Thursday, February 23, 2023
MEDICAL DEFINITIONS IN THE SOUTH
Sent to me by John P.
Thanks John.
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Studies have demonstrated that rednecks have the lowest stress
rate because they do not understand the seriousness of most medical
terminology:
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Wednesday, February 22, 2023
HISTORY IN PHOTOGRAPHS
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On a man’s mission, Pal Pruck, 15, was one of the many brave teen-agers who fought in the [1956 Hungarian] rebellion. He is standing in a rubble-strewn Budapest street.
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Newly restored photos of Shackleton’s fateful Antarctic voyage offer unprecedented fdtails of survival
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Two men in butcher aprons outside shop, Deuel & Smith Cash Meat Market, northeastern New Mexico
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Hungarian bootmaker workshop, c1910.
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Two men play tennis on the wings of a bi-plane, c.1920 [800 x 542]
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Kuwait City, 1965
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Women window cleaners working in London, ca. 1917.
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Spain, 1955-56.
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Child soldiers taking a smoke break, Angola (1976).
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Lenin and Stalin at Gorki, just outside Moscow. September 1922
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Police officer guarding a pharmacy in high-flood waters, Ontario, 1974
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100,000 Iranian women march against the Hijab Law, Tehran 1979
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In 1941, the photo on the left was taken of Soviet soldier Eugen Stepanovich Kobytev on the gay he left to go to w. The photo on the right was taken in 1945 after the end of the war, just 4 years apart.
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A young Hitler cheers the start of World War One, 1914
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Vladimir Lenin's last photo. He had had three strokes at this point and was completely mute, 1923
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
FROM THE VAULT
Milk dating
From Bytes, August 27, 2013:
What do the Mafia and milk have in common? It’s not a trick question or funny riddle and is explained in the following item . . .
Why is milk dated? An unlikely answer to that can be found in, of all places, Alcatraz Island. During a tour of the former federal prison, a U.S. National Park ranger noted that Al Capone "lobbied for milk bottle dating to ensure the safety of the city's children."
Capone was a Chicago businessman who made a fortune in alcohol distribution during the brief period of Prohibition from 1920 to 1933. During this period, the demand for alcohol actually increased, with taverns being replaced with speakeasies, and the purveyors of "booze" labelled gangsters and racketeers.
Although Capone was sent to Alcatraz, it was for the white collar crime of evading taxes on the money he earned distributing alcohol, not for the numerous violent crimes attributed to him, such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
The Federal government viewed Capone as a gangster but to many people in his adopted city of Chicago, he was a modern-day Robin Hood.
Capone was the first person to open a soup kitchen to feed the poor during the Depression. At a time of 25 percent unemployment, Capone's kitchens served three meals a day to ensure that everyone who had lost a job could get a meal. Soon, every city and town had a soup kitchen.
Capone did not only open them, but he would go to the soup kitchens and help serve the meals. These soup kitchens cost Capone thousands of dollars every day to keep running. It is said that Capone had a soft spot for people who were struggling.
It was reported that one of Capone's family members in Chicago became ill from drinking expired milk. At that time, there were no controls on milk production, neither expiration dates nor controls on adulteration, dilution or skimming of the cream.
This drew Capone's interest to the milk business, and he saw several things: the milk distribution business had a shady character – and Capone was comfortable with shady businesses; he didn't like to see people, especially children sickened by adulterated milk; he saw a potentially high profit in milk distribution; and with Prohibition soon to end, he had a fleet of trucks that could easily be used to transport milk.
Capone took two steps to move into the milk business. One was to acquire a milk processor, Meadowmoor Dairies. The other was to have the Chicago City Council pass a law requiring a visible date stamped on milk containers.
On the second item, it was likely that Capone had already cornered the market on equipment to stamp expiration dates on bottles, and the passage of the legislation would help him take over the Chicago milk market.
In 1930s Chicago, before refrigeration and supermarkets, milk was delivered by the milkman, a teamster's union member. The union controlled the distribution of milk, whose freshness depended on how long the milk sat around until the driver delivered it.
The unions would only deliver local milk. Meadowmoor Dairies wanted to import cheaper milk from Wisconsin, and wanted it delivered by their own non-union truckers.
With the negotiations at a standstill, Capone's people reportedly kidnapped the union president and used the $50,000 ransom to purchase the dairy. The dairy was given as a present to Capone's attorney, William Parrillo. Meadowmoor Dairies opened three months before Capone went to prison.
Monday, February 20, 2023
QUOTE FOR THE DAY
“I never really needed a nickname at school. Although it was bad for me it was much worse for my sister Ophelia.”
- Ed Balls
Edward Michael Balls (1967 - ) is a British broadcaster, writer, economist, professor and former politician who served as Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families from 2007 to 2010, and as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2011 to 2015. He was Member of Parliament between 2005 and 2015.
