Accidental Blogger

A general interest blog

Recent posts

about

  • Southwest Airlines: Screwball Comedy In The Sky

    "Welcome to Chicago, home of the 1908 World Series champions." "We know you have many choices in airlines, and we're just glad you can't afford any of the others." –Southwest flight attendant

    0511-0710-2219-3926_Flight_Attendant 

    Southwest employees are known for their unorthodox in-flight announcements. Apparently, they are at their best on short hops between Texas cities – Houston, Dallas, Austin etc., which serve as daily /weekly commuter flights for many Texans. The flight attendants some times let loose on longer legs too. About five years ago, on my way from Los Angeles to Houston on a Soutwest flight, we were treated to an unusual safety announcement. I don't exactly remember everything that was said. I will try and recollect some of it as best as I can. 

    Welcome to Southwest Flight # *** from Los Angeles to Houston. My name is *** and I will be your flight attendant and cheerleader on this flight. Our flight time is estimated to be 3 hours and 15 minutes. The weather in Houston is currently clear skies and 86 degrees.

    Please keep your seat belts on during take-off, landing and when the Captain turns the seat belt light on. Seat belts should be worn tight and low around your waist like J-Lo wears her pants. (Jennifer Lopez was hot property five years ago)

    This is a non-whining, non-complaining, non-smoking flight. FDA regulations prohibit smoking on all flights. Bathrooms on this plane are equipped with smoke detectors and video cameras. Tampering with the smoke detectors may result in a fine of up to $ xxx. If you think you can not put up with the no-smoking regulations, there are four exits on this plane.

    In case of emergency landing or evacuation over water, your seat cushions can be used as flotation devices; in the event of a water landing please use them to stay afloat and then kick-paddle, kick-paddle to the nearest shore. A Southwest attendant will follow closely with complimentary peanuts and soft drinks.  

    Should the cabin lose pressure during flight, oxygen masks will drop from the overhead area. Please pull the mask over your own face and breathe normally before assisting children and husband with theirs.  

    There was more. Some readers may be very familiar with the shtik. I have just heard it once although I have flown Southwest quite a few times. During the above mentioned L.A – Houston flight, a  Chinese gentleman with limited command of English, complained that he had not understood anything that the flight attendant had announced and also he couldn't properly hear her words because the other passengers were laughing. He was given a set of written safety instructions with diagrams. 

    (Note: you can probably tell that as far as substantive blogging goes, I am running on empty these days)

  • Damage Control Uber Alles

    The oil spill caused by oil giant British Petroleum off Lousiana's gulf coast killed eleven people and it is on its way to becoming the worst ecological diaster in US history. The oil company has been inept at containing the damage so far. Despite the severe damage to its reputation and the focus on its incompetence, BP tried to get legal waivers meant to immunize the company from future lawsuits for damages from fishermen it was trying to recruit for the clean up. The waivers were recalled after the news of the trickery became public.  

  • Who was really behind the Iranian revolution?

    The truth revealed here.

    Ayatollah_khomeini

  • Cactus Flower

    This post is a cut & paste transfer from Facebook where I have been recording the unusual but surprisingly beautiful progress of a cactus plant. Readers who are on my FB list of "friends" may have already seen it. Click on the images for an enlarged view.

    I have had several cactus plants for years – indoors and outdoors. Some on my sunny back porch bloom from time to time . For the first time, an indoors one is sporting a bright flower. Could it be because I placed this one near a large frosted glass window which gets a lot of light?

    But what are those two fuzzy growths… on the two sides forming an isosceles triangle with the flower? Are they future blooms? They grew in the past couple of weeks. I don't remember the pink flower sprouting something like this prior to blossoming. Or perhaps I didn't notice.

    Cactus-1-2010 Cactus-3-2010 
      

    Within just one week, the cactus has gone from sporting a small pink flower, two symmetrical side burns, a rapidly growing bud on a stem, to a large white bloom!

    The changes were visible to the naked eye almost by the hour. It was like watching time lapse photography. I have never seen a cactus do this. Has anyone?

    The photos chronicle the changes from start to finish, starting last Sunday..…

    Cactus-7-2010 Cactus-8-2010 Cactus-10-2010

    The white flower on the long stem is completely different in its look, color, shape and texture from the little pink one that had bloomed close to the cactus bulb. This one is as big as the body of the parent cactus.

