Side-Splitting Science

Awards?  We’ve got them by the bucketful in America.

After all, this is country that invented the Participation Award in which a 5-year-old gets a trophy the size of the Stanley Cup just for attending T-ball practice.

In Hollywood alone, we have the Oscars, Emmys, Golden Globes, Peoples' Choice Awards, MTV Movie Awards, Internet Movie Awards, the Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild and Producers Guild Awards.  Among others.

There are awards for an entire spectrum of ethnic groups, for gays and lesbians, short subjects, long subjects, horror movies, science fiction movies, political movies, religious movies and porn movies. Even box-office bombs are honored each year with the Golden Raspberry Awards, or Razzies.

Lesser known but just as noteworthy are the Bad Sex in Fiction Awards, the Foot in Mouth Awards and the Rotten Sneakers Award.

It’s enough to make you jaded.

That's why it's refreshing to take note from time to time of the unique and exclusive Ig Nobel awards, presented each year at Harvard University by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine.

With tongue firmly in cheek, the Ig Noble folks honor scientific articles that have some humorous or unexpected aspect, such as the two California scientists who conducted extensive research on why woodpeckers don't get headaches.

Or the group of researchers who studied why pregnant women don't tip over. Women, it appears, have slight differences in their lumbar vertebrae that helps compensate for their changing center of gravity. So women are different. Who knew?

Or the group that investigated whether suicide rates are linked to the amount of country music played on the radio.

Or a group of Swiss scientists who conducted a study that confirmed an empty beer bottle makes a better weapon than a full beer bottle in a fight.

This year’s honorees display the kind of curiosity, verve and dash that very well could make scientific research a spectator sport.

Take Michael L. Smith, a neurobiology and behavior PhD candidate at Cornell University, for instance.

It seems Smith was stung on a testicle by a bee. It didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would. So, presumably inspired by Isaac Newton who, after being hit on the head by an apple developed the theory of gravity, he wanted to know why some stings hurt worse than others.

So he allowed himself to be stung by honey bees on 25 different parts of his body and then rate the pain on a scale of 1-10. His resulting “sting pain index” ranked the nostril, upper lip and penis as most painful and the skull, middle toe tip, and upper arm as least painful.

The practical applications are unclear unless the military sees a use for “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Other winners this year included:

---A group who invented a chemical recipe to partially un-boil an egg. 

--- A team of Georgia Tech researchers who tested the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds).  One of the researchers got the idea while potty training his toddlers. His team has since moved on to studying the physics of defecation in mammals. Or as he puts it, “We went from number one to number two.”

--- A group that discovered that the word "huh?" (or its equivalent) seems to exist in every human language—and for not being quite sure why.

---- Researchers who tried to use mathematical techniques to determine whether and how Moulay Ismael the Bloodthirsty, the Sharifian Emperor of Morocco, managed, during the years from 1697 through 1727, to father 888 children.

--- Scientists who observed that when you attach a weighted stick to the rear end of a chicken, the chicken then walks in a manner similar to that in which dinosaurs are thought to have walked.

--- A team that determined that acute appendicitis can be accurately diagnosed by the amount of pain evident when the patient is driven over speed bumps.

The awards aren’t always bestowed for strict scientific research.

The prize for mathematics was once awarded to the Southern Baptist Church of Alabama for their county-by-county estimate of how many Alabama citizens will go to hell if they don't repent.

This year’s prize in Economics went to the Bangkok Metropolitan Police for offering to pay policemen extra cash if the policemen refuse to take bribes.

A special Peace Prize was once awarded to Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, for making it illegal to applaud in public and to the Belarus State Police for arresting a one-armed man for applauding.

Then there was the special salute for the Air Force Wright Laboratory of Dayton, Ohio, for instigating research and development on a chemical weapon - the so-called "gay bomb" - that will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other.

It’s science. You can’t make this stuff up.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector 1.

Fat City

When I was a fresh-faced editor at a downtown metropolitan newspaper some years ago, I decided one day that the readers might like a break from a steady diet of political posturing, senseless homicides and bumbling civic shot-callers.

