WMM has been available since January 2025, and mapping companies, shipping agencies, logistics firms, and governments are busy making updates.
    Our smartphones depend on GPS, too, but those updates happen automatically.
    Climate scientists have been studying the effects of the increasing levels of CO2 on climate change since at least 2012. According to an article in physics.org, “[w]hile CO2 causes heat to be trapped in the lower atmosphere, it actually cools the upper atmosphere.” Using computer simulations, the scientists found that changes in Earth’s magnetic field (in the upper atmosphere) cause changes in global temperatures, with the “strongest warming … located over Antarctica” and all those icebergs.
    Today is Earth Day. Celebrate by planting a tree or two, our best allies to capture the carbon we are so wantonly inclined to spew into the air.

I just finished reading God of the Woods by Liz Moore. When 13-year-old Barbara Van Laar disappears from her family’s exclusive overnight camp, it feels like a replay of the disappearance of her older brother. Camp counselors, a complicated past, and family intrigue work against a female detective, trying to establish her credibility, to unravel the “twin” mysteries, only to discover they are not as similar as they first appear. It’s long, but worth your time!
                                 Be curious! (and breathe deep)

Little Cloud drifted toward the clouds.
Then all the clouds changed into one big cloud and 
rained!
                                                    from Little Cloud
                               written and illustrated by Eric Carle
                                                          Philomel, 1996
    Part of my grandson’s fascination with clouds comes from his keen interest in weather phenomena, especially severe weather: hurricanes; tornadoes; cyclones. He got himself a small notebook that fit in his pocket and started studying clouds. He drew pictures of them and collected all his notes in one place. 
    He learned about different cloud formations and what kinds of weather they would bring. Needless to say, I was more than a little impressed with the quality of illustrated information and at least as impressed by the idea of the notebook itself.
    So when I heard an article on “Living on Earth,” last Saturday, I knew I had my topic. First thing I learned is how complex clouds are. Very. While they are all composed of either water droplets or ice crystals, cloud formation, height, size, and color are all important.
    In 1803, meteorologist Luke Howard classified clouds into four core types. 

• Cirro-form  high, whitish, and wispy clouds made of ice crystals.
• Cumulo-form  puffy with sharp outlines and usually a flat bottom. These are the ones that look like bunnies and butterflies.
• Strato-form broad and flat, like a blanket with scattered edges.    
• Nimbo-form  a combination of all three. Gray, heavy, and portend rain.

    But clouds usually form with some combination of features. 
    High-level clouds are white and delicate. Ice crystals gather to form cirrocumulus and cirrostratus. They glow in splendid sunsets.
    Mid-level clouds are usually made of water droplets. Altocumulus are the most common. Many different layers can appear at the same time and cover much of the sky. Altostratus are gray and layered. Sometimes, you can see streaks of rain (virga) in the distance, hanging diagonally from the cloud and even reaching the ground. Nimbostratus are thick enough to blot out the sun. They are ragged and full of rain or snow. They fall lower to the ground as the rain or snow continues.
    Low-level clouds are also made of water droplets. Cumulous clouds puff up like cauliflower on otherwise clear days, but cumulonimbus are thunderstorm clouds. They can also produce hail and tornadoes. Stratocumulus clouds are gray and honeycombed. They might look like rain is on the way, but most likely, it is not. Stratus clouds can produce drizzle, ice prisms (sleet), or snow grains (small hail).
    Our current climate crisis is an energy imbalance. It is defined as a physics problem where more energy is entering our planet than leaving it. 
    Jennifer Francis is an atmospheric scientist conducting her research at the Woodwell Climate Research Center. (woodwellclimate.org) 
    In her interview on "Living on Earth," Dr. Francis explained that shrinking ice coverage exposes darker ground and absorbs more heat, adding to global warming. Here’s a paradox, though. Cleaner air reduces the toxic haze of tiny airborne particles that reflect light. So cleaner air allows more sunshine to reach the ground, too. 
    The white sands of deserts reflect energy back to the atmosphere. So do the massive ice sheets. City sidewalks, light-colored rooftops, and buildings do too, to a lesser degree. 
    In an ideal world, the energy being absorbed by dark, rich farm soil, trees, crops, and plants using the sun’s energy for photosynthesis, and even asphalt would balance out the amount reflected.
    But, Earth is out of balance.
    Low, thick clouds, the cumulo-forms, reflect light. High, thin clouds transmit incoming solar radiation, and, at the same time, trap some of the infrared radiation, warming Earth’s surface even more.
    The balance between clouds’ effective heating and cooling depends on how high a cloud is, how big, and what it’s made of, ice or water. And what is under them.
    NASA scientists discovered the gap in our energy-in-energy-out equation is partially explained by clouds. 
    If it was only that easy.
    The scientists used satellites to measure wavelengths of energy coming from different cloud formations floating over different surfaces and marked the change over time.
    They discovered that clouds made of water droplets have a much stronger influence on the energy that is trapped or absorbed than those made of ice crystals. Those that blanket the sky are good at reflecting sunlight back to outer space. 
    But their study also suggests that cloud cover is becoming less, especially around the equator, due to air currents and temperature changes, so more light is getting through our atmosphere and adding to the warming.
    Dr. Francis confirms that “the last couple years were the warmest on record for the earth, probably going back 120,000 years…” 
    She adds that the cuts to NOAA and NASA, agencies heavily involved in interpreting data from their satellites, are concerning. Their scientists help us learn how much worse our climate crisis will get, where the most severe storms are occurring, and how we humans can intervene. 
    By cutting funding to these agencies, we are less able to predict weather patterns and less able to give people time to prepare or move out of a storm’s path. 
    Keeping all this in the back of my mind, I choose to concentrate on the next generation and the one after that. Those kids who draw pictures of clouds and fill notebooks with scientific information. The ones who put into practice what they’ve learned and show the rest of us how to follow their lead.

