Kelvin, Centigrade
Celsius or Fahrenheit
Gosh its hot out there

Of late we have been watching CNN International.

It has weather breaks with world temperatures in Celsius.

Which raised the question how many countries officially use Fahrenheit?

Not many.

According to Wikipedia,

The Fahrenheit scale was the primary temperature standard for climatic, industrial and medical purposes in English-speaking countries until the 1960s. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the Celsius scale replaced Fahrenheit in almost all of those countries—with the notable exception of the United States—typically during their general metrication process.

Fahrenheit is used in the United States, its territories and associated states (all served by the U.S. National Weather Service), as well as the Cayman Islands and Liberia for everyday applications.

So that is about it.

US, Liberia and the Caymans.

It is important to note, the temperature of a body in its own state of thermodynamic equilibrium is always positive, relative to the absolute zero.

Regardless.

When its hot, its hot.

hopes, loves, hates all large,
because nobody brings anything
small into a bar

Watched the last half hour of Harvey last night.

The line “Their hopes and their regrets, their loves and their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar. And then – I introduce them to Harvey. And he’s bigger and grander than anything they offer me. And – and when they leave, they leave impressed. The same people seldom come back, but – that’s – that’s envy, my dear. There’s a little bit of envy in the best of us. That’s too bad. Isn’t it” has a bit of mournful grandeur does it not?

I was reminded of a time when I happened to watch Lost Horizons and Harvey back to back.

The stories of two men, Elwood P. Dowd and Robert Conway, who were looking for something more out of this life.

Two men who found a world of happiness.

Two men who found happiness in maybe make believe other worlds.

One man found such a place inside himself.

Inside his own mind.

He has this line; “Years ago, my mother used to say to me —
she’d say, ‘In this world, Elwood, you
must be –‘ She always called me Elwood.
‘In this world, Elwood, you must be oh,
so smart or oh, so pleasant.’ Well, for
years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.
And you may quote me.”

As an aside, the word ‘pleasant’ is used 11 times in the movie.

How often does it turn up in my conversation?

The other man found another world.

Consider this exchange between Robert Conway’s brother George and Chang.

GEORGE
We better make arrangements to get some porters immediately. Some means to get us back to civilization.

CHANG
Are you so certain you are away from it?

GEORGE
As far away as I ever want to be.

CHANG
Oh, dear.

George wants to leave and does leave and brings Conway with him thought Conway says, “But I believe in this, and I’m not going to lose it.”

Two men who did find their place in the world but found a whole new world to make a place.

Who wouldn’t want that?

There is another common denominator between George Conway and Elwood P. Dowd.

Both men were considered to be crazy.

unprecedented
miracles, every human –
treat them like they are

“Perhaps even more than the death itself, the manner of his death has forced me into a judgment concerning human life and human beings which I have always been reluctant to make,” he wrote.

“Incontestably, alas, most people are not, in action, worth very much; and yet, every human being is an unprecedented miracle.

One tries to treat them as the miracles they are, while trying to protect oneself against the disasters they’ve become.”

Author James Baldwin on the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.