S2 E12

 S2 E12

Hello and welcome! Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube! I’m your host, Bob Woodley. On this episode, we’ll hear about the man who invented the Singer Sewing machine, and what a slut he was, why Thomas Edison was a copycat, and faith…but first, (not the headlines)…

Regardless of who or what you believe is responsible for all the life on the planet, nature has come up with some pretty amazing things. When science can find uses for the benefits that nature provides, those benefits can be even more amazing. An engineering and technology website called IEEE dot org has a story about how spiders are being used to grab things. Much like the arcade game when you try to use a four-pronged gripper to capture and deliver a toy from the encasement, spiders of all sizes can be used to perform similar tasks. But unlike the four-pronged grabber in the arcade game, a spider has eight legs, providing twice as many digits to surround the target object, each with microscopic hairs to enhance the skill. That’s three more than the human hand and its fingerprints. What science has discovered is that spiders control their limbs with blood pressure, and each limb can be controlled individually. More blood pressure extends the limb, less pressure retracts it. It’s why spider legs curl up when they die. There’s no more blood pressure. Lab tests at Rice University discovered that the smaller the spider, the more it could pick up relative to it’s body weight. A tiny jumping spider can lift 200 percent of its body weight, while the Goliath spider can only lift about 10 percent of it’s body weight. The Wolf spider had a gripping force about equal to its own weight. 

Obviously, we won’t be seeing any spiders in the arcade game, and the article doesn’t say what kinds of applications will be discovered. But if you’re wondering how scientists trained spiders to pick up stuff, well, they didn’t. As it turns out, you don’t use a live spider, you use a dead one. Since spiders use blood pressure to control their limbs, they’re hydraulic. But when they die, we can tap into the system with air, making them pneumatic. We can then control the limbs in much the same way the spider did when it was alive. This system is called necrobotics. These dead spiders can be used to grip something at least 700 times before they start to deteriorate, and ways are being looked at for how to preserve them longer. It’s usually about this time in the story when it says, “No spiders were harmed in the experiments described.” Well, they can’t say that. But the researchers suggest there be some kind of guidelines created. As we learn more about spiders, our respect and admiration for them grows. We’ve been trying to imitate the talents of insects for thousands of years. The martial arts are said to be derived from insect behavior. But building things like spider legs has proven difficult because of the scale. Now, we know how to put spider legs to work for us, possibly even on a microscale. That’s pretty fascinating. Let me know when one can grab me a beer.

At the same time there’s some amazing work being done at America’s colleges and universities, there’s also a major scam going on. And the Biden administration is helping the scam by letting establishments of higher learning off the hook by forgiving college debt. If anyone should be refunding money to college graduates who can’t make enough money to pay back their loans, it should be the colleges and universities that sold them a worthless degree. Not all degrees are worthless! CNBC published a story that lists the best and worst paying college degrees five years after graduation. Right here is where a TV news reporter would say, “The results were eye-opening!” but they’re not. Nine out of the ten best paying degrees five years after graduation are Engineering degrees. These aren’t Masters degrees or Doctorates. These are bachelor’s degrees. Pretty much any kind of Engineering degree will result in a good-paying job. Notice I didn’t say good paying Union job like the President always does. From general engineering to Industrial Engineering to Computer Engineering. All of them average more than 60-thousand dollars a year salary. Five years after graduation. No doctors or lawyers on that list. Wages continue to climb as you gain experience, though. They also climb as you rise through the ranks in the lowest paying college degrees. Fine Arts and Leisure and Hospitality are the top earners of the bottom ten at 38-thousand a year five years after graduation. Some of the lowest paying degrees are Psychology, Liberal Arts, Social and Biological Sciences, Language Arts and Philosophy. A degree in Family and Consumer Services will get you a little more than 15 dollars an hour. It’s no wonder some college graduates can’t afford to pay for the degrees they got. But worthless degrees require worthless credits. Some of the craziest things can be studied in college, for a price. You think a degree from Cornell, regardless of what kind, is valuable? They have a one-credit class on tree-climbing. Not the worthwhile kind of tree-climbing, like if you do so to keep power lines clear, but the kind of tree-climbing that keeps you from touching the ground if you so desire. Princeton has a class on getting dressed. Although it might not be so much about how to dress, but more about how what we wear helps form who we are. That’s like a cookbook that tells you how things taste without telling you how to make it. You could study Lady Gaga at the University of South Carolina. You can earn college credits for studying television shows and even the individual characters in the shows. One college even had a course on The Art of Walking. This combined the rare quality of walking with the high-demand wisdom of philosophy. So how do our colleges and universities get away with charging so much for a defective product? And why do they keep getting away with it? I have no idea. But then, I’m not a college graduate. Maybe the best thing you can do before you choose a major for college is ask an economics professor. They can help you do a cost analysis that will determine if the degree you wish to pursue is worth the investment. That way, you’ll know what you should expect to receive in compensation throughout your career, what kind of return on investment you’ll be getting, and you can also factor in the amount of time it will take you to get the required credits, how much they’ll cost, the value of the time you invest in getting the degree, and what kind of income you’ll need to pay off your student loans within a reasonable amount of time. I recommend you find someone with a degree in economics because there’s a good chance there’s one out there who’s having trouble paying his rent. 

