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May 19, 1869 saw what two railroads meet at Promontory Summit, Utah, creating the first Transcontinental Railroad? | First Transcontinental Railroad
First Transcontinental Railroad
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At the ceremony for the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, Utah , May 10, 1869
Transcontinental Railroad 75th Anniversary Issue stamp of 1944
The First Transcontinental Railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route ") was a 1,912-mile (3,077 km) contiguous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Omaha, Nebraska / Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay . [1] The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants. [2] Construction was financed by both state and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company issued mortgage bonds. [3] [4] [5] [N 1] The Western Pacific Railroad Company built 132 mi (212 km) of track from Oakland / Alameda to Sacramento, California . The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (CPRR) constructed 690 mi (1,110 km) eastward from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory (U.T.) . And the Union Pacific built 1,085 mi (1,746 km) from the road's eastern terminus at Council Bluffs near Omaha, Nebraska westward to Promontory Summit. [7] [8] [9]
The railroad opened for through traffic on May 10, 1869 when CPRR President Leland Stanford ceremonially drove the gold "Last Spike" (later often referred to as the " Golden Spike ") with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit . [10] [11] The coast-to-coast railroad connection revolutionized the settlement and economy of the American West . It brought the western states and territories into alignment with the northern Union states and made transporting passengers and goods coast-to-coast considerably quicker and less expensive.
Paddle steamers linked Sacramento to the cities and their harbor facilities in the San Francisco Bay until 1869, when the CPRR completed and opened the WP grade (which the CPRR had acquired control of in 1867–68 [N 2] [N 3] ) to Alameda and Oakland.
The first transcontinental rail passengers arrived at the Pacific Railroad's original western terminus at the Alameda Mole on September 6, 1869 where they transferred to the steamer Alameda for transport across the Bay to San Francisco. The road's rail terminus was moved two months later to the Oakland Long Wharf about a mile to the north. [15] [16] [N 4] Service between San Francisco and Oakland Pier continued to be provided by ferry.
The CPRR eventually purchased 53 miles of UPRR-built grade from Promontory Summit (MP 828) to Ogden, U.T. (MP 881), which became the interchange point between trains of the two roads. The transcontinental line was popularly known as the Overland Route after the principal passenger rail service that operated over the length of the line until 1962. [19]
Contents
Origins[ edit ]
Title page of Dr. Hartwell Carver's 1847 Pacific Railroad proposal to Congress
Building a railroad line that connected the United States coast-to-coast was advocated in 1832 when Dr. Hartwell Carver published an article in the New York Courier & Enquirer advocating building a transcontinental railroad from Lake Michigan to Oregon. In 1847 he submitted to the U.S. Congress a "Proposal for a Charter to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean", seeking a congressional charter to support his idea. [20] [21]
Preliminary exploration[ edit ]
The official poster announcing the Pacific Railroad's grand opening.
Congress agreed to support the idea. Under the direction of the Department of War , the Pacific Railroad Surveys were conducted from 1853 through 1855. These included an extensive series of expeditions of the American West seeking possible routes. A report on the explorations described alternative routes and included an immense amount of information about the American West , covering at least 400,000 sq mi (1,000,000 km2). It included the region's natural history and illustrations of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals. [22]
The report failed however to include detailed topographic maps of potential routes needed to estimate the feasibility, cost and select the best route. The survey was detailed enough to determine that the best southern route lay south of the Gila River boundary with Mexico in mostly vacant desert, through the future territories of Arizona and New Mexico . This in part motivated the United States to complete the Gadsden Purchase . [23]
In 1856 the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph of the US House of Representatives published a report recommending support for a proposed Pacific railroad bill:
The necessity that now exists for constructing lines of railroad and telegraphic communication between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of this continent is no longer a question for argument; it is conceded by every one. In order to maintain our present position on the Pacific, we must have some more speedy and direct means of intercourse than is at present afforded by the route through the possessions of a foreign power. [24]
Possible routes[ edit ]
The U.S. Congress was strongly divided on where the eastern terminus of the railroad should be—in a southern or northern city. [25] Three routes were considered:
A northern route roughly along the Missouri River through present-day northern Montana to Oregon Territory . This was considered impractical due to the rough terrain and extensive winter snows. [N 5]
A central route following the Platte River in Nebraska through to the South Pass in Wyoming , following most of the Oregon Trail . Snow on this route remained a concern.
A southern route across Texas , New Mexico Territory , the Sonora desert , connecting to Los Angeles , California. Surveyors found during a 1848 survey that the best route lay south of the border between the United States and Mexico. This was resolved by the Gadsen Purchase in 1853. [26] [N 6]
Once the central route was chosen, it was immediately obvious that the western terminus should be Sacramento. But there was considerable differences of opinion about the eastern terminus. Three locations along 250 miles (400 km) of Missouri River were considered:
Council Bluffs / Omaha , accessed via an extension of Union Pacific financier Thomas C. Durant 's proposed Mississippi and Missouri Railroad and the new Union Pacific Railroad , also controlled by Durant.
Council Bluffs had several advantages: It was well north of the much of the Civil War fighting taking place in Missouri; it was the shortest route to South Pass in the Rockies in Wyoming; and it would follow a fertile river that would encourage settlement. Durant had hired Lincoln in 1857 when he was an attorney to represent him in a business matter about a bridge over the Missouri. Now Lincoln was responsible for choosing the eastern terminus, and he relied on Durant's counsel. Durant advocated for Omaha, and he was so confident of the choice that he began buying up land in Nebraska.[ citation needed ]
Asa Whitney[ edit ]
One of the most prominent champions of the central route railroad was Asa Whitney . He envisioned a route from Chicago and the Great Lakes to northern California, paid for by the sale of land to settlers along the route. Whitney traveled widely to solicit support from businessmen and politicians, printed maps and pamphlets, and submitted several proposals to Congress , all at his own expense. In June 1845, he led a team along part of the proposed route to assess its feasibility. [27]
Legislation to begin construction of the Pacific Railroad (called the Memorial of Asa Whitney) was first introduced to Congress by Representative Zadock Pratt . [28] Congress did not immediately act on Whitney's proposal.
Theodore Judah, architect of the Transcontinental Railroad and first chief engineer of the Central Pacific.
Lewis M. Clement, Chief Assistant Engineer and Superintendent of Track
The next big champion of the central route was Theodore Judah , who undertook to survey a manageable route through what was one of the chief obstacles of a central route to California, the high and rugged Sierra Nevada.
In 1852, Judah was chief engineer for the newly formed Sacramento Valley Railroad , the first railroad built west of the Mississippi River . Although the railroad later went bankrupt once the easy placer gold deposits around Placerville, California were depleted, Judah was convinced that a properly financed railroad could pass from Sacramento through the Sierra Nevada mountains to reach the Great Basin and hook up with rail lines coming from the East. [29]
In 1856, Judah wrote a 13,000-word proposal in support of a Pacific railroad and distributed it to Cabinet secretaries, congressmen and other influential people. In September 1859, Judah was chosen to be the accredited lobbyist for the Pacific Railroad Convention, which indeed approved his plan to survey, finance and engineer the road. Judah returned to Washington in December 1859. He had a lobbying office in the United States Capitol , received an audience with President James Buchanan , and represented the Convention before Congress. [30]
Judah returned to California in 1860. He continued to search for a more practical route through the Sierras suitable for a railroad. In mid-1860, local miner Daniel Strong had surveyed a route over the Sierras for a wagon toll road, which he realized would also suit a railroad. He described his discovery in a letter to Judah. Together, they formed an association to solicit subscriptions from local merchants and businessmen to support their proposed railroad. [30]
From January or February 1861 until July, Judah and Strong led a 10-person expedition to survey the route for the railroad over the Sierra Nevada through Clipper Gap and Emigrant Gap , over Donner Pass , and south to Truckee . They discovered a way across the Sierras that was gradual enough to be made suitable for a railroad, although it still needed a lot of work. [30]
The Big Four[ edit ]
Main articles: The Big Four and Central Pacific Railroad
Leland Stanford's official gubernatorial portrait
Four northern California businessmen formed the Central Pacific Railroad : Leland Stanford , (1824–1893), President; Collis Potter Huntington , (1821–1900), Vice President; Mark Hopkins , (1813–1878), Treasurer; Charles Crocker , (1822–1888), Construction Supervisor. All became substantially wealthy from their association with the railroad.
Main articles: Thomas C. Durant and Union Pacific Railroad
Dr. Thomas C. Durant
Former ophthalmologist Dr. Thomas Clark "Doc" Durant was nominally only a vice president of Union Pacific, so he installed a series of respected men like John Adams Dix as president of the railroad. Durant and it's financing arrangements were, unlike the CPRR, mired in controversy and scandals.[ citation needed ]
Authorization and funding[ edit ]
Main article: Pacific Railroad Act
In February 1860, Iowa Representative Samuel Curtis introduced a bill to fund the railroad. It passed the House but died when it could not be reconciled with the Senate version due to opposition from southern states who wanted a southern route near the 42nd parallel. [30] Curtis tried and failed again in 1861. After the southern states seceded from the Union, the House of Representatives approved the bill on May 6, 1862, and the Senate on June 20. Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 into law on July 1. It authorized creation of two companies, the Central Pacific in the west and the Union Pacific in the mid-west, to build the railroad. The legislation called for building and operating a new railroad from the Missouri River at Council Bluffs, Iowa , west to Sacramento, California , and on to San Francisco Bay . [31] A second law to supplement the first was passed in 1864. [32]
Federal financing[ edit ]
To finance the project, the act authorized the federal government to issue 30-year U.S. government bonds (at 6% interest). The railroad companies were paid $16,000/mile (approximately $422,000 today) for track laid on a level grade, $32,000/mile (about $844,000 today) for track laid in foothills, and $48,000/mile (or about $1,266,000 today) for track laid in mountains. The two railroad companies sold similar amounts of company-backed bonds and stock. [33]
The huge capital investment (over $100,000,000 in 1860 dollars, or about $2,638 billion today) needed was raised by selling the government-backed bonds and railroad company bonds and stock to interested private investors. The bonds would be repaid by selling the land granted to the railroads and the projected passenger and freight income.[ citation needed ]
Union Pacific financing[ edit ]
While the federal legislation for the Union Pacific required that no partner was to own more than 10 percent of the stock, the UP had problems selling its stock. One of the few subscribers was Mormon leader Brigham Young , who also supplied crews for building much of the railroad through Utah. [34] Durant enticed other investors by offering to front money for the stock they purchased in their names. This scheme enabled Durant to control about half of the railroad stock. The initial construction of UP grade traversed land owned by Durant. Durant's railroad was paid by the mile, and to further inflate its profits, the UP built oxbows of unneeded track, and by July 4, 1865, it had only reached 40 miles (64 km) from Omaha after 2½ years of construction.
Durant manipulated market prices on his stocks by spreading rumors about which railroads he had an interest in were being considered for connection with the Union Pacific. First he touted rumors that his fledgling M&M Railroad had a deal in the works, while secretly buying stock in the depressed Cedar Rapids and Missouri Railroad . Then he circulated rumors that the CR&M had plans to connect to the Union Pacific, at which point he began buying back the M&M stock at depressed prices. It's estimated his scams produced over $5 million in profits for he and his cohorts. [35]
Central Pacific financing[ edit ]
Collis Huntington , a Sacramento hardware merchant, heard Judah's presentation about the railroad at the St. Charles Hotel in November 1860. He invited Judah to his office to hear his proposal in detail. Huntington persuaded Judah to accept financing from himself and four others: Mark Hopkins , his business partner; James Bailey, a jeweler; Leland Stanford , a grocer; and Charles Crocker , a dry-goods merchant. They initially invested $1,500 each and formed a board of directors. These investors became known as The Big Four , and their railroad was called the Central Pacific Railroad . Each eventually made millions of dollars from their investments and control of the Central Pacific Railroad.