So I called a grizzled veteran reporter into my office and asked him to do a story on the Los Angeles County Fair. Focus on the happy people, I suggested, those who work there and those who attend.

“That’s not what you want,” he replied. He went on to explain to me --- in a tone usually reserved for a teacher admonishing a misbehaving schoolboy --- that people go the fair to eat.  It’s all about the food.

I suspected he was angling for a free lunch on his expense account but I agreed, leaving my authority in the matter crushed on the newsroom floor.

Of course, Grizzled Reporter was right. Whatever else the fair may offer, the food is the story. And reporters, grizzled and otherwise, cover it like mustard on a corn dog.

Indeed, it seems there must be some unofficial competition among fairs throughout the land to see who can come up with the most cholesterol packed, stroke inducing, heart damaging, stomach stretching delights. It’s enough to horrify Paula Deen.

In an era when even the cereal box is made of whole grains and three
ounces of yogurt in considered lunch, the fair has become a place to
get in touch with your inner Neanderthal.

And the L.A. fair takes a back seat to no one when it comes to feeding hungry hunter/gatherers.

This year, Deep-Fried Guacamole tops the menu. There's also the Cinnamon Fireball Texas Donut, which is a donut covered in caramel, sliced bananas, whipped cream, cinnamon, and Fireball Cinnamon Whisky. Try it with the Deep-Fried Peanut Butter Pickle, which is also battered and glazed with chocolate.

For those watching their waistline, there’s Deep Fried Watermelon. For those who are really calorie conscious, there are Deep Fried Slim Fast bars.

Wait, there’s more:  Mexican Curly Fries are smothered in beans, jalapenos and cheese. Or try the Krispy Kreme Triple Decker Cheeseburger. That’s right, three patties and toppings squeezed between two doughnuts. Maybe the Bacon-Wrapped Pork Belly on a Stick is more to your liking. Or a Spicy Peanut Butter and Jelly Burger.

Of course, there are vegetarian selections and lots of fish dishes to be had. But even they tend to trend to the exotic (Veggie Dog on a Stick, Cajun Jalapeno Shrimp).

Meanwhile, in the rest of the country, the culinary insanity is reaching new heights.

In Minnesota, they're serving up Fried Pig Ears, cut to look like curly fries, with a chipotle glaze. 

Florida fairgoers can sample the Fried Ice Cream Cheeseburger. It’s your standard burger but nestled under the toasted bun and perched atop the pickle, lettuce, tomato, bacon and cheese toppings is a scoop of ice cream coated in cinnamon and cornflakes that has been dipped in the deep fryer for 10 to 15 seconds. Take plenty of napkins.

The know how to fry it up in Texas. Not to be outdone by our Fried Guacamole, they have come up with Fried Salsa and the piece de resistance, Fried Bubblegum which involves bubblegum-flavored marshmallows dipped in batter, fried and decorated with icing and powdered sugar. Dentists will be standing by.

Massachusetts has Fried Jelly Beans while in Wisconsin, they offer up Fat Elvis on a Stick, peanut butter, chocolate and bacon dipped in banana batter and deep fried. Eat one and you’ll be itchin’ like a man on a fuzzy tree.

Illinois has Fried Alligator on a Stick. Exotic, yes, but nothing tops Oregon’s  Roadkill, which, according to one reporter, is “an adorable fried dough man that has been smashed, fried, stitched back together, and covered in a variety of sauces to emulate bodily fluids and fatal injuries.”  Yum.

The last word in deep fried decadence has got to be Deep Fried Butter, invented by Abel Gonzalez Jr. and debuted at the Texas State Fair in 2009 to thunderous applause.

In Texas, they serve it on a stick. In 2011 at the Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa, it was paired with chocolate-covered bacon and dubbed the "coronary combo."

Wash it down with Deep Fried Beer, another Texas concoction.  And, yes, you have to be 21 to order it.

Now, pass me that deep fried Pepto-Bismol on a stick.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector 1.

