New Caption Contest!

Well, the last caption contest was such a success (I was the only posting, so I won the $10 Dunkin' Donuts gift card :-P) that I'm going to do another one.  Note: to enter, just put your caption in the comments section; to win, make it a good one; to actually receive the prize, list your name and address --unless, of course, I am currently stalking you.  Then I'll find you.  Really.  Trust me.

So here's this week's pic.  Hint: the creature depicted really is a bunny and there has been no photoshop-chicanery at all.  Have fun, and thanks for playing :-)

Easter: Another Catholic Rip-off of a Pagan Holiday

OK, just what the heck does a bunny hopping down the bunny-trail, hiding colored hard-boiled eggs, have to do with the death and resurrection of a 1st century Jewish itinerant rabbi? (no, a rabbit and a rabbi aren't the same critter!  Jeesh!  Didn't you ever watch any Bugs Bunny when you were a kid?)  What about Easter Egg Rolls on the White House Lawn?  What's the deal with ham, lamb, duck and other tasty critters at Easter dinner?  Where do marshmallow Peeps come into the picture? When did this straightforward holiday (a guy gets horribly executed, dies, descends into Hell, rises, is seated at the Right Hand of God, and will come back later and judge everyone who has ever lived) get so complicated?

First it was the ADA complaining about all the sugar in chocolate bunnies;
now it's parents who won't let their kids talk to giant rabbits.  Sigh!

Like most things, it all starts at the Dawn of Time (about 5:27 am EST on April 1, 100,003 BCE [which stands for Before Crap Existed]).  For some reason, men and women like having sex and like having babies (men mostly --the closest most men get to having the 'baby experience' is having too much fiber in their diet).  They liked it so much in prehistoric times that they made little clay figurines of big, fat, healthy, pregnant ladies as a kind of votive offering to whatever force in the universe helped people to have a baby of their own.  You see, the human reproductive system is a bit of a mess.  Women aren't fertile all the time, and when they are, they don't really advertise it the way sensible animals do, with displays like swollen, red genitals, random sprays of  sex-hormones, or nicely hand-lettered signs saying "Let's boink!"  Which explains why men are horny all the time --they've literally got a 1-minute window to release the swimmers into the right gal, or humanity goes extinct.

There it is! I told you guys I had a map!

Over the years, female fertility became a matter of concern because scads of people were dying (they didn't know it was because they were drinking from the same river they pooped in), so fertility cults became all the rage.  And what's not to like about a cult that advocates lots of sex, followed by lots of babies?  The Greeks, Romans, Persians, Indians, Chinese, Mayan and Inca all had a fertility goddess of some description (the prettiest? Roman Venus, of course ;-))  And that's where things stood (lay?) when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the Roman Procuator of Palestine, Pontius Pilot, sometime around 35 CE (which stands for Crap Exists!)  We're not really sure of the year, because the four Gospels are a little fuzzy on details like dates; we do know it happened during Passover Week in Jerusalem.

"Always look on the bright side of life!" whistling...

Meanwhile, back in Rome, the people were probably celebrating the mystery cult of Cybele, a major fertility goddess whose main shrine was on top of Vatican Hill.  She had a lover/husband/consort/pimp-Daddy named Attis who's big claim to fame was dying in a blood-bath on the first Friday after the spring equinox and being reborn the following Sunday.  Sound familiar?  So, when Christianity made it to Rome from the provinces, Roman Christians celebrated Jesus' resurrection at the same time.  They must have figured hey, there's already a party going on --we'll just have our little get-together and nobody will notice (wrong - the Romans regularly used Christians as wild animal food in the Colosseum).

Nice kitty! Damnit, which one of you is wearing that catnip cologne?

Christianity survived Rome somehow (they steered clear of the Suburna at night) and took its act on the road, where it promptly bumped into several Germanic and Gallic fertility cults similar to Cybele's.  One was the Saxon cult of Eostre (who some people pronounced as Eastre), the Saxon mother-goddess extraordinaire.  Her big festival was right around the time that Roman Christians celebrated the Resurrection, so the early Church fathers simply hijacked the party and substituted Jesus for Eastre.  It was that simple. And because people weren't as sharp then as they are now, it was a long time before anybody noticed the switcheroo and by then, people had already started wearing cute little crucifixes on chains around their necks and going to Mass and all that, so they just kept Jesus and forgot about... what's-her-name.

It's Eastre, you dipshit.  Try and have a baby now, lol!

Not all of Saxon-Mommy's influence was stamped-out by the early Church, however.  The rabbit was one of her sacred animals, because everybody knows that rabbits breed like... well, rabbits (hey, she is a fertility goddess).  Bird eggs were also sacred to Eastre because of the life they contained within the shell (unless you like yours scrambled), so during her festival, parents would dye eggs pretty colors using berries or plants like woad and hide them around the village for children to find.