I’m reading The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult (Emily Bestler Books/Atria, 2013). The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor learns that her neighbor was a Nazi war criminal. My takeaway is a clearer understanding of the power of Story, that we are all storytellers, and everyone’s story is an important piece of a cohesive society. WARNING: Graphic violence is depicted throughout, but especially in the grandmother’s memories of her time in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Recommended.
                                Be curious! (and keep looking up)

    I feel the need to correct myself: The little library is not “mine.” Libraries are meant to grow, and to be shared.
                                             from The Lost Library
                      written by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass
                                              Feiwel & Friends, 2023
                                                       (read on Libby)
    
    When I was growing up, my library was about four miles from my house, too far away for six-year-old me to walk by myself, and I wasn’t big enough to ride my bike yet, so Mom took me. Sometimes my sister came, too. Sometimes my brother did. But library time was my time with Mom. She loved to read and so did I. (I still do.)
    The library was in the converted mansion of William E. Telling. The Cuyahoga Library System bought the building and the property in the 1950s. It was my library until I grew up and moved away. I took my kids there, too, when they were babies.
    The Cleveland Heights library was closer, and when I got a little older and better at bike riding, I rode there. The whole basement floor was a kid’s room.
    We had a library in our elementary school where we learned about the Dewey Decimal System. It makes so much sense in a non-mathematical way. 
    In 1883 Melville Dewey became the librarian of Columbia College (now Columbia University) in New York City. He founded the world's first library school there in 1887.
    But libraries have existed in the world since ancient times. Probably, the most famous is the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. Opened during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, between 286 and 285 BCE (Before the Common Era) it survived a prolonged period of decline, finally closing in the third century CE (Common Era).
    Greece, Turkey, and Morocco served their people with libraries. So did China with its Cave of the Thousand Buddhas, where, according to HistoryHit.com, a “system of 500 temples stood at the crossroads of the Silk Road.” In the early 20th Century, over 50,000 documents were discovered there, written in a “large variety of languages.” 
    According to the American Library Association, “Public libraries—and indeed, all libraries--are changing and dynamic places where librarians help people find the best source of information whether it's a book, a website, or database entry.”
    Besides public libraries, other libraries serve their clients’ needs every day. School libraries, academic libraries, and special libraries including medical libraries, law libraries, and research libraries are some examples.
    In January 2025, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, IMLS, launched its first-ever National Museum Survey. From its website, “The [IMLS] is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums.” The survey was designed to find the greatest need, the most used resources, the most important programs, and other places where libraries and librarians as well as museums and curators serve the public and common good. 
    On April 1, 2025, NPR reported that the entire IMLS staff was put on paid administrative leave. They were notified by email. Employees turned in government property and their email accounts were disabled.
    How can a society retain its culture without its libraries and museums? 
    Keith E. Sonderling, the deputy secretary of labor, is now the president’s pick for the new acting director of IMLS as well. He was confirmed on March 20, 2025. Sonderling is quoted in his acceptance speech on the IMLS website. “…We will revitalize IMLS and restore focus on patriotism, ensuring we preserve our country’s core values, promote American exceptionalism and cultivate love of country in future generations.”
    I can only imagine what libraries will look like after this “revitalization” and “preservation” takes place.
    How can a society retain its culture without its libraries and museums? Will Mr. Sonderling get to decide what is important to keep available for public use?
    Some states and communities also support their libraries, but many libraries will be unfunded if the IMLS is gutted.  
    National Librarian Day is April 16, 2025. While the day was first sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) in 1958, it wasn’t until the ALA called attention to it in a 2004 campaign to “raise awareness and appreciation for library staff.” It’s been celebrated on April 16 ever since.
    Some ways you can thank your library staff include attending a library program. Libraries offer everything from Baby Storytime to Chair Yoga. Craft programs, music programs, how to file your taxes, how to design a garden, how to use a computer (from beginning learners to experienced). All are offered for free. 
    Materials to support all these activities are available to borrow. 
    Spring is a great time to de-clutter. Take all those books you promised yourself you’d read again but never did to the library’s book sale. The Friends of the Library use the money they raise to support their library in countless ways. 
    Consider volunteering or donating to their group.
    In Ohio, the House Of Representatives is working on its next two-year budget. Their current proposal will eliminate the Public Library Fund (PLF) and replace it with a line-item appropriation which will cut funding by $100 million compared to the governor’s proposal.
    Libraries in Ohio are funded at the same level as 2000, with no adjustment for inflation. Through its line item, the House’s budget would eliminate the requirement that a portion of the state’s General Fund be dedicated to libraries. Their proposed new distribution formula would cut funding to 39 counties of our 88. 
    That’s besides what’s going on with the IMLF in Washington DC.
    How can a society retain its culture without its libraries and museums?
    What can you do? 
    Ohio Library Council (OLC) suggests that you contact your State Representative and Matt Huffman Speaker of the House, TODAY. 
    Scroll to the bottom of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County’s blog to find a script you can use or adapt. Or check your library’s website for alternate scripts, but please act today. 
    The survival of our culture depends on all of us working together.
    -—stay curious! (and find answers, entertainment, and information at  your library)