I'll Drink to That

Today’s wine tasting notes:

Chateau Barstow Cabernet, ($1.49 at fine truck stops everywhere). This product contains hints of blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, huckleberries, goose berries, cranberries, loganberries, elderberries, ollaliberries and Chuck Berry.

Primary aromas include notes of cigar butts, gym socks, burning rubber and sour milk. A nose clip is thoughtfully included with each bottle.

The finish suggests the recycling containers where the wine is aged, leading to an experience that is, in a word, unimaginable.

Serve it with burritos, chili cheeseburgers and onion rings.

Vanquished Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc ($2 on select street corners). Suggestions of apple and pear mingle with hints of trout and asparagus in a wine that is best consumed in the midst of an anxiety attack.

The extraordinary finish is reminiscent of wet dog.

It’s a wine to serve to friends when you want to be alone.

Que Syrah Syrah ($10 in your local drug store’s Digestive Aid aisle), this full-bodied offering is aged to perfection, just like Sharon Stone. In fact, you could say it suggests a certain mouth-watering sumptuousness.

Called by some a brooding mistress of devilish wonder, others as eroticism in a glass, its finish includes notes of leather thong. It is best served when searching the Ashley Madison web site. 

So I’m having a little fun here. But truth be told, we’ve all read wine notes so complex that they make sipping wine seem like the bar exam.

Take, for example, this actual review.

“Aromas of peach, oatmeal, subtle notes of charred peat, seasoned by complex lees derived characters, with flashes of matchstick. The palate has intense fruit power in the spectrum of nectarine to peach stone fruits is deftly laced with complex seasoned oak that adds a zesty orange rind and ginger component to the wine.”

Then, there’s this:

“Deeply scented black cherries fuse with toasted marshmallow, sweet custard pie and cinnamon sticks. Well seasoned oak supports the floral scent of musky black roses and a savory thorny understory like a briar growing through straw mulch after a recent rain.”

Well, OK then.  Bottoms up.

I bring this all up because I stumbled upon this report about a vial of unmatured malt whisky that was blasted into the cosmos aboard the Space Station.

Leaving aside the issue of why a trillion-dollar space program has become a booze cruise, it seems like zero gravity doesn’t do a lot for spirits.

The BBC reports that taste tests have detected "major differences" between Earth-bound whisky and the vial that flew in the Space Station for some three years, where it matured along with the same charred oak that was aging with whisky on Earth.

The experiment was conducted by Ardberg Distillery in, where else, Scotland.

"Its intense aroma had hints of antiseptic smoke, rubber and smoked fish, along with a curious, perfumed note, like violet or cassis, and powerful woody tones, leading to a meaty aroma," the Ardbeg tasting notes state.

 "The taste was very focused, with smoked fruits such as prunes, raisins, sugared plums and cherries, earthy peat smoke, peppermint, aniseed, cinnamon and smoked bacon or hickory-smoked ham. The aftertaste is intense and long, with hints of wood, antiseptic lozenges and rubbery smoke."

I’m not sure what it tasted like before the launch, but if they’re going to be selling a product that tastes like rubber, throat lozenges and smoked prunes, I think I’ll pass.

Actually, if we’re going to have cocktail hour in space, there’s no need to deliver it via rocket.

It seems scientists have discovered massive cloud of alcohol called Sagittarius B2.  Located near the constellation Aquila, the cloud is 1000 times larger than the diameter of our solar system. It contains enough ethyl alcohol to fill 400 trillion trillion pints of beer.

 One wag called in God’s Liquor Cabinet.

It’s 58 quadrillion miles away so getting there would be a bit of a chore. But think of the party they’re going to have when they get there.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector 1.

A Blast From the Past

It’s funny how a name from the past will pop up in the news from time to time.

Take William McKinley, for example.

I hadn’t thought of him in years. In fact, I haven’t thought of him at all.

But there he was this past week, grabbing headlines from coast to coast.

It seems our 25^th President has had his name stripped from the tallest mountain in the U.S., located in Alaska. It will now be known as Denali, which it was called for thousands of years before a prospector attached McKinley’s name to it in 1896.

