Burning Cuyahoga: A Technical Appendix to Postblogging Technology, June 1956

 

I've got one word for you, son: Organophosphates. 

The Wiki entry on the Cuyahoga River of northeastern Ohio is actually pretty interesting. The word seems to be Seneca. The river isn't long, but  is important, running through the major Ohio city of Cleveland. It appears to have been the western border of the Haudenosaunee, but local archaeologists and historians are having difficulty sorting out the pre-contact ethnology of the Whittlesay cultural horizon, which might be Fort Ancient, which I think is thought to have been Siouan, but also Algonquin-speaking and associated with the Monongahela horizon, which is thought to have ben Iroquoian. Historically both Ottawa and Wyandot (Huron)  communities are know, which for me raises the question of early Catholic parochial activity in the region. We're told that it isn't surprising that the attested first Catholic church in Cleveland, St. Mary's-on-the-Flats, has no history prior to 1878, even though the Diocese of Cincinnati was erected in 1821, well before the beginning of significant Irish Catholic emigration, a bit of an issue in its own right, and the parish had a resident pastor from 1835, with St. Mary's being dedicated on 7 June 1840 by a visiting French bishop, who seems to have made something of a revivalist tour through Catholic, and especially French Catholic America. So in other words the early Catholics of Cleveland were probably Metis rather than more respectable Irish Catholics and that's probably why the early colonial history of the region is so obscure. 

The same can't be said for the Cuyahoga Fire of 22 June 1969, which turns out to be No Big Deal in the long history of at least thirteen Cuyahoga river fires, but a very big deal and watershed (did you see what I did there? Because I did it!) in American environmental history. Or at least that's the impression the Wiki gives. It's the sheer density of industrial development along the river, rather than any particularly egregious polluter, that accounts for the frequent fires. And, notwithstanding the subject of this week's post, it was bog standard POL surface slicks that caught fire and not sudsing organophosphate artificial detergents, such as are responsible for the "foaming rivers" of Jolly Old England going back to the Fifties. Honestly, when I opened the "Cuyahoga River" article I was expecting to hear something about mass market U.S. laundry detergents, foaming rivers, and eutrophication, not oil slicks catching fire. I was especially not expecting to hear about rhetorical links with narratives of decaying urban centres and, sigh, structural racism. Whatever you might think about burning rivers, it turns out to have been a strong driver of White Flight. 

Which is kind of too bad, because there's a lot of  hinky stuff going on with organophosphates!

While you're asking him about the Ark of the
Covenant, can you talk to Dr. Jones about
site preservation and find documentation?

I Cast Fireball! A Technical Appendix to Postblogging Technology, June 1956

[Insert some kind of PSA about pyromania not being as much fun in real life.]

This here is a hobby of mine, and I do have other hobbies, mostly of the nerdy kind, and like most nerds of a certain calibre I was brought up to sneer at Dungeons & Dragons and prefer some more niche RPG ruleset; Baldur's Gate III, besides being a fun game, has been an eye opener in terms of the incredible piece of folk art that is Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons. While by no means perfect, I am in awe at the sustained intellectual effort of millions of people over decades that turned the sprawling mess that was AD&D into a balanced and logical way of structuring play. Not the least of all of this was the balancing of the iconic "Fireball" spell. 

Wizards of the Coast nerfed "Fireball," is what I'm saying.  

And now we seem set on a course of discovering whether "real" fireballs have always been nerfed, by reality, as it gets more and more likely that someone will actually use them. 

I'm not going to talk about H-bombs today, not even in the sense that Sputnik was launched into orbit by a very big rocket, which came out of efforts to build a fireball-casting ICBM. ICBMs are, from a certain point of view, not particularly ambitious rockets, since they don't aim to put things into orbit. The American Vanguard program did, and to a very ambitious apogee of 3,969km, at that. (Starlink satellites orbit at less than 600km, and the ISS at 420km.) As of June 1956, PROJECT VANGUARD aims at putting a Vanguard satellite into orbit in September of 1957, but the press is reporting the possibility of delays due to engine firing failures in test runs. In the event, the first successful Vanguard launch was six months late, whereas the Russian Sputnik launch occurred on schedule on 4 October 1957. The Sputnik program was well-publicised, and the target launch date was known, and met, and it is one of the greater distortions of Twentieth Century history that 

"Privately, however, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and President Dwight D. Eisenhower were aware of progress being made by the Soviets on Sputnik from secret spy plane imagery.^[2]  [Wiki]

The point that easily gets missed here is that Vanguard was the designated American satellite and rocket, and it turned out to be mainly good at casting fireball at the launch facilities. Fire: Fickle servant, cruel master, etc. 

