Did you ever wonder why so many Americans still smoke cigarettes?

By David McClelland

I must tell you that I am fortunate to be from a family of non-smokers and I give my parents full credit for the fact that neither my sister nor I ever smoked. I know that it is a tremendous blessing.

I just finished re-reading John Grisham's 1996 best-selling novel, Runaway Jury, which became a 2003 American drama/thriller movie by the same name, starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Rachel Weisz. Runaway Jury is about a precedent setting lawsuit against a tobacco manufacturer brought by the widow of a chain-smoker. She sued the tobacco company claiming that they intentionally caused her husband to become addicted to their cigarettes and that he later died of lung cancer as a direct result. It is dramatic and, if you haven't yet read the book or seen the movie, I recommend both.

I believe that it was Hustler magazine which, many years ago, published color photos of a man's lungs after he had smoked cigarettes for about 30 years. I don't know if the photos were doctored (please forgive the pun), but the lungs were black and it is difficult to believe that any smokers who saw those photos would fail to quit smoking that very day.

We have lost many famous people to lung cancer. John Wayne's name comes to mind. I recall that he had a lung (and four ribs) removed and continued to act until after he made his last film in 1976, The Shootist. After giving up cigarettes, he later began to chew tobacco and smoke cigars. He died in 1979 at age 72.

The state mandates that those who choose to ride motorcycles wear helmets. I believe that our schools, public and private, should, likewise, be required to include the extreme risks of smoking in their health classes and to pound the dangers home. Such classes should be mandatory for 100% of the students and there should be refreshers courses every year.

Did you ever wonder which are the longest rivers in the world?

By David McClelland

I've wondered about this for some time and finally did the research.
It turns out that, of the top 25 longest rivers in the world, only three (3) are in or adjacent to the United States; i.e., the Mississippi-Missouri in the central U.S., the Rio Grande, beginning in Colorado and continuing along the Texas-Mexico border and the Yukon in Alaska and Canada. Those U.S. rivers are 3,870 miles, 1,900 miles and 1,980 mile long, respectively.

The longest two on each of the other continents are:
Africa: the Nile, at 4,135 miles is the longest in the world and the Niger, at 2,590 miles.
South America: the Amazon, at 3,980 miles and the Parana, at 2,485 miles.
Australia: the Murray-Darling, at 2,094 miles (the only one in the top 25.)
Asia: the Chang Jiang (Yangtze), at 3,917 miles and the Huang He, at 3,395 miles.
Europe: the Yenisey, at 3,434 miles and the Ob-Irtysh, at 3,354 miles.

The longest river, the Nile, runs through Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa. The Amazon runs through Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Guyana in South America.

You could sail all day and never get near the other end of either of these two rivers.

Did you ever wonder where spiders are between sightings?

By David McClelland

While sitting in a doctor's office recently, I spotted a small spider on the table with the magazines. It was very busy moving about the table from one magazine to another and I imagined that it was reading the headlines to make decisions for later reading.

Then, I wondered where the spiders spend their time when they are out of sight. I did a little research and this is what I learned. Spiders live almost everywhere. They live in the hottest of climates from rainforests to deserts. They live in water, forests, trees, gardens and peoples' homes.

If you think that spiders are insects, they are not. They belong to a group of animals called arachnids which does not include insects. Spiders have 8 legs whereas insects have 6. Arachnids don't have wings, whereas insects do. Spiders use the hairs on their bodies to sense the world around them, but insects have antennae that grow from their heads to sense things.

Spiders vary greatly in size. Some are large enough to eat birds, mice and frogs. Others are so small that they can barely be seen with the naked eye. As you probably know, the largest spiders are the tarantulas. Most spiders are poisonous, but only a few are dangerous to humans. Since spider bites can be painful, it is best to avoid them. Only two spiders in North America are dangerous to humans. They are the brown recluse spider and the female black widow. The brown recluse cannot live in temperatures below 40 degrees F. and few are found in Michigan. In fact, there have been only two sightings. The brown recluse has three pairs of eyes arranged in a semicircle on the front of its head. It also has a violin-shaped marking between its eyes. They are most active at night and prefer dark, undisturbed areas. Its bites are seldom fatal, but do require medical attention.

Spiders can move quickly and some baby spiders can move through the air. They cling to silk threads that are blown by the wind. This is called ballooning. The silk is produced by the spiders' own bodies. Many spiders use the silk to spin their webs. The webs are sticky and if an insect comes into contact with the webs, they will stick to it and the spider will go to it, inject its poison into it and then eat it. That tells me that spiders are immune to their own poison. Sometimes, a spider will wrap its captive insect in its silk to eat later.