Let’s go back liner…. 

30 BC 

Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide, by means of an asp bite. Until then, she wasn’t known for any asp-kissing. Some make it more dramatic by saying she put an asp to her bosom, but there’s no proof of that. In fact, a story about Cleopatra’s life on geni dot com claims the snake bite was found on her arm. Either way, Egyptian religion at the time dictated that anyone who dies from a snake bite automatically gains immortality. Well, it certainly seems to have worked for Cleopatra. Or it could be the incredibly insane life she lived. The mistress of Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony, at different times, of course, all while married to her little brother because Egyptian law said a Queen could not rule without a King. But she would become the Queen of Kings, loved by the Egyptian people, and not so much by the people of Rome. It was the death of Cleopatra that marked the end of the Pharaohs, and the beginning of the Roman Empire. 30 BC. Now let’s jump ahead a bit to the the country that is now home to the seat of the Roman Empire. About twelve-hundred years later, this week in...

1173, Construction begins on the campanile of the cathedral of Pisa (now known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa)! That’s right! Long after the Roman empire built grand arena’s, sprawling cities and aqueducts to supply water to the citizens. Long after they mastered the arch and how to build roads, they began building the Leaning Tower of Piza. It will take two-hundred years to complete. By the time construction workers finished the second floor, it had begun to sink on one side. As luck would have it, for the building, at least, the Republic of Piza was often at war with other districts, delaying the construction of the building. This gave the soil underneath time to settle under the newly added weight. Nearly a hundred years later, in 1272, construction resumed. To compensate for the sinking of one side of the tower, they built one side taller than the other. You know, to straighten it out. So the leaning tower of Pisa doesn’t just lean one way, it leans two ways. The seventh floor was finished in 1319, and the top, where they keep the bells, was added nearly 200 years after the tower was started in 1173. The belltower is one of three buildings that make up the cathedral of Pisa, the other two turned out fine. 

1553

Michael Servetus is arrested by John Calvin in Geneva as a heretic. This Michael Servetus was one smart cookie. He was a theologian, a physical doctor, a map-maker and more. He was an expert in math, the weather, medicine and pharmaceuticals. He was the first person to correctly describe pulmonary circulation, and how the heart pumped the blood through vessels. This Spaniard studied the Bible in its original languages. A very learned man, indeed. He was also a critic of government and society’s failures. But then he said some things that even made Martin Luther blush, and was accused of being a heretic. He was ultimately sentenced for denying the Trinity, and his opposition to infant baptism. He thought he was safe in Geneva, because at the time, the worst punishment a non-citizen could receive was banishment. But they changed the rules for this Renniasance Man. He was burned at the stake atop a mound of his own books. Even after all that, his last words were reported to be, "Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, have mercy on me." Despite the others using religion to persecute him, he maintained his devotion. We’ll have a little bit more about faith later in the program. 

