5 Minutes of Bio: Edmund Ruffin

From:

http://www.old-picture.com/defining-moments/Edmund-Ruffin.htm

Most people in this world are not remembered for anything after they are gone. A few people manage to affect the world such that they are remembered for one thing.

Edmund Ruffin (1794-1865) is a man that is remembered for two things.

Edmund Ruffin was born in Prince George County, Virginia on January 5, 1794. He was a farmer and innovative agriculturist. As a noted farmer, he became editor of the "Farmer’s Register", and investigated methods to improve agricultural crop yields. His research interests also included bogs and swamps. Despite his distinguished research, he is not remembered for his advances in agricultural science.

As secessionist tensions grew in the United States in the 1850’s, Ruffin was an ardent supporter of states’ rights and was a proponent of Secession. He became known as one of the Southern "Fire-Eaters", along with Robert Rhett, Louis Wigfall and William Yancey. The famed Fire-Eaters were able to fan the flames of Southern Independence, which led to the secession of South Carolina in 1860, and the formation of the Confederate States of America. Northern sentiment ran so strong against Mr. Ruffin that on August 1, 1862 two regiments of Union regulars from General Fitz-John Porter’s corps crossed the river by Harrison’s Landing and, under the cover of guns on the steamer Mahaska, set Ruffin’s house on fire. It is reported that cheers rent the air from Union Troops as the great Rebel’s house burned to the ground. Despite all this, Edmund Ruffin is not remembered as the Father of the Confederacy, or the leader of the secession movement.

It is for the events of the evening of April 11, 1861 that Mr. Ruffin will be remembered. Major Robert Anderson and some 85 US Soldiers and Officers (12 of whom were musicians) were hunkered down in Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, surrounded by approximately 7,000 Confederate troops under the command of Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard. Early in the morning hours of April 12, 1861 the fateful orders came down from Beauregard; and the honor of initiating those orders fell on a 67 year old honorary member of the Palmetto Guards . . . Mr. Edmund Ruffin. At about 4:30 AM on April 12, Edmund Ruffin fired the first cannon shot at Fort Sumter, and the Civil War was officially underway.

Four long years later, with countless losses on both sides, Ruffin received word that General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, and that all was lost. The dream that was the Confederacy was officially over. Upon receiving the news, Ruffin sat at his desk and penned these words:

"I here declare my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule -- to all political, social and business connection with the Yankees and to the Yankee race. Would that I could impress these sentiments, in their full force, on every living Southerner and bequeath them to every one yet to be born! May such sentiments be held universally in the outraged and down-trodden South, though in silence and stillness, until the now far-distant day shall arrive for just retribution for Yankee usurpation, oppression and atrocious outrages, and for deliverance and vengeance for the now ruined, subjugated and enslaved Southern States! 

...And now with my latest writing and utterance, and with what will be near my latest breath, I here repeat and would willingly proclaim my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule--to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, and the perfidious, malignant and vile Yankee race.

With the completion of the letter, Mr. Ruffin put down his pen, picked up his revolver, and shot himself in the head.

As such, Mr. Ruffin is remembered for two things . . . firing the first shot, and the last shot of the Civil War.

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Some more Edmund Ruffin pics:

Oops, that's not right, that's Lucius Malfoy

Edmund Ruffin

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Smithers

(Risque language)

Normally I would save something like the following item for Funny Friday but it’s just too good not to share now. It was sent to me by Leo . . .

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In the greatest days of the British Empire, a new commanding officer was sent to a jungle outpost to relieve the retiring colonel. 

After welcoming his replacement and showing the courtesies (gin and tonic, cucumber sandwiches) that protocol decrees, the retiring colonel said "You must meet Captain Smithers, my right-hand man, God, he's really the strength of this office. His talent is simply boundless."

Smithers was summoned and introduced to the new CO, who was surprised to meet a toothless, hairless, scabbed and pockmarked specimen of humanity, a particularly unattractive man less than three foot tall.

"Smithers, old man, tell your new CO about yourself."