Easter's pagan origins were such an open secret that those no-nonsense-tolerated types, the English Puritans, forbade any Easter celebrations in England and where they had settled in America.  To be fair, Easter celebrations in England had gotten a bit out of hand by the time of the Elizabethan Age (what the exact age was, nobody ever knew because Liz always lied about her age.  And wore a wig), so much so that it resembled a whole village of Yorkshiremen staggering around blind-drunk and vomiting wherever they could and however much they had just drunk.

Being a Puritan is way more fun than Easter egg hunts.
Ok ok, being a Puritan blows.

Celebrating Easter in America didn't even really catch on until after the Civil War in the 1870's.  My guess is that the Civil War, with its 600,003 dead made the collective American mind snap, opening it to a flood of longing for the departed and a fervent belief in the Resurrected Christ as a way to cope with all the sadness of war.  So, while ministers and priests dusted-off their Bibles and put the finishing touches on their Easter sermons (sermen? sermans?), American people were bugging really old people for stories of how folks back home in England used to celebrate before Oliver Cromwell kicked the seven shades of shite out of someone for having the gall to celebrate such pagan deviltry.


But since Americans are Americans (our ancestors were tossed out of every decent country in the world), they kept the serious God-'n-Jesus stuff at the church and centered the fun holiday stuff around children, who are the perfect symbols of fertility if you stop and think about it.  Now all that was needed was to add a dash of chocolate, and the Americans had a perfect holiday.

I want to close this blog by saying that I totally buy the whole death-and-resurrection bit, because without it, Jesus would just have been some ordinary Jewish preacher who got the shaft (of the centurion's spear in His side, along with a crown of thorns, a cross and a vinegar-soaked sponge to suck on while He died [those Roman douchebags!]).  I believed He died for our sins and that He will come back one day when we least expect it.  I have to believe this, because otherwise, it's such a poorly written story that nobody would believe in Jesus and we'd all be stuck worshipping some crazy forest lady who had too many rabbits and a thing for eggs (see above).  Much mischief has been done in Jesus' name, but more good things have been done as well.  That makes JC OK in my book.  Happy Easter!

Yo, back atcha, Adjunct Proff buddy!  You da bomb!

The Future of the Republican Party: Mexico

After losing a second election to Barack Hussein  Obama (a.k.a. the author of Obamacare, the savior of the American Auto Industry and the best Al Green impersonator ever to rock the White House), Republicans are engaged in a national and very public soul-searching (they still haven't found one).  Should they broaden their appeal to gays? women? Hispanics (who aren't already their drivers, cooks, gardeners or nannies)?  What can Republicans do to survive in a world that has evolved way faster than they have (because a lot of them don't hold with none of that thar evil-ution anyhow)?  Adjunct Proff believes that their best hope may be in Mexico.  As that country's newest political party.  Really.

Bienviendo, gabacho Republicanos!

It's not as crazy as it seems.  After electing Abraham Lincoln and freeing all the slaves in the United States, the Republican party hasn't had quite the same zip, dash and swing.  I think that a widespread migration of Republicans to Mexico could be beneficial to both countries.  Just think of it: with all the jobs Republicans claim to be able to create, we in the USA would see a positive drain of motivated Mexican labor away from us and towards Mexico!  Hey, some welfare-food-stamp-addicts who aren't even Mexicans just might emigrate to Mexico to get one of those quality Walmart-Mexico jobs.  That would raise Mexico's standard of living and should clear-out the Home Depot parking lots of gangs of Mexicans just waiting to... get hired by you for the day to help you with your home renovation project.

Amigos! Walmart Guadalajara is hiring! Vamos!

Another thing that Republicans would like about Mexico (besides the average breast-cup size of the average senorita) is the current war on drugs and drug cartels that Mexico seems to be losing at the moment.  One sure-fire (pun intended) thing that ALL Republicans, even Mitt Romney, can agree on is their love of guns.  Lots of guns.  With 30-shot mag-clips (minimum).  That you can purchase legally, carry around with you, and waste anybody who doesn't quite agree with your belief in a conspiracy by the Zionist Occupationist Government (ZOG) to take all their guns and force them to wear bras.  Mexican druggies are armed better than the Columbine killers, so any new Republican immigrant would be expected to be packing heat in their carry-on.  Mexicans have always loved guns --just look at Pancho Villa and the Frito Bandito, for heaven's sake --now THERE were a couple of future Republicans!

I like your assault rifle, jefe!

Mexico also has a lot of natural resources (tequila is not one of them --it is a gift from a loving and compassionate God) that Republicans can extract with minimal concerns over environmental protection (Mexicans don't care), safety standards (Mexicans very rarely slip and fall) or giving back to the community (throw them a big fiesta if you want to give something back).  In fact, there is so much freaking oil in Mexico that they are members of OPEC.  Wouldn't that be cool: seeing Dick Cheney at the next OPEC meeting, schmoozing with old friends like the Saudis and new friends like the Venezuelans?