1851

Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine. He didn’t invent the sewing machine, though. But his design was more practical and easier to use than the industrial sewing machines of the day. Five years later, Singer and other sewing machine makers were disputing patents for different mechanisms necessary to make them work. They were all accusing each other of patent infringement, and met in Albany, New York to hash out the differences. What they ended up doing instead was a groundbreaking agreement. They would pool their patents and work together to create the best sewing machines possible. Employing the method of interchangeable parts, the Singer company was able to drop the price of a machine from 100 dollars to 10 dollars. Even at a price of 10 dollars, which is the equivalent of over 300 dollars today, sales soared after the sewing machines were offered on a payment plan and by accepting trade-ins. The first company to offer such options. Now, people everywhere at every social strata wanted the ability to create their own clothing and other items at home. The Singer sewing machines opened up economic opportunities to women everywhere, many of whom joined collectives to make and sell their products. Women of wealth took lessons on how to use the machines and create new designs. Singer then expanded to Europe, and built the largest sewing machine manufacturing plant in the world near Glasgow. More than a hundred years after getting his patent, Singer’s sewing machines spawned satellite businesses like pattern-making and accessories for sewing clubs. Dressmaking became a required subject for school girls. He amassed a fortune, and a very large family. Singer had more than twenty children to a wife, mistresses, and even a secret family. His financial success enabled him to support the various clans, but reflected poorly on the company. So in 1863, the I.M. Singer Company was dissolved at the request of a partner, and renamed the Singer Manufacturing Company, with Mr. Singer still owning 40 percent of the company and a seat on the board. He died in 1875, and left his 13-million-dollar fortune to his children. 

This week in 1863, during the latter part of the American Civil War, following his defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. This wasn’t the first time Robert E. Lee resigned from an army, though. Before he became a Major General in the Confederate Army, he was a Colonel in the United States Army. He had been offered the command of the Union Army. But the day before, his home state of Virginia seceded from the Union. He had a decision to make. He wasn’t in favor of secession, but he was loyal to his Virginia. Two days after Virginia left the Union, Lee resigned from the US Army to gather Virginia men and train an army. He was also an adviser to other Confederate commanders. But when he lost the battle of Gettysburg, he sent a letter to the Confederate President asking to be replaced. His army had lost 28-thousand soldiers, a third of it’s total. He was able to drive Union troops out of Virginia, but they soon returned, making it clear that the union had won the battle of attrition. It took more than a month for the letter to reach its addressee. The Confederate President refused the General’s request, writing back, “To ask me to substitute you by someone… more fit to command, or who would possess more of the confidence of the army… is to demand an impossibility.” Today, General Lee is remembered as an orange car from a television show. 

1876

Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph. The mimeograph is the predecessor of the photocopier. It wasn’t that long ago, to some of us, that photocopiers weren’t widely available. Most offices and schools used a mimeograph machine to make copies of documents. Not just any document, though, as it is today. The document had to be written on a special substrate to create a stencil from which the copies could be made. Edison wasn’t done though. He also found a way to send messages through the air when 16 years later, this week in 1892, Mr. Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.

1934

The first civilian prisoners arrive at the Federal prison on Alcatraz Island. Who’s the most famous prisoner of the former penal colony? Well, the guys who escaped became pretty famous, but I don’t recall their names. There was a movie made about them, though. Another inmate of Alcatraz had a movie made about him, too. Robert Stroud was immortalized as the Birdman of Alcatraz. Alcatraz was just one of his stops in the prison system. He spent practically his whole life in prison, from age 19, until his death in 1963, he was a guest of the government. He was a pimp and a murderer. After killing a prison guard, he was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life in solitary confinement. He was serving his sentence in Leavenworth prison when his discovered a nest of sparrows in the yard. A reform-minded warden encouraged his interest in the birds, and he soon had a collection. He wrote books and found cures for avian diseases. He built a business inside the walls of Leavenworth Penitentiary. He got respect and sympathy. He spent 22 years at Leavenworth, and as anyone who lives there now will tell you, he didn’t do a lick of work with birds at Alcatraz. He was transferred to Alcatraz in 1942, after it was discovered that he was using his lab equipment, which he was so generously allowed to have, to make alcohol. He spent 17 years at Alcatraz without any birds or alcohol-making equipment. The movie title came from a book by Thomas E Gaddis that also incorrectly depicted Alcatraz as the place Stroud did his research. 

1942

Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a frequency hopping, spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones and Wi-fi. So it took us 80 years to go from that to where we are today. Doesn’t seem so impressive when you compare it to the time it took to go from first flight to moon landing, which was a mere 65 years.