    Cactus-9-2010 Cactus-11-2010 Cactus-12-2010

    The cactus is in our master bathroom next to a very large window which lets in a lot of sunlight throughout the day. My husband speculates that the surfeit of light and the moisture from the shower has fooled the cactus into thinking that it is in a very hospitable place for propagation. He thinks that while the pink flower is the usual bloom, the white one is of a more precious variety, containing the pollen. The cactus wants to start a family!

    Alas, the seeds will just be falling into the bathtub next to it or on the window sill. 

  • Jiggling the earth

    Could it be that mullahs and other fundamentalist religious leaders know more about meteorology and geology than we suspect? Earlier this year Pat Robertson blamed the Haitian temblor on voodoo and a pact with the devil. An Iranian mullah recently blamed scantily dressed women for earthquakes.

    A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.

    Iran is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric's unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.

    "Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

    A group of women, led by a graduate student in Purdue University decided to put the Iranian cleric's theory to test by organizing a "Boobquake" on Facebook. Then, see what happened!


     

  • Living architecture: the root bridges of India and Japan

    The following came to me from a friend in an e-mail. I am copying it here with minor edits. I have never seen a root bridge in India, having never been to the far northeast corner of the country. I did see several interesting bridges in Japan but can't recall seeing a living / growing one. (Please click on the thumbnail photos)
     

    In the depths of northeastern India , in one of the wettest places on earth, bridges aren't built — they're grown.

    Root bridge 1 Root bridge 3
     
    Grown from the roots of a rubber tree, the Khasi people of Cherapunjee use betel-tree trunks, sliced down the middle and hollowed out, to create "root-guidance systems." When they reach the other side of the river, they're allowed to take root in the soil. Given enough time a sturdy, living bridge is produced.

    Root bridge 4
     

    The root bridges, some of which are over a hundred feet long, take ten to fifteen years to become fully functional, but they're extraordinarily strong. Some can support the weight of 50 or more people at once. One of the most unique root structures of Cherrapunjee is known as the " Umshiang Double-Decker.It consists of two bridges stacked one over the other!

    Root bridge 5 
     

    Because the bridges are alive and still growing, they actually gain strength over time, and some of the ancient root bridges used daily by the people of the villages around Cherrapunjee may be well over 500 years old.

    Root bridge 6

    But these are not the only bridges built from growing plants. Japan too, has its own form of living bridges. These are The Vine Bridges of Iya Valley.

     Root bridge 7

    One of Japan's three "hidden" valleys, West Iya is home to the kind of misty gorges, clear rivers, and thatched roofs one imagines in the Japan of centuries ago. To get across the Iya river that runs through the rough valley terrain, bandits, warriors and refugees created a very special – if slightly unsteady – bridge made of vines. This is a picture from the 1880s of one of the original vine bridges.

     Root bridge 9

    First, two Wisteria vines, one of the strongest vines known were grown to extraordinary lengths from either side of the river. Once the vines had reached a sufficient length they were woven together with planking to create a pliable, durable and, most importantly, living piece of botanical engineering.

    Root bridge 10
     

    The bridges had no sides, and a Japanese historical source relates that the original vine bridges were so unstable, those attempting to cross them for the first time would often freeze in place, unable to go any farther. Three of those vine bridges remain in Iya Valley. While some (though apparently not all) of the bridges have been reinforced with wire and side rails, they are still harrowing to cross. More than 140 feet long, with planks set six to eight inches apart and a drop of four-and-a-half stories down to the water, they are not for acrophobes. Some people believe the existing vine bridges were first grown in the 12th century, which would make them some of the oldest known examples of living architecture in the world.

    Root bridge 11

  • To Fly or Not to Fly (Sujatha)

    Plume Through the cloud of volcanic ash spewed by the Icelandic volcano Eyjafyallajokull, that is. As thousands of flights were canceled over the weekend, desperate travelers sought any possible way out of airport lounge purgatory, driving across countries and paying unprecedented prices for one-way taxi or bus rides.

    The flights resume, after a few test flights were made by 'intrepid' airline executives. "No problems. We can handle this." But a few anecdotes don't make data. Existing data shows:

    Item 1 : $3.2 million worth of damage to a NASA DC-8 flown through volcanic ash spewed by a sister volcano Hekla. Interestingly, this detailed study shows that the plane appeared to function fine for about 68 hours of flying time after the passage through the ash cloud. The damage became evident only after that time. This could account for the preliminary 'no problem' assessment for the commercial jets' test flights. But will it result in failures as more air time is accumulated?

    Item 2: Data and photos of engine damage to Finnish air force planes that flew through the ash spewed by Eyjafjallajokull a few hours before airspace was finally closed.

    Item 3: What happened to  British Airways and KLM flights in the '80s.

    "In one incident, all four engines of British Airways flight shut down
    when flying though the ash of an Indonesian eruption in 1982. The same
    thing occurred in 1989 when a KLM jet flew through a cloud of ash in
    Alaska. Both flights were able to restart their engines, but only after
    losing more than 10,000 feet of altitude.

    "Even when you set aside
    things like potential law suits from loss of life, and things like
    that, the damage to the plane by flying through the ash can run into
    tens of millions of dollars," says Benjamin Edwards, a volcanologist at
    Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa.

    KLM, for example, had to
    replace all four engines on the aircraft, which was less than a year
    old, at a cost of $80 million."

    I hope that this resumption of flights doesn't lead to any problems, but the track record for airplanes flying through volcanic ash clouds, is unfortunately, NOT GOOD.

  • When wingnuttery becomes fighting words

    I recently explained why the overheated rhetoric of the Tea Party wing of American politics is making me increasingly uncomfortable. Right wing protestations that it is just vigorous but legitimate political disagreement is being questioned by many others, including one ex-president who was in office during the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Here is a sampling of some of the cautionary voices:  

    Frank Rich of the New York Times _ _

    It's kind of like that legendary stunt on the prime-time soap "Dallas," where we learned that nothing bad had really happened because the previous season's episodes were all a dream. We now know that the wave of anger that crashed on the Capitol as the health care bill passed last month — the death threats and epithets hurled at members of Congress — was also a mirage.

    Take it from the louder voices on the right. Because no tape has surfaced of anyone yelling racial slurs at the civil rights icon and Georgia Congressman John Lewis, it’s now a blogosphere “fact” that Lewis is a liar and the “lamestream media” concocted the entire incident. The same camp maintains as well that the spit landing on the Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver was inadvertent spillover saliva from an over-frothing screamer — spittle, not spit, as it were. True, there is video evidence of the homophobic venom directed at Barney Frank — but, hey, Frank is white, so no racism there! …

    Most Americans who don’t like Obama or the health care bill are not racists. It may be a closer call among Tea Partiers, of whom only 1 percent are black, according to last week’s much dissected Times/CBS News poll. That same survey found that 52 percent of Tea Party followers feel “too much” has been made of the problems facing black people — nearly twice the national average. And that’s just those who admit to it. Whatever their number, those who are threatened and enraged by the new Obama order are volatile. Conservative politicians are taking a walk on the wild side by coddling and encouraging them, whatever the short-term political gain….

    How our current spike in neo-Confederate rebellion will end is unknown. It’s unnerving that Tea Party leaders and conservatives in the Oklahoma Legislature now aim to create a new volunteer militia that, as The Associated Press described it, would use as yet mysterious means to “help defend against what they believe are improper federal infringements on state sovereignty.” This is the same ideology that animated Timothy McVeigh, whose strike against the tyrannical federal government will reach its 15th anniversary on Monday in the same city where the Oklahoma Legislature meets….

    At least we can take solace in the news that there’s no documentary evidence proving that Tea Party demonstrators hurled racist epithets at John Lewis. They were, it seems, only whistling “Dixie.”

    President Bill Clinton:

    In advance of a symposium on Friday about the attack on the Oklahoma City federal building and its current relevance, Mr. Clinton, who was in his first term at the time of the bombing, warned that attempts to incite opposition by demonizing the government can provoke responses beyond what political figures intend.

    “There can be real consequences when what you say animates people who do things you would never do,” Mr. Clinton said in an interview, saying that Timothy McVeigh, who carried out the Oklahoma City bombing, and those who assisted him, “were profoundly alienated, disconnected people who bought into this militant antigovernment line.”

    The former president said the potential for stirring a violent response might be even greater now with the reach of the Internet and other common ways of communication that did not exist on April 19, 1995, when the building was struck.

    “Because of the Internet, there is this vast echo chamber and our advocacy reaches into corners that never would have been possible before,” said Mr. Clinton, who said political messages are now able to reach those who are both “serious and seriously disturbed.” He will be delivering the keynote address Friday at an event about the Oklahoma City attack being sponsored by the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the Democratic Leadership Council.

    Mr. Clinton pointed to remarks like those made Thursday by Representative Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican, who when speaking at a Tea Party rally in Washington characterized the Obama administration and Democratic Congress as “the gangster government.”

    “They are not gangsters,” Mr. Clinton said. “They were elected. They are not doing anything they were not elected to do.”

    Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker:

    Is the political environment becoming so toxic that we could see another Timothy McVeigh emerge?

    No one knows the answer, but fears that anger could escalate into action beyond the ballot box are not misplaced. Ninety-nine percent of angry Americans might be perfectly satisfied to rail at their television sets — or to show up at a Tea Party rally — but it takes only one.

    The biggest concern for security folks in Washington is the lone operator, the John Hinckley, who tries to take out a president for his fantasy girlfriend. Or some variation thereof.

    This is why "Don't retreat. Reload," Sarah Palin's recent imperative to her Tea Party audience, felt so off. Obviously, she wasn't suggesting that people arm themselves, as she has explained several times since. Hunting and military vocabulary are hardly new to politics. We "target" audiences or "set our sights" on policies and politicians all the time. In the world of healthy competition, trophies are victories, not dead people.

    But words matter, as we never tire of saying. And these are especially sensitive times, given our first African American president and unavoidable fears about the worst-case scenario. If Jodie Foster could bestir the imagination of Hinckley, a Sarah Palin in the Internet age could move regiments.

    All of the above have put the nation ill at ease. Add to the mixture of organic anger and grass-roots momentum the heckling language of Beck, Limbaugh & Co., and one fears that volatility could become explosive. What's next, militias?

    Well, yes, now that you mention it. In Oklahoma, un-ironic legislators are sympathetic to a proposal to form local voluntary militias to thwart unwanted federal initiatives and to preserve state sovereignty.

    Then there are the perpetrators like the rascal Rush Limbaugh, the pathetically addled SNL alumna Victoria Jackson, Representative Michele Bachman and a broad cross section of the Tea Party faithfuls who speak and believe the outrageous and the dangerous while denying that they do.

    Tea Party poster.1 Tea Party poster.2.

     

  • By George, those books are late!

    He couldn't tell a lie but he did forget.

    George Washington book

  • When foreign words mislead even the pundits

    An interesting article in the Slate about the propensity of people to distort the spirit of foreign words. The word in question is Kabuki. I had to note with mild amusement that the author uses the word "pundit" several times in the article which in English, has a somewhat scornful connotation – that of a pompous know-it-all.

    Pundit (or Pandit) comes from Sanskrit and in most Indian languages it denotes an admirably learned person. A few decades ago, scholars in India were bestowed with this honorific formally or by universal public consent. The first prime minister of India, Jawahar Lal Nehru for example, was commonly referred to as Pandit Nehru by the public and in the media. There is nothing derogatory or dismissive in the usage. It is therefore somewhat ironic that author Jon Lackman, while taking to task others for being out of step with Kabuki, repeatedly misused pundit, another foreign word which too does not mean what pundits think it does.

    Kabuki

  • Media Analyst: Reading the News is Futile (Andrew)

    As a subscriber to two newspapers and multiple magazines who is fast reaching his dotage (I am almost 36), I often have conversations with people in their twenties who laugh at my "affectation" of reading print, when almost everything is available online for free, instantaneously.  As the saying went in the 90s, "the information just wants to be free." My lawyer wife points out the absurdity of this, of assuming that a news article or radio or video feature "wants" to be given away for less than it cost to produce.  As she put it, can you imagine a grocery store with the slogan "the food just wants to be free"?

    But the techno-Pollyanna argument continues that by the time the newspapers arrive on my doorstep at 4:30 AM, the "digital natives" have already read everything interesting the night before. 