Mexico also has a long history of welcoming people of different political persuasions and daring them --ahem, helping them to run their country. Why, it was only in the 19th Century that Emperor Napoleon III of France (they skipped #2 for some reason), sent his cousin, Maximilian of Austria, to Mexico to rule it as part of the then-famous World French Empire (I am SO not making this up!)  The only problem is that Napoleon III didn't send Max with enough French troops to actually pull it off, so instead Mexicans started a celebration called El Cinco de Mayo (which Manchester, NH celebrated on El Tercero de Mayo last year for some reason known only to Mayor Ted "Ted" Gatsas).*

*They also shot Emperor Max, the Gabacho in the sombrero.  How racist-ly ironic

Finally, and this is a BIG reason, Mexico needs the Republicans and the United States doesn't need them quite as much as we need jobs, affordable health care, a more equitable system of taxation and a more equal distribution of wealth.  Republicans are against all of these things.  Mexicans are so fed-up with crooks running their country that they'll try ANYone else who has a coherent plan of government that doesn't involve shoot-outs with heavily armed nacro-thugs, debilitating emigration of its youngest and most talented workers, and being pushed around by Los Gabachos up norte in the EUA (Mexican for USA).

But what about the culture-shock, I hear (one of) you cry?  Look, this ain't your abuelo's Mexico: they've got malls, Walmarts, Taco Bells (although no self-respecting Mexican eats there), and all kinds of things that Republican consumers have learned to expect from the service-sector of the economy.  Hey, there are even really great soap operas on T.V., although they are called telenovelas in Mexico.

Cord and Tina can kiss our asses --we're way hotter!

But the best part: all of our pioneer Republicans who opt-out of bitter partisan rancor in favor of a new life and new beginning in funny, sunny Mexico will have an unlimited supply of Mexicans to work for them, cook for them, clean, grocery-shop, pick up the dry-cleaning, raise their kids and just hang with at the bodega.  For the Alaskan Republicans, it would be like Orange County, California vacation all year 'round, minus Disneyland.  But hey, maybe some enterprising emigrant could even build one of those theme-parks in, I don't know, some slum surrounding Mexico City?

From left to right: Tonto, Marioneto Hijo, Miguelito, Donaldo, Perro Feo &
la ardilla más molesta en el mundo.  Ask any Beaner for a translation.

By the way, in case there are any Mexicans or Mexican-Americans reading this blog, I am not being a racist in my depictions of pop-Mexican culture.  I am merely attempting to appeal to racist notions held by American Republicans about Mexican pop-culture so that they will move the hell out of MY country and torment YOUR country for a while.  Hey, why should the EUA hog all this Republican talent?  But if they DO start showing up, wait until they all get there before pulling the ol' Emperor Maximilian-number on them, ok?  Oh, and let them drink all the tap water they want.

We don't need no stinkin' badges!  We need school vouchers!

A Truly Shameless Attempt to get Followers

In a completely shameless attempt to get followers so that I can sell all sorts of Adjunct Proff swag (coffee mugs, tote bags, anal-floss thongs and needlepoint pillows with witty, edgy, ironic sayings), I am starting a

Caption  Contest!

That's right: just contemplate the picture below, write your caption in a post, and YOU could WIN a FREE

Dunkin' Donuts Gift Card!

If you want to actually receive the gift card, put your mailing address in the post also.  I promise I won't stalk you or send you any junk-mail, or tell federal law enforcement where your Doomsday-Bunker is.  Sound like the most fun you've ever had at your computer with all your clothes on?  Then let's play!

Mata Hari, her Daughters and her Granddaughters

Mata Hari, her Daughters and her Granddaughters

(and her mom, too!)

In getting my class together for today's undergrads (Class w/Adjunct Proff: texting, sexting, sleeping and whining-about-grades, three credits), I came across a reference that Prince Clemens von Metternich used tons of waltz-crazy girls as part of his spy network at the Congress of Vienna.  Here's how they operated: they'd get a dance with a diplomat from, say, Prussia, Saxe-Colbert or someplace else that doesn't exist anymore, whirl them around the dance floor, let 'em get a good whiff of their perfume and maybe a little squeeze in here or there (but oh, not THERE), and these career diplomats would start spilling secrets left and right, especially if the girl was particularly beautiful and just not all that into him.  This is why Austria came out of the Congress of Vienna owning most of Europe and all of the Beer-'n-Schnitzel franchises after Wellington gave Napoleon the boot (with his Wellingtons, presumably) after Waterloo (the battlefield in Belgium, not the kick-ass water park in San Dimas in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure").  