1965

Singapore is expelled from Malaysia and becomes the first and only country to date to gain independence unwillingly. What started out as a British territory for shipping ended up becoming a thriving area with a growing population and economy. It became an official British colony after a brief occupation by Japan during World War II. In 1962, Singapore citizens voted to become one of the 14 states that made up Malaysia. After 144 years of British rule, Singapore found a new alliance. Things didn’t go well, though. There were major disagreements between the leaders of the other states and those of Singapore. Political, racial and economic tensions resulted in Singapore being expelled from Malaysia. American’s fought for independence. Canadians waited it out, and was the first country to gain independence in a peaceful way. But it was forced upon Singapore! It’s an island with little natural resources. The people of Singapore weren’t happy about the expulsion. But it was still on an important trade route. The leaders of Singapore worked with the tools they had. They created a government that would serve the people, whether they liked it or not. Singapore became a modern, prosperous place, and still is today. But before you decide to move there, here’s a couple things you might want to know: Rules are strictly enforced. There are laws there that may surprise you. Connecting to another person’s Wi-Fi is a 10-thousand-dollar fine. Feeding pigeons will cost you five-hundred. There’s more, according to a website dedicated to Asian travel called focus Asia travel dot com. If you don’t flush the toilet in a public restroom, you’ll get fined 150 dollars, and elevators have urine detection devices that will lock you in the elevator until police arrive if you have to relieve yourself in such a way. If you’re a smoker, don’t bring your own cigarettes. You’re only allowed to smoke cigarettes in your own home. If you don’t have a home there, don’t bother bringing them. And don’t litter. Just like in many American cities, it’s a 300-dollar fine. But unlike many American cities, it’s enforced. Get caught three times and you have to clean the streets with a bib on that tells everyone that you don’t care about the environment. Contrary to popular belief, you are allowed to chew gum in Singapore, but you’re not allowed to sell it. If you get caught bringing it into the country, you face two years in jail or a 100-thousand-dollar fine. But you’re allowed to chew it. Don’t spit it out, though, because any kind of spitting is forbidden. Even your own saliva. Spitting in public will get you a 1-thousand-dollar fine. If you find all of these laws acceptable, here’s one that might make you shake your head. In Singapore, you’re not allowed to walk around in your own house while naked. Granted, most people don’t spend a lot of time walking around the house naked anyway. Maybe from the bedroom to the bathroom for a shower. Otherwise, we’re almost always dressed. Especially if you have a security camera system installed inside your home. You never know who might be hacking into your system, so you best keep your clothes on while wandering around the house. But in Singapore, if a neighbor sees you walking around your house naked, you can be fined up to a thousand dollars. For not having clothes on in your own home. The result of these strict laws has been a nation that enjoys a very low crime rate, economic stability and social order. Education and healthcare standards are also very high. Americans put a lot of value on freedom. I get that. I don’t want to become another Singapore. But it’s interesting to think about what we might be giving up in exchange for a perceived freedom. Yes, I know, those who give up freedom for security deserve neither, but sometimes a freedom can be detrimental to society. The recent case of Alex Jones, the mouthpiece of Infowars, might be a good example. Here’s a guy who used his freedom of speech to present to the public a theory that a school shooting never happened. He’s welcome to express his doubts about what happened that day, but when you refuse to acknowledge the truth, and keep making up more lies to bring discredit on innocent people, you cross the line of freedom, into the realm of libel and slander. Believe me, I don’t think the government system of Singapore is the answer, but a closer look at what freedoms we have might be in order. There’s a lot of vagueness when it comes to freedom, and maybe a clearer definition of it is in order. Our Constitution is a great starting point, along with the Bill of Rights. But there seems to be a lot of people today who have a broader definition of freedom than the rest of us. Just as we need a clearer definition of when we’re eligible for rights as a citizen, we also need a clearer definition of what our freedoms are. 

1969

The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine to enjoy a ticker-tape parade in New York. That evening, at a state dinner in Los Angeles, they are awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon. Oh, great. We fly all the way to the moon and back, then you keep us locked up for three weeks, and the first thing you make us do when we get out is fly from New York to Los Angeles. In an airplane. 

1981

The IBM Personal Computer is released. I wrote this podcast on a personal computer. I also used a personal computer to record it and edit it. If it wasn’t for the personal computer...well, whatever. It’s no big deal now.