POETRY SPOT
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The Glass on the Bar
- Henry Lawson (1867-1922)
Three bushmen one morning rode up to an inn,
And one of them called for the drinks with a grin;
They’d only returned from a trip to the North,
And, eager to greet them, the landlord came forth.
He absently poured out a glass of Three Star,
And set down that drink with the rest on the bar.
"There, that is for Harry," he said, "and it’s queer,
’Tis the very same glass that he drank from last year;
His name’s on the glass, you can read it like print,
He scratched it himself with an old bit of flint;
I remember his drink – it was always Three Star" –
And the landlord looked out through the door of the bar.
He looked at the horses, and counted but three:
"You were always together – where’s Harry?" cried he.
Oh, sadly they looked at the glass as they said,
"You may put it away, for our old mate is dead;"
But one, gazing out o’er the ridges afar,
Said, "We owe him a shout – leave the glass on the bar."
They thought of the far-away grave on the plain,
They thought of the comrade who came not again,
They lifted their glasses, and sadly they said:
"We drink to the name of the mate who is dead."
And the sunlight streamed in, and a light like a star
Seemed to glow in the depth of the glass on the bar.
And still in that shanty a tumbler is seen,
It stands by the clock, always polished and clean;
And often the strangers will read as they pass
The name of a bushman engraved on the glass;
And though on the shelf but a dozen there are,
That glass never stands with the rest on the bar.
Sunday, February 19, 2023
MORE SITESEEING
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Some snippets from various websites . . .
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Some facts:
From Kickass Facts:
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Smithsonian Magazine
JFK’s Doomsday Bunker:
February 6, 2023
From 1957 the USA and the USSR were involved in an escalating arms race with the increasing threat of nuclear war. It prompted numerous families to build backyard fallout shelters, encouraged by the US government which also initiated a national fallout shelter program. After securing $207 million in funding, the federal government started surveying schools and other public buildings to determine their suitability as potential bunkers. Once identified, these shelters were marked as such and stocked with supplies. In addition to establishing public shelters, officials emphasized individual responsibility in the event of nuclear attack. Students participated in “duck and cover” drills at school, practicing how to protect themselves from an explosion.
1950s diagram of a fallout shelter for four to six people
The White House was no exception. The Kennedy holiday compound of Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, could be a potential target of any Soviet nuclear attack so officials decided to build a bunker on nearby Nantucket, an island 30 miles out to sea. A second bunker was installed on Peanut Island, near Kennedy’s vacation home in Palm Beach, Florida, so the president would have a place to continue to run what was left of the country and its government wherever he might be at the time of a missile strike.
Today, both shelters are in a state of disrepair—but efforts are underway to preserve their history, perhaps by turning the sites into museums or securing their designation as National Historic Landmarks.
Entrance to Kennedy's Palm Beach bunker, which is now closed to the public
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40 Images That Are So Cool And Unusual They Could Totally Work As Album Covers
Bored Panda
16 February 2023
Saturday, February 18, 2023
A MOMENT IN HISTORY
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Martin Luther King Jr and the Nobel Peace Prize 1964
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In 1957 Martin Luther King was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi.
In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King travelled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles.
In these years:
- he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, a manifesto of the Negro revolution;
- he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters;
- he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, “l Have a Dream”;
- he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson;
- he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times;
- he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and
- he became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.
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At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize.
When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.
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His acceptance speech, held in the auditorium of the University of Oslo on 10 December 1964, is moving and still of great relevance in our modern troubled times.:
Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award on behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice. I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation. I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.
Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize.
After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time – the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama to Oslo bears witness to this truth. This is a road over which millions of Negroes are travelling to find a new sense of dignity. This same road has opened for all Americans a new era of progress and hope. It has led to a new Civil Rights Bill, and it will, I am convinced, be widened and lengthened into a super highway of justice as Negro and white men in increasing numbers create alliances to overcome their common problems.
I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.
I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. “And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.” I still believe that We Shall overcome!
This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.
Today I come to Oslo as a trustee, inspired and with renewed dedication to humanity. I accept this prize on behalf of all men who love peace and brotherhood. I say I come as a trustee, for in the depths of my heart I am aware that this prize is much more than an honor to me personally.
Every time I take a flight, I am always mindful of the many people who make a successful journey possible – the known pilots and the unknown ground crew.
So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement soared into orbit. You honor, once again, Chief Lutuli of South Africa, whose struggles with and for his people, are still met with the most brutal expression of man’s inhumanity to man. You honor the ground crew without whose labor and sacrifices the jet flights to freedom could never have left the earth. Most of these people will never make the headline and their names will not appear in Who’s Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvellous age in which we live – men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization – because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness’ sake.
I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the spirit of a curator of some precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners – all those to whom beauty is truth and truth beauty – and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.
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A handwritten copy of Martin Luther King Jr.'s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize is included in the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection.
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