How High Will A Bullet Fired Straight Up Go?

     Its altitude depends upon the type of weapon and type of bullet. On New Year's Eve 2017, a member of the Texas House of Representatives, Armando Martinez, stepped outside and was slammed in the head and rushed to the hospital where it was found the fragment of a .22 caliber bullet had penetrated his skull and lodged itself in his brain, requiring surgery to remove it. The bullet had been fired as part of New Year’s celebration. After the accident, Martinez unsuccessfully introduced legislation raising the penalties for discharging a firearm without an intended target. 
     Such cases are rare, but a 2015 article described two cases of children killed by falling bullets fired during Fourth of July celebrations in 2011 and 2012. A 2004 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day of that year, bullets from gunfire caused 19 injuries and one death. Thirty-six percent of the victims were struck on the top of the head. 
     Ballistics researchers have spent a lot of time studying the performance of bullets fired horizontally, but when it comes to firing straight up there's not nearly as much data. 
     In the mid-1940s, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Julian Hatcher did experiments in Florida in which he fired various weapons, ranging from rifles to machine guns, straight up and tried to measure how long it took for the bullets to come down.
     In his 1947 volume Hatcher's Notebook, he calculated that a standard .30 caliber bullet fired from a rifle pointed straight up would rise to an altitude of 9,000 feet in 18 seconds, and would hit the ground in another 31 seconds. He also calculated that during the last few thousand feet it would attain a nearly constant speed of about 205 miles per hour. 
     Ballistics researcher James Walker, department director of engineering dynamics at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, says that the altitude attained by a bullet fired straight up would depend upon the type of weapon and projectile. For example, a .22 caliber cartridge is the same diameter as the bullet, doesn’t have much powder and has a relatively low velocity. Bullets fired from rifles with a much larger cartridge will go faster because there is more powder. 
     When fired horizontally, bullets tend to slow down rapidly due to air drag, so that a rifle bullet may be down to half of its initial speed by the time it gets to 1,640 feet.  When a gun is fired when pointed up, gravity will slow the bullet down even faster. Refer to THIS chart on the website of Close Focus Research, a ballistics testing company. Note: To convert feet per second to miles per hour multiply by 0.681818. 
     Of course, eventually the bullet’s velocity will be spent and it will begin to fall. The elevation from which it begins to fall back to Earth is a non-issue as to how fast it falls. As it is no longer spin stabilized, it will hit a terminal velocity based on its shape, orientation, and whether or not it is tumbling. Also, a bullet is unlikely to fall straight down, as wind can alter its path, so it’s difficult to predict where it will land.

