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You Cant Make This Stuff Up. Now Locust Swarm Headed For Israel,Just in Time for Passover

Today’s post is short and to the point. My previous blog entries have dealt with the radically changing climate conditions on our fair planet.

Since my last weather warnings, a meteorite fell on Russian soil, the earth opened up in Florida and swallowed a man whole, and scientists are now losing their smugness and realizing Mother Nature is greater than we can imagine.

Yesterday, a swarm of Locust’s headed from the Egypt and is set to arrive in Israel just in time for Passover.This sounds like a movie script right? Wrong.. Read what new agencies are reporting below. As I said, you can’t make this stuff up .Now perhaps the swarm can provide some protein for the food scarce regions of the Middle East. Perhaps our brilliant entomologists can harness Locust power…Or perhaps locusts do what they do and man can do little else but step out of harms way..One thing is clear…The farmers in the affected area are not laughing..Read below.

As if we hadn’t already seen enough Biblical events this year, a plague of over 30 million locusts swarmed over Egypt’s cities and farms just three weeks before Passover begins. But put your apocalyptic fears to rest. This happens every year as part of the locusts’ natural migration pattern, though this year’s swarm is especially large. That doesn’t mean Egyptians aren’t freaked the heck out by millions of nasty bugs buzzing through the air at all hours of day and night, possibly descending upon the agriculture fields where they’re known to destroy entire crops, just like in the actual Passover story.

The crops are so far safe, Egyptian officials assured the public…( really?) As the plague made its way from the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia at the end of last week and this weekend, though, Egyptian Agricultural Minister Salah Abdel Moamen explained the situation to the country in a calmly worded statement. “The current inspection teams at areas targeted by locusts did not witness swarms damaging a single inch of crop,” said Moamen. He added that the locusts are “sexually immature and do not depend on plants for energy since they mainly rely on fat stores.” Hmmmmmm

This sounds like NASA reassuring us that no meteors would strike the earth in our lifetimes, one week before one did….Forgive my skeptical nature….

That said, these plagues can be unpredictable. Egyptian officials didn’t expect the plague to pass by the country’s capital, until Sunday when the locusts unexpectedly arrived in Cairo. The government denied reports that the locusts had started devastating crops as well as a report from United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) that the Ministry of Agriculture cleared 11,000 hectares of land in an attempt to save the harvest. When they get hungry, a one-ton hoard of locusts can eat the same amount of food in one day as 2,500 humans, according to the UN. Egypt knows this too. Less than a decade ago, a plague of locusts nearly 40 miles wide swept over Egypt damaging crops at the majority of the country’s farms. That’s a picture of it, to the right.

Conflicting reports aside, Moamen insists that the government has everything under control. “Egyptian armed forces and the border guards are attempting to fight the swarm with the means at their disposal,” the agriculture minister said. “I ask the families living in the locust-plagued areas not to burn tires. This does not chase away the locusts, but only causes damage and could ignite large scale fires that would cost in lives.” Also, that smoke isn’t doing Egypt’s grandchildren any favors. Scientists anticipate that, as global warming worsens, plagues like this will also get worse.

The Sun is coming…Look busy !

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Super flares of 2013

BREAKING NEWS I have just updated this blog, since NASA has just announced a huge solar flare explosion due next week ( Feb 21-28th 2013). This flare is 6 times the size of the earth. It was just discovered a mere 48 hours ago.So this is a timely blog if I do say so. Here is the press release:

NASA: A colossal sunspot on the surface of the sun is large enough to swallow six Earths whole, and could trigger solar flares this week, NASA scientists say.
The giant sunspot was captured on camera by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory as it swelled to enormous proportions over the 48 hours spanning Tuesday and Wednesday (Feb. 19 and 20). SDO is one of several spacecraft that constantly monitor the sun’s space weather environment.
“It has grown to over six Earth diameters across, but its full extent is hard to judge since the spot lies on a sphere, not a flat disk,” wrote NASA spokeswoman Karen Fox, of the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in an image description.

Here we go again ! As if meteors slamming into earth were not enough to make one feel they had been tele-ported into a 1950’s era SciFi Movie.The CME’s are coming says NASA. CME is short for what they call a Coronal mass eruption and it pays to take notice of this term.You will see why as you read through this blog post. We may not have a choice as to what is being served by the speckled waiter in the sky, Monsuer Soleil AKA the sun. You see, the sun is throwing hissy fits lately, producing large eruptions of energy called solar flares. Can they kill you? Not in the way you would think.There is little chance of people burning up as has been portrayed in a number of sci fi movies. But there have been such occurrences in the past and they have knocked out whatever technologies Man has invented.And 2013 may well be a year to remember as far as the cosmos being the noisy neighbor from above.

Solar flares are no stranger to our planet, nor to civilization. Legends, myths and fables are littered with stories of stones, strange light, objects from the sky falling with no explanation. But is there any evidence to support the idea that Solar Flares have impacted our environs? In short, yes. The rather new and exciting developments of some archo- climatologists are shedding sunshine on the strange history of solar flares….I have borrowed some notes from various sources to illuminate the gentle reader. And as the saying goes, nothing new under the sun….