"Well, sir, I graduated with honours from Sandhurst, joined the regiment and won the Military Cross and Bar after three expeditions behind enemy lines. I've represented Great Britain in equestrian events and won a Silver Medal in the middleweight division of the Olympics. I have researched the history of..."

Here the colonel interrupted, "Yes, yes, never mind that Smithers, the CO can find all that in your file. Tell him about the day you told the witch doctor to get fucked."

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Reader Comment

Otto, 

Not in an attempt for one-upmanship, but I still do peel apples this way, as taught by my mother. As one of now great age (but less than your Dad), I went to primary school during the 1939-45 war and no tuckshops in those days. Mum had found that she could peel an apple with continuous peel, leave it attached to the apple at the bottom, and then re-wind the peel before putting it in the lunchbox. This stopped the apple going brown between the time she did it in the morning and when I ate it at lunchtime, fresh as a daisy. Oranges likewise were routinely peeled that way and their continuous peels made better ‘pretend’ yo-yo’s, being more springy.

All this with a sharp kitchen knife – there were no little plastic peelers in those days!

Lapun Pinis

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Some more fruit carvings . . .

Caution, includes a risque pic . . . 

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More items sent by Thomas:

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Fruit and Vegetable Carving

Once I peeled an apple with one continuous peel. Whilst that may not seem impressive to you, dear reader, I ask whether you have ever done it?

I mention this because I recently came across pics of the works of some of my fellow fruit and vegetable carvers.

There are disputes as to whether fruit and vegetable carving originated in Japan or Thailand, although the preferred theory is that it began in 14th century Thailand. It has now spread world wide and the various carvings are, I admit, somewhat more impressive than my continuous apple peel.

Here are some examples:

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Ringo Starr's Pic

"Every time I see your face

It reminds me of the places we used to go

But all I've got is a photograph . . . "

- Ringo Starr, lyrics from "Photograph"

Forty nine years ago, in 1964, the Beatles visited the US. In a limousine on the way from the airport, a Chevy Impala pulled up alongside and Ringo Starr snapped a pic of the teenage occupants waving at Starr and the other Beatles: 

Fast forward to October 2013. Ringo Starr, now aged 73, launches his book “Photograph”, which includes the above pic, and states at the launch that he would like to know their identities.

The publicity results in their identities becoming known - Bob Toth, Gary Van Deursen, Suzanne Rayot, Arlene Norbe Ressler, Charlie Scwartz and Matt Blender – and that they had skipped school for the occasion. All had been suspended as soon as they got back to High School.

US TV station NBC took it one step further and recreated the photo using the same persons in the same positions in an Impala:

Starr invited them to attend Las Vegas to watch his show this month and to meet with him after the show.

According to Gary Van Deursen, who was driving the borrowed Chevy Impala, they had cut class to go see the band arrive, and got lucky as they passed a row of limousines carrying the Beatles. "We went back up to the front (of the limousine line), waved to each one of them, and the last one was Ringo, he's the one who went, 'Roll down your window!'" 

They did and Ringo took the photograph.

Gary Van Deursen holding a copy of the Starr pic.

Bob Toth points to his position in the car

The Beatles arrive in the US

The Beatles

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Don’t go rushing off to your bookstore for Ringo's book or try to order it on Amazon because it is only available by ordering it from Ringo’s website, www.RingoPhotoBook.com. There are only 2,500 copies, each is signed by Ringo and it is bound in leather with gilt lettering. Each page is edged in gold foil. The price is £345 and the royalties go to the Lotus Foundation, a centre in London in which small groups of people can explore such fields as mysticism, healing, and meditation.

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Manhole Covers and Japanese Manhole Cover Art, Part 1

What started off, below, as a quick introduction to Japanese Manhole Cover Art ended up developing a life of its own. As I read up on the most mundane of objects, manhole covers, I became more and more fascinated by some of the information I came across. That information has become Part 1 of this post; Part 2, the art part, will be posted next week.  There may even be some more posts about manhole covers.