Before major construction could begin, Judah traveled back to New York City to raise funds to buy out The Big Four. However, shortly after arriving in New York, Judah died on November 2, 1863, of yellow fever that he had contracted while traveling over the Panama Railroad 's transit of the Isthmus of Panama . [36] The CPRR Engineering Department was taken over by his successor Samuel S. Montegue, as well as Canadian trained Chief Assistant Engineer (later Acting Chief Engineer) Lewis Metzler Clement who also became Superintendent of Track. [37] [30]
Land grants[ edit ]
To allow the companies to raise additional capital, Congress granted the railroads a 400-foot (120 m) right-of-way corridor, lands for additional facilities like sidings and maintenance yards. They were also granted alternate sections of government-owned lands—6,400 acres (2,600 ha) per mile (1.6 km)—for 10 miles (16 km) on both sides of the track, forming a checkerboard pattern, leaving federal land between those of the railroad. The exception was in cities, at rivers, or on non-government property.[ citation needed ] The railroads sold bonds based on the value of the lands, and in areas with good land like the Sacramento Valley and Nebraska [38] sold the land to settlers, contributing to a rapid settlement of the West. [39] [ verification needed ] The total area of the land grants to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific was larger than the area of the state of Texas: federal government land grants totaled about 203,128,500 square miles, and state government land grants totaled about 76,565,000 square miles. [40]
It was far from a given that the railroads operating in the thinly-settled west would make enough money to repay their construction and operation. If the railroad companies failed to sell the land granted them within three years, they were required to sell it at prevailing government price for homesteads: $1.25 per 1 acre (0.40 ha). If they failed to repay the bonds, all remaining railroad property, including trains and tracks, would revert to the U.S. government.[ citation needed ] To encourage settlement in the west, Congress (1861–1863) passed the Homestead Acts which granted an applicant 160 acres (65 ha) of land with the requirement that the applicant improve the land. This incentive encouraged thousands of settlers to move west.[ citation needed ]
Railroad self-dealing[ edit ]
The federal legislation lacked adequate oversight and accountability. The two companies took advantage of these weaknesses in the legislation to manipulate the project and produce extra profit for themselves. Despite the generous subsidies offered by the federal government, the railroad capitalists knew they would not turn a profit on the railroad business for many months, possibly years. They determined to make a profit on the construction itself. Both groups of financiers formed independent companies to complete the project, and they controlled management of the new companies along with the railroad ventures. This self-dealing allowed them to build in generous profit margins paid out by the railroad companies. In the west, the four men heading the Central Pacific chose a simple name for their company, the "Contract and Finance Company." In the east, the Union Pacific selected an foreign name, calling their construction firm "Crédit Mobilier of America." [33] The latter company was later implicated in a far-reaching scandal, described later.
Labor and wages[ edit ]
Most of the engineers and surveyors who were hired by the Union Pacific had been employed during the U.S. Civil War to repair and operate the over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of railroad line the U.S. Military Railroad controlled by the end of the war. The UP also utilized their experience repairing and building truss bridges during the war. [41] Most of the semi-skilled workers on the Union Pacific were recruited from the many soldiers discharged from the Union and Confederate armies along with emigrant Irishmen . [42]
Pacific Railroad Bond, City and County of San Francisco, 1865
After 1864, the Central Pacific Railroad received the same Federal financial incentives as the Union Pacific Railroad, along with some construction bonds granted by the state of California and the city of San Francisco. The Central Pacific hired some Canadian and British engineers and surveyors with extensive experience building railroads, but it had a difficult time finding semi-skilled labor. Most Caucasians in California preferred to work in the mines or agriculture. The railroad experimented by hiring local emigrant Chinese as manual laborers, many of whom were escaping the poverty and terrors of the Taiping Rebellion in the Guangdong province in China.[ citation needed ] When they proved themselves as workers, the CPRR from that point forward preferred to hire Chinese, and even set up recruiting efforts in Canton . [43] Despite their small stature [44] and lack of experience, the Chinese laborers were responsible for most of the heavy manual labor, since only a very limited amount of that work that could be done by animals, simple machines, or black powder. The railroad also hired some black people [45] escaping the aftermath of the American Civil War. Most of the black and white workers were paid $30.00/month and given food and lodging. Most Chinese were initially paid $31.00/month and provided lodging, but they preferred to cook their own meals. In 1867 the CPRR raised their wage to $35.00/month after a strike. [43] [46] [47]
Construction begun[ edit ]
The Central Pacific broke ground on January 8, 1863. Due to the lack of transportation alternatives from the manufacturing centers on the east coast, virtually all of their tools and machinery including rails, railroad switches , railroad turntables , freight and passenger cars, and steam locomotives were transported first by train to east coast ports. They were then loaded on ships which either sailed around South America's Cape Horn , or offloaded the cargo at the Isthmus of Panama , where it was sent across via paddle steamer and the Panama Railroad . The Panama Railroad gauge was 5 feet (1.5 m), which was incompatible with the 4 ft 8 1⁄2 inch gauge used by the CPRR equipment. The latter route was about twice as expensive per pound.[ citation needed ] Once the machinery and tools reached the San Francisco Bay area, they were put aboard river paddle steamers which transported them up the final 130 miles (210 km) of the Sacramento River to the new state capital in Sacramento . Many of these steam engines, railroad cars, and other machinery were shipped dismantled and had to be reassembled.[ citation needed ] Wooden timbers for railroad ties, trestles, bridges, firewood, and telegraph poles were harvested in California and transported to the project site.
The Union Pacific Railroad did not start construction for another 18 months until July 1865. They were delayed by difficulties obtaining financial backing and the unavailability of workers and materials due to the Civil War. Their start point in the new city of Omaha, Nebraska was not yet connected via railroad to Council Bluffs, Iowa . Equipment needed to begin work was initially delivered to Omaha and Council Bluffs by paddle steamers on the Missouri River . The Union Pacific was so slow in beginning construction during 1865 that they sold two of the four steam locomotives they had purchased.[ citation needed ]
After the U.S. Civil War ended on June 22, 1865, the Union Pacific still competed for railroad supplies with companies who were building or repairing railroads in the south, and prices rose.[ citation needed ]
Rail standards[ edit ]
First Day Cover for the 75th Anniversary of the Driving of the Last Spike (May 10, 1944)
At that time in the United States, there were two primary standards for track gauge, the distance between the rails. In England, the standard gauge was 4 ft 8 1⁄2 inch (1.435 m), and this had been adopted by the majority of northern railways. But the south had adopted a 5-foot gauge. Transferring railway cars and locomotives between different railways required changing out the wheel trucks. Alternatively, cargo was offloaded and reloaded, a time-consuming effort that delayed cargo shipments. For the transcontinental railroad, the builders adopted the English standard, what is now called standard gauge . [48]
The Bessemer process and open hearth furnace steel-making were in use by 1865, but the advantages of steel rails which lasted much longer than iron rails had not yet been demonstrated.[ citation needed ] The rails used initially in building the rail way were nearly all made of iron of a flat-bottomed modified I-beam profile weighing 56 pounds (25 kg) per 1 yard (0.91 m) or 66 pounds (30 kg) per 1 yard (0.91 m).[ citation needed ] The railroad companies were intent on completing the project as rapidly as possible at a minimum cost. Within a few years, nearly all railroads converted to steel rails.
Time zones and telegraph usage[ edit ]
Time was not standardized across the United States until about 1883. In 1865, each railroad set its own time to minimize scheduling errors. To communicate easily up and down the line, the railroads built telegraph lines alongside the railroad. These lines eventually superseded the original First Transcontinental Telegraph which followed much of the Mormon Trail up the North Platte River and across the very thinly populated Central Nevada Route through central Utah and Nevada. The telegraph lines along the railroad were easier to protect and maintain. Many of the original telegraph lines were abandoned as the telegraph business was consolidated with the railroad telegraph lines.
Union Pacific route[ edit ]
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Route of the first American transcontinental railroad from Sacramento, California, to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Other railroads connected at Council Bluffs to cities throughout the East and Midwest.
The Union Pacific's 1,087 miles (1,749 km) of track started at MP 0.0 in Council Bluffs, Iowa , [7] on the eastern side of the Missouri River . Omaha was chosen by President Abraham Lincoln as the location of its Transfer Depot where up to seven railroads could transfer mail and other goods to Union Pacific trains bound for the west.
Trains were initially transported across the Missouri River by ferry before they could access the western tracks beginning in Omaha , Nebraska Territory . The river froze in the winter, and the ferries were replaced by sleighs. A bridge was not built until 1873, when the new 2,750 feet (840 m) long Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge was completed.
After the rail line's initial climb through the Missouri River bluffs west of Omaha and out of the Missouri River Valley, the route bridged the Elkhorn River and then crossed over the new 1,500 feet (460 m) Loup River bridge as it followed the north side of the Platte River valley west through Nebraska along the general path of the Oregon , Mormon and California Trails .
By December 1865, the Union Pacific had only completed 40 miles (64 km) of track, reaching Fremont, Nebraska , and a further 10 miles (16 km) of roadbed. [49]
At the end of 1865, Peter A. Dey, Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific, resigned over a routing dispute with Thomas C. Durant , one of the chief financiers of the Union Pacific.[ citation needed ]
With the end of the Civil War and increased government supervision in the offing, Durant hired his former M&M engineer Grenville M. Dodge to build the railroad, and the Union Pacific began a mad dash west.[ citation needed ]
Former Union General John "Jack" Casement was hired as the new Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific. He equipped several railroad cars to serve as portable bunkhouses for the workers and gathered men and supplies to push the railroad rapidly west. Among the bunkhouses Casement added a galley car to prepare meals, and he even provided for a herd of cows to be moved with the rail head and bunk cars to provide fresh meat. Hunters were hired to provide buffalo meat from the large herds of American bison.[ citation needed ]
The small survey parties who scouted ahead to locate the roadbed were sometimes attacked and killed by raiding Indian. In response, the U.S. Army instituted active cavalry patrols that grew larger as the Indians grew more aggressive. Temporary, "hell-on-wheels" towns, made mostly of canvas tents, accompanied the railroad as construction headed west.[ citation needed ]
The Platte River was too shallow and meandering to provide river transport, but the Platte river valley headed west and sloped up gradually at about 6 feet (1.8 m) per 1 mile (1.6 km), often allowing to lay a mile (1.6 km) of track a day or more in 1866 as the Union Pacific finally started moving rapidly west. Building bridges to cross creeks and rivers was the main source of delays. Near where the Platte River splits into the North Platte River and South Platte River , the railroad bridged the North Platte River over a 2,600 feet (790 m) long bridge (nicknamed ½ mile bridge). It was built across the shallow but wide North Platte resting on piles driven by steam pile drivers . [50] Here they built the "railroad" town of North Platte, Nebraska in December 1866 after completing about 240 miles (390 km) of track that year. In late 1866, former Major General Grenville M. Dodge was appointed Chief Engineer on the Union Pacific, but hard working General "Jack" Casement continued to work as chief construction "boss" and his brother Daniel Casement continued as financial officer.
