The Sinking of the Sultana

I was watching BookTV the other night and caught part of a segment featuring Alan Huffman’s book Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison, and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History.
I was surprised to hear that the Sultana was the deadliest maritime disaster in United States history. (More on the disaster here).
In short, a boiler blew on a severely-overcrowded steamboat just north of Memphis, causing approximately 1,800 ex-Union soldier POWs to burn, drown, or freeze to death. [To put this death toll in context, 1,758 Union soldiers died at Shiloh, and 1,517 people died when the Titanic sunk].
I’m sure I’ve read about this incident at one time or other in passing–I was a history major, after all–but for whatever reason it didn’t stick with me. News of the sinking was largely overshadowed at the time by the end of the Civil War and the assassination of President Lincoln. After the event people were reluctant to investigate and pursue the army corruption that had contributed to the disaster because the nation was recovering from a war that this same military had just won. Thus, it has largely been forgotten.
What makes my ignorance of this event even more noteworthy is that there’s a local tie-in. Since 1865, there have been many reunions of Sultana survivors, descendants, or historians here in East Tennessee, including one this spring. There’s also a memorial marker in the Mt. Olive Baptist Church in South Knoxville (picture).
I’ve ridden by that cemetery a number of times, but never stopped there. Sometime I should. It a shame to miss out on the history that’s hidden in plain sight.
For updates on all things Sultana, check out the Sultana Disaster blog.

Open Up Interstate 40 To Cyclists!

For the past year a section of Interstate 40 near downtown Knoxville has been closed while workers widen the highway and redo a couple intersections.
The project is nearing completion. I see on the Knoxville News-Sentinel website that TDOT is planning on holding a mile-long footrace on this section of interstate immediately before it reopens to vehicular traffic.

“It’ll give people a chance to do something they’ll never do again,” said Travis Brickey, regional spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Transportation.

The article suggests that there will also be a non-competitive period when the section will be open for pedestrians and families with strollers to use.
I hope this includes cyclists. I’d like to (legally) ride my bike on I-40. It would also send a message about the importance of cycling to this community.

Creating A Bicycling Mileage Graph In Google Documents

Yesterday I made my first real foray into Google Documents. I’ve been recording my cycling mileage on Excel spreadsheets and thought it would be a good idea to back them up elsewhere. I noticed that Google has a spreadsheet application so I thought I’d check it out.
By and large the user interface is easy to figure out. It’s uncluttered. It took me a few minutes to find out how to do a few things, but it wasn’t too bad. There is a user help section which I did consult a couple times.
The spreadsheets I imported are saved in Office ’97 (yes, ancient). I’ve used three different designs over the past six years. I had conversion formatting issues with each of them (e.g., column width or dollar signs added to some of the numbers.) One year was completely messed up. Odd, since two similar sheets imported much better.
While I was in spreadsheet mode I decided to create a graph with the data. The task was fairly straightforward with the graph feature:

Two trends stick out to me:

This shows the seasonal nature of cycling. In the winter it’s nasty and there’s not much daylight. Consequently, my winter monthly mileage is down as much as 50%.
I stepped my riding up a level at the start of 2005 summer, which, not coincidentally, was when I upgraded my bike.

Overall I’m satisfied with Google Docs. It’s a nice tool for the cost (free). And it’s an easy way to share files with other people.

Financial/Economic Blogs I’m Reading

There’s been a lot of financial news happening the past eight months–stuff you might miss even if you watch CNBC or Bloomberg news. Reading financial-related weblogs (and accompanying comments) helps keep me up on events. Sure, some Internet commentary may be over the top or wrong. But, taken as a whole, it gives me a better picture of what’s really happening.
There’s a lot of good stuff out there; I can’t read it all. These are sites I check in on almost on a daily basis.
I’ve been following these for months:
Calculated Risk
Global Economic Analysis
In the last few weeks I’ve added:
The Market Ticker
Within the last few days this blog has emerged on my radar screen:
Zero Hedge
I also give a shout out to the site of one of my college classmates:
Macro and Other Market Musings

Internet Forums English Annoys Me

Today, over at Bike Forums, I received the following message from a new forum member:

how ya doin? bike noob here. interested in finding someone close by that knows some good places to ride. know anyone interested in some laid back riding?

I considered not replying to the question simply because the questioner used the so-called word noob (plus the writer didn’t bother to mention where he or she lives).
I’m not a Grammer Nazi; anyone who has read this site before knows I make my share of mistakes. But at least I try to use standard English.
What is it about forums that seemingly invites users to unload word fragments and other common gibberish on the innocent public? “Words” such as srsly, prolly, ‘cuz, r, u, and dunno. Not to mention the rampant non-use of capitalization.
Google Language Tools should add an “Internet Forums” option to its translation box so you can convert some of this stuff to English.
I assume some of this usage is an extension of the texting culture; people are simply too lazy to type out words.
Whatever the case, it annoys me.

Tennessee ‘Saggy Pants Bill’

Tennessee is facing its highest unemployment rate in decades and a budget shortfall of billions of dollars. So what pressing role has the legislature taken up during this crisis?
According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, a House subcommittee has assumed the role of fashion police:

House Bill 2099 would make it a Class C misdemeanor for any person to knowingly wear pants below the waistline, in a public place, exposing underwear or bare buttocks.
Punishment:
First citation: $200 fine and 40 hours of community service work.
Second: $500 and 80 hours.
Third: $750 and 120 hours.
Fourth and subsequent citations: $1,000 and 160 hours.

Even in the best of times it would be hard to justify the legislature wasting time on this kind of thing. To do so under our present circumstances is simply ridiculous.