Not all spiders weave webs. Those that don't are called hunting spiders. The tarantula is one example. They go out hunting for their prey. Jumping spiders attack their prey by jumping on them. Some spiders even eat other spiders. Spiders are not easy to like and you may not know a single person who likes them, but they do us some good by eating insects that are harmful to plants or which carry disease.

In Michigan, the version of the black widow is not nearly a big as one would think from seeing them in the movies. The body of the female is about ½ inch long (1 ½ inches including its legs). Males are even smaller. Black widows are black, shiny and have very round abdomens. Females (only) have a red hourglass marking on the underside of its abdomen. This type of spider is often found around woodpiles and may be encountered when a homeowner carries firewood into his house. Its bites are sharp and painful and, if bitten, one should seek medical attention immediately. One should wear gloves for the wood carrying job.

Spiders are here to stay and it is wise of us to know all about them.

Did you ever wonder where our electricity comes from?

By David McClelland

Well, I did and I did the research. What I learned was most interesting.

The sources of the electricity in the U.S. in descending order are:

Coal – 56%, Nuclear – 22.38%, Natural Gas – 9.3%, Hydroelectric – 9.3%,
Petroleum – 3%, Biomass/other - .02% and, Imported - .02%. It would appear that coal
mining won't become obsolete any time soon. And, the percent of our electricity that still comes from coal is our most polluting and most plentiful fossil fuel.

What is Biomass, you ask? I learned that it is derived from timber, agriculture, food processing wastes and from fuel crops. It also comes from sewage sludge and manure.

Nuclear – No CO2 is expelled into the atmosphere directly from nuclear fission, but when the entire nuclear fuel cycle and plant construction are taken into account, Nuclear produces 4 or 5 times the emissions of renewable energy. If we look at uranium mining and milling, processing, enrichment, fuel fabrication, transportation from centralized manufacturing sites, reactor construction and nuclear waste disposal, it does pollute.

Where you live has a lot to due with your source of electricity. For example, in California, in 1999, 47.2% came from natural gas, 21.1 % from hydroelectric, 17.4% from nuclear, 11.9 % from "other" and only1.2% from coal. In Michigan, we get 68.2% from coal, 14.1% from nuclear, 13% from natural gas, 2.7% from "other," including 1.4% from petroleum and .5% from hydroelectric. As you might expect, West Virginia gets 98.6% of its electricity from coal.

What about solar panels and windmills? So far, those sources are so small, at least on a percentage basis, that they don't even show up in the statistics. Sad, but true.

My last question was, "Where does Michigan's coal come from?" From what I could learn, 100% of our coal is imported from other states, namely Wyoming, Kentucky and Montana. We paid $1.36 billion to import coal in 2008 for our power plants.

Any questions?

Did you ever wonder how many types of Spies are out there?

By David McClelland

Many years ago, I read the John le Carre novel, published in 1963, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, about a British cold war spy. Graham Greene called it the "finest spy story ever written." That story raised uncomfortable questions about espionage in a democracy. When I read a review of that novel recently, it made me wonder what other types of spies are out there.

My research revealed that spies come from many different backgrounds and are recruited by espionage agencies for a variety of reasons. Of course, many spies are attracted by the money, but some are motivated by deeply held beliefs and are known as "walk-in" spies because they require no persuasion. Yet others become spies because they are being blackmailed, and still others because it makes them feel important. As "plants," spies work their way into target organizations where they can collect intelligence. Recruiting an "agent-in-place" is sometimes easier than penetration. These trusted "insiders" have access to secrets even before being recruited and they are be recruited by either blackmail or bribery.

Since biblical times, traders kept their eyes and ears open when they traveled abroad.
M16, the British secret service agency, encouraged businesses to sell parts for weapons such as the "Supergun" to Iraq in the 1980's. The exporters brought back intelligence that was considered to be highly valuable by M16.

Most spies are "illegals" and, if they are discovered, our government prosecutes them.

Women have often served as spies, especially during times of war. They were often successful and unsuspected, especially if society assumed that women's proper role was in the domestic, and not the public, sphere. Some women who were spies for the North during the Civil War that helped the Union's cause were Pauline Cushman, Sarah Emma Edmonds, Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Van Lew, Mary Edwards Walker and Mary E. Bowser.

In fiction, The Good Shepard is the story of an American traitor who once said that the best way to hide a lie is to wrap it in several layers of truth. It is a trick that serves not only spies, but also clever Hollywood scriptwriters. Such is the case of The Good Shepard, a clock-and-dagger thriller that purports to tell the story of the CIA's early days as seen through the eyes and career of Edward Wilson, played by Matt Damon. Wilson is patterned after legendary spy-catcher, James Jesus Angleton.

Three books on spies which you may find of interest are, Spies, A Novel, By Michael Frayan, Spies, the Undercover World of Secrets, by David Owen and Antonia Mendez and Spies: Real People, Real Stories. If you like spy stories, I recommend these.

Did you ever wonder which 20th Century inventions are the most important to you?

By David McClelland

Of course, the answer to this hypothetical question will be different for each of us, but I'll bet if we each listed our "Top Ten," we would have some in common.

Before reading on, jot down your "Top Ten" off of the top-of-your-head. Ready?

I did the same and here is my list, in no particular order. In know, that is strange because we are used to seeing "Top Ten" lists in some sort of priority order. Anyway, here are the inventions that seem the most important to me and my reasons for choosing them:

1 – The Computer – It is so powerful and I use it more than anything else in my life.
2 – The Internet – Same - I couldn't get through an hour, let alone a day, without it.
3 – Telephones – Including cell phones. We all need to "Keep in touch."
4 – Automobiles – Getting from Point A to Point B and beyond is a major priority.
5 – Televisions – I'm hooked on sports and my 65", flat screen, HD TV is essential.
6 - Airplane – It made cross-country travel a one-day event.
7 – Microwave Ovens – They allow me to "pretend" that I can cook.
8 – Space Travel – I never cease to be amazed by NASA's accomplishments.
9 – Remote Controls – They make life easier for the TV, auto, alarm system, etc.
10 - Pickleball – It opened up a whole new world of sports for seniors!!!

If I could add a few more, I would list:
11 – The ballpoint pen – I am a list maker, so my pen is always with me.
12 – The pill – It made life for carefree for millions.
13 – Contacts & Lasic – They help millions see and enjoy life more.
14 - The compact disk – It allows us to transport music, books and computer files.
15 - Recycling – We all feel better and smarter for going "green."

OK, How many on my list(s) are on yours. I'll bet that there are least 5. Right?
Wasn't that fun???

Did you ever wonder if there are really Salt Mines under Detroit?

By David McClelland

We moved to Michigan in 1978 and I heard something about Salt Mines at that time, but didn't get interested in them until our son recently said that he heard there is an immense Salt Mine under Detroit. Then, I wondered about it too and did the research.

I learned that there is, in fact, a truly gigantic Salt Mine under Detroit. It is reportedly about 1,200 feet beneath the surface, spread out over more than 1,400 acres and contains more than 50 miles of roads. It lies beneath Dearborn's Rouge complex, much of Melvindale and the north end of Allen Park. The entrance to the shaft is in Detroit. The International Salt Mine Company operated the mines until 1983, when falling salt prices brought production to a halt. The Detroit Salt Company, LLC owned the mines from 1998 – 2010 and the then current market was for road salt.

In October of 2010, The Kissner Group, an Ontario-based manufacturer of de-icing products, bought the Salt Mine which still supplies salt for most of the highways in Southeast Michigan, including the Road Commission for Oakland County which has a contract to receive up to 90,000 tons of Salt at $47.28 per ton, or $4.26 million, according to Craig Bryson, the Commissions Public Information officer.

Salt has always been a precious commodity. Jesus called his disciples "the salt of the earth," a statement which is still commemorated during some Roman Catholic baptismal ceremonies when a few grains of salt are placed on the child's tongue.

The early Chinese used coins made of salt and, in Europe, many Mediterranean people used cakes of salt as currency. Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt. The word "salary" comes from "sal," the Latin word for salt.

Major salt deposits found near Syracuse, New York, provided one of the main reasons for the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825. In Michigan, a huge sea covering the region evaporated more than 400 million years ago, forming salt deposits which were gradually buried by glacial activity. This salt bed is spread over 170,000 square miles under Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ontario, Canada. Some estimates suggest that there is enough salt in the Metro Detroit underground mine to last 70 million years.

Salt mining in Detroit began in 1896 with the sinking of a 1,100 foot shaft, but the investors went broke. Flooding and natural gas killed six men during the original construction, but there have been no deaths in the mines since. The Detroit Salt Co. acquired the mineral rights and operated the mine until 1907 when International Salt took over and drilled down 1,200 feet. Originally, the salt was used to preserve food, make ice cream and salt licks, but later it began to be used for industrial purposes and for ice and snow control for Michigan roads.

Although mine tours are not currently available, you can take a virtual tour at www.detroitsalt.com.home.htm