The original emigrant route across Wyoming of the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails, after progressing up the Platte River valley, went up the North Platte River valley through Casper, Wyoming , along the Sweetwater River and over the Continental Divide at 7,412 feet (2,259 m) South Pass . The original westward travellers in their ox and mule pulled wagons tried to stick to river valleys to avoid as much road building as possible—gradients and sharp corners were usually of little or no concern to them. The ox and mule pulled wagons were the original off-road vehicles in their day, since nearly all of the Emigrant Trails went cross country over rough, un-improved trails. The route over South Pass's main advantage for wagons pulled by oxen or mules was a shorter elevation over an "easy" pass to cross and its "easy" connection to nearby river valleys on both sides of the continental divide for water and grass. The emigrant trails were closed in winter. The North Platte/South Pass route was far less beneficial for a railroad, as it was about 150 miles (240 km) longer and much more expensive to construct up the narrow, steep and rocky canyons of the North Platte. The route along the North Platte was also further from Denver, Colorado , and went across difficult terrain, while a railroad connection to that City was already being planned for and surveyed.
Efforts to survey a new, shorter, "better" route had been under way since 1864. By 1867, a new route was found and surveyed that went along part of the South Platte River in western Nebraska and after entering what is now the state of Wyoming , ascended a gradual sloping ridge between Lodgepole Creek and Crow Creek to 8,200 feet (2,500 m) Evans pass (also called Sherman's Pass) which was discovered by the Union Pacific employed English surveyor and engineer, James Evans, in about 1864. [51] This pass now is marked by the Ames Monument (41.131281,-105.398045 lat., long.) marking its significance and commemorating two of the main backers of the Union Pacific Railroad. From North Platte, Nebraska (elevation 2,834 feet (864 m)), the railroad proceeded westward and upward along a new path across the Nebraska Territory and Wyoming Territory (then part of the Dakota Territory ) along the north bank of the South Platte River and into what would become the state of Wyoming at Lone Pine, Wyoming. Evans Pass was located between what would become the new "railroad" towns of Cheyenne and Laramie . Connecting to this pass, about 15 miles (24 km) west of Cheyenne, was the one place across the Laramie Mountains that had a narrow "guitar neck" of land that crossed the mountains without serious erosion at the so-called "gangplank" (41.099746,-105.153205 lat., long.) discovered by Major General Grenville Dodge in 1865 when he was in the U.S. Army. [52] The new route surveyed across Wyoming was over 150 miles (240 km) shorter, had a flatter profile, allowed for cheaper and easier railroad construction, and also went closer by Denver and the known coalfields in the Wasatch and Laramie Ranges .
The railroad gained about 3,200 feet (980 m) in the 220 miles (350 km) climb to Cheyenne from North Platte, Nebraska—about 15 feet (4.6 m) per mile (1.6 km)--a very gentle slope of less than one degree average. This "new" route had never become an emigrant route because it lacked the water and grass to feed the emigrants' oxen and mules. Steam locomotives did not need grass, and the railroad companies could drill wells for water if necessary.
Coal had been discovered in Wyoming and reported on by John C. Frémont in his 1843 expedition across Wyoming, and was already being exploited by Utah residents from towns like Coalville, Utah and later Kemmerer, Wyoming by the time the Transcontinental railroad was built. Union Pacific needed coal to fuel its steam locomotives on the almost treeless plains across Nebraska and Wyoming. Coal shipments by rail were also looked on as a potentially major source of income—this potential is still being realized.
Dale Creek Bridge
The Union Pacific reached the new railroad town of Cheyenne in December 1867, having laid about 270 miles (430 km) that year. They paused over the winter, preparing to push the track over Evans (Sherman's) pass. At 8,247 feet (2,514 m), Evans/Sherman's pass is the highest point reached on the transcontinental railroad. About 4 miles (6.4 km) beyond Evans/Sherman's pass, the railroad had to build an extensive bridge over the Dale Creek canyon (41.103803, −105.454797, lat., long.). The Dale Creek Crossing was one of their more difficult railroad engineering challenges. [53] Dale Creek Bridge was 650-foot (200 m) long and 125 feet (38 m) above Dale Creek. [54] The bridge components were pre-built of timber in Chicago, Illinois and then shipped on rail cars to Dale Creek for assembly. The eastern and western approaches to the bridge site, near the highest elevation on the transcontinental railroad, required cutting through granite for nearly a mile on each side. [55] The initial Dale Creek bridge had a train speed limit of 4 miles (6.4 km) per hour across the bridge. Beyond Dale Creek, railroad construction paused at what became the town of Laramie, Wyoming to build a bridge across the Laramie River .
Located 35 miles (56 km) from Evans pass, Union Pacific connected the new "railroad" town of Cheyenne to Denver and its Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company railroad line in 1870. Elevated 6,070 feet (1,850 m) above sea level, and sitting on the new Union Pacific route with a connection to Denver, Cheyenne was chosen to become a major railroad center and was equipped with extensive railroad yards, maintenance facilities and a Union Pacific presence. Its location made it a good base for helper locomotives to couple to trains with snowplows to help clear the tracks of snow or help haul heavy freight over Evans pass. The Union Pacific's junction with the Denver Railroad with its connection to Kansas City, Kansas , Kansas City, Missouri and the railroads east of the Missouri River again increased Cheyenne's importance as the junction of two major railroads. Cheyenne later became Wyoming's largest city and the capital of the new state of Wyoming.
The railroad established many townships along the way: Fremont , Elkhorn , Grand Island , North Platte , Ogallala and Sidney as the railroad followed the Platte River across Nebraska territory. The railroad even dipped into what would become the new state of Colorado after crossing the North Platte River as it followed the South Platte River west into what would become Julesburg before turning northwest along Lodgepole Creek into Wyoming. In the Dakota Territory (Wyoming) the new towns of Cheyenne , Laramie , Rawlins (named for Union General John Aaron Rawlins , who camped in the locality in 1867. [56] ), Green River and Evanston (named after James Evans) were established, as well as many more fuel and water stops. The Green River was crossed with a new bridge, and the new "railroad" town of Green River constructed there after the tracks reached the Green River on October 1, 1868—the last big river to cross.
On December 4, 1868, the Union Pacific reached Evanston, having laid almost 360 miles (580 km) of track over the Green River and the Laramie Plains that year. By 1871, Evanston became a significant maintenance shop town equipped to carry out extensive repairs on the cars and steam locomotives.
In the Utah Territory , the railroad once again diverted from the main emigrant trails to cross the Wasatch Mountains and went down the rugged Echo Canyon (Summit County, Utah) and Weber River canyon. To speed up construction as much as possible, Union Pacific contracted several thousand Mormon workers to cut, fill, trestle, bridge, blast and tunnel its way down the rugged Weber River Canyon to Ogden, Utah , ahead of the railroad construction. The Mormon and Union Pacific rail work was joined in the area of the present-day border between Utah and Wyoming. [57] The longest of four tunnels built in Weber Canyon was 757 feet (231 m) long Tunnel 2. Work on this tunnel started in October 1868 and was completed six months later. Temporary tracks were laid around it and Tunnels 3 (508 feet (155 m)), 4 (297 feet (91 m)) and 5 (579 feet (176 m)) to continue work on the tracks west of the tunnels.
The tunnels were all made with the new dangerous nitroglycerine explosive which expedited work but caused some fatal accidents. [58] While building the railroad along the rugged Weber River Canyon, Mormon workers signed the Thousand Mile Tree which was lone tree alongside the track 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from Omaha. A historic marker has been placed there. [59]
The tracks reached Ogden, Utah , on March 27, 1869, although finishing work would continue on the tracks, tunnels and bridges in Weber Canyon for over a year. From Ogden, the railroad went north of the Great Salt Lake to Brigham City and Corinne using Mormon workers, before finally connecting with the Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Summit in Utah territory on May 10, 1869. [60] [61] Some Union Pacific officers declined to pay the Mormons all of the agreed upon construction costs of the work through Weber Canyon, and beyond, claiming Union Pacific poverty despite the millions they had extracted through the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal . Only partial payment was secured through court actions against Union Pacific. Fortunately, the Union Pacific railroad land grants in Utah were mostly worthless territory through mountains and deserts so they did not gain too much extra. [57] The portion of the original railroad around the north shore of the Great Salt Lake is no longer used. In 1904, the Lucin Cutoff , a causeway across the center of the Great Salt Lake to Promontory Point , bypassed Promontory Summit. The cutoff shortened the rail route by approximately 43 miles (69 km).
Central Pacific route[ edit ]
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Central Pacific Rail road at Cape Horn circa 1880
The Central Pacific laid 690 miles (1,110 km) of track, starting in Sacramento, California, in 1863 and continuing over the rugged 7,000-foot (2,100 m) Sierra Nevada mountains at Donner Pass into the new state of Nevada. The elevation change from Sacramento (elev. 40 ft or 12 m) to Donner summit (elev. 7,000 ft or 2,100 m) had to be accomplished in about 90 miles (140 km) with an average elevation change of 76 feet per mile (14 meters per km), and there were only a few places in the Sierras where this type of "ramp" existed. The discovery and detailed map survey with profiles and elevations of this route over the Sierra Nevada (U.S.) is credited to Theodore Judah , chief engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad up till his death in 1863. This route is up a ridge between the North fork of the American River on the south and Bear River (Feather River) and South Yuba River on the north. As the railroad climbed out of Sacramento up to Donner summit, there was only one 3-mile (4.8 km) section near "Cape Horn CPRR" [62] where the railroad grade slightly exceeded two percent.
1864 advertisement for the opening of the Dutch Flat Wagon Road .
In June 1864, the Central Pacific railroad entrepreneurs opened Dutch Flat and Donner Lake Wagon Road (DFDLWR). [63] Costing about $300,000 and a years worth of work, this toll road wagon route was opened over much of the route the Central Pacific railroad (CPRR) would use over Donner Summit to carry freight and passengers needed by the CPRR and to carry other cargo over their toll road to and from the ever advancing rail head and over the Sierras to the gold and silver mining towns of Nevada. As the railroad advanced, their freight rates with the combined rail and wagon shipments would become much more competitive. The volume of the toll road freight traffic to Nevada was estimated to be about $13,000,000 a year as the Comstock Lode boomed, and getting even part of this freight traffic would help pay for the railroad construction. When the railroad reached Reno, it had the majority of all Nevada freight shipments, and the price of goods in Nevada dropped significantly as the freight charges to Nevada dropped significantly. The rail route over the Sierras followed the general route of the Truckee branch of the California Trail , going east over Donner Pass and down the rugged Truckee River valley.
The route over the Sierra had been plotted out by Judah in preliminary surveys before his death in 1863. Judah's deputy, Samuel S. Montague was appointed as Central Pacific's new Chief Engineer, with Lewis M. Clement as Assistant Chief Engineer and Charles Cadwalader as second assistant. To build the new railroad, detailed surveys had to be run that showed where the cuts, fills, trestles, bridges and tunnels would have to be built. Work that was identified as taking a long time was started as soon as its projected track location could be ascertained and work crews, supplies and road work equipment found to be sent ahead. Tunnels, trestles and bridges were nearly all built this way. The spread-out nature of the work resulted in the work being split into two divisions, with L.M. Clement taking the upper division from Blue Cañon to Truckee and Cadwalader taking the lower division from Truckee to the Nevada border. Other assistant engineers were assigned to specific tasks such as building a bridge, tunnel or trestle which was done by the workers under experienced supervisors. [37]
The CPRR grade at Donner Summit as it appeared in 1869 and 2003.