The prospector was a gold miner and McKinley was a staunch supporter of the Gold Standard. You can draw your own conclusions.

The change came with the blessings of President Obama who just so happened to visiting Alaska at the time. That's a good way to draw an appreciative crowd.

It seems the natives have been restless for years about having their 20,237 foot peak named after a man who never laid eyes on it or set foot in Alaska.

Indeed, Alaskans has been seeking the name change since 1975, but Ohio politicians who count McKinley as a native son and kindred spirit blocked every attempt.

So Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced that the mountain would be renamed under authority of federal law which permits her to name geographic features if the Board of Geographic Names does not act within a "reasonable" period of time.

 Jewell cited the board's failure to act on the state's four-decade-old request, saying "I think any of us would think that 40 years is an unreasonable amount of time.”

Ohioans were outraged. To hear tell, they rank McKinley up there with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Moses, Caesar and Hammurabi as great leaders.

They found voice in House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio whose primary job seems to be uttering knee-jerk criticisms of President Obama.

Boehner said he was "disappointed" in the decision. "There is a reason President McKinley’s name has served atop the highest peak in North America for more than 100 years, and that is because it is a testament to his great legacy," he said in a statement.

Not to be outdone, Donald Trump tweeted, “President Obama wants to change the name of Mt. McKinley to Denali after more than 100 years. Great insult to Ohio. I will change back!"

He apparently failed to check in with his close personal friend Sarah Palin who, as governor of Alaska, referred to the mountain as Denali.

Putting all the political rhetoric aside, what about McKinley’s legacy?  If we remember him at all, it was because he was assassinated by a crazed anarchist and replaced with the truly memorable Teddy Roosevelt.

Check the rankings of American presidents by historians or political scientists and he comes out above average, even underrated, but not top tier. A composite of recent presidential rankings found that McKinley came in at 19th among the 43 men who have held the office, according to the Washington Post.

"He tends to be stuck in the middle—not great but not terrible," said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston who did his own ranking last year.

"The problem is this is where presidential legacies go to be forgotten," he said. The ones whose tenures were lukewarm are taught less often in schools and chronicled by fewer historians. "He's kind of victim to this sort of zone of forgotten presidents."

Interestingly enough, McKinley broke with many precedents, according to the Post article.  In the past, presidents didn't speak directly with the public on policy issues and didn't campaign on behalf of their fellow party members or themselves.

McKinley did both. He was talking about leaving the continental United States to visit Hawaii and Puerto Rico before his death, something no president had done in office before. And he held press briefings, leaked news to reporters, and used mailings and printed propaganda.

So it seems right and proper that he should have something named after him. It has been pointed out that there is no city in Ohio named McKinley. Given that fact, renaming Cleveland might be as good idea. It’s a bit of a comedown from a massive mountain but if there was ever a city that could use an image upgrade….

McKinley is not forgotten, however. There is a memorial library and museum in Niles, Ohio, that would do Washington, D.C. proud.

He is even remembered in Southern California. He was beloved in Redlands because he kept foreign oranges out of America and made the city wealthy.

In 1903, President Roosevelt, came to town to unveil a memorial bust of McKinley atop a granite pedestal, engraved "Patriot, Statesman, Martyr." The head was sheltered beneath a fancy stone canopy supported by columns.

The canopy and columns have since disappeared -- as has Redlands' orange supremacy -- but McKinley's head remains.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector 1.

They Also Run

Tired of Trump? Cynical about Clinton? Bewildered by Bush? Scared of Sanders? Had it with Huckabee?

Do you wring your hands over the prospect of a presidential election featuring two candidates that inspire no one? Do you furrow your brow over choosing between the lesser of two evils? Do you wonder how the greatest nation on earth can offer us nothing more than a gaggle of career politicians?

Well, fear not my friends. Because we’re here to tell you that at last count there are nearly 700 candidates who have declared for the presidency. And all that separates them from their White House dreams is your undying support and a few hundred million dollars.

