Because Sometimes...You Just Have to Think About it!
While this IS the Holiday Special Edition of the Oklahoma Reporter (and let us be the first to say..."Thanks goodness the summer is over") it wouldn't be "The OKR" if we didn't have a few articles that didn't relate to Thanskgiving and Christmas and such. So....
 Why MPG is a Stupid Measurement
Written by Hank Green
We tend to have bad measurement systems here in the US. We've got a temperature scale where water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 (it's zero and 100 for the rest of the world.) And none of our measurements are compatible with our base10 numbering system. Twelve inches in a foot? 5280 feet in a mile? I mean...come on...
So it should come as no surprise to you that measuring vehicle efficiency in miles per gallon is about as effective a city's population density in square miles per person.
The reason is simple. What we want to know is how many gallons we'll save. But what we're getting is how many miles we can go. This might seem like a small difference, but displaying miles per gallon in gallons per mile immediately shows some huge flaws in our current system
15 mpg = 660 gallons per 10,000 miles
20 mpg = 500 gallons per 10,000 miles
30 mpg = 330 gallons per 10,000 miles
45 mpg = 220 gallons per 10,000 miles
60 mpg = 160 gallons per 10,000 miles
Now, obviously, the most fuel efficient car here is still the 60 mpg car. And that's fantastic. But increasing the mileage of a 15 mpg car to 20 mpg, saves as much gasoline (and carbon) as doubling the mileage of a 30 mpg car to 60 mpg.
But to the consumer's eye, the difference from 15 to 20 might not seem all that important. One might even go so far as to say that they would see it as insignificant. If they're going to buy an inefficient car, what does it matter if they get an extra five miles for every one gallon of gas.
This, in short, is why the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid won Green Car of The Year this year. And while it may seem like the best way to save gas is to make small cars more and more efficient, it's obviously much more important to work on the big cars first.
Not only is a gallons per 10,000 mile system more accurate in terms of efficiency, it's better for the consumer. It shows them exactly how many gallons they'll be burning. And, from there, it's only a quick multiplication to get yourself a big scary number for your gas bills.
Of course, if history is any guide, switching the units will be no easy task. But the next time you're at a dealership, maybe you should bust out your calculator and figure out how many gallons per mile you'll be getting.
Okay...I can see you getting out your calculator and figuring the monthly cost of fuel difference for the 45 mpg vehicle and 30 mpg vehicle and if it is really worth the extra money to ditch your older car and buy a new one just for the mpg. And the answer is....?
Halloween History
 The name Halloween means the evening before All Hallows or All Saints Day.
While the name implies a Christian origin, its beginnings are clearly Pagan. The Druids, and later the Celts, combined celebrations of their New Year and the honoring of the Sun God, the Lord of the Dead. Just as other New Year celebrations signify the passing or death of the old year and the birth of a new year, so is it with the ancient traditions surrounding this holiday.
On this day, the Celts believed the dead came back amongst the living to seek redemption. The sinful souls were forced to take the bodies of animals and through animal sacrifice, their spirits were released from their animal bondage to seek a higher reward. In pagan times, horses and humans were commonly sacrificed. Later black cats were sacrificed because they were thought to be friends of witches.
In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III declared November 1 as All Saints Day to honor the sanctity all the saints. The evening before All Saints Day became known as a day favored by witches, sorcerers, and evil spirits. While all religious relationships have passed, many of the typical pagan traditions remain.
The practice of dressing up in costume begging for food goes back to the pagan New Year's feast. During the feast, it was believed ghosts hung around the tables of food. As soon as the feast was over, the people would dress up in costumes representing the dead to drive the spirits out of town. There are other explanations of the costumes relating to All Saints Day.
The history of the "trick" from "trick or treat" probably relates to Mischief Night. There was an old belief that ghosts and fairies roamed the roads on Halloween night curdling milk and doing other mischievous things.
Today it is a holiday with no religious significance nor serious evil connotations. It is rather a holiday of fun and treats for children. Children dress up in both scary and silly costumes and go door to door asking for candy. Aside from Christmas, it is probably every child's favorite holiday.
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History of the Jack-o-Lantern
 References to pumpkins date back many centuries.
The name pumpkin originated from the Greek word for "large melon" which is "pepon." "Pepon" was nasalized by the French into "pompon." The English changed "pompon" to "Pumpion." Shakespeare referred to the "pumpion" in his Merry Wives of Windsor. American colonists changed "pumpion" into "pumpkin." The "pumpkin" is referred to in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater and Cinderella.
Native Americans dried strips of pumpkin and wove them into mats. They also roasted long strips of pumpkin on the open fire and ate them. The origin of pumpkin pie occurred when the colonists sliced off the pumpkin top, removed the seeds, and filled the insides with milk, spices and honey. The pumpkin was then baked in hot ashes.
People have been making jack-o-lanterns at Halloween for centuries. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed "Stingy Jack." According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn't want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree's bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.
Soon after, Jack died. As the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with it ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as "Jack of the Lantern," and then, simply "Jack O'Lantern."
In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack’s lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. In England, large beets are used. Immigrants from these countries brought the jack o’lantern tradition with them when they came to the United States. They soon found that pumpkins, a fruit native to America, make perfect jack o’lanterns.
Source: The History Channel
The Holidays
Well it just about that time of year again…"the holidays".
When I was growing up we never actually referred to this time of year as "the holidays". We, sort of thought about Halloween…simply because it existed in its strange sort of way…but never really got all that worked up over it. Mainly, to us, Halloween meant that Thanksgiving was just around the corner and after Thanksgiving…came the big one… Christmas…followed by the one night of the year we could stay up for a real, valid reason…to watch the new year come in. (Of course most of the time I fell asleep long before the old year ended and the new one arrived. Funny thing about that…I could never tell the difference.)
Stores didn’t actually have a lot in stock regarding Halloween. You could find masks and a few, cheap children’s costumes at the local "five and dime". Of course, there are no more five and dimes around anymore. And today…Halloween retail sales approach gross revenues nearly equaling that of Christmas. Go figure!
Halloween has emerged from an obscure, little holiday…where you marched your kids from neighbor to neighbor gathering up candy (safe and without worry) to more of a holiday event for adults to head out and get plastered. And, of course to march the kids around from place to place…and then have the candy x-rayed to make sure there is nothing that will harm them. Sort of fits right in to the whole concept of the original "all hallows eve".
And then there is Thanksgiving, the origins of which has nothing to do with the Pilgrims. In fact, Thanksgiving wasn’t a holiday until the 19th century. Yet, when you get past the Pilgrim thing, it is a wonderful day to force the entire family to get together and stuff themselves with more food than possible. As for my family, Thanksgiving was always a most stressful holiday since I worked for the Dallas Cowboys for over twenty-five years…who always played on Thanksgiving Day. This meant that I got to eat Thanksgiving lunch prior to the football game…eat Thanksgiving dinner after the game…wait for the parking lot to empty and wind up pretending that I was starved and eat a third Thanksgiving meal somewhere around 8pm. And the family gave just as much effort trying to keep a happy face while they waited 14 hours to eat their Thanksgiving meal. Tiring isn’t it.
Then Christmas arrives in all its retail glory. In my lifetime, Christmas has gone from a simple holiday about the birth of Christ and night where Santa dropped off a few gifts for the family…to the biggest orgy of buying in the history of man kind. The name Christmas refers to Christ and as such currently many people wanting to call it "The Holiday Season" rather than Christmas. Which is the main point to all of this rambling in the first place.
Okay…so what if Thanksgiving really does not have anything to do with the Pilgrims. You don ‘t hear anybody all up in arms to change the name of this holiday! And yes, over the years, Santa has become a very primary figure in the Christmas event…even though the holiday is Christian in nature and celebrates the birth of Christ…even though we know that his birth was not in the middle of winter. But who really cares about any of that in the first place. It seems that a few people have decided that the name (Christmas) insults other people’s religious beliefs and feelings. I say, "Bah, humbug" to those people!
What we should care about is the fact that the ridiculous Halloween holiday…based on dead spirits rising and such hasn’t really stirred up too much in the overly politically correct American society of today. Hmmm? But have a holiday based on Christ’s name…and oh boy…we cannot have that…it might upset somebody!
I say…who cares if it does! I believe this is still the "land of the free and the home of the brave"…not…"the land of the free and the home of the brave just as long as nobody gets their feelings hurt and just as long as everybody living within our borders has an equal opportunity to be heard".
There are a lot of holidays, with their own names that refer to their own religions and such. You don’t hear anybody claiming politically correct snobbery about them.
So if you don’t like the name Christmas…who cares. It’s obviously not your "holiday"…and just because such…don’t try to change the name of my holiday….which is named Christmas!
And who is it that is responsible for all of this politically correct stuff to begin with? I think it is the same three or four people that used to come over to play and told the entire "gang", "play and do things my way or I am going home".
Know what… you can go home now. Ha!
Michael costin
Enjoy our Special Edition!
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