[78-L] History Detectives Monday June 22 9:00 pm est

[Michael Biel]

From: PHONOGUY at aol.com
To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com

> Renound author and collector Tim Fabrizio will be on the
> PBS history Detectives tv show on Monday June 22 at 9 pm
> with an unusual phonograph if you would be interested.
> Thanks Henry Schaadt

OK, we'll watch, because Tim is always entertaining and informative. 
But I hope the program is better than they usually are.  The premise of
the program is to send out over-educated DIMWITS out to stumble into the
correct information that the producers could have figured out more
quickly and efficiently if they had FIRST contacted knowledgable people
rather than these DIMWITS that star in this program.  I call them
"over-educated DIMWITS" because they ARE educated, but not in the field
of the issue at hand.  Because they know THEIR area well, they don't
realize that they are DIMWITS in all other areas.  

This series is frustrating to real researchers because these people are
so DUMB.  Here is what you can expect to see in an episode of History
Detectives:

I have been asked by a man to come to his house to see something that
happens on the street in front of his house.  Uh gee, from what he tells
me, I see plenty of cars on this street but some of them are not moving
but others are.  There must be some strange force or ritualistic
practice that keeps some cars sitting still while others still move. 
I'll go to this museum in a far off city and try to find out.  Here I am
walking into this museum after taking a long plane trip.  I am speaking
to the curator who is an expert in automobile tires.  Maybe he can tell
me why some cars are not moving and others are.  No, none of the cars
had flat tires.  So I have to go to another city where I have heard that
there is a researcher who knows how cars run.  Here I am going into this
researcher's house, and while walking down the street I see that here
also is the strange phenom that causes some cars to stand still while
others move.  I have to tell this researcher that none of the cars I saw
in both cities had what he called the "hood" raised.  Now I will go to
another city where there is a Black History Museum.  We took a train
ride to get to this city.  Trains are apparently an ancient form of
travel where instead of using the rubber tires our earlier expert told
us about, these vehicles use steel wheels that fit into long steel rods
that are called "rails" that are laid in what are called "tracks".  But
I have been told that there is an expert at the Black History Museum who
can explain why some cars sit on the street not moving but other cars
move.  Yes, he has told me the secret!  I will now go back to the
original person who asked me why some cars do not move but other cars
do.  I am now telling him that it is not because some of them have flat
tires, and it is not because some of them have their hoods up.  It is
because in the early 1920s as there were more cars on the streets and
they started crashing into each other, there was a man who understood
that if you shined a red light at some cars they will stop until you
shine a green light at them.  At the same time you shine a red light at
some cars, you shine a green light at the other cars and they will move
and not be hit by the cars that have the red light shining at them.  And
the man who invented this device was Black, so our PBS station can get
credit for having broadcast an educational program during Black History
Month that has told everyone about Black History.  So I have discovered
the secret why some cars move while other cars do not which nobody knew
about until I discovered it.

I HOPE that Tim Fabrizio's episode is not like the usual ones just
described.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com