In total, the Central Pacific had eleven tunnel projects (Nos. 3 through 13) under construction in the Sierra from 1865–68, with seven tunnels located in a 2-mile (3.2 km) stretch on the east side of Donner Summit . The tunnels were usually built by drilling a series of holes in the tunnel face, filling them with black powder and detonating it to break the rock free. The black powder was provided by the California Powder Works near Santa Cruz, California . These works had started production in 1864 after the U.S. Civil War had cut off shipments of black powder from the East to the mining and railroad industry of California and Nevada. The Central Pacific was a prolific user of black powder, often using up to 500 kegs of 25 pounds (11 kg) each per day. [64]
The summit tunnel (Number 6), 1,660 feet (510 m), was started in late 1865, well ahead of the rail head. Through solid granite, the summit tunnel progressed at a rate of only about 0.98 feet (0.30 m) per day per face as it was being worked by three eight-hour shifts of workers, hand drilling holes with a rock drill and hammer, filling them with black powder and trying to blast the granite loose. One crew worked drilling holes on the faces and another crew collected and removed the loosened rock after each explosion. The workers were pulled off the summit tunnel and the track grading east of Donner pass in the winter of 1865/66 as there was no way to supply them, nor quarters they could have lived in. The crews were transferred to work on bridges and track grading on the Truckee River canyon.
The vertical central shaft of the CPRR "Summit Tunnel" (Tunnel #6) at Donner Summit which allowed drilling and excavation to be carried out on four faces at once.
In 1866 they put in a 125-foot (38 m) vertical shaft in the center of the summit tunnel and started work towards the east and west tunnel faces, giving four working faces on the summit tunnel to speed up progress. A steam engine off an old locomotive was brought up with much effort over the wagon road and used as a winch driver to help remove loosened rock from the vertical shaft and two working faces. By the winter of 1866/67, work had progressed sufficiently and a camp had been built for workers on the summit tunnel which allowed work to continue. The cross section of a tunnel face was a 16-foot-wide (4.9 m), 16-foot-high (4.9 m) oval with an 11-foot (3.4 m) vertical wall. Progress on the tunnel sped up to over 1.5 feet (0.46 m) per day per face when they started using the newly discovered nitroglycerin —manufactured near the tunnel. They used nitroglycerin to deepen the summit tunnel to the required 16-foot (4.9 m) height after the four tunnel faces met, and made even faster progress. Nearly all other tunnels were worked on both tunnel faces and met in the middle. Depending on the material the tunnels penetrated, they were left unlined or lined with brick, rock walls or timber and post. Some tunnels were designed to bend in the middle to align with the track bed curvature. Despite this potential complication, nearly all the different tunnel center lines met within 2 inches (5.1 cm) or so. The detailed survey work that made these tunnel digs as precise as required were nearly all done by the Canadian born and trained Lewis Clement, the CPRR's Chief Assistant Engineer and Superintendent of Track, and his assistants. [37]
Hills or ridges in front of the railroad road bed would have to have a flat-bottomed, V shaped "cut" made to get the railroad through the ridge or hill. The type of material determined the slope of the V and how much material would have to be removed. Ideally, these cuts would be matched with valley fills that could use the dug out material to bring the road bed up to grade-- cut and fill construction. In the 1860s there was no heavy equipment that could be used to make these cuts or haul it away to make the fills. The options were to dig it out by pick and shovel, haul the hillside material by wheelbarrow and/or horse or mule cart or blast it loose. To blast a V shaped cut out, they had to drill several holes up to 20 feet (6.1 m) deep in the material, fill them with black powder, and blast the material away. Since the Central Pacific was in a hurry, they were profligate users of black powder to blast their way though the hills. The only disadvantage came when a nearby valley needed fill to get across it. The explosive technique often blew most of the potential fill material down the hillside, making it unavailable for fill. [65] [66] Initially, many valleys were bridged by "temporary" trestles that could be rapidly built and were later replaced by much lower maintenance and permanent solid fill. The existing railroad made transporting and putting material in valleys much easier—load it on railway dump cars, haul where needed and dump it over the side of the trestle.
The Summit Tunnel at Donner Summit , West Portal
The route down the eastern Sierras was done on the south side of Donner Lake with a series of switchbacks carved into the mountain. The Truckee River , which drains Lake Tahoe , had already found and scoured out the best route across the Carson Range of mountains east of the Sierras. The route down the rugged Truckee River Canyon, including required bridges, was done ahead of the main summit tunnel completion. To expedite the building of the railroad through the Truckee River canyon, the Central Pacific hauled two small locomotives, railcars , rails and other material on wagons and sleighs to what is now Truckee, California and worked the winter of 1867/68 on their way down Truckee canyon ahead of the tracks being completed to Truckee. In Truckee canyon, five Howe truss bridges had to be built. This gave them a head start on getting to the "easy" miles across Nevada.
In order to keep the higher portions of the Sierra grade open in the winter, 37 miles (60 km) of timber snow sheds were built between Blue Cañon and Truckee in addition to utilizing snowplows pushed by locomotives, as well as manual shovelling. With the advent of more efficient oil fired steam and later diesel electric power to drive plows, flangers, spreaders, and rotary snow plows, most of the wooden snowsheds have long since been removed as obsolete. Tunnels 1–5 and 13 of the original 1860s tunnels on Track 1 of the Sierra grade remain in use today, while additional new tunnels were later driven when the grade was double tracked over the first quarter of the twentieth century. In 1993, the Southern Pacific Railroad (which operated the CPRR-built Oakland – Ogden line until its 1996 merger with the UP ) closed and pulled up the 6.7-mile (10.8 km) section of Track #1 over the summit running between the Norden complex (Shed 26, MP 192.1) [67] and the covered crossovers in Shed #47 (MP 198.8) [68] about a mile east of the old flyover at Eder , bypassing and abandoning the tunnel 6–8 complex, the concrete snowsheds just beyond them, and tunnels 9–12 ending at MP 195.7, all of which had been located on Track 1 within two miles of the summit. [69] Since then all east- and westbound traffic has been run over the Track #2 grade crossing the summit about one mile (1.6 km) south of Donner Pass through the 10,322-foot-long (3,146 m) Tunnel #41 (aka "The Big Hole" ) running under Mt. Judah between Soda Springs and Eder, which was opened in 1925 when the summit section of the grade was double tracked. This routing change was made because the Track 2 and Tunnel 41 Summit crossing is far easier and less expensive to maintain and keep open in the harsh Sierra winters. [70]
On June 18, 1868, the Central Pacific reached Reno, Nevada , after completing 132 miles (212 km) of railroad up and over the Sierras from Sacramento, California . By then the railroad had already been prebuilt down the Truckee River on the much flatter land from Reno to Wadsworth, Nevada , where they bridged the Truckee for the last time. From there, they struggled across a forty mile desert to the end of the Humboldt river at the Humboldt Sink . From the end of the Humboldt, they continued east over the Great Basin desert bordering the Humboldt River to Wells, Nevada . One of the most troublesome problems found on this route along the Humboldt was at Palisade Canyon (near Carlin, Nevada ), where for 12 miles (19 km) the line had to be built between the river and basalt cliffs. From Wells, Nevada to Promontory Summit , the Railroad left the Humboldt and proceeded across the Nevada and Utah desert. Water for the steam locomotives was provided by wells, springs, or pipelines to nearby water sources. Water was often pumped into the water tanks with windmills . Train fuel and water spots on the early trains with steam locomotives may have been as often as every 10 miles (16 km). On one memorable occasion, not far from Promontory, the Central Pacific crews organized an army of workers and five train loads of construction material, and laid 10 miles (16 km) of track on a prepared rail bed in one day—-a record that still stands today. The Central Pacific and Union Pacific raced to get as much track laid as possible, and the Central Pacific laid about 560 miles (900 km) of track from Reno to Promontory Summit in the one year before the Last Spike was driven on May 10, 1869.
Central Pacific had 1,694 freight cars available by May 1869, with more under construction in their Sacramento yard. Major repairs and maintenance on the Central Pacific rolling stock was done in their Sacramento maintenance yard. Near the end of 1869, Central Pacific had 162 locomotives, of which 2 had two drivers (drive wheels), 110 had four drivers, and 50 had six drivers. The steam locomotives had been purchased in the eastern states and shipped to California by sea. Thirty-six additional locomotives were built and coming west, and twenty-eight more were under construction. There was a shortage of passenger cars and more had to be ordered. The first Central Pacific sleeper, the "Silver Palace Sleeping Car", arrived at Sacramento on June 8, 1868. [71]
The CPRR route passed through Newcastle and Truckee in California, Reno , Wadsworth , Winnemucca , Battle Mountain , Elko and Wells in Nevada (with many more fuel and water stops), before connecting with the Union Pacific line at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory. When the eastern end of the CPRR was extended to Ogden by purchasing the Union Pacific Railroad line from Promontory for about $2.8 million in 1870, it ended the short period of a boom town for Promontory , extended the Central Pacific tracks about 60 miles (97 km) and made Ogden a major terminus on the transcontinental railroad, as passengers and freight switched railroads there.
CPRR issued ticket for passage from Reno to Virginia City, NV on the V&TRR, 1878
With the opening four months after the railheads met at Promontory Summit, U.T. of the original San Joaquin River Bridge at Mossdale Crossing on September 8, 1869 near present-day Lathrop, the western part of the route was extended from Sacramento the Alameda Terminal in Alameda, California , and shortly thereafter, to the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point in Oakland, California , and on to San Jose, California . Train ferries transferred some railroad cars to and from the Oakland wharves and tracks to wharves and tracks in San Francisco . Before the CPRR was completed, developers were building other feeder railroads like the Virginia and Truckee Railroad to the Comstock Lode diggings in Virginia City, Nevada , and several different extensions in California and Nevada to reach other cities there. Some of their main cargo was the thousands of cords of firewood needed for the many steam engines and pumps, cooking stoves, heating stoves etc. in Comstock Lode towns and the tons of ice needed by the miners as they worked ever deeper into the "hot" Comstock Lode ore body. In the mines, temperatures could get above 120 °F (49 °C) at the work face and a miner often used over 100 pounds (45 kg) of ice per shift. This new railroad connected to the Central Pacific near Reno , and went through Carson City , the new capital of Nevada. [72]
After the transcontinental railroads were completed, many other railroads were built to connect up to other population centers in Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado, Oregon, Washington territories, etc. In 1869, the Kansas Pacific Railway started building the Hannibal Bridge , a swing bridge across the Missouri River between Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas which connected railroads on both sides of the Missouri while still allowing passage of paddle steamers on the river. After completion, this became another major east-west railroad. To speed completion of the Kansas Pacific Railroad to Denver, construction started east from Denver in March 1870 to meet the railroad coming west from Kansas city. The two crews met at a point called Comanche Crossing, Kansas Territory, on August 15, 1870. Denver was now firmly on track to becoming the largest city and the future capitol of Colorado . The Kansas Pacific Railroad linked with the Denver Pacific Railway via Denver to Cheyenne in 1870.
The original transcontinental railroad route did not pass through the two biggest cities in the so-called Great American Desert — Denver, Colorado , and Salt Lake City, Utah . Feeder railroad lines were soon built to service these two and other cities and states along the route.
Modern-day Interstate 80 closely follows the path of the railroad from Sacramento across modern day California, Nevada, Wyoming and Nebraska, with two major exceptions: Interstate-80 crosses Donner Summit and proceeds east down the north side of Donner Lake while the railroad goes down the south side; and east of Wells, Nevada , Interstate 80 passes through Wendover, Utah and then goes across the salt flats on the south shore of the Great Salt Lake on its way to Salt Lake City, while the original railroad went on the north side and now goes across the Great Salt Lake. The Interstate then passes up Parley's Canyon before rejoining the railroad near the Echo Canyon junction of Interstate 84 and Interstate 80 .
I-84, built much later, blasted its way down Weber Canyon with no tunnels. The interstate diverges from the railroad route in rugged terrain as it was built much later, with much more powerful equipment, better explosives and at much higher cost. In addition, interstate highways can tolerate up to about six-percent grades which allows them to go many places the railroads had to go around, since their goal was to hold their grades to less than two percent.
Construction[ edit ]
The Jupiter, which carried Leland Stanford (one of the "Big Four" owners of the Central Pacific) and other railway officials to the Last Spike Ceremony.
Most of the capital investment needed to build the railroad was generated by selling government-guaranteed bonds (granted per mile of completed track) to interested investors. The Federal donation of right-of-way saved money and time as it did not have to be purchased from others. The financial incentives and bonds would hopefully cover most of the initial capital investment needed to build the railroad. The bonds would be paid back by the sale of government-granted land, as well as prospective passenger and freight income. Most of the engineers and surveyors who figured out how and where to build the railroad on the Union Pacific were engineering college trained. Many of Union Pacific engineers and surveyors were Union Army veterans (including two generals) who had learned their railroad trade keeping the trains running and tracks maintained during the U.S. Civil War. After securing the finances and selecting the engineering team, the next step was to hire the key personnel and prospective supervisors. Nearly all key workers and supervisors were hired because they had previous railroad on-the-job training, knew what needed to be done and how to direct workers to get it done. After the key personnel were hired, the semi-skilled jobs could be filled if there was available labor. The engineering team's main job was to tell the workers where to go, what to do, how to do it, and provide the construction material they would need to get it done.
Survey teams were put out to produce detailed contour maps of the options on the different routes. The engineering team looked at the available surveys and chose what was the "best" route. Survey teams under the direction of the engineers closely led the work crews and marked where and by how much hills would have to be cut and depressions filled or bridged. Coordinators made sure that construction and other supplies were provided when and where needed, and additional supplies were ordered as the railroad construction consumed the supplies. Specialized bridging, explosive and tunneling teams were assigned to their specialized jobs. Some jobs like explosive work, tunneling, bridging, heavy cuts or fills were known to take longer than others, so the specialized teams were sent out ahead by wagon trains with the supplies and men to get these jobs done by the time the regular track-laying crews arrived. Finance officers made sure the supplies were paid for and men paid for their work. An army of men had to be coordinated and a seemingly never-ending chain of supplies had to be provided. The Central Pacific road crew set a track-laying record by laying 10 mi (16 km) of track in a single day, commemorating the event with a signpost beside the track for passing trains to see. [73]
In addition to the track-laying crews, other crews were busy setting up stations with provisions for loading fuel, water and often also mail, passengers and freight. Personnel had to be hired to run these stations. Maintenance depots had to be built to keep all of the equipment repaired and operational. Telegraph operators had to be hired to man each station to keep track of where the trains were so that trains could run in each direction on the available single track without interference or accidents. Sidings had to be built to allow trains to pass. Provisions had to be made to store and continually pay for coal or wood needed to run the steam locomotives . Water towers had to be built for refilling the water tanks on the engines, and provisions made to keep them full.
Labor[ edit ]
The majority of the Union Pacific track across the Nebraska and Wyoming territories was built by veterans of the Union and Confederate armies, as well as many recent immigrants. Brigham Young , President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , landed contracts with the Union Pacific that offered jobs for around 2,000 members of the church with the hope that the railroad would support commerce in Utah. Church members built most of the road through Utah.[ citation needed ]
Construction superintendent Durant repeatedly failed to pay the wages agreed upon. The Union Pacific train carrying him to the final spike ceremony was held up by a strike by unpaid workers in Piedmont, Wyoming until he paid them for their work. Representatives of Brigham Young had less success, and failed in court to force him to honor the contract. [74]
Chinese railroad workers greet a train on a snowy day.
The manual labor to build the Central Pacific's roadbed, bridges and tunnels was done primarily by many thousands of emigrant workers from China under the direction of skilled non-Chinese supervisors. The Chinese were commonly referred to at the time as " Celestials " and China as the "Celestial Kingdom." Labor-saving devices in those days consisted primarily of wheelbarrows , horse or mule pulled carts, and a few railroad pulled gondolas. The construction work involved an immense amount of manual labor. Initially, Central Pacific had a hard time hiring and keeping unskilled workers on its line, as many would leave for the prospect of far more lucrative gold or silver mining options elsewhere. Despite the concerns expressed by Charles Crocker , one of the "big four" and a general contractor, that the Chinese were too small in stature, standing at about 58 inches (1.5 m), weighing about 120 pounds (54 kg), [75] and lacking previous experience with railroad work, they decided to try them anyway. After the first few days of trial with a few workers, with noticeably positive results, Crocker decided to hire as many as he could, looking primarily at the California labor force, where the majority of Chinese worked as independent gold miners or in the service industries (e.g.: laundries and kitchens). Most of these Chinese workers were represented by a Chinese "boss" who translated, collected salaries for his crew, kept discipline and relayed orders from an American general supervisor. Most Chinese workers spoke only rudimentary or no English, and the supervisors typically only learned rudimentary Chinese. Many more workers were imported from the Guangdong Province of China, which at the time, beside great poverty, suffered from the violence of the Taiping Rebellion . Most Chinese workers were planning on returning with their new found "wealth" when the work was completed. Most of the men received between one and three dollars per day, the same as unskilled white workers; but the workers imported directly from China sometimes received less. A diligent worker could save over $20 per month after paying for food and lodging—a "fortune" by Chinese standards. A snapshot of workers in late 1865 showed about 3,000 Chinese and 1,700 white workers employed on the railroad. Nearly all of the white workers were in supervisory or skilled craft positions and made more money than the Chinese.
Most of the early work on the Central Pacific consisted of constructing the railroad track bed, cutting and/or blasting through or around hills, filling in washes, building bridges or trestles, digging and blasting tunnels and then laying the rails over the Sierra Nevada (U.S.) mountains. Once the Central Pacific was out of the Sierras and the Carson Range, progress sped up considerably as the railroad bed could be built over nearly flat ground. In those days, the Central Pacific once did a section of 10 miles (16 km) of track in one day as a "demonstration" of what they could do on flat ground like most of the Union Pacific had in Wyoming and Nebraska.
The track laying was divided up into various parts. In advance of the track layers, surveyors consulting with engineers determined where the track would go. Workers then built and prepared the roadbed, dug or blasted through hills, filled in washes, built trestles, bridges or culverts across streams or valleys, made tunnels if needed, and laid the ties. The actual track-laying gang would then lay rails on the previously laid ties positioned on the roadbed, drive the spikes, and bolt the fishplate bars to each rail. At the same time, another gang would distribute telegraph poles and wire along the grade, while the cooks prepared dinner and the clerks busied themselves with accounts, records, using the telegraph line to relay requests for more materials and supplies or communicate with supervisors. Usually the workers lived in camps built near their work site. Supplies were ordered by the engineers and hauled by rail, possibly then to be loaded on wagons if they were needed ahead of the rail head. Camps were moved when the rail head moved a significant distance. Later, as the railroad started moving long distances every few days, some railroad cars had bunkhouses built in them that moved with the workers—the Union Pacific had used this technique since 1866. [76] Almost all of the roadbed work had to be done manually, using shovels, picks, axes, two-wheeled dump carts, wheelbarrows, ropes, scrapers, etc., with initially only black powder available for blasting. Carts pulled by mules, and horses were about the only labor saving devices available then. Lumber and ties were usually provided by independent contractors who cut, hauled and sawed the timber as required.
CPRR Tunnel #3 near Cisco, California (MP 180.1) opened in 1866 and remains in daily use today.
Tunnels were blasted through hard rock by drilling holes in the rock face by hand and filling them with black powder. Sometimes cracks were found which could be filled with powder and blasted loose. The loosened rock would be collected and hauled out of the tunnel for use in a fill area or as roadbed, or else dumped over the side as waste. A foot or so advance on a tunnel face was a typical day's work. Some tunnels took almost a year to finish and the Summit Tunnel, the longest, took almost two years. In the final days of working in the Sierras, the recently invented nitroglycerin explosive was introduced and used on the last tunnels including Summit Tunnel. [77]
Supply trains carried all the necessary material for the construction up to the rail head, with mule or horse-drawn wagons carrying it the rest of the ways if required. Ties were typically unloaded from horse-drawn or mule-drawn wagons and then placed on the track ballast and levelled to get ready for the rails. Rails, which weighed the most, were often kicked off the flatcars and carried by gangs of men on each side of the rail to where needed. The rails just in front of the rail car would be placed first, measured for the correct gauge with gauge sticks and then nailed down on the ties with spike mauls . The fishplates connecting the ends of the rails would be bolted on and then the car pushed by hand to the end of the rail and rail installation repeated.
Track ballast was put between the ties as they progressed. Where a proper railbed had already been prepared, the work progressed rapidly. Constantly needed supplies included "food, water, ties, rails, spikes, fishplates, nuts and bolts, track ballast, telegraph poles, wire, fire wood (or coal on the UP) and water for the steam train locomotives, etc." [76] After a flatcar was unloaded, it would usually be hooked to a small locomotive and pulled back to a siding, so another flatcar with rails etc. could be advanced to the rail head. Since juggling railroad cars took time on flat ground, where wagon transport was easier, the rail cars would be brought to the end of the line by steam locomotive, unloaded, and the flat car returned immediately to a siding for another loaded car of either ballast or rails. Temporary sidings were often installed where it could be easily done to expedite getting needed supplies to the rail head.
The railroad tracks, spikes, telegraph wire, locomotives, railroad cars, supplies etc. were imported from the east on sailing ships that sailed the about 18,000 miles (29,000 km) and about 200 day trip around Cape Horn . Some freight was put on Clipper ships which could do the trip in about 120 days. Some passengers and high priority freight were shipped over the newly (1855) completed Panama Railroad across the Isthmus of Panama . Using paddle steamers to and from Panama, this short cut could be done in as little as 40 days. Supplies were normally offloaded at the Sacramento, California docks where the railroad started.
Central Pacific construction[ edit ]
On January 8, 1863, Governor Leland Stanford ceremoniously broke ground in Sacramento, California, to begin construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. After great initial progress along the Sacramento Valley, construction was slowed, first by the foothills of the Sierra Nevada (U.S.) , then by cutting a railroad bed up the mountains themselves. As they progressed higher in the mountains, winter snowstorms and a shortage of reliable labor compounded the problems. Consequently, after a trial crew of Chinese workers was hired and found to work successfully, the Central Pacific expanded its efforts to hire more emigrant laborers—mostly Chinese . Emigrants from poverty stricken regions of China, many of which suffered from the strife of the Taiping Rebellion , seemed to be more willing to tolerate the living and working conditions on the railroad construction, and progress on the railroad continued. The increasing necessity for tunneling as they proceeded up the mountains then began to slow progress of the line yet again.