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According to the Online Etymology Dictionary "manhole" not surprisingly means a hole through which a person may pass. What is surprising is that it dates from 1793 by a conjunction of the words “man” + “hole”. 

An alternative explanation is that the term manhole comes from the 19th century and originally referred to a small access hole in the top or side of a boiler that was covered with a heavy metal plate bolted in place. These holes were not meant to provide access for a man to pass through, but for an arm and hand to reach the inner parts of the boiler. “Man” in this case refers not to the gender of the worker, but is from the root word that means “hand,” as in the word “manual.” Indeed, some old boiler manuals use the words “manhole” and “handhole” synonymously. Sewer manholes were probably so-called as an extension of the general term that meant “an access hole” and the gender-specific meaning followed naturally, albeit somewhat erroneously.

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The push for non-gender specific and gender-neutral language has removed a lot of the bias and stereotype reinforcement inherent in sexist language. As long as police officers were called policemen, and firefighters were called firemen, there was both a recognition that these were masculine occupations and a corresponding unspoken gender exclusion for women. Removing the sexist bias inherent in the words also removes the unspoken exclusion. There is a parallel in Orwell’s 1984 where Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth continually rewriting and revising history, including deletion of words from dictionaries so as to remove the concept. Words such as “manhole”, however, are more difficult to rework into gender-neutral language in that the term also denotes function and size. Nonetheless the word “manhole” and similar usages as in signs “Men at Work” reinforce the notion that such activities and activities are male activities. Alternatives that have been suggested for manhole covers are “sewer access cover” and ‘stormwater access cover”.

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Ancient Roman sewer grate made out of lime sandstone, 1st century AD, excavated at Vindobona.

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Why are manhole covers usually round?

That is the only shape that will not fall in on itself.

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The problem with that explanation is that a lot of manhole covers are not round and there are additional reasons for being round:

• Round tubes are the strongest and most material-efficient shape against the compression of the earth around them, so it is natural that the cover of a round tube assume a circular shape.

• A round manhole cover has a smaller surface than a square one, thus less material is needed to cast the manhole cover, meaning lower cost.

• The bearing surfaces of manhole frames and covers are machined to assure flatness and prevent them from becoming dislodged by traffic. Round castings are much easier to machine using a lathe.

• Circular covers do not need to be rotated to align with the manhole.

• A round manhole cover can be more easily moved by being rolled.

• A round manhole cover can be easily locked in place with a quarter turn (as is done in countries like France). They are then hard to open without a special tool. Also then they do not have to be made so heavy, because traffic passing over them cannot lift them up by suction.

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Because of their aerodynamic design, modern racing cars create enough vacuum to lift a manhole cover off the ground. During races on city streets, manhole covers must therefore be welded or locked down to prevent injury. 

On September 23, 1990 while participating in a world sports championship car race in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Team Bruns driver Jesus Pareja (of Spain) had a close encounter with a manhole cover. 

Driving fairly close behind a Jaguar in his Porsche 962C, Pareja discovered the effects of the 'suction' effect race cars have on the track. The 'updraft' of the Jaguar in front of him dislodged a manhole cover and sent it flying through the air, causing it to smash through the Porsche's windshield, narrowly missing Pareja and piercing through the rear of the car, tearing the fuel tank apart. Both this and the impact with the wall caused the $750,000 car to burst into flames. Luckily Pareja came out alive. The manhole covers are now welded down for race day at that track. 

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Some manhole covers:

Modern manhole cover in Rome.

The initials SPQR come from the Latin phrase from Roman Republic days, Senatus Populusque Romanus (“The Senate and People of Rome”). It was used as an official emblem of the municpality of Rome. Its use has been revived in modern times, throughout Europe and beyond. In Rome today sewage and water supply accesses contain the label "SPQR" in recognition of the innovation in sewage and water supply realised during the Roman times.

Norway

Prague

Norway

Israel

Germany

New York

Bermuda

Japan

Albania

Sydney

Sydney

Makes one proud to come from Oz.  Eat your heart out, world!

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