Margaretha Geertruida
"M'greet" Zelle McLeod

That got me to wondering: have women ever before or since then used their womanly-wiles to spy for their countries?  And that lead  me to that complete spy-babe of all time, Mata Hari.

First of all, Mata Hari was just her stripper-name; her real name was... is stuck under her picture over there.  Second, she wasn't Balinese --she was Dutch, born and bread in Friesland in the Netherlands, and even lived for a while in the town of Sneek (how appropriate), until the high school headmaster started flirting with her like crazy (dirty old bugger!), whereupon she moved to The Hague (known as the only city in the world whose name is preceded by a capitalized, definite article.  Look it up in your 5th grade grammar book).

The Hague was later referred to by Mata as The Disappointment, so she answered an ad in The Newspaper from a lonely Dutch soldier in Java (yes, that Java, where your stupid gourmet latte-chino is grown) who really wanted to get married (hey, this was before O.K. Cupid).

The Marriage was also later referenced as The Disappointment, because our lonely Dutch soldier insisted on keeping his Tuesday night poker game going --that, and keeping his native mistress out in the 4-room, two floor, hardwood floored garden shed --so Mata did what any other hot, young, away-from-home-for-the-first-time cutie would do: take a bunch of classes at community college.

She was in the stacks when they had this group shot taken

The class was hoochie-dancing-Java-style, and Mata was the best of all her classmates, even the Javanese trampy-mean-girls!  Soon, Mata Hari was wowing them at the local karaoke-bars that didn't seem to mind that all she did was strip during the song and didn't even make an attempt to lip-sync.  She and her now total douchebag husband moved back home to the Netherlands, but not before giving both their kids syphilis that they (the kids) eventually died from.

Mata then moved to Paris, divorced the douchebag, and worked in a grotty little circus, where she rode horses under the big-top and rode circus roustabouts in her trailer at night.  One of these boyfriends suggested she go into the fast-forward, cutting-edge field of soft-core porn, so that's what she did for a while.

Which one of you perverts stole my thong?  Honestly...

But her first love was still hoochie-dancing.  To further that artistic pursuit and bring in a wider, more respectable clientele, Mata Hari cleaned up her act a bit, added a chorus-line of fully clothed dancers who were all chosen for the single quality of being hot-but-not-hotter-than-Mata, added some more veils and bling, and presto!  she was sharing double-billing with that other exotic foreign import on Parisian strip-club stages, Josephine Baker.

Sure, Sistah Jo is an exotic beauty of negritude, but hey, I'm Dutch!

When World War I (the prequel to WWII, a.k.a. The (next) War to End All Life Wars) broke out, the Netherlands were neutral, so Mata Hari could pretty much go all over Europe with her hoochie-coochie act, which she did, until Scotland Yard got suspicious of all her trips through that perennial vacation-destination, Falmouth, England (Falmouth England's motto: we're no Falmouth Massachusetts!), and a super-studly inspector, Sir Basil Thompson, had her detained, questioned, interrogated and --get this --placed under house arrest at the Savoy-freaking Hotel in London while Sir Basil... investigated her, right-o Basil, me old son!

I totally WAS investigating
her... movements --wait, no.

During the course of those dates --ahem, interrogation sessions, Mata Hari let it slip that she was working for the French spy-gendarmes, which our pal Sir Basil totally believed, but couldn't keep his big mouth shut about their "interviews," especially in his creepy-British-old-dudes club, where all  the help worked for the German spy-polizei.  What happened next is fairly predictable, that is if you've ever read a spy novel while waiting for your effing-plane to board after NINE  HOURS  DELAY  in  PHOENIX which has the WORST AIRPORT  in the whole effing-WORLD.  Thank you for letting me vent.  Ahem.  This is what happened next:

The German spy-dudes sent a coded telegram to their ambassador in England, saying how helpful Secret Agent H-21 had been.  The only problem is that the British knew that H-21 was Mata Hari, and furthermore, they had already broken that "secret" German code, so they handed it right over to their friends in France.  The French then poured a couple of glasses of a particularly ironic bottle of  Bordeaux, said several witty, ironic, yet sadly existential phrases, arrested Mata Hari, took several more pictures of her in her hoochie-costume, stuck her in front of a firing squad, gave her one of those wicked-nasty French cigarettes, a blindfold, a kiss on each cheek, offered her dependents free national healthcare, a flat in Arras, three paid weeks vacation in Nice, and then shot her because even the French don't like double-agents.  Those meanies!

Shoot me! No more of those nasty cigarettes!

HOWEVER: historians (and even Adjunct Proff) want to know if those crafty Germans sent the message, etc., etc., knowing full well that the British had it all figured out (they had Agatha Christie working for them at the time), in order to have the French do the dirty work for them by tricking them into executing their own highly effective secret agent?  If you're at all like me (and you'd be much happier if you were), you'd want these questions answered.  The trouble is, the Krauts who cooked up all this plot-and-counter-plot are all dead, and nobody left anything written about just what Mata was up to when she wasn't shaking her money-makers, so I guess we'll never know for sure.