It was a day that could’ve been really bad
if not for the kindness of a few cool beans.
                                                from The Cool Bean
                                               written by Jory John
                                          illustrated by Pete Oswald
                              Harper/HarperCollinsPublishers, 2019
                                   (accessed on YouTube 3/30/25)


    When I looked up the definition of “kindness,” I was more than a little disappointed. Merriam-Webster online defines kindness as “the act of being kind.” Hmm, I kept looking.
    On their blog, InspireKindness defines kindness as “the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. And also acknowledges that “kindness” means much more than that. It’s seen and felt. It is intentional. It is thoughtful.
    Meaning that kindness begins with a thought. It’s not the idea of what can be done, though, it’s the actual doing.
    My mom used to tell me “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It’s what she said when I failed to follow through on a helpful or generous or loving idea. It might have been a phone call to check on my grandma if she wasn’t feeling well. Or sending a birthday card to my cousin who lived in a different state. Or playing with my little brother even when I didn’t feel like it.
    It goes without saying that not everyone is kind. But sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and other healthcare scientists know this: kind people are happier than those who are unkind.
    In a recent article in Healthbeat, a publication of the Harvard Medical School, Tyler VanderWeele, the co-director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality, and Religion at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says, "There's compelling evidence that kindness is linked with a number of aspects of health and well-being.”
    He goes on to say that genuinely kind people are kind intentionally. They always look for ways to make life better for someone and find ways to contribute something positive to another person. 
    Humans are naturally social beings, but kindness comes more easily to some of us than others. Dr. VanderWeele suggests we purposefully do kind acts, five different acts in one day for six weeks. He says that will help form a habit, and kindness (and happiness) will grow from the “outside in” rather than the inside out.
    Here are some of VanderWeele’s suggestions to try:

• compliment the first three people you see
• run errands for a friend or neighbor 
• leave a bigger-than-usual tip for a service worker 
• listen, really listen, to a friend or colleague who is having a bad day
• do an unpleasant household chore when it’s “not your turn”
• donate to a worthwhile charity
• let someone check out ahead of you in the grocery store 
• volunteer 

    The General Assembly of the United Nations has set March 20 each year as the International Day of Happiness. It’s when they present their World Happiness Report, a list of countries rated on the achievement of 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The goals are the epitome of kindness. The high correlation of happiness with striving to reach these goals is not surprising.
    And it turns out that being kind is not only good for the recipient of your kindness, you, the kind person, also benefit. These benefits include not only a feeling of well-being but actual health benefits that can be measured, too.
    In her TEDxDeerfield talk presented on May 16, 2018, Reagan Hill introduced a study done by Emory University. It illustrated that the brains of participants doing kind acts lit up as if they were the ones receiving the kindness. 
    Doing acts of kindness releases serotonin into the bloodstream. Serotonin is known for its ability to heal wounds, calm the nervous system, and elicit happiness. Oxytocin is also released, counteracting cortisol and relieving excess stress. Oxytocin is protective of the heart by decreasing blood pressure. And it strengthens our immune system. Studies have shown that due to its stress reduction benefits, kindness slows aging.
    Ms. Hill listed three parts of being kind: harmlessness; humility; and honesty. Click the link above for her enlightening 12-minute discussion.    
    We live in a scary, grief-filled, and angry world. In not so many words, Mom used to tell me that I’d get what I expected. It felt appropriate to have those words come to mind when I again feel overwhelmed by factors beyond, way beyond my control.
    That’s not to say that our world is rosy. It is not. But in recognizing our reality, we can choose, over and over, to be kind, to do kind and meaningful and helpful acts for the people of our world, in our communities, and in our families.
    We can, like Anne Frank, choose to believe that “[d]espite everything, … people are really good at heart.”
    Being kind is good for the world and good for each of us.

I just finished reading Half-Moon Summer by Elaine Vickers (Holiday House, 2023). It is a middle-grade fiction title about two kids choosing to run a half-marathon, both for different reasons, and both with strong connections to their respective families. The story shows the power of friendship as they hope the race will help them find meaning in the challenges their families face. Recommended. 
                                              Be curious! (and kind)

She stands for all our heroes--
Courageous, strong, and brave.
She reminds us of the freedoms
They’ve fought to win and save.
                                  from Meet Our Flag, Old Glory
                                    written by April Jones Prince
                                          illustrated by Joan Paley
                                               Little, Brown, 2004