So in the interest of fair play, we offer a list of duly registered presidential aspirants who bring unique qualities to the political arena. Except one: electablity.

For the record, ladies and gentlemen, we present:

Vermin Love Supreme, an American performance artist and activist, is known for running as an alternative candidate in various local, state, and national elections. He is usually seen wearing a boot as a hat and carrying a large toothbrush and says that if elected President of the United States, he will pass a law requiring people to brush their teeth. He campaigned in 2012 on a platform of zombie apocalypse awareness (and zombie-based energy plan) and time travel research.  He promises a free pony for every American.

Limberbutt McCubbins is a Democratic Party candidate from Louisville, Ky., who  has legally filed and been approved for the race. The only drawback is that McCubbins is a cat.  But there is precedent here. Boston Curtis, a brown mule, was offered as a candidate for a Republican precinct seat in Milton, Washington in 1938, winning 51 to zero. Hank the Cat from Northern Virginia, ran against Tim Kaine and George Allen for Virginia's Senate seat in 2012. He earned third place in the state, with nearly 7,000 votes. A possible running mate for McCubbins is Mr. Crawfish B. Crawfish of New Orleans who has filed to run for president but would probably accept the second spot on the ticket.  He also might end up being McCubbins’ lunch.

Deez Nuts, an independent candidate who hails from Wallingford, Iowa, is polling at 9 percent in the sampling from North Carolina — after posting similar numbers in polls of Minnesota (8 percent) and Iowa (7 percent).  However, it turns out Deez Nuts, who says his real name is Brady Olson, is about to enter his sophomore year in high school, and is a full two decades shy of being able to legally run for president of the United States. A Mark C. Olson, who is listed at the Wallingford address on Deez Nuts's FEC filing, said via Twitter that Deez Nuts is "my 15 year old son."

Then there is David Sponheim, the "America's Third Party" candidate who a few years ago made a video of himself in full blackface as President Obama; HRM Caesar St. Augustine de Buonaparte who plans to replace every government employee who does not have an IQ of at least 150; and Pogo Allen-Reese, the "Patriot Prancer"— a former male stripper who can be seen online in nothing but a cowboy hat and a thong. He says he’s based his campaign around three Gs: “God, guns, gold.” And maybe g-strings.

Add to the list: His Majesty Satan Lord of Underworld Prince of Darkness of College Station, Texas and Sydneys Voluptuous Buttocks of Buffalo, New York.  Mr. Darkness is running as a Republican.

Others who have filed include Queen Elsa Ice, Buddy the Elf, Jedi Obi Wan Kenobi, Jean-Luc Picard, Jeffrey Dahmer, Sir Cookie Zealot, Bippy the Clown  and Mr. Ronald Regan’s Ghost.

You might very well be thinking at this point, “What the heck? Can anyone file papers to run for President?”

The answer is a resounding and unequivocal “yes.”

All you have to do is submit a statement of candidacy to the Federal Election Commission. The FEC is not responsible for checking out a would-be candidate’s qualifications.

Then, it gets sticky. While anyone can file the paperwork, only those who have spent or received $5,000 on their campaigns are considered official candidates, according to an FEC spokesperson.

Of course, you will be required to show that you are a natural born citizen of the U.S. who is over 35 and has lived in the country for at least 14 years.

This could be a problem for McCubbins the cat who is five years old. But is owner claims he is 35 in cat years. This debate could go to the Supreme Court.

If you plan to contest for the Democratic or Republican nomination, you need to be on the primary ballot in enough states to get the delegates you need at the convention.

Next, just beat all your party’s other candidates and smite your opponent in the presidential debates.

Do that and they’ll play “Hail to the Chief” wherever you go.

After all, in America, anyone can become President.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles 

Remembrances of Disasters Past

While we’re waiting to see if this year’s El Nino will be a drought buster, a dud or a disaster, we may want to contemplate a series of storms that once dumped 66 inches of rain on Los Angeles in one season and turned vast portions of California into an inland sea.

According to experts, it could happen again.