    But there is a counter-argument to that too, that living suffused in a perpetually updating news cycle precludes the ability to think or synthesize what we've learned.  Instead of digesting and mulling over, say, the issues and disagreements at the nuclear summit, we're instead bombarded with the next 150 stories of the day.  There's a reason that philosophers and other serious thinkers lock themselves in quiet rooms.

    There's even an argument that the news is useless, a distraction from the hard work of living our actual life.  I'm not willing to go that far, but in some moods I do find the position appealing.  Here's a distillation of the position from media critic Henry Thoreau, who I think is some kind of unpaid intern at the NRDC:

    And I am sure that I
    never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man
    robbed,
    or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel
    wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western
    Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the
    winter
    — we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted
    with
    the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and
    applications?
    To a philosopher all     news, as it is called, is gossip, and they
    who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are
    greedy
    after this gossip.

  • When the halo becomes a headache

    After years of playing the maverick card, John McCain now says that he isn't and never was a maverick.

    Maverick.RIP

  • Some things that don’t usually end well … and this one probably won’t.

    Tea Party politics has kicked into high gear. The already overheated war of words is getting hotter. Republican leaders are vying with each other to gain the fawning love of Tea Partiers. The GOP has turned into the Grand Opposition Party where just saying "no" to Obama-Pelosi-Reid, without offering alternate solutions to policies and programs constitutes political courage. We have seen and heard the angry, paranoid and sometimes racist actions and words of the adherents who claim that they are only being patriotic and true to the US Constitution. Here are some examples of the latest hi-jinx from the right wing of American politics.

    Two divas who are riding high on the Tea Party wave and whose philosophy seems to be, "Lie, incite and lie again," are Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman of Minnesota. Folksy, provocative and street smart, they are not mere media commentators like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. Both have been elected to public office and have their fingers unerringly on the buttons that excite Tea Partiers.

    Two of the country's most popular Republicans, Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, teamed up Wednesday for a rollicking campaign rally that targeted President Obama as weak on national security and doomed to a single term.

    Bachmann, seeking a third term in the House, never mentioned her Democratic opponents. Instead, she delighted the crowd with mocking references to terrorism suspects being read Miranda rights and sharp criticism of the president for limiting when the United States can use nuclear weapons.

    "Two years from now, Obama will be a one-term president," Bachmann said, "because we are going to elect the boldest, strongest, most courageous, rock-ribbed, constitutional conservative president this country has ever seen."

    Several thousand people showed up to see Bachmann and Palin, both famous for their fiery populism and ability to rile opponents. Darlings of "tea party" conservatives, the women were appearing together for the first time, and they welcomed the crowd's embrace. Palin headlined a fundraiser for Bachmann later in the day.

    The rally was a lively assault on Democrats in Congress and the White House. The emcee, talk radio host Chris Baker, drew cheers and laughter when he said the party in power in Washington is a "lying, thieving . . . bunch of commies."

    Then the GOP mucky mucks met in New Orleans where several aspirants to the presidency and party heavy weights tested the political waters by trying to outdo each other with rhetorical flame throwing.

    Laissez les bon temps rouler!

    With that whoop from partisan warrior and local girl Mary Matalin, the Southern Republican Leadership Conference got underway Thursday night in New Orleans with — what else? — a Mardi Gras of Pelosi-Reid-Obama-and-assorted-other-Democrat-bashing.

    Liz Cheney, daughter of the former vice president, got things roiling with a scalding attack on President Obama, calling passage of the epic healthcare bill — without a single Republican vote — “one of the most arrogant power plays in American history.”

    All this and Sarah Palin isn't even on the speaking schedule until Friday.

    Cheney drew the first standing ovation of the session — a quadrennial showcase for the party’s rising stars and presidential wannabes — by invoking the GOP’s….

    …rallying cry, “repeal and replace.” She predicted the effort would begin with a GOP Congress elected in November and finish with a Republican president sworn into office Jan. 20, 2013.

    Cheney devoted most of her commentary, however, to a scathing assessment of Obama’s foreign policy, which she summarized, alliteratively, as “apologize for America, abandon allies, appease enemies.”