First things first. Science cannot predict many meteors.They simply do not have the technologies able to spot meteors like the one that hit the Ural mountains of Russia.Nor could science predict the other meteors witness over San Franciso and Cuba last week. Science even got lucky finding the asteroid that came close to us days ago.And CME’s are just as tricky to predict.The one coming looks enormous, so maybe a quick study of historic solar flares is in order.We will start with a CME I witnessed in Paris in 2000. I was staying at the Bastille hotel. Actually, I did not witness it, since it was invisible, and frankly, I did not notice it as it occurred.But it happened and more of the same seems to be on the way….

2000: The Bastille Day EventThe Bastille Day event takes its name from the French national holiday since it occurred the same day on July 14, 2000. This was a major solar eruption that registered an X5 on the scale of solar flares.
The Bastille. I remember dining late that night,ala fresco, oblivious to the flare..enjoying a glass of nice wine, like everyone else in Paris that balmy evening…

But the mysteries of the sun date back to the beginnings of our world,and are deeply ingrained in the human experience.

Since the beginning of human existence, civilizations have established religious beliefs that involved the Sun’s significance to some extent or other. As new civilizations developed many spiritual beliefs were based on those from the past so that there has been an evolution of the sun’s significance throughout cultural development. Even as late as the 17th century the development of tarot cards for fortune telling included a card that represents the Sun’s influence on the life of man.

If we look closely into history, we see that the religious beliefs of the very first civilization, the Sumerians,were consumed by the movement and expression of the sun…A land of blazing hot summers and precious little shade,Sumer was the “Hell’s kitchen” of the Middle East. While the Sumerian’s Sun god wasn’t the most powerful deity in their culture it initiated the development of future Sun worship. Over the centuries the Sumerian Sun god’s influence grew while other god’s influence diminished.

By the time the Egyptian civilization was at its peak, the Sun god had reached a supreme position. However, Sun worship reached its height and most involved form with the Aztec, Maya, and Inca civilizations of South America. The Inca culture was totally based on worship of the Sun.And by the 16th century, the gleaming armor of arriving colonialists in the 16th century surely caused the native peoples to tremble and deify the conquistadors..

Something big happened in the year A.D. 774.

Scientists studying tree rings found a sharp increase in the amount of radioactive carbon-14 recorded in the rings of ancient Japanese cedar trees between 774 and 775. Carbon-14 can be created by cosmic ray particles arriving from space, but what causes such cosmic ray increases?

At first, experts were at a loss to explain the event, and the team that unearthed the tree ring data last year dismissed the sun as a possible explanation.

Now a new team of scientists argues that a solar flare is the most likely culprit.

Blast from the sun

The sun could have released a huge and powerful blast of plasma into space called a coronal mass ejection, which, when it hit Earth, could have sparked the creation of carbon-14, suggest astrophysicists Adrian Melott of the University of Kansas and Brian Thomas of Washburn University, also in Kansas, in a paper published the Nov. 29 issue of the journal Nature.

Carbon-14 is a variant of the normal form of carbon (carbon-12) that is common on Earth and throughout the universe. When cosmic ray particles hit Earth’s atmosphere, they can produce showers of particles such as neutrons. Some of these neutrons, in turn, hit the nitrogen nuclei that are rife in the atmosphere, and a chemical reaction occurs that transforms the nitrogen into carbon-14.

This carbon variant is unstable and decays with a half-life of about 5,730 years (meaning half of any amount of carbon-14 will be gone in that time). For this reason, it’s a useful date marker: A tree, for example, will stop absorbing carbon once it dies, so the amount of carbon-14 left in it is a reliable indicator of how old it is.

It had been widely known that a jump in carbon-14 occurred in the eighth century, but researchers first pinpointed this rise and fall on a year-to-year basis by looking at tree rings in a paper by Fusa Miyake of Japan’s Nagoya University and colleagues, published in the June 14 2012 issue of Nature.

“They found that whatever made that carbon-14 bump happened really fast, and took less than one year, which called out for some really major, powerful event,” Melott told SPACE.com.

The Japanese researchers considered that it might be a solar flare, but calculated that it would have had to have been thousands of times more powerful than the greatest one ever known, which made such a scenario unlikely.

Now, in a new calculation, Melott and Thomas say a solar flare is a reasonable explanation.

“Their mistake was, they assumed that the energy shot out by the sun in one of these coronal mass ejections goes out in all directions, like the light from a light bulb, but in fact it’s kind of shot out in blobs,” Melott said. In other words, there was a staggered emission of CME, which, in my view must change the very way in which we view such events.

That adjustment meant that a solar flare need have been only about 10 or 20 times more powerful than the greatest flare on record, the so-called Carrington event of 1859. You will find the events of 1859 amazing, in that the event was at first heralded as a spectator event, and later feared as the extent of damage was calculated. Could such an event, in 2013, cause dreaded grid failure? You decide. And now for the BIG EVENT….