Retelling the tale serves to underscore the point that California is no stranger to weather extremes. Droughts are followed by torrential rains. Torrential rains are followed by droughts. We should be prepared for either. But too often we’re not.

The story of this megastorm is told by B. Lynn Ingram, a professor in the Earth and Planetary Science Department at UC Berkeley.  It appeared in Scientific American.

In 1861, farmers and ranchers were praying for rain after two exceptionally dry decades. In December their prayers were answered with a vengeance, as a series of monstrous Pacific storms slammed—one after another—into the West coast of North America, from Mexico to Canada. The storms produced the most violent flooding residents had ever seen, before or since.

Sixty-six inches of rain fell in Los Angeles that year, more than four times the normal annual amount, causing rivers to surge over their banks, spreading muddy water for miles across the arid landscape.

 Large brown lakes formed on the normally dry plains between Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean, even covering vast areas of the Mojave Desert. In and around Anaheim, flooding of the Santa Ana River created an inland sea four feet deep, stretching up to four miles from the river and lasting four weeks.

Residents in northern California, where most of the state’s 500,000 people lived, were contending with devastation and suffering of their own. In early December, the Sierra Nevada experienced a series of cold arctic storms that dumped 10 to 15 feet of snow, and these were soon followed by warm atmospheric rivers storms.

The series of warm storms swelled the rivers in the Sierra Nevada range so that they became raging torrents, sweeping away entire communities and mining settlements in the foothills—California’s famous “Gold Country.”

 A January 15, 1862, report from the Nelson Point Correspondence described the scene: “On Friday last, we were visited by the most destructive and devastating flood that has ever been the lot of ‘white’ men to see in this part of the country. Feather River reached the height of 9 feet more than was ever known by the ‘oldest inhabitant,’ carrying away bridges, camps, stores, saloon, restaurant, and much real-estate.”

Drowning deaths occurred every day on the Feather, Yuba and American rivers. In one tragic account, an entire settlement of Chinese miners was drowned by floods on the Yuba River.

This enormous pulse of water from the rain flowed down the slopes and across the landscape, overwhelming streams and rivers, creating a huge inland sea in California’s enormous Central Valley—a region at least 300 miles long and 20 miles wide.

Water covered farmlands and towns, drowning people, horses and cattle, and washing away houses, buildings, barns, fences and bridges. The water reached depths up to 30 feet, completely submerging telegraph poles that had just been installed between San Francisco and New York, causing transportation and communications to completely break down over much of the state for a month.

One-quarter of the state’s estimated 800,000 cattle drowned in the flood, marking the beginning of the end of the cattle-based ranchero society in California. One-third of the state’s property was destroyed, and one home in eight was destroyed completely or carried away by the floodwaters.

Sacramento, 100 miles up the Sacramento River from San Francisco, was (and still is) precariously located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American rivers.

In 1861, the city was in many ways a hub: the young state’s sparkling new capital, an important commercial and agricultural center, and the terminus for stagecoaches, wagon trains, the pony express and riverboats from San Francisco.

The levees built to protect Sacramento from catastrophic floods crumbled under the force of the rising waters of the American River. In early January the floodwaters submerged the entire city under 10 feet of brown, debris-laden water.

California’s new Governor, Leland Stanford, was to be inaugurated on January 10, but the floodwaters swept through Sacramento that day, submerging the city. Citizens fled, yet the inauguration ceremony took place at the capitol building anyway, despite the mounting catastrophe.

Stanford was forced to travel from his mansion to the capital building by rowboat. Following the expedited ceremony, with floodwaters rising at a rate of one foot per hour, Stanford rowed back to his mansion, where he was forced to steer his boat to a second story window in order to enter his home. Conditions did not improve in the following weeks. 

California’s legislature, unable to function in the submerged city, finally gave up and moved to San Francisco on January 22, to wait out the floods. Sacramento remained underwater for months.

Dependent on property taxes, the State of California went bankrupt. The governor, state legislature, and state employees were not paid for a year and a half.