Example of hand drilled granite from within Tunnel #6, the "Summit Tunnel".
The first step of construction was to survey the route and determine the locations where large excavations, tunnels and bridges would be needed. Crews could then start work in advance of the railroad reaching these locations. Supplies and workers were brought up to the work locations by wagon teams and work on several different sections proceeded simultaneously. One advantage of working on tunnels in winter was that tunnel work could often proceed since the work was nearly all "inside". Unfortunately, living quarters would have to be built outside and getting new supplies was difficult. Working and living in winter in the presence of snow slides and avalanches caused some deaths. [78]
To carve a tunnel, one worker held a rock drill on the granite face while one to two other workers swung eighteen-pound sledgehammers to sequentially hit the drill which slowly advanced into the rock. Once the hole was about 10 inches (25 cm) deep, it would be filled with black powder, a fuse set and then ignited from a safe distance. Nitroglycerin, which had just been invented, was only used to help construct the longest tunnel, the Summit Tunnel (a.k.a. Tunnel No. 6), which reached 1,659 feet (506 m).
The Chinese built 15 tunnels for Central Pacific. These tunnels were about 32 feet high and 16 feet wide. [79] When tunnels with vertical shafts were dug to increase construction speed, and tunneling began in the middle of the tunnel, at first hand powered derricks were used to help remove loose rocks up the vertical shafts. These derricks were later replaced with steam hoists as work progressed. By using vertical shafts, four faces of the tunnel could be worked at the same time, two in the middle and one at each end. The average daily progress in some tunnels was only 0.85 feet a day per face, which was very slow, [79] or 1.18 feet daily according to historian George Kraus. [80] J. O. Wilder, a Central Pacific-Southern Pacific employee, commented that "The Chinese were as steady, hard-working a set of men as could be found. With the exception of a few whites at the west end of Tunnel No. 6, the laboring force was entirely composed of Chinamen with white foremen and a "boss/translator". A single foreman (often Irish) with a gang of 30 to 40 Chinese men generally constituted the force at work at each end of a tunnel; of these, 12 to 15 men worked on the heading, and the rest on the bottom, removing blasted material. When a gang was small or the men were needed elsewhere, the bottoms were worked with fewer men or stopped so as to keep the headings going." [80] The laborers usually worked three shifts of 8 hours each per day, while the foremen worked in two shifts of 12 hours each, managing the laborers. [81] Once out of the Sierras, construction was much easier and faster. Horace Hamilton Minkler, track foreman for the Central Pacific, laid the last rail and tie before the Last Spike was driven.
CPRR snow gallery under construction in 1868.
In order to keep the CPRR's Sierra grade open during the winter months, beginning in 1867, 37 miles of massive wooden snow sheds and galleries were built between Blue Cañon and Truckee, covering cuts and other points where there was danger of avalanches. 2,500 men and six material trains were employed in this work, which was completed in 1869. The sheds were built with two sides and a steep peaked roof mostly of locally cut hewn timber and round logs. Snow galleries had one side and a roof that sloped upward until it met the mountain side, thus permitting avalanches to slide over the galleries, some of which extended up the mountainside as much as two hundred feet. Masonry walls such as the "Chinese Walls" at Donner Summit were built across canyons to prevent avalanches from striking the side of the vulnerable wooden construction. [82] [83] [84] A few concrete sheds (mostly at crossovers) are still in use today.
Union Pacific construction[ edit ]
Grenville M. Dodge wearing a major general 's uniform
The major investor in the Union Pacific was Thomas Clark Durant, [85] who had made his stake money by smuggling Confederate cotton with the aid of Grenville M. Dodge . Durant chose routes that would favor places where he held land, and he announced connections to other lines at times that suited his share dealings. He paid an associate to submit the construction bid to another company he controlled, Crédit Mobilier , manipulating the finances and government subsidies and making himself another fortune. Durant hired Dodge as chief engineer and Jack Casement as construction boss.[ citation needed ]
In the East, the progress started in Omaha, Nebraska, by the Union Pacific Railroad which initially proceeded very quickly because of the open terrain of the Great Plains . This changed, however, as the work entered Indian-held lands. The Native Americans saw the railroad as a violation of their treaties with the United States. War parties began to raid the moving labor camps that followed the progress of the line. Union Pacific responded by increasing security and hiring marksmen to kill American Bison , which were both a physical threat to trains and the primary food source for many of the Plains Indians. The Native Americans then began killing laborers when they realized that the so-called "Iron Horse" threatened their existence. Security measures were further strengthened, and progress on the railroad continued.[ citation needed ]
The "Last Spike" ceremony[ edit ]
Golden spike, one of four ceremonial spikes driven at the completion (but not the final one)
The Last Spike by Thomas Hill (1881)
Six years after the groundbreaking, laborers of the Central Pacific Railroad from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad from the east met at Promontory Summit , Utah Territory. It was here on May 10, 1869, that Leland Stanford drove The Last Spike (or golden spike ) that joined the rails of the transcontinental railroad. The spike is now on display at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University , while a second "Last" Golden Spike is also on display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. [86] In perhaps the world's first live mass-media event, the hammers and spike were wired to the telegraph line so that each hammer stroke would be heard as a click at telegraph stations nationwide—the hammer strokes were missed, so the clicks were sent by the telegraph operator. As soon as the ceremonial "Last Spike" had been replaced by an ordinary iron spike, a message was transmitted to both the East Coast and West Coast that simply read, "DONE." The country erupted in celebration upon receipt of this message. Travel from coast to coast was reduced from six months or more to just one week.
Railroad developments[ edit ]
Display ads for the CPRR and UPRR the week the rails were joined on May 10, 1869
UPRR & CPRR "Great American Over-Land Route" Timetable cover 1881
When the last spike was driven, the rail network was not yet connected to the Atlantic or Pacific but merely connected Omaha to Sacramento. To get from Sacramento to the Pacific, the Central Pacific purchased the struggling Western Pacific Railroad (unrelated to the railroad of the same name that would later parallel its route) and resumed construction on it, which had halted in 1866 due to funding troubles. In November 1869, the Central Pacific finally connected Sacramento to the east side of San Francisco Bay by rail at Oakland, California , where freight and passengers completed their transcontinental link to the city by ferry .
The original route from the Central Valley to the Bay skirted the Delta by heading south out of Sacramento through Stockton and crossing the San Joaquin River at Mossdale , then climbed over the Altamont Pass and reached the East Bay through Niles Canyon . The Western Pacific was originally chartered to go to San Jose , but the Central Pacific decided to build along the East Bay instead, as going from San Jose up the Peninsula to San Francisco itself would have brought it into conflict with competing interests . The railroad entered Alameda and Oakland from the south, roughly paralleling what would later become U.S. Route 50 and later still Interstates 5 , 205 , and 580 . A more direct route was obtained with the purchase of the California Pacific Railroad , crossing the Sacramento River and proceeding southwest through Davis to Benicia , where it crossed the Carquinez Strait by means of an enormous train ferry , then followed the shores of the San Pablo and San Francisco bays to Richmond and the Port of Oakland (paralleling U.S. Route 40 which ultimately became Interstate 80 ). In 1930, a rail bridge across the Carquinez replaced the Benicia ferries.
Very early on, the Central Pacific learned that it would have trouble maintaining an open track in winter across the Sierras . At first they tried plowing the road with special snowplows mounted on their steam engines. When this was only partially successful, an extensive process of building snow sheds over some of the track was instituted to protect it from deep snows and avalanches. These eventually succeeded at keeping the tracks clear for all but a few days of the year. [87]
Both railroads soon instituted extensive upgrade projects to build better bridges, viaducts and dugways as well as install heavier duty rails, stronger ties, better road beds etc. The original track had often been laid as fast as possible with only secondary attention to maintenance and durability. The primary incentive had been getting the subsidies, which meant that upgrades of all kinds were routinely required in the following years.
Frontispiece of Crofutt's Great Trans-Continental Tourist's Guide, 1870
The Union Pacific would not connect Omaha to Council Bluffs until completing the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge in 1873.
Several years after the end of the Civil War, the competing railroads coming from Missouri finally realized their initial strategic advantage and a building boom ensued. In July 1869, the H&SJ finished the Hannibal Bridge in Kansas City which was the first bridge to cross the Missouri River. This in turn connected to Kansas Pacific trains going from Kansas City to Denver, which in turn had built the Denver Pacific Railway connecting to the Union Pacific. In August 1870, the Kansas Pacific drove the last spike connecting to the Denver Pacific line at Strasburg, Colorado and the first true Atlantic to Pacific United States railroad was completed.
Kansas City's head start in connecting to a true transcontinental railroad contributed to it rather than Omaha becoming the dominant rail center west of Chicago.
The Kansas Pacific became part of the Union Pacific in 1880.
On June 4, 1876, an express train called the Transcontinental Express arrived in San Francisco via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after it had left New York City . Only ten years before, the same journey would have taken months over land or weeks on ship, possibly all the way around South America.
The Central Pacific got a direct route to San Francisco when it was merged with the Southern Pacific Railroad to create the Southern Pacific Company in 1885. The Union Pacific initially took over the Southern Pacific in 1901 but was forced by the U.S. Supreme Court to divest it because of monopoly concerns. The two railroads would once again unite in 1996 when the Southern Pacific was sold to the Union Pacific.
Having been bypassed with the completion of the Lucin Cutoff in 1904, the Promontory Summit rails were pulled up in 1942 to be recycled for the World War II effort. This process began with a ceremonial "undriving" at the Last Spike location. [88] In 1957, Congress authorized the Golden Spike National Historic Site . On May 10, 2006, on the anniversary of the driving of the spike, Utah announced that its state quarter design would be a representation of the driving of the Last (Golden) Spike.
Main article: Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Despite the transcontinental success and millions in government subsidies, the Union Pacific faced bankruptcy less than three years after the Last Spike as details surfaced about overcharges that Crédit Mobilier had billed Union Pacific for the formal building of the railroad. The scandal hit epic proportions in the United States presidential election, 1872 , which saw the re-election of Ulysses S. Grant and became the biggest scandal of the Gilded Age . It would not be resolved until the death of the congressman who was supposed to have reined in its excesses but instead wound up profiting from it.
Durant had initially come up with the scheme to have Crédit Mobilier subcontract to do the actual track work. Durant gained control of the company after buying out employee Herbert Hoxie for $10,000. Under Durant's guidance, Crédit Mobilier was charging Union Pacific often twice or more the customary cost for track work (thus in effect paying himself to build the railroad). The process mired down Union Pacific work.
Lincoln asked Massachusetts Congressman Oakes Ames , who was on the railroad committee, to clean things up and get the railroad moving. Ames got his brother Oliver Ames Jr. named president of the Union Pacific, while he himself became president of Crédit Mobilier. [89]
Ames then in turn gave stock options to other politicians while at the same time continuing the lucrative overcharges. The scandal was to implicate Vice President Schuyler Colfax (who was cleared) and future President James Garfield among others.
The scandal broke in 1872 when the New York Sun published correspondence detailing the scheme between Henry S. McComb and Ames. In the ensuing Congressional investigation, it was recommended that Ames be expelled from Congress, but this was reduced to a censure and Ames died within three months.