The Geneva Bible

1582 Geneva Bible leaf

     All but forgotten today, the Geneva Bible was the most widely read and influential English Bible of the 16th and 17th centuries. This may come as a surprise, but it was the Bible that came to America on the Mayflower that transported the first English Puritans, known today as the Pilgrims, from Plymouth, England, to the New World in 1620. 
     Mary I was Queen of England and Ireland from 1553 until her death in 1558 and her executions of Protestants caused her opponents to give her the sobriquet "Bloody Mary." In 1555 she revived England’s heresy laws and began burning offenders at the stake, starting with her father’s longtime advisor Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury. Almost 300 convicted heretics, mostly common citizens, were burned. Dozens more died in prison, and some 800 fled to Protestant strongholds in Germany and Geneva.
     It was her persecution that caused the Marian Exile which drove 800 English scholars to Europe and a number of them gathered in Geneva, Switzerland. There a team of scholars led by William Whittingham, and assisted by Miles Coverdale, Christopher Goodman, Anthony Gilby, John Knox, and Thomas Sampson, produced The Geneva Bible. 
     The Geneva Bible became a symbol of the Protestant Reformation because when Protestants began being persecuted not only in France but also in England, many sought safe haven in Geneva, taking advantage of the opportunity to study under Calvin. It was based on Greek and Hebrew manuscripts and a revision of William Tyndale's New Testament, which first appeared in 1526. The Geneva Bible New Testament was published in 1557, with the complete Bible appearing in 1560. It became the Bible of choice for many of the greatest writers and thinkers of that time such as William Shakespeare, John Bunyan, and John Milton. 
     It was unique in that it was the first Bible to use chapters and numbered verses and its extensive marginal notes greatly increased its popularity. The notes were written by Reformation leaders including John Calvin and others and were intended to help explain and interpret the Scriptures for the average reader. The Bible also had study guides and aids which included cross references, introductions to each book, maps, tables, woodcut illustrations, indexes, and other features making it the first study Bible. It also used readable Roman typeface rather than the obscure Gothic black typeface. The Bible enjoyed immediate success which would continue for the next seventy five years and was the people’s choice even after 1611 when the King James Bible was released. 
     King James I rejected the Geneva Bible claiming it was the worst on the market. Actually, his problem with the Bible was not the translation but rather the marginal annotations which he saw as “very partial, untrue, seditious, and savoring too much of dangerous and traitorous conceits.” James’ rejection was rooted in his anti-Puritan and anti-Presbyterian beliefs. 
     For example, James disliked the marginal notes appearing in the book of Daniel which stated that the king must be disobeyed if he violates the will of God and commands others to do likewise. James I held that kings had been ordained by God to rule the nations of the world, to promote justice, and to dispense wisdom and it was therefore, imperative that kings should be respected and obeyed unconditionally and in all circumstances. The Geneva Bible taught otherwise. It seems King James I was unfamiliar with Acts 5:29 in which the Apostle "Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.” 
     Despite King James I’s ridicule the King James version of the Bible was influenced by the Geneva Bible when it contributed more to the composition of the King James version of 1611, perhaps with the exception of the work of William Tyndale, than any other English version of the Bible. It’s ironic that even after publication of the King James Bible in 1611 English clergy, including James’ most trusted scholars, continued to use the Geneva Bible in their sermons. 
     The King James Bible took decades to overcome the more popular Geneva Bible. One of the greatest ironies of history, is that many Protestant Christian churches today embrace the King James Bible exclusively as the “only” legitimate English language translation, yet it is not a Protestant translation. It was printed by the Anglican church to compete with the Protestant Geneva Bible. 
     Most Protestants blame persecution on the Roman Catholic Church, but after England broke from Roman Catholicism in the 1500’s, the Church of England (The Anglican Church) persecuted Protestants throughout the 1600’s.
     Throughout the 1600’s, as the Puritans and the Pilgrims fled persecution in England they took with them the Geneva Bible and rejected the King’s Bible. In America the first settlers used the Geneva Bible, not the King James Bible.

    Protestants are largely unaware of their own history and that the Geneva Bible (which is textually 95 percent the same as the King James Version, but 50 years older) was not influenced by the Roman Catholic Rheims New Testament which the King James translators took into consideration. That said, the King James Bible was an excellent and accurate translation.
     One little-known fact is that for the past 250 years all King James Bibles are actually the 1769 Revised Oxford Edition of the 1611 King James Bible. Modern Bible publishing companies make no mention of the fact that they are actually publishing the 1769 version because that might hurt sales among those imagining that they are reading the original 1611 version.

The Bibi Babka Song

 

Balki Bartokomous and Larry Appleton make Bibbi-Babkas and sing a song. 

When you rolling out the dough, 
Just make sure you roll it slow. 
If you make the dough too quick
 Bibbibabka make you sick. 
When you pour the filling in 
Just make sure you wear a grin. 
When you smile on what you bake 
Bibbibabka turn out swell.

Never Heard Of Him

     ...until yesterday. I'm talking about some guy named nicknamed Salt Bae whose real name is Nusret Gokce, a Turkish butcher, chef, and restaurateur, who owns Nusr-Et, a chain of steak houses. 
     His technique for preparing and seasoning meat became an internet sensation with videos showing him suavely cutting meat and sprinkling salt. In December 2017, he received criticism for a 2016 photo posing in front of an image of Fidel Castro and in September 2018, he and the president of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro also received criticism for their actions at Gokce's Istanbul restaurant due to the crisis and shortages in Venezuela. 

A Salt Bae meal that would make a dog puke...