Ingram warns that the lessons of the 1861-62 floods should provide the impetus for flood disaster planning efforts in a region where housing developments and cities are spreading across many floodplains. A critical element of living in a place like California is an awareness of these natural disasters, which requires a deep understanding of the natural patterns and frequencies of these events.

Today we have building codes for earthquake safety, she writes, but millions of new westerners are not aware of the region’s calamitous climate history. Most have never even heard of the 1861–62 floods, and those may not have been the worst that nature can regularly dish out to the region.

Ingram and her colleagues believe similar if not larger floods have occurred every one to two centuries over the past two millennia in California.

If they are right, we had better prepare for another Big One.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector 1.

Bob's Burgers

"You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars....We have munched Bridge burgers in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge and Cable burgers hard by the Golden Gate, Dixie burgers in the sunny South and Yankee Doodle burgers in the North....” 

---Charles Kuralt.

Vegetarian?  Not me.

I’m an unapologetic carnivore. My idea of a truly fine meal is a prime rib, steak, chops or ribs.  In moderation, of course.

But if my meat intake was limited to one selection, it would be the burger, simply prepared and right off the grill. Open wide and let the juices run down your arms and drip off your elbows.

I am not alone. In Denver recently, a friend took me to a place call Bud’s, a dive hard by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of civilization. The menu: hamburgers or cheeseburgers, served with a bag of chips on a paper plate. Onions and pickles on the side. Ketchup and mustard on the table.

It’s cash only. And if you want fries or a salad or coq au vin, take a hike back to town.

The place is always packed, filled with families, cowboys, bikers, or people like me who think that for an hour or so, it doesn’t get much better than this: a truly tasty burger, a little country music on the jukebox, a cold beer and a total absence of pretention.

It is a perfect homage to the Great American Hamburger.

While we may claim the hamburger as our own, it may or may not be an American invention. There are more conflicting claims as to its origins then there are McDonald’s franchises. But it is shared and loved, like America itself, by people regardless of race, color, creed or national origin. Hot dogs be damned.

It has survived assaults by health Nazis and fierce competition from pizza, gyros, tacos, sushi, dim sum, shish kabobs and Swedish meatballs, brought to our shores for better or worse by waves of immigrants.

It also survived assembly line production by fast food franchises that sold convenience rather than quality. I ate at McDonald’s plenty of times, mostly when my kids were young. At no time did I ever walk out the door thinking, “Wow, was that a great meal.”

Of course, McDonald’s never promised great food. Only fast food. And it did it so well it became one of America’s greatest business success stories.

All of that appears to be changing. McDonald’s said last month that U.S. same-store sales dropped 2 percent in the second quarter, the seventh straight decline.

The company noted that a main reason for the tepid results was because "featured products and promotions did not achieve expected consumer response amid ongoing competitive activity."

Translation: The food is lousy and people are eating elsewhere.

Indeed, McDonald’s came in dead last in a new survey which measures how satisfied consumers are with fast food restaurants. 

CNN reported that owners of McDonald's restaurants around the world are grappling with shrinking sales, slumping traffic and stiff competition from more exciting rivals that are serving up appetizing menus.

It's gotten so bad that McDonald's franchisees are worried about the food they serve and more pessimistic about their future than at any time over the past dozen years, according to a new survey conducted by Janney Capital.

Among other concerns, McDonald's franchisees expressed deep frustration with the top brass at McDonald's headquarters and their inability to improve and simplify the chain's complex menu.

But the real reason is that, while we may think that as consumers we are manipulated by our culinary overlords, we are in fact the masters of our fate. We wanted something better and we’re getting it.

A number of chains have emerged that offer what McDonald’s and its ilk never did: high quality offerings cooked to order. Gone are the days of microwaved mystery meat stuffed in a Styrofoam box.

Interestingly enough, many of these new chains have emerged from Southern California which as usual is an incubator of new ideas. Unami Burger, The Counter and The Habit started here and are expanding throughout the country and beyond to places like Dublin and Dubai.

And, of course, there’s the venerable In-N-Out Burger which has achieved cult status but still isn’t available east of the Mississippi.

