Time Capsule and Henry (Enrico)

Dear Henry Enrico Albert,

I read a book about time travel. I remembered the 1939 Time Capsule. I went looking for it. It wasn’t where it was. I couldn’t find it. The Police and Parks people couldn’t find it.

It wasn’t lost. They hid it. I found it.

In 1939 there was a World’s Fair in Flushing Meadow Park in New York City. It was wonderful and thanks to one of my favorite people. His name was also Henry (Henry was Mayor of New York City).

The Mayor of New York City in 1939 was Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (born Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia; December 11, 1882 – September 20, 1947) (often spelled La Guardia [la 'gwardja]) was Mayor of New York for three terms from 1934 to 1945. He was popularly known as "the Little Flower," the translation of his Italian first name.

The Time Capsule was buried in the middle of the World’s Fair. A round capstone, set in the middle of a small circular plaza, marked the resting-place of two time capsules buried here by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation -- one in 1938 (the first time capsule ever) and the second in 1965. They are packed with artifacts such as a slide rule (1938) and a Beatles record (1965).

The capsules themselves, 50 feet underground, have remained safe since their burial, although the capstone has occasionally been vandalized*** with graffiti. Some time capsule fans fret that global warming will leave this spot 30 feet underwater in 5,000 years (which is how long the capsules are supposed to remain buried). This will make them difficult to spot in the 70th century. Why did they put the 1965 Time Capsule on top of the 1939? Marty (my cousin, your grand-uncle) and many people were not happy about the things they put in the time capsule. They were disgruntled. They were afraid the people 6,938 would dig it up, look at the stuff and think we were a bunch of schmucks.

So, in 1961, a group of disgruntled took action***. They only had minor success. Some were gruntled, some remained disgruntled but nobody was caught. (Ask your Mommy or Uncle Mike or Marty about this.)

After the 1964 World’s Fair, the 1939 Time Capsule seemed to disappear. In 2008, we could only find the marker for the 1964 Time Capsule. The 1939 one was stolen or disappeared or was hidden. It is a big thing to steal and disappeared like go poof is weird. So where can you hide it? We can learn from the chicken.

Ancient proverb: To hide a prized chicken. Put the prized chicken under an ordinary chicken.

If you see a chicken would you think of lifting up the chicken to see if there is another chicken under the chicken you see? Aha!

When I was a little boy, things were very different. There was no TV, no internet, no i-pods, no CD or DVD players and a lot of other stuff. We used to make our own toys out of wooden boxes old bike, roller skates and whatever we could find. We did have radio and people read newspapers and books. On Sunday, the newspapers had comic strips.
On Sunday morning, Mayor LaGuardia read and described the adventures in the comic strips on radio. There was Dick Tracy and Li'l Abner and Shmoos and a lot of others. All us kids listened and they named an airport after him.

Anyway …. They buried the 1934 Time Capsule under the 1964 Time Capsule.

Also, Enrico is a nice name.

*** No mention of dynamite!

Cloning + Elections + Smurfs

Dear Henry Albert,

The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) said it is OK to eat cloned things.

Cloning is when you make one thing from another and they are both the same. They take a little bit of a sting bean or a cow or other stuff and make a duplicate which is copy with more letters. When they do that the new string beans, cows and other stuff are all the same. That’s DULL!

Most baby food is squnched, squashed, mashed and obliterated stuff that probably all tastes the same anyway. Cat, who was Grandma Paula’s first cat liked Gerber’s baby food. Cat also liked tomato herring, melon and spaghetti. That was before they started cloning things.

This year the Smurfs are going to be 50 years old. Smurfs were created (not cloned!) in 1958. They first appeared on October 23, 1958. The creator of Smurfs, Smurfdom, etc. is a Belgian and their name is actually Les Schtroumpfs. Smurfs are cute.

2008 is a Presidential Election year. That means they have Primary Elections. In the Primaries, the candidates usually insult each other and accuse each other of being liars and other bad stuff. They are usually right. After the primaries, the candidates who win accuse the other party (Democrats or Republicans) of being a bunch of lying thieving sociopaths who steal from the public and are destroying America. Both are right.

Candidates spend most of their time yelling, lying and making promises they won’t keep. They also keep begging for money and trying to make themselves less revolting than the other candidates. “Experts”, political commentators, TV reporters, pollsters, analysts and others are paid to say or write something. As a result they continuously babble and spew endless drivel that most people ignore.
In January we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King (MLK). The Democratic Candidates claim a special relationship with MLK and his famous “I have a dream” speech. (Hillary Clinton was 6 years old at the time and Barak Obama was 2.) All candidates go to church a lot.
You are starting to talk. Grandma Paula taught you to say things like “La-la-la”. That’s good. You should learn things like “Mama” and “Dada”. Your Mommy and Daddy will teach you other sounds. Maybe Yiddish?Animal sounds are good, like quacking and mooing. Also, "Hitzach".

In order to run for President you must be over 35 and be born in the U.S. The rules don’t say anything about sex or race or much anything. The rules also don’t say anything about phylum or species. (????) It makes you think. We may be better off a turtle or a marsupial like a wombat (Wombats have distinctive cubic scats.) or a platypus or a moose. Hey, how about a duck?
Republicans cut taxes for rich people. They steal from the public and like Jesus. Democrats say they will cut taxes for poor people (who don’t pay taxes.) They steal from the public and like diversity.
For true diversity they should nominate a one-legged gay African-American hermaphroditic female duck who stutters and drools a lot. It will be an improvement.

Time for soup and a nap.

Change

Dear Henry Albert,

Election time is coming. Election time in America can be fun. Candidates are people who want to be President or something. They mostly tell lies and say silly things and jump up and down and make promises they won’t keep. “Experts” are people who may or may not know something and make stupid comments and predictions to stupid people on TV, in newspapers and on the Internet.

Last week they all yelled CHANGE. The Politicians, Candidates and Experts started to jump up and down yelling “CHANGE”. We know CHANGE is popular because they didn’t stop yelling CHANGE. All the people who want to become President and all the newspapers, political experts TV experts and others kept yelling about CHANGE.
CHANGE is important and good and nice and makes you smell better. Albert Einstein, who was a very smart man, said, “The only thing that does not change is that everything does change.” That shows that Albert knew about important stuff like politicians and smelly diapers as well as relativity and the space-time continuum.

They are probably yelling CHANGE now because there will be an election and our government is like a big smelly diaper that needs to be changed. If we don’t CHANGE the smelly poops in the diapers can evolve and grow up to be politicians. We have a whole bunch who are now Representatives and Senators and Presidents.

Maybe when they say CHANGE they are talking about something else, but no one explains what they mean. WATER and OSMOSIS is also important. Some people talk about water but almost nobody ever talks about osmosis. And without osmosis, where would we be?

If we don’t do CHANGE, what will we have? ENTROPY a: the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity b: a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder. We already have that.

This can be confusing. Ask your Mommy or Daddy to get you an abbreviated (digested) copy of Korzybski’s “Science and Sanity”. And even if you can’t read it, it doesn’t make any difference.

A nap is good.