    “President Obama,” she said to an appreciative roar, “stop apologizing for this great nation and start defending it.”

    Well, if the Palin-Bachman duo needs a third horsewoman for their dog and pony show, they need look no further than Liz Cheney, the angry, gun-toting frontiers-woman from Wyoming. She is a fellow rider whose ability to distort, mislead and raise rabble equals their own.

    With so much fire breathing going on by the so-called responsible members of the GOP leadership, it is not a surprise that some party pawns and foot soldiers are shaken to their cores. They feel nervous, bitter and betrayed. They want to take their country back and boy, if necessary, will do so by hook, crook or the barrel of a smoking gun.

    OKLAHOMA CITY — Frustrated by recent political setbacks, tea party leaders and some conservative members of the Oklahoma Legislature say they would like to create a new volunteer militia to help defend against what they believe are improper federal infringements on state sovereignty.

    Tea party movement leaders say they've discussed the idea with several supportive lawmakers and hope to get legislation next year to recognize a new volunteer force. They say the unit would not resemble militia groups that have been raided for allegedly plotting attacks on law enforcement officers.

    "Is it scary? It sure is," said tea party leader Al Gerhart of Oklahoma City, who heads an umbrella group of tea party factions called the Oklahoma Constitutional Alliance. "But when do the states stop rolling over for the federal government?"

    The irony here is exquisite. After all, Oklahoma witnessed the worst case of domestic terrorism in US history when a suspicious and jittery lone bomber acted out of paranoia fueled by exactly similar sentiments. But who said one has to heed history's lessons when one is feeling pissed off and ornery?  

    It is hardly a surprise that with relentless anti-government, anti-tax, anti-immigrant, anti-choice rhetoric issuing forth like a volcano from the right, we have already seen a few instances of vigilantism (here, here and here). We may yet see more before the leadership of the Republican Party decides to put their hunting dogs on a leash. But considerable damage may be done before cooler heads prevail, while the agents of provocation and dog whistle politics will go home without a scratch. A few will also be laughing all the way to the bank after the circus is over. I doubt that any serious debate is possible at this point with the Tea Party patriots and their exploitative, demagogic leaders. So bring in the clowns … or at least, a talented satirist or two to puncture the veneer of the fake populism and fear mongering masquerading as serious political discourse. Perhaps a comedian can speak the exaggerated language of ridicule that will connect with the true believers who are otherwise in no mood to be swayed by facts or reason.

    (more…)

  • The famous cliche – that wasn’t what the astronauts said

    Another famous saying from outer space turns out to be not quite what we think it was. "Houston, we have a problem," is a catchall phrase for SNAFUs that happen even outside of Houston but that is not exactly what the Apollo 13 astronauts actually said when they heard a bang aboard the spaceship. In this case, we know what the original words were without having to resort to an audio analysis decades later.

    Apollow 13 astronauts

    Moments after Apollo 13 crew members heard a sharp bang, the phrase that Space City can't seem to shake entered the atmosphere: “Houston, we've had a problem.”

    Forty years ago today, a loud bang and vibration transformed a smooth flight to the moon into one of NASA's most successful failures. We remember the sentence that captured that catastrophe as “Houston, we have a problem,” but the correct version uses the past tense.

    Presumably, some people knew and even used the phrase in the years after the Apollo 13 crew members miraculously — and heroically — made their way back to Earth.

    But it was Ron Howard's 1995 film, Apollo 13, that cemented the misquoted version in our minds.

    “The movie simplified the sentence for dramatic purposes,” says Charles Dove, director of Rice Cinema and a film lecturer at Rice University. “Most of the big 20th century phrases come from film.”

    Indeed, “Houston, we have a problem” is No. 50 on the American Film Institute's list of top 100 movie quotes, behind other catch phrases we like even better: “Here's looking at you, kid” (No. 5); “Go ahead, make my day” (No. 6); and “You talking to me?” (No. 10).

    Mother of all chichés

    In real-life, the space scene went something like this: Jack Swigert — played by Kevin Bacon in the movie — saw a warning light that accompanied the sharp bang and said, “Houston, we've had a problem here.” When Houston base asked for clarification, Jim Lovell — played by Tom Hanks in the movie — repeated, “Houston, we've had a problem.” [emphasis mine]