One of My Favorite Dogs Died

     OK, so it’s a silly kid’s program and my 12 year old nephew thinks it’s funny that I watch the Disney Channel’s Dog With a Blog...but I like it. 
     Stan is the Dog with a Blog. He is the James-Jennings family's pet dog, but unlike other dogs, Stan has the ability to talk, a secret only shared with the family’s children. He also has a blog, but only uses it at night when everyone's asleep. 
     Stan was originally portrayed by a dog named Kuma and then a dog named Mick. Kuma, the original Stan, was a mutt with Golden Retriever, Husky and Australian Shepherd lineage. He was rescued from a shelter in South Los Angeles by his owner, Sarah Clifford, who taught him 75 different tricks which is more than I can perform. 
     His first role was in the 2005 tv movie McBride which was followed by appearances in 2007’s An American Crime and 2012’s Wrong. In 2012 he won the starring role in Dog With a Blog, though he left the show early for a bigger role in another program. 
     It was only yesterday that I learned Kuma had suffered complications from a recent stroke and had to be put away at the age of 16 (77 in human years) back in November of 2018. His final meal was his favorite foods: chicken and watermelon, which he ate with vigor. A good dog gone. 

Drano Bombs

      
     When I read this on Facebook, naturally I was suspicious. The alert warns about neighborhood residents finding unexploded bottle bombs in their yards made from plastic soda bottles, aluminum foil, and Drano (or other brand of household drain or toilet cleaner). They were first reported back in 2010. THE THREAT IS REAL. 
     Homemade "bottle bombs" have been around for more than two decades and are known by a variety of different names, including "acid bombs," "Drano bombs," "works bombs," "pressure bombs" and "MacGyver bombs." Any number of YouTube videos demonstrate how to construct and detonate them. 
     Because they're made with common household ingredients they're a favorite of teenage pranksters, but police warn that the devices are unpredictable and dangerous. 
     Bomb makers need to be aware that if caught they can be charged with a felony. Penalties can be quite severe if injuries or property damage result.
     The bomb is made by simply filling a soda bottle with Drano with a little water and aluminum foil. The chemical reaction makes a volatile build up of gases and when disturbed detonates the bottle with a great amount of force.
     When the bomb explodes it spews out an extremely hot and caustic liquid that can cause serious chemical burns, eye irritation or blindness, limb and facial injuries and hearing damage. The amount of force generated by the explosion is enough to severe fingers and the toxic fumes can be harmful. 
     If you find a plastic bottle filled with liquid lying around, call 911 and let the police bomb squad handle it.

Pizza and 911 – Another Fake Public Service Announcement

     I see the misinformed folks on Facebook are posting if you need to call 911 but are scared to because someone is in the room, you can call 911 and ask for a pepperoni pizza and the police will come running. "Share this to save a life!!!" the meme urges. 
     As usual, it’s false. Nor is there a secret code in which different toppings have a meaning that alerts 911 operators of the exact situation the caller is in.
     The meme originated with a Reddit thread from three years ago. In 2015, during the Super Bowl broadcast an organization aimed at ending domestic violence and sexual assault named No More aired a public service announcement showing an example of woman in a dangerous situation at her home who calls 911 and orders a pizza to get help. “When it’s hard to talk, it’s up to us to listen,” the tagline at the end of the commercial reads. 
     First off, 911 operators would probably advise the caller that they have reached 911 emergency, not a pizza place and if the caller continues operators would consider it a prank call. They may eventually figure it out though because operators are trained to recognize voice inflection and odd conversations that would indicate a dangerous situation. 
     A better solution is text to 911 if possible and give your exact location and the nature of your emergency. If that is not possible make the call and set down the phone if they can’t speak safely to dispatchers. Dispatchers are trained to see with their ears. Everything that happens on the open line will allow the operator to keep the officers that are enroute updated on the situation.