We can talk about the sociological dimensions of the "Sputnik Scare,"  or whatever we want to call it, at length. I am, after all, the product of Sputnik schools, as indeed is our entire modern world. Sutnik isn't the actual origin of the endless STEM educational crisis --that goes back to WWII, or even WWI-- but it is the key moment in the timeline of our collective imginarium that substitutes for the technological history of the Twentieth Century. (The reality of draft-dodging Ostdeutsch turning a traditional medicinal plant into a snake oil anti-schizophrenia drug, and then leveraging that into an Irish generic pharmaceutical giant on the backs of quasi-anonymous-but-Nazi-curious investors is not one we want to hear. 

On the other hand, Vanguard was such a complete and utter technological fiasco that had significant consequences for my life. So it deserves some muckraking, I decided. 

Postblogging Technology, June 1956, II: Communism Invests, President Pukes

Seems like the guy I'd rely on to distract me from my plane crashing into the sea. 

R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

We are all rushing towards the last day of school here, but I'm not quite so distracted that I'm not feeling a bit guilty at seeing Flight gamely flogging the Tyne while the air slowly goes out of the Proteus. Don't get me wrong: If you have to buy a turboprop to put in your airliner, the Rolls Royce job is the one you want, just because they made the Dart work, and no-one else has made any of them work, the gas generators in helicopters aside. But that doesn't mean that I don't feel guilty selling the Vanguard to TCA! I just can't help thinking that slow and loud was not the right bet for a long range airliner, even if the Viscount seems to be just the thing for shorter routes. 

Now back to important career-related activity like fitting a visit to a showroom to see an air conditioner into a Sports Day.

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Postblogging Technology, June 1956: The Querulous Old Man And the Central Bank

That is quite the artist's impression of the King of Rock and Roll. 

R_.,C_.
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada


Dear Father:

In anticipation of your question, this month's Fortune, claims that Sievert Thurston and Western Hotels now have the inside track on Uncle Henry's "Hawaiian Village." My first assumption is that Thurston planted the story with Fortune, probably just the column editor. It's not like Henry Luce is taking an interest in our affairs! That doesn't mean Hilton is out. My theory is that Uncle Henry is shaking them down, and that it will blow up in Uncle Henry's face, as usual, and that we should keep our money out of Uncle Henry's hands, as usual. I mean, his developments usually do get built, and Hawaii is the coming thing, but this just seems a bit rich for my blood. 

"One of the earlier geodesic domes constructed in the United States." Photo credit https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Harald-Reportagen, or Kurt Liese (1915--2010)

 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

The Chairman's Little Helper: A Technical Appendix to Postblogging, May 1956

 (If you're wondering over The Engineer, my tentative theory is that it briefly appeared on the Hold shelves during my August trip and has by now been retracted back into the stacks, possibly without notice of same reaching my Library Account, although it is at least as likely that I just didn't register some notification or email. I shall try again.)

I thought about running this last week, but, on the other hand, it's officially a thing when there's two different articles about barbiturates in the same week. The age of Homo medicus! (Which turns out to be some dietician-anthropologist-paleontologist science thing, my apologies to Edward H. Hagen for not searching out some more authentically patronising Fifties  label for patients using psychotherapeutics. 

Postblogging Technology, May 1956, II: "A Shabby Little Man"

Too old to rock and roll. 

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

Just a month to the end of school! It's like I'm eighteen again, except for the part where I'm not! We have arranged for the kids to fly with  Dr. K. K., who is flying into Vancouver to give a "job" paper, and is, like graduate students everywhere, willing to take on a bit of extra work involving minding the younger set. Uncle George is right. It pays to cultivate these connections! 

Speaking of which, I have passed my FBI clearance check and am now allowed to work with Bill and David (in a very junior capacity, mind!) on their initial public offering, which will go ahead next year, obviously you didn't hear it from me, etc. I guess you should especially not tell the FBI, all things considered!

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Postblogging Technology, May 1956, I: A New Age

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada



Dear Father:

Interesting to see this in 1956!

I am glad to hear that you will take on the children at Nakusp in July and for the first half of August. It doesn't seem fair to deprive them of their summer just because their parents have to make some pretence of furthering their careers. And while the senior partners might be able to get away with "Sell in May and go away," that is certainly not me this  year! 

It is quite exciting to see the Conway coming to America, and while I do not know the Rolls Royce people behind it as well as I know the Tyne team, who knows what might happen? I see that Canadian Pacific is set to adopt it as well. And having begun with aviation, so shall I end, with a little victory lap at the latest sad Proteus debacle. Turboprops are harder to build than they look! What that means for BOAC is entirely another matter. But probably 707s, and it is very hard not to be a bit smug about that, as the British really have brought it on themselves. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie