Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 25, 1993 TAG: 9307250228
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETTY PARHAM and GERRIE FERRIS COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A: He's the fictional character played by Robert Redford in the baseball movie "The Natural," based on the novel of the same name.
Q: While getting my truck's air conditioner fixed, I was told that Freon is heavier than air. How, then, does it get to be such a threat to the ozone? How does it get up there?
A: Atmospheric turbulence. Think of Freon molecules as dust particles in a room. If there were no movement and the air were perfectly still, all the dust would settle. But as long as there are winds, Freon will be stirred up.
Q: Is it true that Gen. William T. Sherman, during his march through Georgia, ordered Confederate prisoners shackled together to march in front of Union troops to detonate land mines?
A: "It's believable, but I have never run across that particular thing," says historian Webb Garrison, who has written six books about the Civil War. The Civil War, although it has been called the last war fought among gentlemen, indeed included heinous incidents. It ended just as the first of what became known as the Geneva Conventions was being accepted. Garrison's file on Civil War atrocities includes an incident in Missouri in 1862 when Union troops, retaliating against Confederate soldiers after a successful raid freed some prisoners, executed by firing squad 10 innocent civilians. Not to be outdone, Confederate troops during the siege of Charleston, S.C., gathered up Union prisoners and put them in the direct line of fire of gunships battering the city.
Q: Certain gay women now refer to themselves openly as "dykes," and the term has been in the paper a number a times. Where did this word come from?
A: The origin of the word is obscure and much debated. In the New Dictionary of American Slang, Armistead Maupin, who writes extensively on gay life, suggests that it is a shortening of morphodyke, a dialectical and substandard pronunciation of "hermaphrodite."
Q: Where does the Mississippi River begin? What makes it so muddy?
A: The Mississippi, which got its name from the Kickapoo and Ojibway Indians, begins as a small clear stream flowing off Lake Itasca in northwestern Minnesota. It ripples northward, then eastward through a series of lakes. At Grand Rapids, Minn., it begins to curve southward. The Missouri River flows into it right above St. Louis, and that's where it picks up the mud. The Missouri is nicknamed "The Big Muddy," because from Montana, where it's clear, it flows through the Great Plains, gathering silt. Farmers say of it: "It's too thick to drink and too thin to plow."
Q: Are there any countries that permit legal marriages between members of the same sex?
A: Only Denmark permits same-sex marriages - as of four years ago. The only hitch: a same-sex couple can't adopt or foster children. No U.S. state, city or other political subdivision permits same-sex marriage, but there are a number of court cases pending.
Q: How did the tradition of running the bulls at Pamplona, Spain, get started?
A: The tradition is part of the San Fermin Festival, celebrated since 1324 in honor of the city's first bishop, St. Fermini. The festival included a footrace between men and bulls, and now it also is marked by a week of bullfights. Six bulls are released daily from a corral to run the narrow street to the ring. Since 1924, when Ernest Hemingway made the festival famous in "The Sun Also Rises," 13 deaths have been linked to the running of the bulls.
Q: Do soda companies ever reuse good aluminum cans as they did with glass pop bottles, or are they all recycled?
A: No used aluminum cans are ever refilled. From recycle bins, they are shredded, melted and poured into ingot molds. Eventually they become new cans, aluminum siding, foil, etc.
Q: Has it ever been decided whether the company that manufactured the faulty mirror lens on the Hubble telescope will be held responsible and made to pay for the repair, which is scheduled for December?
A: A two-year federal inquiry into who was to blame for the flawed $1.5 billion space telescope said there was evidence that the makers of the mirror hid important clues to the flaw, which has crippled the most complex and costly scientific instrument ever put into space. It was reported in October that the Justice Department was preparing to ask the company - Perkin-Elmer Corp. of Norwalk, Conn., which was bought by Hughes Aircraft, a General Motors subsidiary, in 1989 - to pay a substantial amount. A NASA spokeswoman said no action has been taken and that the matter is still in the hands of the Justice Department. The makers of the flawed 8-foot mirror have denied any wrongdoing.
by CNB