    I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and only just became aware that Cleveland has its own flag. It’s had one since 1896.
    General Moses Cleavland chose the location for his city at the spot where the mouth of the Cuyahoga River empties into the southern shore of Lake Erie. It was to be the site for the new capital city of the Connecticut Western Reserve, a land company made of speculators from Connecticut. After making his decision, Cleaveland returned to Connecticut and never came back. 
    Local lore says that The Cleveland Advertiser dropped the first A in his name to make the name fit on its masthead. True? We will probably never know.
    In its early days, Cleveland served as a major trading hub for the Great Lakes. 
    In the War of 1812, the 100 or so inhabitants of the general’s village had no idea of their importance to the War declared on Great Britain on June 18th. Because of its location, though, it served as a base for supplies, a meeting place for military units, and the establishment of Fort Huntington and a military hospital, neither of which are still standing.
    By the time of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814, which ended the war, the residents, because of their proximity to the river and the lake, could congratulate themselves on their strategic contributions to the nation’s war effort and their use of natural resources in their defense against an invasion that could have, but did not actually, materialize.
    After the Ohio and Erie Canal was finished in 1832, the village became a key link from the Ohio River to the Great Lakes and from there to the Atlantic Ocean. 
    The population continued to grow.
    Soon, Cleveland became home to immigrants from Europe and the Middle East as well as African American migrants moving North on their quest for better working conditions.
    Before and during the Civil War, Cleveland was a major stop on the Underground Railroad. The city was full of a vocal group of abolitionists, strongly influenced by their roots in New England. 
    During the Civil War, Cleveland became an industrial giant, manufacturing everything from railroad iron to warships.
    More people came.
    The Rockefellers grew their refining centers in Cleveland, founding Standard Oil, which became Sohio before partnering with BP in the 1960s. The company used the name Sohio until 1991.
    More business meant more opportunity. More opportunity, more people.
    At the beginning of the 1900s, Cleveland was the country’s sixth largest city. Car manufacturing rivaled Detroit. 
    In the first Gilded Age, generous philanthropists helped grow Cleveland into a cultural center. The Cleveland Museum of Art advertised free admission. The Cleveland Orchestra, founded in 1918, is known as one of the five major orchestras in the US. Playhouse Square, a hub for live theater was built in the 1920s. North-moving musicians brought the jazz scene with them.
    The 1920s also saw the growth of major retailers.
    And Cleveland was a sports town. The Cleveland Guardians (playing as the Cleveland Indians) won their first World Series championship in 1920. 
    But the Great Depression brought unemployment to about half of the city’s industrial workers. 
    Recovery took time, but by the end of WWII, Cleveland was back. Population boomed to almost 1,000,000 people. Cleveland baseball, hockey, and football teams dominated their leagues. 
    And along came Alan Freed and his “rock and roll.” 
    But Cleveland grew in fits and starts.
    When I was growing up, Cleveland was nicknamed “The best location in the nation.” By the time I was in high school, it was “the mistake on the lake.” Pollution in the Cuyahoga River was in no small part to blame for the name. Racial tension, tight budgets, and lost population due to “de-industrialization” played their part. A river burning and a spoiled lake competed with the “Emerald Necklace.” 
    How do you put all that on a flag? 
    It started in 1895 when a New York journalist, Julian Ralph, visited Cleveland. He was impressed with Cleveland’s civic spirit and pride and told William Stokely, a Plain Dealer reporter, that he was surprised Cleveland did not have a flag. Ralph, Stokely, and city leaders held a contest. 
    In 1895, Cleveland City Council unanimously adopted 18-year-old Susan Hepburn's design. It was unveiled on October 21, 1895, in time for the 100th anniversary of Cleveland's birth. Ms. Hepburn, an art school graduate, incorporated a shield with the name Cleveland on it, an anvil, a hammer, and a wheel to show the city’s growing industry. An anchor and windlass represented the importance of the lake and river. All on a red, white, and blue background. The current mayor, Robert McKisson, added the words “Progress and Prosperity” the next month.
    Click here to see the original 1896 version:
    A lot can happen in 100 + years, and last year a group of volunteer Clevelanders decided it was time to update the flag. 
    They wanted the flag to be “instantly recognizable” and “intimately connected with the identity of our city.” It was to be modern and inclusive. A new contest was put in place.
    The new flag was unfurled last week. It’s designed by Shan Rodich and incorporates symbols both subtle and evocative.
    See the flag and read up on the symbolism here: 
    You can see most of the submissions here: 
    Ted Kaye is a vexillologist, someone who studies flags. In his book Good Flag, Bad Flag, along with his five elements of good flag design, he includes a tip. Draw it small. Use a one-inch by one-and-a-half-inch rectangle to design your flag. That’s what a 3x5 foot flag looks like atop a flagpole from 100 feet away.
    I wonder what a flag of Youngstown would look like?
                      Be curious! (and hold tight, especially when
                                                     the wind blows)

I’m reading The Queen’s Secret by Karen Harper (HarperCollins, 2020). At first, I was put off by the introductory pages’ long list of monarchs and their relations. I thought the story would be mired in the complexity of characters. I’m happy to report I was wrong. I’m learning about the Queen Mother, Elizabeth, who was QEII’s mother and the wife of King George VI. The book is historical fiction, and though extremely well-researched, the author admits to taking some liberties. Recommended.​

…pretty soon he was hundreds of miles from home and was singing loudly about everything he loved, and many other fish and mammals were listening to him…
                                      from Soren’s Seventh Song
                                           written by Dave Eggers
                                    illustrated by Mark Hoffmann
                                      Cameron Kids/Abrams, 2024