Carrington Super Flare

From August 28, 1859, until September 2, numerous sunspots and solar flares were observed on the sun. Just before noon on September 1, the British astronomer Richard Carrington observed the largest flare, which caused a major coronal mass ejection (CME) to travel directly toward Earth, taking 17.6 hours. Such a journey normally takes three to four days. This second CME moved so quickly because the first one had cleared the way of the ambient solar wind plasma.

On September 1, 1859, Carrington and Richard Hodgson, another English amateur astronomer, independently made the first observations of a solar flare. Because of a simultaneous “crochet”observed in the Kew Observatory magnetometer record by Balfour Stewart and a geomagnetic storm observed the following day, Carrington suspected a solar-terrestrial connection. Worldwide reports on the effects of the geomagnetic storm of 1859 were compiled and published by Elias Loomis which support the observations of Carrington and Balfour Stewart.

On September 1–2, 1859, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred. Aurorae were seen around the world, even over the Caribbean; those over the Rocky Mountains were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. People who happened to be awake in the northeastern US could read a newspaper by the aurora’s light.

Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases shocking telegraph operatorsTelegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire.Some telegraph systems continued to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies.

On September 3, 1859, the Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser reported, “Those who happened to be out late on Thursday night had an opportunity of witnessing another magnificent display of the auroral lights. The phenomenon was very similar to the display on Sunday night, though at times the light was, if possible, more brilliant, and the prismatic hues more varied and gorgeous. The light appeared to cover the whole firmament, apparently like a luminous cloud, through which the stars of the larger magnitude indistinctly shone. The light was greater than that of the moon at its full, but had an indescribable softness and delicacy that seemed to envelop everything upon which it rested. Between 12 and 1 o’clock, when the display was at its full brilliancy, the quiet streets of the city resting under this strange light, presented a beautiful as well as singular appearance.” rather poetic imagery. They politely forgot to mention the telegraph operators that were burned alive.

Similar events

American’s , as in Meso Americans also have their solar legends. Rock art designs in the Americas are often identical to those in locations around the world. Does this suggest ancient peoples were in direct contact with one another or could there be another explanation? Physicist Anthony Peratt has a bold new theory that argues the similarities are not based on contact but the result of witnessing and recording the same high energy auroral activity taking place in the sky. These auroras were the result of a massive solar flare which was intense enough to not only produce designs in the sky but also to literally cause bodies of water to boil. Native American legends appear to record just such an event sometime in the past. Is this also the origin of the Mesoamerican and Hopi belief in a series of world ages called Suns that each ended in massive destruction of human civilization? Could the “jealous sun” as sting calls it, bring a road raged Apollo and his chariot crashing down to earth, ready to mess with our connectivity? My son, his Ipad, and the rest of our friend and family hope not…….

My guess is that 2013 will be one for the record books and if anything, these challenges with birth new technologies. After all, we invented sun screen Right? Thomas Schoenberger

Chaplin is Hot Once Again, Thanks to a Lousy Economy.By Thomas Schoenberger

So the economy is in depression, fat cat bankers rule. Crime is all over and it seems the little guy is getting crushed under the weight of oppression.Modern Times you say? No. We have traveled this road before.And one man defined the struggle of the poor to better their lot in this world..The Tramp is back, and ready to amuse…..

Sir Charles Spencer “Charlie” Chaplin, KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was a British comic actor and filmmaker. Chaplin was one of the most influential figures of the silent era, whose screen character “The Tramp” became a global phenomenon and remains one of cinema’s most iconic images. His career in entertainment spanned more than 75 years, from Victorian music hall until close to his death at the age of 88. Chaplin’s high-profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy.As a composer, I am struck by Chaplin’s music. It is really rather good, haunting refrains, repetitive melodies that drum into your belly like a fish slapping plank wood.Chaplin composed like Beethoven did, with an eye towards drama and percussion. But was Chaplin ever actually homeless in real life? Well……….

Raised in London, Chaplin’s childhood was defined by poverty and hardship. He was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine; his father was absent, and his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing from a young age, touring music halls with a clog dancingtroupe and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19 he was signed to the prestigious Fred Karno company, which took him to America. It was while touring with the comedy troupe that Chaplin was scouted by the film industry. His first appearances came in 1914 with Keystone Studios, where he developed the Tramp persona and formed a large fan base. Chaplin directed his films from an early stage, and continued to hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual, and First National corporations. By 1918, he was one of the richest and most famous men in the world.

The rogue historian asks How did Chaplin resonate globally and why was his rise so meteoric? And could today’s rising tide of homeless and food scarce populations relate to the “Little Champ” ?