Funny Story

I don’t watch the television program Empire, a drama that follows the head of a music empire whose three sons and ex-wife battle for his throne. One of the “stars” is a fellow named Jussie Smollett who reportedly makes about $125,000 per episode. 
    Back in early January, Smollett, who is black and openly gay, got letter made out of cut out letters at the Fox studio that contained a homophobic death threat and made apparent reference to President Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. 
     Then in Chicago on January 29th, Smollett said two white men approached him around two in the morning, shouted racial and homophobic slurs, poured an "unknown chemical substance" on him and wrapped a noose around his neck.
     Later police arrested two black Nigerian brothers who told detectives Smollett paid them to attack him. As a result Smollett was charged with a felony for allegedly filing a false police report. Police don’t like it when people lie to them. But, apparently it’ not a crime when police lie to the public, but that’s another story. 
     The Chicago grand jury charged Smollett with 16 felony counts… one for every alleged lie he told police. According to investigators Smollett carried out the staged attack and gave their theory for the reason behind it. First he attempted to gain attention to his desire to get paid more money on Empire by sending the false letter. When that didn’t work he paid the two men $3,500 to attack him. Additionally, in the process he dragged Chicago’s reputation through the mud. 

     After much media attention and bantering between lawyers, the Cook County State's Attorney recused herself "out of an abundance of caution." Recused, meaning she considered herself unqualified to perform legal duties because of a potential conflict of interest or lack of impartiality.  It's not clear to me why there was a conflict of interest or why she would be impartial...maybe she is a fan of the show?!  No, wait!  Her name is Kim Foxx and is the fact that she is black have anything to do with it?  Foxx ran on a platform of criminal justice reform and stated she wanted to focus on “restoring faith in our criminal justice system” and “bridging the divide between the community and law enforcement.
     Finally charges against Smollett were dropped and the Cook County State's Attorney's Office refused to explain why the 16 counts of felony disorderly conduct were dropped, but Smollett agreed to forfeit his $10,000 bond. A judge also agreed to seal Smollett's court file at the request of his attorneys and the prosecutors had no objection. 
     Besides everyone looking like an idiot, it makes one wonder how much money changed hands.

UPDATE (3-28-19) Smollett is being investigated by the FBI as to whether he sent himself the hate letter laced with white powder and the dismissal of the criminal charge against him.

X-ray Specs

     A few readers may remember the novelty ads appearing in magazines to X-ray Specs, an item that were advertised as being able to allow you to "see the bones in your hand, see through clothes!" 
     Some versions of the advertisement featured an illustration of a young man using the X-Ray Specs to examine the bones in his hand while a voluptuous woman stood in the background. In case anyone is wondering...they didn’t work. 
     After mailing in a dollar plus 25 cents for shipping and waiting 6-8 weeks for delivery, you got a large pair of “glasses” with plastic frames and white cardboard "lenses" printed with concentric red circles and emblazoned with "X-RAY VISION". 

     The lenses consist of two layers of cardboard with a small hole about a quarter-inch in diameter through which objects were viewed. There was a feather is embedded between the layers of each lens. The feathers diffracted light causing the user to receive two slightly offset images. 
     For instance, if viewing a pencil, one would see two offset images of the pencil. Where the images overlap, a darker image is obtained, giving the illusion that one is seeing the graphite embedded within the body of the pencil. 
     The principle behind the illusion was first patented in 1906 by George W. Macdonald. In 1909 Fred J. Wiedenbeck patented a tube employing the same principle. X-Ray Specs were improved by Harold von Braunhut, also the inventor of Amazing Sea-Monkeys. 

    There was even a movie inspired by X-ray Specs released in 1963, X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes starring Ray Milland; it was a low budget film about the experiences of a doctor who acquired x-ray vision by testing vision enhancing eye drops on himself.

The Beginning of Newspaper Sensationalism

     Helen Jewett (October 18, 1813 – April 10, 1836) was an upscale New York City prostitute whose murder, along with the subsequent trial and acquittal of her alleged killer, Richard P. Robinson, generated an unprecedented amount of media coverage. 
     Her murder was an early example of a media sensation when newspapers of the day ran lurid stories about the case and the trial of her accused killer. On paper in particular, the New York Herald, fixated on the case to the point that its coverage became the standard by which tabloid sensationalism such as found in supermarket tabloids is measured by even today. 
     The murder of one prostitute normally would even be considered news, but the competition in the rapidly expanding newspaper business at the time made coverage of the case a smart business decision. Stories about the murder and the trial in the summer of 1836 culminated in public outrage when the accused was acquitted which in turn lead to more sensational news coverage. 
     Helen Jewett was born Dorcas Doyen in Temple, Maine, into a working-class family. Her father was an alcoholic and her mother died when she was young. From the age of 12 or 13 she was employed as a servant girl in the home of Chief Justice Nathan Weston of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. While there, she developed into a sexually assertive young woman and upon reaching the age of 18 left the Weston home at the first opportunity and moved to Portland, Maine where she worked as a prostitute under an assumed name. She subsequently moved to Boston and finally New York under a succession of assumed names. It was in New York City that she adopted the name Helen Jewett. 