So, any other famous female spies?  Well, during the same war, the Germans executed an English nurse working in occupied Belgium, Edith Cavell.  Her cover-job was a nurse, and even though she was ruthlessly questioned about it at her trial, there is no evidence whatsoever that she danced the hootchie-cootchie --although she really could rock a naughty little nurse uniform.

Be a big boy and
bend over for me

Ethel Rosenberg: now there was a spy for ya.  She and her hubby, Julius (no relation to the Orange Julius at the mall) were scientists who worked on super-secret atomic bomb stuff.  When they were caught and tried for selling atomic secrets to the Soviets, the press coverage was as intense as the coverage Angelina Jolie's red-carpet couture choice gets these days.  It also unleashed a nasty bit of American antisemitism because the Rosenbergs were Jewish (surprise!) --so much, in fact, that their defenders claimed that they were innocent and that the Atomic scientific establishment in the USA just blamed "da Jews" that worked for them, instead of manning-up and admitting that any physics grad student could build an atomic bomb.  Once the Soviet Union imploded, their spy-guys, the KGB, leaked documents that proved the Rosenbergs really were their spies.  Sometimes, the anti-spy-guys gets it right.

We'd like the kosher last meal.

My favorite female spy?  When I was a lad, I went out clubbing in Moscow on a night in January when Moscow was still the capital of the Soviet Union and still had this killer bar, Uncle Sam's Bar and Grill, that was in the ground floor of the old U.S. Embassy.  I got to drinking with a Marine named Clayton Lonetree who was, besides being a Marine and mostly Apache, the boyfriend of this super-beautiful Russian co-ed at the U. of Moscow.  What he didn't tell me, his newest drinking-buddy from the States, was that he let her have the run of the place after their... study sessions.  That one little Russian Natasha had so much unsupervised access to confidential diplomatic shit that the KGB basically had to hire extra analysts to figure out the meaning of all the information she came back with.  Clayton Lonetree got an express trip to the Brig at Fort Pendleton, which is where he belongs because he stuck Adjunct Proff with his bar-tab that night at Uncle Sam's.

I must say, in my defense,
that she was smokin' hot.

So, pretty women everywhere, take heed: if you use your charm, beauty, wit and general off-da-hook hhhhhooooottttnnneeessssssssss to be a spy, you could be killed for your trouble like Mata Hari, Ethel Rosenberg and Edith Cavell.  Far better to use your feminine wiles for more traditional aims, like husband-hunting, job-hunting, all-access-backstage-getting, ruling the free world, and occasionally crying your way out of a speeding ticket.  Sure, there have been successful female spies, but we don't hear a whole lot about them because... because spies are supposed to be secret.  And however much fun Jennifer Garner looks like she's having on "Alias," remember: if you're a spy, you have to associate with total dickheads like Sloane.  And you can't hang-out with your friends as much as you want to.  And your college professors get on your case for cutting their class.  And you get SHOT  AT  at least 5 times per episode!  And I'm really glad Julie got me into watching "Alias;" now, if only she hadn't gotten me as far into Downton Abby as she did, I'd probably be a happier fellow today.

There's a spy here somewhere... I bet it's Bates!

The Groundhog Effing-Lied!

The Groundhog Effing-Lied!

Today, the second day of spring, Adjunct Proff is standing up to his proverbial butt (not quite as big as his actual butt) in snow.  And this on a planet that is experiencing global warming --ahem, "climate change."  AND, the %#$&%@! Groundhog, Punxsatawney Phil, the Nation's Official Groundhog, predicted an early spring!  All these factors together have prompted Adjunct Proff to devote today's blog to the history of meteorology, or as my friend and fellow bar-fly, the guy whose name I don't know, calls "the science of getting paid to be wrong on T.V. twice a night."

Back in the dawn of civilization (it always goes back to those stupid Sumerians, doesn't it?  They're probably to blame for everything, including the impending collapse of Cyprus' banking system!), weather predictions were easy to make.  All one had to do was to sacrifice something of value (wheat, goat, small, bratty child) to the appropriate god or goddess in order to get the desired weather to happen.  So, slaughter a goat to Enlil?  Expect variable sunshine with occasional cloudy patches for the next 10 days.  This is because the temple priests were no fools.  They kept an eye on the weather and remembered how things went the last few years at this time of the season, so after our sucker --err, supplicant --left, the priests all sat down to a nice barbecue of goat for supper.