Chaplin played a homeless person who demanded dignity. As a tide of immigrants worldwide dealt with revolution, dislocation,poverty, war and class differences, Chaplin attracted global audiences by the sheer tenacity the “Little Tramp” showed in the face of overwhelming odds. Who hasn’t felt small or unimportant at times? Who hasn’t felt alone in a crowd? Chaplin is the ultimate symbol of the silent war of the have’s vs the have not’s Imagine Chaplin in the Occupy crowd, wreaking havoc.Imagine Chaplin in Modern day New York, assailing wicked banksters. Chaplin would have found 2013 content rich and surely would have fought for the underdog.Ironically, Charlie , who made his fame portraying an outcast chased by policemen, store owners, even other “tramps” would find himself the subject of a real life witch hunt later in his life.

In 1952 Chaplin had left Hollywood on a visit to England and while aboard ship in the Atlantic, was notified that his reentry permit had been revoked. Atty. Gen. James P. McGranery said the action had been prompted by “public charges” associating Chaplin with communism and “grave moral charges.” The comedian would have to appear at a hearing to prove his “moral worth” before he could return. Chaplin, who was still a British subject, declined to go through such a hearing. “Since the end of the last world war,” Chaplin said, “I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America’s yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States.” Chaplin and his family moved to a mansion overlooking Lake Geneva near the Swiss village of Vevey.

That government ruling was widely and correctly interpreted as a shabby cover to bar Chaplin from the country for political reasons. While he never belonged to a political party, he was sympathetic to liberal and some radical causes. Worse, he was outspoken. And some of his films, which ridiculed aspects of American society, were denounced as “left-wing propaganda.”

In August 1960, a superior court judge refused to issue an order compelling the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Hollywood Improvement Association to show cause why they should not be directed to include Chaplin’s name on the Walk of Fame. The court acted on a petition filed by Charles Chaplin, Jr., who contended that omission of his father’s name from the Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk project was malicious. Chaplin Jr. himself demanded $400,000 damages on the complaint that the decision of the two Hollywood organizations libeled him and injured his career. His suit was eventually dismissed.

After the reentry prohibition against Chaplin was dropped years later, the actor remained in Switzerland. As the years passed, both Chaplin and the times changed and, in an interview in London in 1962, he said: “What happened to me, I can’t condemn or criticize the country for that. There are many admirable things about American and its system, too. I have no ill feelings. I carry no hate. My only enemy is time.” This statement in itself shows the sunny disposition that has come to define Chaplin.A champion of humanity, he harbored no ill will, and thus, won the war, even if he had lost many battles.

By the early days of 1972, the officials, including an attorney general of the United States, who were outraged at Chaplin’s radically-tinged politics, were now gone. It was rumored that Chaplin would return to the United States for the first time in twenty years to receive a special Academy Award voted to him. If Chaplin decided to return, he would have to apply to the U.S. Consulate in Geneva for an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa. The U.S. State Department would then rule on the application.

Possibly because of Chaplin’s promising return, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce’s Executive Committee voted on whether to approve a star for the actor and voted 5 to 4 against it. After that vote, Chamber president,A. Ronald Button ordered an advisory poll of chamber membership that responded 3 to 1 in favor of installing a Chaplin star. Based on that, the Chambers directors went against their Executive Committees recommendation and voted 30 to 3 in favor of adding Chaplin’s name to the sidewalk honor. The decision still had to be approved by the Los Angeles City Council, but Button said it had always approved the directors’ recommendations in the past. “I can’t imagine them opposing the star,” he said. Eventually the city council approved Chaplin’s star, 11 to 3. The three dissenting councilmen never spoke publicly in opposition, but privately complained that since the comedian earned his money here he should not have left the country to live in Switzerland. It is 2013 and thanks to revolution, war, dislocation, inflation, deflation,and the greatest demarcation line between the rich and poor in a hundred years, Chaplin is back, and this time, it’s personal…

Father: Charles Chaplin, Sr. (alcoholic)
Mother: Hannah Smith
Brother: Sydney Chaplin (half brother)
Wife: Mildred Harris (m. 23-Oct-1918, div. 1920)
Wife: Lita Grey (m. 26-Nov-1924, div. 1926)
Wife: Paulette Goddard (m. Jun-1936, div. Jun-1942)
Wife: Oona Chaplin (dau. of Eugene O’Neill, m. 16-Jun-1943)
Son: Norman Spencer Chaplin (b. 7-Jul-1919, d. 10-Jul-1919)
Son: Charlie Chaplin, Jr. (b. 5-May-1925, d. 20-Mar-1968)
Son: Sydney Chaplin (stage actor, b. 30-Mar-1926, d. 3-Mar-2009)
Daughter: Geraldine Chaplin (actress, b. 31-Jul-1944)
Girlfriend: Pola Negri
Slept with: Marion Davies (rumored)
Girlfriend: Edna Purviance
Mistress: Louise Brooks (1925)

United Artists
Oscar (honorary) 1929 for The Circus
Oscar (honorary) 1972 (Lifetime Achievement)
Oscar for Best Music Original Score 1973 for Limelight (shared)
Erasmus Prize 1965 (with Ingmar Bergman)
Knight of the British Empire 4-Mar-1975
French Legion of Honor 1985
Hollywood Walk of Fame 6751 Hollywood Blvd
Left at Orphanage
Mann Act Violation 1944 (acquitted)
Paternity Test blood test (1943)
Exhumed 1-Mar-1978 (grave robbed)
Risk Factors: Asthma
FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR
A Countess from Hong Kong (5-Jan-1967)
A King in New York (12-Sep-1957)
Limelight (23-Oct-1952)
Monsieur Verdoux (11-Apr-1947)
The Great Dictator (15-Oct-1940)
Modern Times (5-Feb-1936)
City Lights (30-Jan-1931)
The Circus (6-Jan-1928)
The Gold Rush (26-Jun-1925)
A Woman of Paris (26-Sep-1923)
Pay Day (2-Apr-1922)
The Idle Class (25-Sep-1921)
The Kid (21-Jan-1921)
A Day’s Pleasure (15-Dec-1919)
Sunnyside (15-Jun-1919)
Shoulder Arms (20-Oct-1918)
The Rink (4-Dec-1916)
Behind the Screen (13-Nov-1916)
The Vagabond (10-Jul-1916)
The Floorwalker (15-May-1916)
A Night in the Show (20-Nov-1915)
Work (21-Jun-1915)
The Tramp (12-Apr-1915)
His New Job (1-Feb-1915)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
A Countess from Hong Kong (5-Jan-1967)
A King in New York (12-Sep-1957)
Limelight (23-Oct-1952)
Monsieur Verdoux (11-Apr-1947)
The Great Dictator (15-Oct-1940)
Modern Times (5-Feb-1936) · Factory Worker
City Lights (30-Jan-1931) · A Tramp
The Circus (6-Jan-1928) · A Tramp
The Gold Rush (26-Jun-1925) · The Lone Prospector
The Pilgrim (26-Feb-1923) · The Pilgrim
Pay Day (2-Apr-1922) · Worker
The Idle Class (25-Sep-1921)
The Kid (21-Jan-1921) · A Tramp
A Day’s Pleasure (15-Dec-1919) · Father
Sunnyside (15-Jun-1919)
Shoulder Arms (20-Oct-1918) · Doughboy
A Dog’s Life (14-Apr-1918) · The Tramp
The Immigrant (17-Jun-1917) · Immigrant
The Cure (16-Apr-1917)
The Rink (4-Dec-1916)
Behind the Screen (13-Nov-1916)
The Count (4-Sep-1916) · Apprentice Tailor
The Vagabond (10-Jul-1916) · Street Musician
The Floorwalker (15-May-1916)
A Night in the Show (20-Nov-1915)
Work (21-Jun-1915)
The Tramp (12-Apr-1915)
His New Job (1-Feb-1915)
Tillie’s Punctured Romance (14-Nov-1914) · Charlie
The Rounders (7-Sep-1914) · Reveller
The Masquerader (27-Aug-1914) · Film Actor
The Knockout (11-Jun-1914)
Tango Tangles (9-Mar-1914)
A Film Johnnie (2-Mar-1914) · Film Johnnie

Author of books:
My Autobiography (1964, memoir)

How Weather Saved Washington from Utter Destruction. You can’t make this stuff up!

With all the winds blowing out of Washington these days, I thought it might be interesting to give you an account of a hurricane combining with a tornado that appears to have routed the British from completely destroying Washington. This strange chain of events goes down as one of the most curious days in American History. I have taken an excerpt from Washington Weather, and the following story is incredible yet true.

Washington, August 24, 1814

During the summer of 1814, British warships sailed into the Chesapeake Bay and headed towards Washington. The warships sailed up the Patuxent River and anchored at Benedict, Maryland on August 19,1814. Over 4,500 British soldiers landed and marched towards Washington. The British mission was to capture Washington and seek revenge for the burning of their British Capitol in Canada, for which they held the United States responsible. A force of 7,000 Americans was hastily assembled near the Potomac River to defend Washington. During the afternoon of August 24, in 100°F heat, the two armies clashed. The British Army quickly routed the less disciplined American volunteers, mostly due to a series of American blunders and a new British rocket that did little damage, but unnerved the raw American troops with a very loud, shrill noise. President Madison and Secretary of State Monroe, who had led a group of officials to watch the battle, were almost captured in the confusion. It was noted that the 100°F temperatures added to everyone’s discomfort.

After the battle, the British Army marched quickly into Washington while American soldiers, United States government officials, and residents fled the city. There were no officials left in Washington from whom the British could seek terms of surrender. The British admiral ate dinner in the White House, then gave the order to set fire to Washington. Within hours, the White House, the Capitol, and many other public buildings and residences were burning.

On the morning of August 25, Washington was still burning. Throughout the morning and early afternoon, the British soldiers continued to set fires and destroy ammunition supplies and defenses around the city. As the soldiers spread fire and destruction throughout the city, the early afternoon sky began to darken and lightning and thunder signaled the approach of a thunderstorm. As the storm neared the city, the winds began to increase dramatically and then built into a “frightening roar.” A severe thunderstorm was bearing down on Washington, and with it was a tornado.