     Because of her attractive appearance, she found it easy to fins employment in the countless houses of prostitution in New York. In a memoir published in 1874 by Charles Sutton, the warden of The Tombs, the large prison in lower Manhattan, she was described as having "swept like a silken meteor through Broadway, the acknowledged queen of the promenade." 
     Her accused killer was Richard Robinson who was born in Connecticut in 1818 and apparently received a good education. He left to live in New York City as a teenager and found employment in a dry goods store in lower Manhattan.
     In his late teens Robinson began consorting with a rough crowd and the name Frank Rivers when he visited prostitutes. According to some accounts, at the age of 17 he happened to run into Jewett when she was being accosted by a hoodlum outside a Manhattan theater and Robinson beat up the man. Jewett gave him her calling card and Robinson began visiting her at the brothel where she worked. 

     At some point during the early 1830s Jewett began working at a fashionable brothel in lower Manhattan and she apparently broke up her relationship with Robinson, but by late 1835 they had gotten back together. 
     Accounts vary, but in early April, 1836 Jewett became convinced that Robinson was planning to marry another woman and threatened him. Another account says Robinson had been embezzling money from his employer to spend on Jewett and he became worried that she would expose him. 
     Jewett’s madame, Rosina Townsend, claimed that Robinson came to her house late on a Saturday night, April 9, 1836, and visited Jewett. In the early hours of April 10, another woman in the house heard a loud noise followed by a moan. Looking into the hallway, she saw a tall figure running away. A short time later, looking into Jewetts’ room someone found a fire smoldering in her mattress and she was dead with three wound in he head and her blood was pooled on the floor. 
     The women and night watchmen doused the smoking mattress and the body with water from the backyard cistern. The police checked the backyard, which seemed the likely escape route since the front door was locked. Nearby the fence was a hatchet; on the other side lay a long cloak. Richard Robinson was the suspect. 
     Police found Robinson in his rented room, in bed. His pants had whitewash on them that was believed to have been from the fence he had climbed over when he made his escape. It was this incriminating evidence that lead to his being charged with Helen Jewett’s murder. Robinson told his neighbor, “Do you think I would blast my brilliant prospects by so ridiculous an act . I am a young man of only nineteen years of age yesterday, with most brilliant prospects.” 
     The murder happened at a time when penny press newspapers which old for a penny and focused on sensational events were emerging in New York City. The New York Herald, which had started a year earlier, seized on the murder and began a media circus. 
     The Herald published lurid descriptions of the murder scene and as well as exclusive stories about Jewett and Robinson, much of it exaggerated if not outright fabricated, which was gobbled up by the public. 
     The trial was a circus. Six thousand people crowded the second floor of city hall in hopes of witnessing the trial. On the second day, the mob broke the railings in the courtroom and fifty marshals were called to clear the building.
     Robinson went on trial June 2, 1836 and his defense team, hired by his relatives, was able to find a witness who provided an alibi for Robinson. It was widely assumed that the defense's main witness, who ran a grocery store in lower Manhattan, had been bribed. The prosecution witnesses were mostly prostitutes who weren’t believed anyway. The witness, Robert Furlong, later committed suicide after his business failed. The public was shocked when Robinson was acquitted. Soon after he left New York for the West and died not long after. 
     The year following her murder, the New York Herald published a front-page article noting that murder was on the rise in New York City and hinted that the acquittal of Robinson may have inspired other murders. As a result of the trial newspaper men had soon realized that sensational accounts of high-profile crimes sold newspapers and began competing for readers by featuring lurid crime stories. 

     Thus was born a lot of what we see in print and on television today even when it comes to blurbs for “news” stories that are going to appear on the 10 o’clock news.