Durant later left the Union Pacific and a new rail baron Jay Gould became the dominant stockholder. As a result of the Panic of 1873 , Gould was able to pick up bargains, among them the control of the Union Pacific Railroad and Western Union . [90]
Visible remains[ edit ]
Visible remains of the historic line are still easily located—hundreds of miles are still in service today, especially through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and canyons in Utah and Wyoming. While the original rail has long since been replaced because of age and wear, and the roadbed upgraded and repaired, the lines generally run on top of the original, handmade grade. Vista points on Interstate 80 through California's Truckee Canyon provide a panoramic view of many miles of the original Central Pacific line and of the snow sheds which made winter train travel safe and practical.
In areas where the original line has been bypassed and abandoned, primarily in Utah, the road grade is still obvious, as are numerous cuts and fills, especially the Big Fill a few miles east of Promontory. The sweeping curve which connected to the east end of the Big Fill now passes a Thiokol rocket research and development facility.
The Last Spike site is preserved as a National Historical Site, with replica engines of Union Pacific No. 119 and Central Pacific Jupiter having been built by O'Connor Engineering Laboratories . The engines are fired up periodically by the National Park Service for the public. [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99]
Current passenger service[ edit ]
Amtrak 's California Zephyr , a daily passenger service from Emeryville, California ( San Francisco Bay Area ) to Chicago , uses the First Transcontinental Railroad from Sacramento central Nevada. Because this rail line currently operates in a directional running setup across most of Nevada, the California Zephyr will switch to the Central Corridor at either Winnemucca or Wells . [100]
In popular culture[ edit ]
The joining of the Union Pacific line with the Central Pacific line in May 1869 at Promontory Summit, Utah , was one of the major inspirations for French writer Jules Verne 's book entitled Around the World in Eighty Days , published in 1873. [101]
Poster for the film Union Pacific .
The feat is depicted in various movies, including the 1939 film Union Pacific , starring Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck and directed by Cecil B. DeMille , which depicts the fictional Central Pacific investor Asa Barrows obstructing attempts of the Union Pacific to reach Ogden, Utah.
While not exactly accurate, John Ford's 1924 silent movie The Iron Horse captures the fervent nationalism that drove public support for the project. Among the cooks serving the film's cast and crew between shots were some of the Chinese laborers who worked on the Central Pacific section of the railroad.
The 1962 film How the West Was Won has a whole segment devoted to the construction; one of the movie's most famous scenes, filmed in Cinerama , is of a buffalo stampede over the railroad.
The construction of what presumably is – or is suggested to be – the Transcontinental Railroad provides the backdrop of the 1968 epic spaghetti western Once Upon a Time in the West , directed by Italian director Sergio Leone .
Kristiana Gregory 's book The Great Railroad Race (part of the "Dear America" series) is written as the fictional diary of Libby West, who chronicles the end of the railroad construction and the excitement which engulfed the country at the time.
Graham Masterton 's 1981 novel A Man of Destiny (published in the UK as Railroad) is a fictionalised account of the line's construction.
In the 1999 Will Smith film, Wild Wild West , the joining ceremony is the setting of an assassination attempt on then U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant by the film's antagonist Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless .
The building of the railway is covered by the 2004 BBC documentary series Seven Wonders of the Industrial World in episode 6, "The Line".
The series American Experience also documents the railway in the episode titled "Transcontinental Railroad".
The main character in The Claim (2000) is a surveyor for the Central Pacific Railroad , and the film is partially about the efforts of a frontier mayor to have the railroad routed through his town.
The popular British television show Doctor Who featured the Transcontinental Railroad in a BBC audio book entitled The Runaway Train , read by Matt Smith and written for audio by Oli Smith.
The children's book Ten Mile Day by Mary Ann Fraser tells the story of the record setting push by the Central Pacific in which they set a record by laying 10 miles (16 km) of track in a single day on April 28, 1869, to settle a $10,000 bet.
The construction of the Transcontinental Railroad provides the setting for the AMC television series Hell on Wheels . Thomas Durant is a regular character in the series and is portrayed by actor Colm Meaney .
In 2015, a Lego model depicting the Golden Spike Ceremony, the event that symbolically marked the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad, was submitted to the Lego Ideas website. [102] [103]
Notes[ edit ]
^ The total value of the thirty year 6% US Government subsidy bonds issued to the three companies was $55,092,192 and the amount of federal lands specified by Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864 to which the UPRR, CPRR and WPRR were entitled was 21,100,000 acres (8,500,000 hectares) of which 2,390,009 acres (967,202 hectares) had been patented as of March 1876. [6]
^ "The charter of the last-named Company [Western Pacific Railroad] contemplated a line from Sacramento toward San Francisco, making the circuit of the Bay of that name [to San José]. Their franchise has recently [late 1867] been assigned to parties in the interest of the Central Pacific Railroad Company; and it is probable that this line will be formally incorporated with the Central Pacific Railroad, and the road extended from Sacramento to San Francisco by the "best, most direct and practicable route" so soon as the overland connection is completed. In the meantime the travel is abundantly accommodated by first-class steamers." – Central Pacific Railroad Company of California "Railroad Across the Continent, with an account of the Central Pacific Railroad of California", pp. 9-10, New York: Brown & Hewitt, Printers. September 1868.
^ The legal "date of completion" of the WPRR grade was subsequently designated to be January 22, 1870. [12] The formal consolidation of the Central Pacific Railroad of California with the Western Pacific Railroad Co., San Joaquin Valley Railroad Co., and San Francisco, Oakland & Alameda Railroad Co. under the name of the Central Pacific Railroad Company became effective on June 22, 1870 with the filing of Articles of Consolidation drawn under the laws of California with the California Secretary of State. [13] [14]
^ The new terminus opened on November 8, later deemed to be two days after the official "completion date" of the Pacific Railroad. Section 6 of the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, et seq. required that an official date of completion be determined for the purpose of determining how other provisions of the Acts would be carried out. November 6, 1869 was confirmed as being that date by the US Supreme Court in Part I of the Court's Opinion and Order dated January 27, 1879, in re Union Pacific Railroad vs. United States (99 U.S. 402). [17] [18]
^ Later, the Northern Pacific Railway (NP) found and built a better route across the northern tier of the western United States from Minnesota to the Pacific Coast. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly 40 million acres (160,000km2) of land grants, which it used to raise money in Europe. Construction began in 1870 and the main line opened all the way from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean on September 8, 1883.
^ The southern route was constructed in 1880 when the Southern Pacific Railroad crossed Arizona territory.
| union pacific and central pacific |
What famed Yankee, widely regarded as one of the greatest catchers ever, was known for his malapropisms, such as “It ain’t over till it’s over,” and “It’s deja vu all over again”. | First Transcontinental Railroad
First Transcontinental Railroad
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At the ceremony for the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, Utah , May 10, 1869
Transcontinental Railroad 75th Anniversary Issue stamp of 1944
The First Transcontinental Railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route ") was a 1,912-mile (3,077 km) contiguous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Omaha, Nebraska / Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay . [1] The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants. [2] Construction was financed by both state and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company issued mortgage bonds. [3] [4] [5] [N 1] The Western Pacific Railroad Company built 132 mi (212 km) of track from Oakland / Alameda to Sacramento, California . The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (CPRR) constructed 690 mi (1,110 km) eastward from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory (U.T.) . And the Union Pacific built 1,085 mi (1,746 km) from the road's eastern terminus at Council Bluffs near Omaha, Nebraska westward to Promontory Summit. [7] [8] [9]
The railroad opened for through traffic on May 10, 1869 when CPRR President Leland Stanford ceremonially drove the gold "Last Spike" (later often referred to as the " Golden Spike ") with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit . [10] [11] The coast-to-coast railroad connection revolutionized the settlement and economy of the American West . It brought the western states and territories into alignment with the northern Union states and made transporting passengers and goods coast-to-coast considerably quicker and less expensive.
Paddle steamers linked Sacramento to the cities and their harbor facilities in the San Francisco Bay until 1869, when the CPRR completed and opened the WP grade (which the CPRR had acquired control of in 1867–68 [N 2] [N 3] ) to Alameda and Oakland.
The first transcontinental rail passengers arrived at the Pacific Railroad's original western terminus at the Alameda Mole on September 6, 1869 where they transferred to the steamer Alameda for transport across the Bay to San Francisco. The road's rail terminus was moved two months later to the Oakland Long Wharf about a mile to the north. [15] [16] [N 4] Service between San Francisco and Oakland Pier continued to be provided by ferry.
The CPRR eventually purchased 53 miles of UPRR-built grade from Promontory Summit (MP 828) to Ogden, U.T. (MP 881), which became the interchange point between trains of the two roads. The transcontinental line was popularly known as the Overland Route after the principal passenger rail service that operated over the length of the line until 1962. [19]
Contents
Origins[ edit ]
Title page of Dr. Hartwell Carver's 1847 Pacific Railroad proposal to Congress
Building a railroad line that connected the United States coast-to-coast was advocated in 1832 when Dr. Hartwell Carver published an article in the New York Courier & Enquirer advocating building a transcontinental railroad from Lake Michigan to Oregon. In 1847 he submitted to the U.S. Congress a "Proposal for a Charter to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean", seeking a congressional charter to support his idea. [20] [21]
Preliminary exploration[ edit ]
The official poster announcing the Pacific Railroad's grand opening.
Congress agreed to support the idea. Under the direction of the Department of War , the Pacific Railroad Surveys were conducted from 1853 through 1855. These included an extensive series of expeditions of the American West seeking possible routes. A report on the explorations described alternative routes and included an immense amount of information about the American West , covering at least 400,000 sq mi (1,000,000 km2). It included the region's natural history and illustrations of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals. [22]
The report failed however to include detailed topographic maps of potential routes needed to estimate the feasibility, cost and select the best route. The survey was detailed enough to determine that the best southern route lay south of the Gila River boundary with Mexico in mostly vacant desert, through the future territories of Arizona and New Mexico . This in part motivated the United States to complete the Gadsden Purchase . [23]
In 1856 the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph of the US House of Representatives published a report recommending support for a proposed Pacific railroad bill:
The necessity that now exists for constructing lines of railroad and telegraphic communication between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of this continent is no longer a question for argument; it is conceded by every one. In order to maintain our present position on the Pacific, we must have some more speedy and direct means of intercourse than is at present afforded by the route through the possessions of a foreign power. [24]
Possible routes[ edit ]
The U.S. Congress was strongly divided on where the eastern terminus of the railroad should be—in a southern or northern city. [25] Three routes were considered:
A northern route roughly along the Missouri River through present-day northern Montana to Oregon Territory . This was considered impractical due to the rough terrain and extensive winter snows. [N 5]
A central route following the Platte River in Nebraska through to the South Pass in Wyoming , following most of the Oregon Trail . Snow on this route remained a concern.
A southern route across Texas , New Mexico Territory , the Sonora desert , connecting to Los Angeles , California. Surveyors found during a 1848 survey that the best route lay south of the border between the United States and Mexico. This was resolved by the Gadsen Purchase in 1853. [26] [N 6]
Once the central route was chosen, it was immediately obvious that the western terminus should be Sacramento. But there was considerable differences of opinion about the eastern terminus. Three locations along 250 miles (400 km) of Missouri River were considered:
Council Bluffs / Omaha , accessed via an extension of Union Pacific financier Thomas C. Durant 's proposed Mississippi and Missouri Railroad and the new Union Pacific Railroad , also controlled by Durant.