The tornado tore through the center of Washington and directly into the British occupation. Buildings were lifted off of their foundations and dashed to bits. Other buildings were blown down or lost their roofs. Feather beds were sucked out of homes and scattered about. Trees were uprooted, fences were blown down, and the heavy chain bridge across the Potomac River was buckled and rendered useless. A few British cannons were picked up by the winds and thrown through the air. The collapsing buildings and flying debris killed several British soldiers. Many of the soldiers did not have time to take cover from the winds and they laid face down in the streets. One account describes how a British officer on horseback did not dismount and the winds slammed both horse and rider violently to the ground.

The winds subsided quickly, but the rain fell in torrents for two hours. (There may have been a second thunderstorm that followed quickly after the first thunderstorm.) Fortunately, the heavy rain quenched most of the flames and preventedWashington from continuing to burn. After the storm, the British Army regrouped on Capitol Hill, still a bit shaken by the harsh weather. They decided to leave the city that evening. As the British troops were preparing to leave, a conversation was noted between the British Admiral and a Washington lady regarding the storm: The admiral exclaimed, “Great God, Madam! Is this the kind of storm to which you are accustomed in this infernal country?” The lady answered, “No, Sir, this is a special interposition of Providence to drive our enemies from our city.” The admiral replied, “Not so Madam. It is rather to aid your enemies in the destruction of your city.”

Hours later, the British forces left Washington and returned to their ships on the Patuxent River. The journey back was made difficult by the numerous downed trees that lay across the roads. The war ships that lay waiting for the British force had also encountered the fierce storm. Wind and waves had lashed at the ships and many had damaged riggings. Two vessels had broken free from their moorings and were blown ashore.

President Madison and other government officials returned to Washington and began the difficult process of setting up government in a city devastated by fire and wind. Never again would the British Army return to the city, and only rarely would Washington suffer damaging tornadoes. Tornadoes are rare in D.C., which makes the 1814 incident even more amazing. Three struck that day in 1814 (they may have all been the same one, though) and only seven others have been reported since. The most recent occurred in 1995; it whipped through the National Arboretum. Damage was limited to uprooted trees. And thus, Washington was saved.

My Mother, Elsebeth Schoenberger, the Resistance Fighter

73 years ago, on a cool spring afternoon, my mother’s country was invaded by the Nazi’s. Her small Danish town suddenly found itself in the clutches of the diabolical Nazi war machine. The country was joined in subjection by France and Netherlands. That spring, the world looked on in horror. Later that year, London would endure a Christmas season from hell, with Santa Claus nowhere to be found, and the only sleigh in the sky seemed to be the horrific V1 and V2 rockets causing death and destruction from above. For my mother, a hopeful and innocent 11 year old girl, the advance of the Nazi thugs was the second major blow in her life. She had lost her father 4 years before. He was an M.D. and never made it past his 38th year.I never knew my grandfather.

The German invasion of Denmark on 9 April 1940 was part of a wider campaign in Scandinavia designed partly to provide bases for the German navy and partly to secure the German supply of iron ore from Sweden. The main target of the German operation was Norway, but the occupation of Denmark was also judged to be necessary to protect the southern end of the sea route to Narvik, the winter port for the iron ore trade.

Planning work for the invasion began in January 1940. The operation was given the codename Weserübung (Weser Exercise), with the invasion of Denmark known as Weserubung Süd (Weser Exercise South). The tiny Danish army was to be overrun by two infantry divisions (the 170th and 198th) and the 11th rifle brigade (motorized). Landings were to take place at Copenhagen, Middlefart, Esbjerg, Tyborøn, Korsør, Gjedser and Nyborg, while more troops would invade Jutland across the land border with Germany.

The plan worked perfectly. A small naval expedition, led by the minelayer Danzig entered Copenhagen harbour at 5.00am on 9 April, and landed troops who were able to seize the citadel. Ålborg airfield at the northern tip of Denmark was captured by German paratroops, and at 7.30 am an infantry battalion landed at the airfield. At 5.25 am the land invasion began. Here there was some fighting, but the defenders of the Danish border were quickly overwhelmed. Further resistance was clearly pointless, and the Danish government was forced to agree to a German ultimatum to end the fighting. King Christian ordered a cease fire, to start at 7.20am. Denmark would be occupied by the Germans until the end of the war.

The invasion seemed to waken the ancient Viking psyche of the Danish people. My mother, who just months before had been playing with dolls and dreaming of a career in academia, marrying a Prince Charming, and living happily after, had to confront poverty, violence , death and intimidation daily.

So what did she do in light of these overwhelming odds? She fought back. She become an active member of the Danish Resistance She braved detention and even execution.During the 5 years of daily challenge and privation, she learned to combat the enemy, carrying messages and weapons for the Danish resistance,every day risking her life and freedom for her country. This little Lutheran girl found the courage to face impossible odds,and deep within the wall of her construct, over 65 years later, she wrote a book, chronicling her experiences.