Unami is a sit-down, full service restaurant offering a dozen unique takes on the burger. The Counter claims to offer 300,000 potential burger combinations. The Habit won Consumer Reports' top spot for the best-tasting burger in the country, beating out competitors like In-N-Out Burger.

Now, if we could just get a decent pizza in this town.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector 1.

Stormy Weather

Back when a city desk was my workplace, my colleagues and I would exchange knowing glances each year as firefighters solemnly announced their predictions for the upcoming fire season.

It was never good news.

If it had been a dry year, they would warn us that the brush could explode into a conflagration of Old Testament proportions.  If we had experienced a wet year, we were cautioned that all that rain had caused more brush to grow, raising the specter of even worse fires.

It seemed like we couldn’t win at the weather game.

I was reminded of that when we were told a powerful El Nino condition this year could mean our parched little corner of the world could get good and wet.

Drought-weary residents are so overjoyed at the prospect that they’re dancing on their artificial lawns and toasting each other with overflowing glasses full of tap water.

But El Nino is not always a good boy. And his appearance should be viewed with  caution and cynicism. 

As we have seen already this year, heavy downpours cause damage. Mudslides and flooding have already occurred and if this is indeed the climatological Big One, as many predict, it could be far worse.

Our very own Bill Patzert at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena said recently, “This is not a puny El Nino but a Godzilla El Nino.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen “Godzilla” but if memory serves, the legendary monster trashed half the Pacific Rim.

Just to refresh our memories, this is how the last big El Nino event was reported in 1998:

“A big storm, driven by El Nino and expected for months, hit California with driving rain and hurricane-force winds yesterday, sending thousands fleeing to high ground…

“Eighteen-foot waves threatened beach homes in Southern California and winds up to 80 miles an hour uprooted trees and left thousands of people without power. A falling tree killed one person in Northern California.

“High waves in Southern California battered piers and eroded the dunes that protect beachfront homes. Santa Barbara County got some of the heaviest rain, with more than 13 inches since Sunday. Waves over 30 feet high were reported at Pacifica, south of San Francisco.

“Interstate 80, a main link for communities between San Francisco and Sacramento, was closed by flooding, and Interstate 5, California's main north-south freeway, was blocked in several spots.

“Amtrak canceled all north-south trains from San Diego to Seattle because of flooded tracks.”

February 1998 remains the wettest February on record in downtown Los Angeles with a total of 13.68 inches. That is more rain than Los Angeles has registered since January 2014.

It was the best of times for roofers, contractors, tow truck operators and umbrella manufacturers.

It was the worst of times for many others. It caused $35 billion in damage worldwide, and 23,000 people died – from wildfires in drought-stricken Indonesia and Australia to catastrophic flooding and mudslides in Ecuador and Peru.

But let’s look on the sunny side, so to speak. El Nino means the end of the drought, right?

Probably not. According to one report, the state needs a very wet winter just to get soil moisture back to near-normal levels, and a good deal more than that to bring California’s reservoirs and groundwater close to their long-term average.

 "It takes years to get into a drought of this severity, and it will likely take many more big storms, and years, to crawl out of it," said NASA’s Jay Famiglietti.

The lesson here is that we need to continue drought-mitigation policies so we don’t spend the rest of our lives in the don’t flush, don’t shower, rip out the grass mode that we find ourselves in today. The worse thing we can do is to decide that El Nino will end our need to conserve.

And then there’s the prospect that El Nino could become El Foldo.

Tony Barnston, lead El Nino forecaster at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University, cautioned that while El Nino has predictable effects and this one is strong, what happens next is not exactly certain.

Take the much-anticipated wet 2014-15 winter. It fizzled.

JPL’s Patzert explained it this way to colleague Steve Scauzillo:

“The El Niño had a very promising, dramatic surge in January, February and March, but now as we enter summer, all of a sudden it is disappearing. The great wet hope is going to be the great wet disappointment.”

Best advice?  Be prepared for anything.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector 1.