1984

“We begin bombing in five minutes...” President Ronald Reagan, while running for re-election, jokes while preparing to make his weekly Saturday address on National Public Radio, said something he thought was funny. He was often cracking jokes and creating outtakes during his career as an actor, Governor and President. This week’s address was no different, except that it was being recorded at his ranch in California. That’s what made this one special. Radio stations around the country were already recording the live feed during the soundcheck, prior to the official speech, when President Reagan said, “"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." Classic Ronald Reagan. What most of us didn’t know at the time was that two years earlier, the White House Correspondents Association, the same organization that hosts the big banquet every year, had agreed to not publish any unprepared, off-the-record remarks made by the President after he was quoted as referring to the military government of Poland as a bunch of no-good, lousy bums. So, Reagan felt comfortable enough to joke around without worrying that the media would expose his sense of humor in a way that might harm diplomatic relations. Well, rumors about the remark started to circulate and it was quickly published. Moscow wasn’t real happy about it, but there wasn’t any real harm done in the long run. It didn’t even prevent President Reagan from defeating Walter Mondale for a second term in office. He was my commander in chief, as I was serving in the a Air Force at the time. In fact, I had just seen his motorcade snake down Marine Drive, the main drag in Guam, in April. From the window of a Japanese restaurant where I was eating sashimi. He must have been on his way from the airport to the Governor’s house. So four months later, hearing what he said, and being stationed on the only Strategic Air Command base outside the continental United States, there was some initial concern. After all, if B-52’s were gonna fly, they were gonna fly out of Guam. Even after Reagan’s remarks, the only flying the B-52’s did was for practice and using fuel before the next fiscal year began.

1994

Major League Baseball players go on strike. This will force the cancellation of the 1994 World Series. This worked out great for me. I know a lot of baseball fans were upset that the players went on strike and the World Series was canceled, but my family and I had just moved to Leavenworth, Kansas. I had only been to one Major League game, at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles. After the strike, the baseball teams were doing everything they could to get fans back in the seats. All your die-hard fans were boycotting the stadiums because of the strike the previous year, and Major League Baseball was desperate for fan participation. Because of that, the Kansas City Royals were only charging 5 dollars a head to get into Kaufman Stadium. I asked my wife at the time, the late Camille LeeAnn Danielson, if she wanted to go. Not at first. It was a tough sell. When I told her their would be fireworks after the game, she agreed. A Major League baseball game and fireworks for ten bucks? Let’s do it. It was definitely worth the money. We saw a grand slam and a triple play in that game, and fireworks after. My current wife and I have been to a lot of Major League baseball games since then, but that was the only one I got to spend with Camille. 

Unfinished business liner

I promised we’d talk a little more about faith later in the program, so now it’s later in the program. There are a lot of different kinds of faith in the world, even those associated with only religion. There are other kinds of faith, too. Faith that you’ll get that dream job, or that your husband will take out the trash. But religious faith leads to something more. And I’m not talking about the afterlife. I’m talking about this life. Just like there are many different kinds of faith, there are many different kinds of discipline. There’s the kind of discipline it takes to make your bed in the morning. There’s a certain kind of discipline it takes to play a musical instrument. There’s a certain kind of discipline you learn by serving in the military. There’s a certain kind of discipline that comes with religious faith. It’s not the discipline of habit or practice or following orders. It’s the discipline of treating people with respect, and being kind and honest. I’m not saying agnostic people can’t be kind and honest. What I’m saying is that people who believe in the soul also believe they have a responsibility to give that soul a leg up in the journey that follows, if there is one. But that’s where the difference between faith and religion appears. Religion is the specific way you practice a faith. One can have a belief in God, or multiple gods, or no god at all, yet still have faith that they have a soul that will carry on their true essence; their being. Faith makes us be good to other people. Faith encourages us to have empathy, which in itself is a discipline. It’s a discipline you can learn, just like playing the tuba or following orders, or once you get out of the military, a recipe. There are a lot of different kinds of disciplines, and I’ve found that the more of them you have, the better you’re life will be. Self-discipline is required for all of them, but that’s the foundation on which you build the rest. The discipline it takes to learn how to play an instrument can result in beautiful music. The discipline it takes to save money can result in a new home. The discipline it takes to wash the dishes can result in a clean-smelling kitchen. The discipline it takes to protect your soul can result in you being a really nice person. When it comes to the type of discipline that comes with faith, the more you have, the better life will be for those around you. Faith is a powerful thing because it’s something we believe in. Discipline is is a powerful thing because it’s something we can learn and practice. When they come together, we all benefit. In this life, and maybe even the next. I hope that doesn’t make me a heretic.

The Listening Tube is written and produce by yours truly. Copyright 2022. Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube. I’m your host, Bob Woodley for thou ad infinitum.