The book is becoming popular.It’s topical. In this new global village, one need not look far to find countries swept up in the grip of totalitarianism.To my mother,occupy has nothing to do with camping in a park. My mother lived a “Danish Spring” in 1940,she fought thuggery,brutality and impossible odds, and though she lost her childhood in the process, she gained a sagacity well beyond her tender years,and her story is one that must be told, now more than ever. Her book, Birgetta’s War now speaks to a new crop of resistance fighters, children facing the spector of evil, children finding hope in the most unnatural of places, the fog of war.

This week she turns 84. In the last 3 years, she has become a widow, an author and, to the delight of everyone, a new bride. Nothing new for this incredible and inspirational figure. Happy birthday Mom. Please visit her website, and buy the book

http://www.birgitteswar.com/

Could Da Vinci Have “Coded” His Later Paintings? By Thomas Schoenberger

I may have stumbled upon something new, something overlooked, and something that could rewrite the history books on Da Vinci. Could his greatest riddles lie right before our eyes?

Hair is water. At least it was to Leonardo. The riveting,and cascading, often turbulent hair noted in the subjects of his greatest paintings, Mona Lisa, John the Baptist, the Virgin, the Last Supper, all seem to draw the attention of the admirer in the most intriguing way. But what exactly did the artist think?Leonardo was fascinated by turbulent motion. Vortex motion was especially powerful, since a vortex speeds up towards its center Using meticulous observation and intricate theory, he created compelling images of water in spiral motion. It reminded him, typically, of the curling of hair. Therein could lie a key in solving what I believe is a mystery hidden on history’s front porch, overlooked by every major art scholar since the 17th century, a secret that could reveal a slew of messages Leonardo hoped one day we would find. Messages that speak to his fear that water remains our greatest challenge. As I write this, I am reminded that the mid section of the US suffered a drought in 2012 that destroyed 68% of our corn and wheat, or thereabouts .That we have suffered the increasing ravages of “Super Storms”. Storms that threaten entire counties, entire states, and the cities where our founding fathers once planned a revolution.

Some of my thoughts since the advent of these spectacular hurricanes, tsunami’s and super storms once again center around Leonardo Da Vinci and his obsession with water and its endless mysteries. Da Vinci was also obsessed with meteor’s, light and shadow,and weapons, but above all, water fascinated him……
Before I begin, I want to calibrate my gentle readers to the marrow of my argument. That Da Vinci was able to extrapolate the flood(s) he saw in his lifetime, to a larger argument that, as Florence goes, so goes the world. Da Vinci’s codex’s are an area of great interest for me. I have studied them for decades. In light of recent meteorological events, they lead me to conclusions that I hope others may now ponder.In short, I believe that behind many of Da Vinci’s greatest paintings lie a host of hidden markings, clues and riddles,meant to be discovered only after his passing and only when the technologies of the day can meet the challenge. I believe that upon extensive examination through x rays, we may be able to expose the secrets Leonardo hid underneath his masterpieces. As a composer who frequently uses hidden and arcane messages in my own music, I have a great appreciation for how Da Vinci chose to express his muse. I have written music inspired by the astonishment I have felt watching Mother Nature throw overwhelming tantrums. http://music.thomasschoenberger.com/track/mayhem. We all have seen, or felt Mother Nature’s fury.

Now if a master polymath such as Da Vinci, a student of autonomy, mathamatics, engineering and vibration, applied all these disiplines into his later paintings, could he have viewed the canvas as a foundational bone structure, a skeleton as it were, and hence viewed the finished surface of the paintings as their flesh? Following this thought, it might inidicate that Da Vinci would have put a score of messages underneath the pigment, as flesh itself covers sinew, muscle and blood. If this is found out to be the case, then we will have to look at the paintings in a whole new context. We should also look at some of his famous codex’s for clues.

The website http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/f/forster-codices-leonardo-da-vinci-notebooks/ contains a simple yet accurate accounting of the Forster Codices: The abbreviated information below is a good start for amateur Da Vinci sleuths:

Leonardo was just 14 when the river Arno overflowed its banks, sending rivets of death and destruction upon the city state of Florence. The scene must have been crazy ! Young Leonardo, a talented boy who was being schooled in art at the time, was probably tramatized, if his later writings are any indication. I have studied these codex’s for many years and have reached conclusions, about what Da Vinci may have seen..and they point to many different scenario’s , including massive floods, a meteor storm that causes havoc soon,and even new weapons not yet developed,,,more on that this summer when I come up with a new paper on Da Vinci and his riddles.. What is a codex?

A codex is a bound book made up of separate pages. It developed in late Roman times and replaced the scroll as the preferred way of keeping texts. Codices were originally hand-written, though they began to be printed from the mid-15th century. Some texts, including personal memoranda and writings such as notebooks, continued to be written by hand. Of particular interest to me is the so called Forster Codices.

The Forster Codices were part of the library of John Forster (1812–76), bequeathed to the V&A on his death as a gesture of support for its educational mission. The Codices are made up of five of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, bound into three volumes.

It is not known when the notebooks were bound together in this way. They may have been brought together and bound in Spain while they were owned by the Spanish sculptor Pompeo Leoni (1533–1608). Leonardo may have compiled the notebooks when they were unbound or in wrappers of some kind. The notebooks are not bound in any logical fashion and only one carries any indication of when it was made (Codex Forster I1).

The notebooks

The notebooks are written in Leonardo’s famous ‘mirror-writing’. This writing has given rise to much speculation. Was he trying to ensure that only he could read his notes? He was left-handed and probably found it easier to write from right to left. Writing masters of the period were liable to make demonstrations of mirror-writing, so that it may not have seemed as strange as it does today. The letter-shapes are in fact very ordinary: Leonardo used the kind of script that his father, a notary, would have used. Once the eye has become accustomed to the scripts of the period, it soon learns to decipher the mirror-writing Leonardo used.

The paper for the notebooks was probably bought at one of the many stationers’ shops in Milan. Leonardo either bought full-size sheets and folded them to make booklets, or bought the booklets ready-made. The ink probably came from the same source.

Codex Forster I2 (Milan, about 1487–90)
The earliest of the V&A’s notebooks was compiled around 1487–90 when Leonardo was a servant of the Sforza duke in Milan. It contains notes and diagrams for devices relating to hydraulic engineering and on the moving and raising of water. Some of the ideas recorded investigate perpetual motion. The writing on a few sheets of this notebook extend beyond the gutter which indicates that Leonardo wrote them before the sheets were folded into the booklet as it survives today.

Codex Forster III (Milan, about 1490–93)
This is the most miscellaneous of the notebooks. Interspersed with notes on geometry, weights and hydraulics are sketches of a horse’s legs, perhaps connected with Leonardo’s work on an equestrian statue for the founder of the Sforza dynasty, drawings of hats and cloths that may have been ideas for costumes at balls, and an account of the anatomy of the human head.

Codex Forster II1 (Milan, about 1495)
This notebook was compiled around 1495. It contains notes on the theory of proportions and mentions the work of Leonardo’s colleague in Milan, a famous mathematician named Luca Paccioli (died about 1514). It also contains a good deal of miscellaneous material: bells and a striking mechanism, a portrait of the General of the Franciscan Order, Francesco Nanni-Samson, and a passage discussing the postures of a group at a table, possibly relating to Leonardo’s work on the Last Supper fresco in Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, begun in about 1495.

Codex Forster II2 (Milan, 1495–97)
Made up between about 1495 and 1497, Codex Forster II2 has extensive notes on the theory of weights, traction, stresses and balances. It also contains an examination of a crossbow (a terrifying weapon outlawed on several occasions by the Papacy), and a remark ridiculing those who thought perpetual motion possible.

Codex Forster I1 (Florence, 1505)
A note in Leonardo’s own hand gives this notebook a title, ‘Libro titolato de strasformatione’, and dates it July 1505. This shows that it was begun when he was in Florence, just after he had undertaken to produce his famous ‘Battle of Anghiari’ mural in the Palazzo della Signoria, the centre of the city’s government. The notes consider the measurement of solid bodies and the problems of relating changes in shape to those of volume, a branch of mathematics known today as topology.

I am keenly interested in Paccioli, not because he was considered the father of accounting ( he invented double digit entry) but because he seems to have been at least someone that Leonardo knew and trusted, but also a person who shows up in the codexes by no accident, or so I assume. I have been busy studying a most interesting book by Paccioli, one that delves into magic and math. Wiki describes the mystery book here:
De viribus quantitatis (Ms. Università degli Studi di Bologna, 1496–1508), a treatise on mathematics and magic. Written between 1496 and 1508 it contains the first reference to card tricks as well as guidance on how to juggle, eat fire and make coins dance. It is the first work to note that Leonardo was left-handed. De viribus quantitatis is divided into three sections: mathematical problems, puzzles and tricks, and a collection of proverbs and verses.

The book has been described as the “foundation of modern magic and numerical puzzles”, but it was never published and sat in the archives of the University of Bologna, seen only by a small number of scholars since the Middle Ages. The book was rediscovered after David Singmaster, a mathematician, came across a reference to it in a 19th-century manuscript. An English translation was published for the first time in 2007 .So there you have it, a book written by Leonardo’s friend and fellow researcher, living in Milan, sharing in Leonardo’s secrets, obsessed with mathematics and alchemaic matters, a fellow genius who happened to be both neighbor and colleague … More on all this later gentle readers……..Any good blog , if it is to be read, must reveal its secrets a hint at a time..If this little blog can open up the mysteries of one of the greatest geniuses of all time, then it shall remain modest in both it’s temperament and it’s tempo….lest it overwhelm the reader.
Thomas Schoenberger

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