Maybe they should try
barbecued groundhog

It wasn't long before even the dimmest Sumerian figured out that the weather offering was a pile of Sumerian goat-doodles (it was the barbecue sauce on all the fat priests' faces that tipped him off --that, and the fact that their success rate at influencing the weather was hovering at around 30%).  The Greeks and Romans did no better at predicting the weather, although the Greeks did figure out that rain came from clouds, and that fog was really just a super-low-flying cloud (don't believe me?  Check out Euripides' play, "The Clouds"), and the Romans knew that snow and rain were somehow related, because snow eventually turned into water.  No, what the world needed in order to make its next BIG  GIANT  LEAP  towards the 5-Day Forecast and bikini-clad weather girls was this li'l baby: the barometer.

Vaudeville comedians used
seltzer water in their siphons

The Italian scientist, Evangelista Torricelli, is usually credited with inventing the barometer in 1643, but another Italian, Gasparo Berti may have accidentally invented one sometime between 1640 and 1643.  Before that, Rene Descartes described how one could conduct an experiment that would figure out what the air pressure was, but nobody knows if he actually built a barometer to actually do the experiment (he was too busy coming up with Latin one-liners like Cogito ergo sum [trans: Je pense donc je suis] to actually do any of the experiments he thought up).  In fact, the bloody barometer wouldn't have been invented at all if yet another Italian, Giovanni Baliani, didn't write to Galileo (yes, THAT Galileo and yes, yet another Italian) to complain that his siphon, which had worked brilliantly at the bottom of the hill, stopped working at the top of the hill.


Galileo knew that Berti was trying to prove the existence of the vacuum (the absence of air, not the Hoover), and thought that Baliani's faulty siphon had something to do with it, so he suggested that Berti fill a really long glass tube open at only one end with water, stick it in a pan of water, and see what happened at the bottom and top of a big hill.  The result was a complete success: the vacuum was discovered, air pressure was discovered, AND the barometer was discovered all in one go.  However, because he wasn't trying to invent the barometer, Berti had no idea that he had, in fact, invented the barometer.  It took Torricelli to figure the whole thing out: that the weight of the air was pushing down on the pan of water, which pushed some of the water up inside the tube.  For some reason, air weighed less on top of hills than at the bottom (which accounts for the siphon's high-altitude failure), so it was heavier at ground level.  Torricelli is also the first person to use mercury in a barometer (he had to hide it in case his neighbors saw it, because they thought he was using his barometer to practice black magic.  Mercury barometers are much shorter than water barometers.  Torricelli's neighbors were really stupid).  Yet air pressure wasn't constant --it changed as rapidly as... THE  WEATHER!  Could there be a connection?

Oh yeah- this baby can so totally predict the weather,
and it doesn't completely look like a penis

Those wonderfully wacky Victorian amateur scientists discovered that if the air pressure suddenly dropped, there was a really, really, reeeeeaaalllllyyy good chance that it was going to rain, or at least be cloudy, windy and miserable.  Conversely, a sudden rise in air pressure meant that it would almost certainly be a sunny say (unless Adjunct Proff had washed his car that morning).  Wow, it turns out that weather could be almost reliably predicted, as long as the weather predictor combined air pressure with wind speed and direction, wrote all this stuff down on a map, and predicted where it would all go in the next couple of days.  No problemo, mi amigo gabacho! (no translation available)

This weather system TOTALLY looks like a smirking smiley face!

And this is why weather forecasters (even the cute weather girls) get the forecast wrong so much of the time, even though these days they can look right at weather systems from space using weather satellite imaging: it's tough to figure out where air will go next.  Weather is so fluid and dynamic a system that it confounds even really smart computers (the one I am using to type this blog is NOT one of those smart computers!)  Which is why people like using familiar, folksy, naturalistic long-range weather predictors, like the thickness of woolly caterpillars' coats, the arrival of migratory birds or, yes, whether or not the effing groundhog sees his shadow on February 2nd. 

...and if Daryl's man-boobs get bigger in the fall, we're in fer
a good-god-didly-damn of a winter!

BELIEVE  IT  OR  NOT, there is some actual science behind the stupid groundhog prediction-thing. You see, if it's a sunny day on February 2nd in Punxsatawney County, Pennsylvania, that is probably because of a  high-pressure system, which is usually accompanied by a northwesterly wind direction, which is colder because it's cold up north in the winter, which means that winter weather will probably hang around for another six weeks or so.  A no-shadow day means clouds, rain or snow, which indicates a low pressure system, which is usually accompanied by a southwesterly wind direction, which is warmer and wetter due to the influence of the Gulf-stream, which means an early onset of spring-like weather.  The fact that it's a groundhog seeing its shadow is incidental --any animal would do, even the fearsome Ass-nibbling Bunny of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire (who once tried to nibble Adjunct Proff's actual, non-proverbial butt but failed, hahaha!)

Me woud makes a gud weather forecastard 'cos me sooo dignified.