    Humpback whales are making a comeback. Well, four of the 14 identified family units are still protected as endangered and one is threatened, but the other ten are indeed, repopulating themselves. 
    Putting Captain Ahab’s ocean treks in his pursuit of Moby Dick and other adventurous types aside, owners, captains, and crew of whaling ships in the late 1800s and early 1900s were interested in only one thing, the money to be made by hunting, capturing, and processing whales. 
    Then, whales were hunted relentlessly, almost to extinction. Before their populations were decimated, they provided oil for lamps and machines. Spermaceti, a highly prized oil found in the head of a sperm whale, was a great prize. New Bedford, Massachusetts, was such a busy port dealing mostly in lamp oil, that it was nicknamed “The City That Lit the World.” 
    Other whales provided vast amounts of blubber, which, when separated from its skin and cut into chunks, was rendered into its own lesser grade of whale oil. The oil was processed into soap, paint, varnish, rope, and textiles.
    The bony plates in the upper jaw of some whales (including Humpbacks) strain food from the gallons of seawater whales suck in during feeding. Before plastic was invented, baleen harvested from hunted whales was made into stays in women’s corsets and hoops for their skirts. It was also made into umbrella ribs, riding crops, buggy whips, and hat brims.
    As you might imagine, whaling was a dangerous occupation. Before all the rendering of blubber into oil and baleen into corsets took place, a whale must be caught. A harpoon (a long shaft with a barb at the end) was the primary weapon, but whales are heavy. Their weight and the fury with which they fought made them hard to catch and quick to escape.
    That is, until Lewis Temple (c1800-1854), an African American abolitionist from New Bedford, Massachusetts, invented a pivoting iron head and attached that to the tip of a harpoon. Now, when the harpoon sunk into the flesh of the whale, the hinge at the tip pivoted, embedding the hook and ensuring the whale did not get away. 
    This simple invention revolutionized the whaling industry. Remaining in use until the 1950s, Temple’s toggle was so efficient that according to Dr. Wally Franklin of the Oceania Project, “between 1900 and 1978, over two million whales were killed.”
    Humpbacks became a protected species in the early 1960s, and in 1986, the International Whaling Commission placed a moratorium on commercial whaling, ending the practice (except in Japan.) Citing the possible need for use as a food source, Japan withdrew from the IWC in 1986. Since then, limits have been placed on the amount of whales Japanese whalers can take. 
    Whaling is also limited to “subsistence whaling” for the Inupiat and Siberian Yupik people living on (and off) the coast of Northwestern Alaska and monitored since 1979. Most of the whales harvested for food are not Humpbacks, though.
    Humpbacks live in every ocean in the world, but those 14 family groups cluster at the east and west coasts of South America, southern Africa, and Australia. 
    The water surrounding Australia is a dedicated whale sanctuary that has protected humpbacks, especially, since 1989. The water temperature is mild, the way they like it, and food is plentiful. According to Wally Franklin of the Oceania Project, 40,000 humpbacks live in Australian waters. 
    Dr. Franklin acknowledges that the severe depletion of sperm whales and near extinction of blue whales has provided little competition for humpbacks searching for food and mates. Which brings us to whalesong.
    According to the IFLAscience newsletter, all whales vocalize, but only a few species actually sing, and the best and most famous singers are humpbacks. Males and females use calls. They include clicks, whistles, and pulses. They are used for navigation, coordinating hunting strategies, and maintaining social bonds within a pod.
    But only males sing. Their songs are long, sometimes up to 20 minutes and include repeating phrases, rhythms, and structured patterns. Researchers think the primary reason for the song is to attract a mate. Maybe something like Elvis’s “Love Me Tender”? 
    So all the feeding, singing, and mating seems to be working, for now.
    I’ve never seen a live whale. They are so huge that even if I saw one in an aquarium, even if I was very young, I think I would remember. So I’ve only seen them on a screen, from a physical and electronic distance. Not the best way, I agree, but that’s all I have. 
    Because of the recent (1/22/25) executive order to disallow the Endangered Species Act to be an obstacle to energy development (read “drill, baby, drill”), I may never will.

I’m reading The Secret Letters by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Quill Tree, 2022). Recommended by my youngest grandson, it’s a combination of historical fiction and mystery with a friendship story that works to show readers the difference between junk and clutter. When two friends unravel two separate mysteries, they discover that true friendships can stand the test of time.

                                      Be curious! (and keep singing)

At first, [Farmer Brown] couldn’t believe his ears. 
Cows that type?
Impossible!
Click, clack MOO!
Click, clack, MOO!
Clickety, clack MOO!
                        from Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type
                                          written by Doreen Cronin
                                          illustrated by Betsy Lewin
                                               Simon Spotlight, 2000

    According to typing.com's free typing test, I can type 61 words per minute with 99% accuracy. (I knew I mistyped a lowercase M when it should have been uppercase and didn’t go back to fix it.) I’m satisfied with that. I type a little (or a lot) slower, though, when I have to think before I type or remember how to spell a word instead of copying an already formulated text. I would probably type slower, too, if the words were nonsense words.
    But go ahead and click the link. Check yours, too, if you are curious.
    I learned to type on a manual machine, but my parents bought me an electric typewriter when I went to college. I don’t remember the brand, but it had an extra ribbon that magically erased my mistakes. I still had to listen for the ding at the end of each line and pay attention to the mark I made to show the bottom of the page, though. Lots of paper still ended up in the “scratch bin” for grocery lists, to-do lists, and checkbook balancing.
    Even though typewriters and typewriting are experiencing a small resurgence, NPR reported on a story last January that the last typewriter repair shop in Boston is closing. The owner, who is ready to retire, can’t find a buyer.
    Tom Furrier, who has been fixing typewriters for 45 years in Boston, will close his store at the end of this month (March, 2025). When he started working, “you could find 40 busy typewriter shops across Metro Boston,” Tom told an NPR interviewer last January. 
    After working there for many years, he bought the shop in 1990. Personal computers were gaining popularity, but a decade later, vintage was in, and Tom’s shop had people waiting in line for him to open. 
    In recent years, some big cities have become home to more shops, including Milwaukee, which claims to be the birth of the typewriter. 
    Henry Mill (1683?-1771), an English engineer, is credited with the invention of the first European typewriter in 1714. Queen Anne said of his machine, “[it] made counterfeiting more difficult and reading and writing easier.” 
    So, how easy is it to use a typewriter? Why are the keys arranged in a seemingly random order? Who came up with it? And is it really the best order?
    The long progression from Johannes Gutenberg to Bill Gates was an evolution in technology, mass production, and the spread of the written word.
    Today’s typewriter is based on the first commercial typewriter, designed by Christopher Latham Sholes and Carlos Glidden in 1866. Two years later, they contracted with the E. Remington Company to manufacture it.
    The letters were originally arranged in alphabetical order in two rows. Like later machines, each letter on the keyboard was attached to a rod that jumped to strike a paper when the key was struck, then snapped back into position. 
    Sholes, it’s said, discovered that the faster someone typed, the less time the rods had to snap back. They often collided and jammed. He decided to move the commonest letters to the most difficult places on the keyboard to slow down the typing and give the rods a little longer to fall back into place. He had designed the QWERTY keyboard.
    A different QWERTY story credits Densmore, a partner of Sholes. His layout considered common two-letter combinations. He placed each letter on the opposite side of the keyboard to provide efficiency in a two-handed movement while preventing collisions, clashes, and jams.
    QWERTY has been analyzed, studied, and experimented with since the first keyboard to use it. Well? Is QWERTY best? Only maybe. It’s surprisingly controversial. Loads of papers, studies, and experiments have been done. For now, at least, the keyboard isn’t changing. It’s the way it’s (almost) always been done. At least in English. 
    All Latin Alphabets use upper and lower case. It took five more years and the Industrial Revolution for Remington to add the “shift” key, allowing the typist to toggle between them.
    In Gutenberg’s time, letters used to set type were stored in cases. The capital letters or larger ones (the majuscule) were kept in the upper case, and the minuscule (smaller) ones went in the lower case. The names stuck. A discussion of majuscule and minuscule scripts would require a blog post of its own, so let’s leave it there for now.
    Very literal.
    The Cyrillic, Chinese, Thai, and Hebrew alphabets are some examples that mostly do not distinguish between upper and lower case. You can find more here. You can see layouts of their keyboards and type in any language you’d like here. It’s very cumbersome, though.    
    Centuries before modern, ok, vintage, typewriters became widely available, Johannes Gutenberg (c1395 - c1468 invented movable type. He was already familiar with printing and had created an alloy that could be quickly melted, cooled, and reformed. The small, metal pieces, each a single letter, could be arranged in infinite ways. He had also perfected an oil-based, fast-drying ink that was thick enough to coat the letters and still adhere to paper. The screw press, designed for rapid operation, also was in use before Gutenberg adapted it to its use in printing.
    But the essential element was Gutenberg’s adjustable mold. By using a frame, whole lines of text, upper case and lower, could be printed at once. 
    Paper had already been invented by the ancient Egyptians and Chinese, and movable type had already been invented in China. Inks and alloys were already in use, too, throughout the world. Perfecting the pieces and synthesizing them to create something so useful was Gutenberg’s genius.     
    The importance of his printing press can’t be overstated. Like the wheel, antibiotics, and electricity, it has changed our world forever.    

I just started reading When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill (Knopf Doubleday/Vintage, 2022). It’s gotten mixed reviews, but I loved her Girl Who Drank the Moon (Algonquin Books for Young Readers, 2016. Newbery winner), so I decided to give this one a try. I’ll let you know next time.
                       Be curious! (and literal, when necessary)   

Lupe was ready to rock!
Lupe was ready to roll!
    .   .   .
The beat had a sound.
That sound came from letters.
Reading is like music! I just need to see the beat!”
                            from Lupe Lopez: Rock Star Rules!
        created by e. E. Charlton-Trujillo and Pat Zietlow Miller
                                          illustrated by Joe Cepeda
                                         Candlewick Press, [2002]

    The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced its list of 14 nominees for the class of 2025 on February 12. Out of the 14, I know (or recognize) only six. Here’s the list from its website:   
*Bad Company
The Black Crowes
*Mariah Carey
*Chubby Checker
*Joe Cocker
*Billy Idol
Joy Division/New Order
*Cyndi Lauper
Maná
Oasis
Outkast
*Phish
Soundgarden
The White Stripes
* the ones I recognize. How did you do?
    Directly from their site (again), “Artists or bands become eligible for nomination 25 years after releasing their first commercial recording. Among this year’s 14 Nominees, eight are appearing on the ballot for the first time: Bad Company, The Black Crowes, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, Billy Idol, Maná, Outkast, and Phish.” 
    They have each created their own “style and attitude,” influenced generations after them, and “continued the growth of rock & roll.”
    The voting panel is comprised of over 1,200 artists, historians, and music industry professionals. The judges consider three factors:
1.  an artist’s impact on music culture
2.  their influence on other musicians who have followed them
3.  the scope and longevity of their career and body of work
    Fan Voting is open through April 21, 2025. Use this link if you want to participate.
    The inductees will be announced in late April. This year, the Induction Ceremony will take place in Los Angeles, exact date TBA.
    Rock & Roll began as a particularly American phenomenon in the Deep South and grew to encompass the whole world, changing music forever. It defines a musical genre through connection, innovation, and rebellion. The sounds include “blue notes,” commonly found in a blend of spirituals, blues, and jazz.
    Without getting too deep into the weeds, the subgenres of Rock & Roll depend on “blue notes,” those sounds that come about a half-step above or below what we expect to hear. They create tension on the way to a resolution, usually in a familiar chord. 
    The best examples are subtle, emotionally resonant, and include improvisation, making them unique. Examples include John Coltrane’s saxophone solos, Stevie Wonder’s harmonies, and Aretha Franklin’s glissandos. They add an emotional dimension to the sounds.
    YouTube doesn’t like to share its links with a copy/paste. If you want to hear examples of blue notes, Google something like <examples of blues notes in music> to find several short clips.
    And who knew Rock & Roll has so many sub-genres? A quick search netted over 50! Blue notes are more common in some than in others.
    Here’s a list of 16 common subgenres from GrooveNexus, including their descriptions. From the birth of Rock & Roll in the 1950s in the sounds of Elvis, Chuck Berry, and Buddy Holly through Do-Wop, Disco, and Hip-Hop, sound experiments in rhythms, harmonies, and lyrics kept and keep evolving. My mom called it all “rotten roll.” I think she was not the only one who did. 
    My sister was more into Ricky Nelson. I liked Simon and Garfunkel, The Mamas and Papas, and Roberta Flack (2/10/37 – 2/24/25 RIP). I was, and still am, drawn more to the lyric than the rhythms and melodies. 
    In 1986, Cleveland, Ohio, was chosen to be the home of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The building opened in 1995. By then, Rock & Roll was a worldwide phenomenon. People are still asking, “why Cleveland?”.
    Here’s the local legend. In the late 1940s, Alan Freed, the pioneer DJ for Rock & Roll, became friends with Leo Mintz, owner of Record Rendezvous in downtown Cleveland. Mintz knew what kids were buying, and Freed had the platform to showcase it. Mintz sponsored the show and donated the records. 
    By March 21, 1952, 14,000 tickets had been sold for the 11,000-capacity Cleveland Arena, the chosen venue to hold the Moondog Coronation Ball. It was the world’s first rock concert. Two days later, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported “[p]olice ended the ball at 10:45 p.m., observing the place was so filled that nobody could dance or hear the music.”
    Cleveland had become Rock & Roll’s debut city and made Alan Freed a rock star in his own right. 
    Rock & Roll continued to evolve. While not the first Rock & Roll song to be recorded, “Hang On Sloopy” was released by Atlantic Records in 1964. It became a standard and was recorded by the Yardbirds and later the McCoys and others. 
    Legend has it that the song’s inspiration was Dorothy Sloop, a jazz singer from Steubenville, Ohio. She was a student at The Ohio State University which adopted it as its "fight song."                                  
    “Hang On Sloopy” became the official rock song of the State of Ohio on November 20, 1985, by House Concurrent Resolution 16.
    
    All 50 states have a State Song except Maryland, “Maryland, My Maryland” (to the tune of “O Tannenbaum”) was repealed on 7/1/2021. 
    “Hang On Sloopy” is the only state song classified as Rock & Roll. 

I’m reading My Mother in Havannah by Rebe Huntman. A memoir, a reflection on motherhood, and an example of using “place” as a central theme, Rebe brings her readers with her on an emotional journey as she searches for spiritual connections in the land of her mother’s birth.
                                     -—Be curious! (and Rock on!)  

A cube has 8 faces that are all squares.
It can be a dice or a box filled with bears.
from All About 3D Shapes
written and read by Jarrett Corder
accessed on YouTube 2/24/25


    Ernö Rubik not only invented the world’s most popular puzzle, a couple of years ago he published a book about it. In Cubed: the Puzzle of Us All (Flatiron Books, 2020), Rubik shares the journey he took to invent his famous cube, his thoughts about solving problems, and how astonishing it is to have invented something so successful.
    He’s a sculptor, an architect, and a designer. He defines sculpture as a combination of art and technology. He loves to work with the design of objects and explains the art of all types of design to his students.
    His cube demonstrates the relationship between space and geometry. It is his way to explain simply and visually with material, how it feels to live in a three-dimensional world.
    It is simple and complex at the same time. “[T]his contradiction is the content of the cube,” explains Rubik.
    He likes to replace the word problem and all its bad connotations with challenge, a word that encourages using creative thinking to reach a goal. He believes that play is an important part of problem-solving.
    While math proves there are more than forty-three quintillion (mathematically 43,252,003,274,489,856,000) ways to solve Rubik’s cube, Jim Hogan learned if a solver masters only seven algorithms, the puzzle can be solved quickly no matter how it is scrambled. 
    Jim’s autistic. He’s an engineer at Google, and he says that solving the Rubik’s Cube changed his life. When he learned to solve the cube, he discovered ways to solve physical problems that he could not solve before. He needs to fidget. Playing with his Rubik’s cube, even in public, is socially acceptable. 
    At least in the Google environment.
    In our regular world, kids (mostly) practice and compete to get faster and faster at solving the puzzle. The World Cube Association lists over 48 upcoming competitions before the end of next week (3/10/25). They take place everywhere from Nairobi, Kenya to Kathmandu, Nepal, and from Bangladesh to New Zealand, and include many right here in the USA.
    The competitions emphasize speed. It takes practice and learning algorithms, the series of steps a cuber uses to move the 2-dimensional faces of each facet of the cube, to reach the goal: nine same-colored squares on each of the cube’s six sides.
    Rubiksplace.com is a website devoted to listing the qualities to look for in a cube. Speed, smoothness, corners (round or square), quality of the magnets used, customizability, and spring tension, are all both subjective and objective. A list of brands comes next followed by a list of which cubes the record-holding cubers use.
    An advanced speed cuber can solve a 3x3 cube (one that has nine squares on each face) in under 15 seconds. 
    My grandson’s record is a little over 30 seconds! He’s on his way!
    Some cubers memorize the algorithms (found on various sites and YouTube). Some practice finger dexterity. Some learn combinations of algorithms arranged as techniques. 
    Here’s  an easy and thorough example:
    In a YouTube interview, Ernö Rubik says he wants the legacy of his cube to show that people can solve problems, even difficult ones, if they are not afraid to fail on their first or millionth step. And they don’t need a teacher. Only their own combination of intuition, experience, and creativity. Each person’s solving process will be different.
    And, he adds, the more difficult the problem, the sweeter success feels when it is solved. 
    People discover a lot of things when they start to work through solving a Rubik’s cube, whether it’s an algorithm, how to get unstuck, or how to solve multiple things at the same time. It’s a discovery process where the solvers discover new things about themselves.
    Rubik admits there are many reasons to solve problems. You can meet your target by getting faster, but you can also become more capable of asking questions. And asking them, for Rubik, is more important than answering them. He notes that oftentimes, the answer is embedded in the question.
    His cube has been used to explain everything from mathematics to psychology, and physics to human intelligence. Rubik says he is not interested in how quickly his cube can be solved. He is more interested in how many different ways he can discover to reach the goal of the solve. 
    It’s the difference between taking a walk in the park to notice and enjoy the wildlife and running across a busy street to avoid being hit by a car. Both are important for very different reasons.


Because I enjoyed Liz Moore’s Long Bright River, I started her new book, The God of the Woods (Riverhead Books, 2024). When a camper is discovered missing from her bunk one morning, the search for her involves the property owners (who are the parents of the missing girl), the camp personnel, and the rookie detective assigned to the case. Family history, relationships, and intrigue come together to make this one riveting read. Recommended.
Be curious! (and look for solutions)


FB: I visited our local planetarium on Youngstown State University’s campus last weekend. It helps a little, thinking of our planet as a tiny part of a huge universe. And being with my grandsons helps my perspective in more ways than I can count.

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
                                   from: The Diary of a Young Girl
                                              written by Anne Frank
                                     Doubleday/Bantam Books, 1967
                                                first published in 1947
                                                 first US edition, 1952

    Yesterday (Monday), when I usually finish my thoughts, complete  editing my typos, and re-read for clarity, I decided to do none of those things.
    I had planned to post the nominations for the 2025 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I even had some of the research ready. 
    But, like I felt a few years ago when I decided to take a break from the news and re-post pieces that still seemed relevant to me, my blog felt inconsequential, unimportant, and even ephemeral in light of the firehose quantity and quality of the current news. 
    In October 2018, when I originally posted this piece, the first Trump regime was finding its footing. Children were being torn from their families in his “zero-tolerance” policy to stem immigration. He called Robert Muller’s investigations a “witch hunt,” which fueled the Me Too movement. He nominated Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. And mid-term elections were one week away.
    In 2021, when I reposted it, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were in office. The world was still in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Biden signed a $1.9 trillion relief package into law, which worked its way to the people who needed it most. 
    The Capitol Riot/Insurrection was in our rear-view mirror working its way through the Judicial System. Key portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were working their way through Congress. Biden brought the United States back into the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization.
    The relative calm lasted for four short years.
    Now this post feels important enough to re-post yet again:

    One of the most famous Holocaust poems of all time, "First They Came for the Jews," was written by a Lutheran pastor and theologian, Martin Niemöller (1892–1984).
    After recanting his support for Hitler and Nazism, Niemöller was arrested and confined to the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945. He narrowly avoided execution and was liberated by the Allies. He stayed in Germany and worked as a clergyman, pacifist, and anti-war activist. In his 1946 book, Niemöller talked publicly of Germany’s guilt for what Germany had done to the Jews. He was one of the first Germans to do so.
    Niemöller’s poem is especially relevant now.
                     First, They Came For The Jews
                             by Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
    I found the text of the poem and information about Niemöller on this page at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum site. Accessed on October 29, 2018. (verified October 19, 2021, and February 18, 2025)

Here is a modern adaptation:
When they came for the Jews and the blacks, I turned away
When they came for the writers and the thinkers and the radicals and the protestors, I turned away
When they came for the gays, and the minorities, and the utopians, and the dancers, I turned away
And when they came for me, I turned around and around, and there was nobody left...
(published in Hue and Cry, 1991)

You can find some other adaptations here:
http://webweaversworld.blogspot.com/2006/10/first-they-came-for-jews-variations-on.html
    Shooting and killing praying people in a synagogue . . . because they were Jewish. I never thought that could *really* happen. But, in 2018, three days before my original post, it did. In the city next door to mine. 
    In 2025, I’m struggling with how to turn my anger, fear, pessimism, and grief into action.
    Here’s my version of Neimöller’s poem:

When he fired FAA executives, I was unaware. 
    Then 67 people were killed in an airline crash. And three more in a
    helicopter.
When he cancelled DEI, I was unaffected.
    I looked away from my horror and disgust.
When he shuttered USAID and fired most of the personnel, 
    I called my Senators and Representative.
When he gave Department of Treasury access to the Musk-ovite, 
    I spoke out to my friends.
When he threatened to de-fund the Department of Education, 
    I cried.
When Amy Walter echoed Simon Rosenberg’s plea to write and call government officials, 
    I did.
When I do all these things, maybe nothing will change.
    But maybe something will.
    Please join me!

(10/19/21 update) On October 8, 2021, the director of curriculum and instruction for the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas, told a fourth-grade teacher to “make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has an opposing … perspective.” Find the article here.

(2/18/25 update): The paragraph above is right from the Education section of Project 2025.

I just finished reading an historical fiction for young readers, Freedom’s Game by Rosanne Tolin (Reycraft Books, 2024). The story takes place after the German occupation of France and tells of some children who were moved to a chateau a couple of years before the end of WWII and the Resistance workers who ran it. Well-developed characters and tight writing make a tension-filled read, even though we all know how the War ends. It feels very timely. Recommended.
                                         -—Be curious! (and involved)