Of politics, heat and honorees

The United States’ political situation continues to heat up for the presidential elections coming up this November. On their campaigns as they continue to expound on their programs of government, President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney are now also trading attacks. Last Tuesday, President Obama was here in Texas with four fund-raising stops in San Antonio and in the capital city of Austin.

Speaking of heat and the weather, Americans have endured the warmest start to any year on record from January to June. Where I am staying with my daughter here in Texas, temperatures were at its highest, 3.5 Fahrenheit degrees above normal, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The National Climatic Center in North Carolina announced that 55 percent of the country was in a moderate to extreme drought by the end of last month. June was the third driest month in Texas with the midwest suffering its worst drought in 50 years. Aquifers that supply wells and springs are still at a low level, and while it may have cooled a little in parts of the state due to occasional quick rains, much of the country is still in the grip of a drought.

One of the drought’s continuing consequences is the attack of leaping plant-eating grasshoppers, hordes of which are tormenting Texas farmers and landscapers as they strip foliage from crops, trees and lawns. I am reminded of our own infestation of farm crops in the Philippines years ago by destructive migratory grasshoppers or locusts called duon in Cebuano.

In this summer heat, thanks to air-conditioning it’s bearable. There was a timely special feature in the Texas Star-Telegram last July 17th, the day the first modern air-conditioning system was designed 110 years ago in 1902 by Willis Haviland Carrier. The Carrier Engineering Corp. was incorporated in 1915 by a group seven men who scraped together $32,600 to start a new industry, providing manufactured weather to factories and workshops across the country.

In 1922, Carter unveiled his centrifugal refrigeration machine, an invention which paved the way for air-conditioned theaters, stores, offices and homes. In Texas, the Palace Theater in Dallas and The Texan in Houston were the first movie theaters to successfully install complete Carrier conditioning systems. Movie theaters would become the place where people experienced air-conditioning for the first time. In 1931, air-conditioners were added to railroad cars. In 1940, household air-conditioners began to be installed in the Fort Worth area. In 1949, the world got its first completely air-conditioned airplane, a Boeing Aircraft Stratocruiser for Pan American Airways.

In 1952, air-conditioning celebrated its 50th anniversary. By then, it had become a billion-dollar industry, as units were installed in factories, offices, stores, homes, hotels, hospitals and skyscrapers. In 1978, Lennox first manufactured electronically controlled multi-speed air handlers. By the 1980s, nearly 75 percent of all buildings in the U.S. had air-conditioning. What a long way worldwide air-conditioning has gone!

We went to see the movie Spider Man in 3D last week. While I am not into that genre anymore, preferring to watch the news and special programs on TV, I went with my daughter to get out of the house and watch the passing scenery as we drive. How surprised I was to find how behind the times I am, what with my already avowed illiteracy in technology and even modern culture! Modern versions in movies and on TV of remakes, or even re-issues of familiar childhood stories, fairy tales, legends and historical sagas we read in school all the way up from elementary through to high school and college have now taken on new magic in the hands of modern day story tellers and production technology.

So now, evenings on Cable and On Demand TV, my daughter and I have watched and enjoyed together Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood, The Three Musketeers and Knights of the Round Table, among others.

And now, to remember and honor outstanding people, living heroes, some quiet and unassuming, but doers and achievers; and those who have passed on leaving their legacies behind to inspire us.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela, on his 94th birthday, was honored for his service by his country this week. In Oslo, Norway, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, 66, gave her long-delayed acceptance speech Saturday to the Norwegian Nobel Committee in front of Norway’s King Harald, Queen Sonja and about 600 dignitaries. She said the Nobel Peace Prize she received 21 years ago while under house arrest, helped “draw me once again into the world of human beings outside of the isolated area in which I lived, to restore a sense of reality to me.”

In broadcasting, still hard working at 80, former CBS news anchor Dan Rather released his memoir, Rather Outspoken, detailing new revelations about his ouster from the network after reporting on alleged discrepancies in George W. Bush’s military service, as well as reviewing his career highlights and how he “landed on his feet.”

To close this extended Bystander-ing, may God continue to bless us, one and all!