To be fair, those weather forecasters have been known to get it right a whole bunch of the time, especially when a lot was riding on their prediction.  Wander with me, back to the South-coast of England in early June, 1944.  375,815 American, British, Canadian, and Free French (as opposed to Expensive French) soldiers are poised to land on Normandy's beaches in order to eventually pound Hitler's face into pulp.  This landing was supposed to happen on June 5th, but Group Captain Stagg (no relation to the moose pictured above) of the British Meteorological Office said no, wait a day.  Good thing they listened to him, because June 5 was a thoroughly nasty day for a beach party on the scale planned by the Allies, and would have been an even bigger fiasco than the actual D-Day landings on June 6th (the Germans wouldn't be able to shoot as many of the "Good Guys" on the 5th as they did on the 6th, because most of the invasion force would have drowned).  Nice going, Group Captain Stagg!  You saved Western Civilization by getting the weather prediction spot-on.

Bloody-Hell, I totally look like
Adolph Hitler, old chap!

These days, meteorologists are very important people who do very important work.  Before any manned or unmanned space flight lifts-off, the weather-people have the final say on whether or not to go.  Weather forecasters, along with NOAA, issue warnings of severe weather like tornadoes, hurricanes, nor'easters and the like.  Sometimes, people have to evacuate their homes based on a severe weather forecast.  And access to weather information has vastly improved.  There is an entire cable-T.V. station devoted to weather (TWC); smartphone apps keep one constantly updated on current and forecast weather conditions.

But if you're at all like me, none of the above-mentioned methods come close to the accuracy and sincerity of folk-weather-forecasts.  My 86-year old mother can accurately predict the arrival of rain one day before it gets here, due to her arthritis --she really hurts before storms.  And then there's the squirrels in my neighborhood: last fall, they didn't leave one acorn on the ground.  They packed them all away in their winter-dens because those miserable arboreal rodents knew we'd get whacked with snow this winter.  We did.  It's still here.

Al Roker can kiss my furry little ass

So even though I'm ticked at ol' Punxsatawney Phil, I'm prepared to cut him a little slack.  According to the good people at stormfax.com, Phil's accuracy grade is 39% for the period of 1887 through today.  click HERE to see tons of GH-Day facts!  But still, that's 9% better than our Sumerian weather-phoneys.  AND, according to those wonderfully smart-and-sassy people over at Freakonomics, present-day weather forecasters are 37-59% accurate for the next day's rain forecast, but only 0-18% accurate for the 7-day-out forecast!  And Phil doesn't even use a satellite for his prediction of 42-days out!

Way to go, Phil!  Don't take it personally whenever people hassle you about missing a prediction.  You're way better than just about the entire weather establishment, from NOAA to TWC to Kimmy on KCAL-T.V. in Los Angeles.  AND you were great in that Bill Murray movie.  AND you're cute, adorable, perform well under pressure, modest, unassuming, a snazzy-dresser (even though fur is kind of over-the-top --but ok if it's attached to your own skin, I suppose) and a great sport.  May you forever have a place in American culture and the science (?) of meteorology.

"I promise to not drive angry, Bill.  Now, take your finger out of my butt."

All You Need is Love

All You Need is Love

Julie, my first-ever reader, told me that I have been guilty of "angry-blogging," so Adjunct Proff's blog today will be all about L.O.V.E. --its history, its present state and some fearless prognostications for the future of Love (because Love does have a future if humans keep living together in families and communities, instead of virtually connecting via Second Life avatars)

Take a look at these magical breasts!

Back in cave-man-cave-woman times, there really wasn't much spare time to devote to love.  People lived close to nature and... just did what came naturally.

In fact, anthropologists and even the odd historian believe that early societies were completely matriarchal because, well, women were magical.  Hey, women could produce children.  And even better, they could feed these brand-new human beings from great tasting milk from their own breasts, so it was a good two or three years before these new humans even wanted any scarce food.  What could possibly be any more magical?

You see, early man probably didn't make the connection between sex and child birth because, hey, it took at least two to three months between copulation sessions (sex) and any evidence of pregnancy.  And given the loose clan structure of early societies, the now visibly pregnant woman may have mated with several other members (heh heh, members) of the clan, so there might not have been any certainty of who the baby-daddy was, even if they had made the connection.  So, matriarchy, with a particularly prolific mother-grandmother at its head, is a quite reasonable assumption about early human societies.

All of this was about to change, unfortunately for these peaceful matriarchal societies, with the arrival of agriculture --more specifically, animal husbandry or herding.  Prior to this, early humans had only been around animals long enough to stalk and kill them.  As herdsmen, they were around sheep, goats and piggies all the time --even when they were "makin' bacon."

So that's where babies come from!
Mommy said they came from her magical vagina...

It wasn't too much longer before men connected the dots: Man + Woman + Sex = Babies.  And this is where the power of women based on their ability to have children vanished.  Now, women were treated like livestock, fed if they proved good baby makers, or worked to skin-and-bones if they were unable to have children.  This is probably why early civilizations like to show their fertility goddesses as big, fat ladies, because well nourished women always had the healthiest babies.

Yeah bee-at-chez, I gots it all goin' on!

 And this is where women's status pretty much stayed, from the Dawn of Civilization to the Middle Ages (approximately 4,316 years).  Oh sure, Spartan women could own businesses and rich Roman women had some heavy clout, but these were the exception rather than the rule.  I'n not saying that there was no love during this time in human history --quite the contrary.  Check out this hot love-poem from ancient Egypt:

Come, my Soul, swim to me!
The water is deep in my love
Which carries me to you.

We are in the midst of the stream,
I clasp the flowers to my breast
Which is naked and drips with water.
But the moon makes them bloom like the lotus.

I give you my flowers
because they are beautiful,
And you are holding my handIn the middle of the water.

Wanna pet my pussy-cats?  Didn't think so...

If you want to know where, when and who invented romantic love (love-letters, mash-notes, flirting, etc.), read on.  The where was France (it figures!), Poitiers, to be specific; the when was 1168 to 1173; the royal who was the most extraordinary women of the entire Middle Ages, Elanor of Aquitaine.  Queen E lived fast and BIG.  During the course of her 75-80 year life (Queen E always lied about her age), she would inherit a fortune and a kingdom (Queendom?), get married, get an annulment, get married again, have a couple of kids and a totally dysfunctional family, be imprisoned, widowed, and eventually die with a champagne bottle in one hand and a royal flush in the other (ok, maybe not the champagne and cards bit).

I am a totally bitchin' medieval babe!

At Poitiers, Queen E set up what cultural historians have since dubbed "The Court of Love."  She did this by surrounding herself with really handsome knights, really knock-out-pretty ladies-in-waiting, the best of the troubadour  poets, and some pretty sexy unicorn tapestries.  And what did the denizens of Queen E's court do all day?  Well, Love!

Ladies dropped handkerchiefs and sleeves for knights to fight over; lovers intrigued with everyone in order to hook-up with each other in secret; lots of love-poetry was written, read out-loud, performed to medieval musical accompaniment, and even scratched onto the castle walls.

But by far, the most influential writing to come out of this period was a book called The Art of Courtly Love, a kind of medieval dating do's and don'ts.  This book was, essentially, the first ever rule book for that competitive, contact sport known as "The Battle of the Sexes."  Among the rules contained therein was the one that said "women should be placed on a pedestal, the better to be worshiped and admired by all."  Sounds like women are climbing back to their place of prominence, right?  Unfortunately, no.  Elanor's Court of Love was a mere blip on the radar of history.  Human society would remain pretty male-chauvinist-piggy for quite a long time to come.

Hey Princess, while yer up, gimmie another beer!

Let's get real here: there can be no love between men and women until there is equality between men and women: social, political, economic, cultural and sexual equality.  And there is not much doubt when THAT happened: sometime during the 1970's in the United States of America.  

Following the invention, distribution and general use of the birth control pill in the 1960's, women finally had a handle on their own reproductive matters.  Add to this the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade making abortion legal, and the fact that Mary Tyler Moore made it socially acceptable for a woman to have a career and not a husband, and you've got the makings of the Sexual Revolution.  It wasn't long before Gloria Steinem was burning her bra, Masters and Johnson were publishing their report on human sexuality, Jane Fonda was supporting edgy political causes, and Edith was talking-back to Archie on All in the Family.

I said you were singing flat because you were singing flat, you dick-head!

 So, love today: Well, there's a lot of nudity available on the internet.  And non-traditional families are on the rise: single mom, single dad, two mommies, two daddies, sister-wives with one patriarch [only in Mormon towns] and moms and dads who are transvestites or transgender.  Kind of makes the Father-Son Pancake Breakfast a way-more interesting affair than it was in the 1950's.

Guys, we're so hilarious that ABC should make a hit-sit-com about us!

So, what's love's future?  Adjunct Proff thinks that Love and technology will have a bea-utiful future together.  Instead of skyping, lovers who are parted by distance might be able to have virtual make-out sessions using holograms and virtual-reality environments.  Instead of Match.com, people will be able to go on virtual dates before actually meeting and discovering he's a balding, 50-something pudgy guy who lives with his mother.  Robot surrogate mothers may make motherhood possible for women in their 60's.

What won't change will be the blush at a compliment, that delightful nervousness right before a first kiss, and the catch-at-the-heart that a groom feels when he catches his first look at his bride as she marches down the aisle --with both of her dads.

My mom only had to deal with one mother-in-law