Council Bluffs had several advantages: It was well north of the much of the Civil War fighting taking place in Missouri; it was the shortest route to South Pass in the Rockies in Wyoming; and it would follow a fertile river that would encourage settlement. Durant had hired Lincoln in 1857 when he was an attorney to represent him in a business matter about a bridge over the Missouri. Now Lincoln was responsible for choosing the eastern terminus, and he relied on Durant's counsel. Durant advocated for Omaha, and he was so confident of the choice that he began buying up land in Nebraska.[ citation needed ]
Asa Whitney[ edit ]
One of the most prominent champions of the central route railroad was Asa Whitney . He envisioned a route from Chicago and the Great Lakes to northern California, paid for by the sale of land to settlers along the route. Whitney traveled widely to solicit support from businessmen and politicians, printed maps and pamphlets, and submitted several proposals to Congress , all at his own expense. In June 1845, he led a team along part of the proposed route to assess its feasibility. [27]
Legislation to begin construction of the Pacific Railroad (called the Memorial of Asa Whitney) was first introduced to Congress by Representative Zadock Pratt . [28] Congress did not immediately act on Whitney's proposal.
Theodore Judah, architect of the Transcontinental Railroad and first chief engineer of the Central Pacific.
Lewis M. Clement, Chief Assistant Engineer and Superintendent of Track
The next big champion of the central route was Theodore Judah , who undertook to survey a manageable route through what was one of the chief obstacles of a central route to California, the high and rugged Sierra Nevada.
In 1852, Judah was chief engineer for the newly formed Sacramento Valley Railroad , the first railroad built west of the Mississippi River . Although the railroad later went bankrupt once the easy placer gold deposits around Placerville, California were depleted, Judah was convinced that a properly financed railroad could pass from Sacramento through the Sierra Nevada mountains to reach the Great Basin and hook up with rail lines coming from the East. [29]
In 1856, Judah wrote a 13,000-word proposal in support of a Pacific railroad and distributed it to Cabinet secretaries, congressmen and other influential people. In September 1859, Judah was chosen to be the accredited lobbyist for the Pacific Railroad Convention, which indeed approved his plan to survey, finance and engineer the road. Judah returned to Washington in December 1859. He had a lobbying office in the United States Capitol , received an audience with President James Buchanan , and represented the Convention before Congress. [30]
Judah returned to California in 1860. He continued to search for a more practical route through the Sierras suitable for a railroad. In mid-1860, local miner Daniel Strong had surveyed a route over the Sierras for a wagon toll road, which he realized would also suit a railroad. He described his discovery in a letter to Judah. Together, they formed an association to solicit subscriptions from local merchants and businessmen to support their proposed railroad. [30]
From January or February 1861 until July, Judah and Strong led a 10-person expedition to survey the route for the railroad over the Sierra Nevada through Clipper Gap and Emigrant Gap , over Donner Pass , and south to Truckee . They discovered a way across the Sierras that was gradual enough to be made suitable for a railroad, although it still needed a lot of work. [30]
The Big Four[ edit ]
Main articles: The Big Four and Central Pacific Railroad
Leland Stanford's official gubernatorial portrait
Four northern California businessmen formed the Central Pacific Railroad : Leland Stanford , (1824–1893), President; Collis Potter Huntington , (1821–1900), Vice President; Mark Hopkins , (1813–1878), Treasurer; Charles Crocker , (1822–1888), Construction Supervisor. All became substantially wealthy from their association with the railroad.
Main articles: Thomas C. Durant and Union Pacific Railroad
Dr. Thomas C. Durant
Former ophthalmologist Dr. Thomas Clark "Doc" Durant was nominally only a vice president of Union Pacific, so he installed a series of respected men like John Adams Dix as president of the railroad. Durant and it's financing arrangements were, unlike the CPRR, mired in controversy and scandals.[ citation needed ]
Authorization and funding[ edit ]
Main article: Pacific Railroad Act
In February 1860, Iowa Representative Samuel Curtis introduced a bill to fund the railroad. It passed the House but died when it could not be reconciled with the Senate version due to opposition from southern states who wanted a southern route near the 42nd parallel. [30] Curtis tried and failed again in 1861. After the southern states seceded from the Union, the House of Representatives approved the bill on May 6, 1862, and the Senate on June 20. Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 into law on July 1. It authorized creation of two companies, the Central Pacific in the west and the Union Pacific in the mid-west, to build the railroad. The legislation called for building and operating a new railroad from the Missouri River at Council Bluffs, Iowa , west to Sacramento, California , and on to San Francisco Bay . [31] A second law to supplement the first was passed in 1864. [32]
Federal financing[ edit ]
To finance the project, the act authorized the federal government to issue 30-year U.S. government bonds (at 6% interest). The railroad companies were paid $16,000/mile (approximately $422,000 today) for track laid on a level grade, $32,000/mile (about $844,000 today) for track laid in foothills, and $48,000/mile (or about $1,266,000 today) for track laid in mountains. The two railroad companies sold similar amounts of company-backed bonds and stock. [33]
The huge capital investment (over $100,000,000 in 1860 dollars, or about $2,638 billion today) needed was raised by selling the government-backed bonds and railroad company bonds and stock to interested private investors. The bonds would be repaid by selling the land granted to the railroads and the projected passenger and freight income.[ citation needed ]
Union Pacific financing[ edit ]
While the federal legislation for the Union Pacific required that no partner was to own more than 10 percent of the stock, the UP had problems selling its stock. One of the few subscribers was Mormon leader Brigham Young , who also supplied crews for building much of the railroad through Utah. [34] Durant enticed other investors by offering to front money for the stock they purchased in their names. This scheme enabled Durant to control about half of the railroad stock. The initial construction of UP grade traversed land owned by Durant. Durant's railroad was paid by the mile, and to further inflate its profits, the UP built oxbows of unneeded track, and by July 4, 1865, it had only reached 40 miles (64 km) from Omaha after 2½ years of construction.
Durant manipulated market prices on his stocks by spreading rumors about which railroads he had an interest in were being considered for connection with the Union Pacific. First he touted rumors that his fledgling M&M Railroad had a deal in the works, while secretly buying stock in the depressed Cedar Rapids and Missouri Railroad . Then he circulated rumors that the CR&M had plans to connect to the Union Pacific, at which point he began buying back the M&M stock at depressed prices. It's estimated his scams produced over $5 million in profits for he and his cohorts. [35]
Central Pacific financing[ edit ]
Collis Huntington , a Sacramento hardware merchant, heard Judah's presentation about the railroad at the St. Charles Hotel in November 1860. He invited Judah to his office to hear his proposal in detail. Huntington persuaded Judah to accept financing from himself and four others: Mark Hopkins , his business partner; James Bailey, a jeweler; Leland Stanford , a grocer; and Charles Crocker , a dry-goods merchant. They initially invested $1,500 each and formed a board of directors. These investors became known as The Big Four , and their railroad was called the Central Pacific Railroad . Each eventually made millions of dollars from their investments and control of the Central Pacific Railroad.
Before major construction could begin, Judah traveled back to New York City to raise funds to buy out The Big Four. However, shortly after arriving in New York, Judah died on November 2, 1863, of yellow fever that he had contracted while traveling over the Panama Railroad 's transit of the Isthmus of Panama . [36] The CPRR Engineering Department was taken over by his successor Samuel S. Montegue, as well as Canadian trained Chief Assistant Engineer (later Acting Chief Engineer) Lewis Metzler Clement who also became Superintendent of Track. [37] [30]
Land grants[ edit ]
To allow the companies to raise additional capital, Congress granted the railroads a 400-foot (120 m) right-of-way corridor, lands for additional facilities like sidings and maintenance yards. They were also granted alternate sections of government-owned lands—6,400 acres (2,600 ha) per mile (1.6 km)—for 10 miles (16 km) on both sides of the track, forming a checkerboard pattern, leaving federal land between those of the railroad. The exception was in cities, at rivers, or on non-government property.[ citation needed ] The railroads sold bonds based on the value of the lands, and in areas with good land like the Sacramento Valley and Nebraska [38] sold the land to settlers, contributing to a rapid settlement of the West. [39] [ verification needed ] The total area of the land grants to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific was larger than the area of the state of Texas: federal government land grants totaled about 203,128,500 square miles, and state government land grants totaled about 76,565,000 square miles. [40]
It was far from a given that the railroads operating in the thinly-settled west would make enough money to repay their construction and operation. If the railroad companies failed to sell the land granted them within three years, they were required to sell it at prevailing government price for homesteads: $1.25 per 1 acre (0.40 ha). If they failed to repay the bonds, all remaining railroad property, including trains and tracks, would revert to the U.S. government.[ citation needed ] To encourage settlement in the west, Congress (1861–1863) passed the Homestead Acts which granted an applicant 160 acres (65 ha) of land with the requirement that the applicant improve the land. This incentive encouraged thousands of settlers to move west.[ citation needed ]
Railroad self-dealing[ edit ]
The federal legislation lacked adequate oversight and accountability. The two companies took advantage of these weaknesses in the legislation to manipulate the project and produce extra profit for themselves. Despite the generous subsidies offered by the federal government, the railroad capitalists knew they would not turn a profit on the railroad business for many months, possibly years. They determined to make a profit on the construction itself. Both groups of financiers formed independent companies to complete the project, and they controlled management of the new companies along with the railroad ventures. This self-dealing allowed them to build in generous profit margins paid out by the railroad companies. In the west, the four men heading the Central Pacific chose a simple name for their company, the "Contract and Finance Company." In the east, the Union Pacific selected an foreign name, calling their construction firm "Crédit Mobilier of America." [33] The latter company was later implicated in a far-reaching scandal, described later.
Labor and wages[ edit ]
Most of the engineers and surveyors who were hired by the Union Pacific had been employed during the U.S. Civil War to repair and operate the over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of railroad line the U.S. Military Railroad controlled by the end of the war. The UP also utilized their experience repairing and building truss bridges during the war. [41] Most of the semi-skilled workers on the Union Pacific were recruited from the many soldiers discharged from the Union and Confederate armies along with emigrant Irishmen . [42]
Pacific Railroad Bond, City and County of San Francisco, 1865
After 1864, the Central Pacific Railroad received the same Federal financial incentives as the Union Pacific Railroad, along with some construction bonds granted by the state of California and the city of San Francisco. The Central Pacific hired some Canadian and British engineers and surveyors with extensive experience building railroads, but it had a difficult time finding semi-skilled labor. Most Caucasians in California preferred to work in the mines or agriculture. The railroad experimented by hiring local emigrant Chinese as manual laborers, many of whom were escaping the poverty and terrors of the Taiping Rebellion in the Guangdong province in China.[ citation needed ] When they proved themselves as workers, the CPRR from that point forward preferred to hire Chinese, and even set up recruiting efforts in Canton . [43] Despite their small stature [44] and lack of experience, the Chinese laborers were responsible for most of the heavy manual labor, since only a very limited amount of that work that could be done by animals, simple machines, or black powder. The railroad also hired some black people [45] escaping the aftermath of the American Civil War. Most of the black and white workers were paid $30.00/month and given food and lodging. Most Chinese were initially paid $31.00/month and provided lodging, but they preferred to cook their own meals. In 1867 the CPRR raised their wage to $35.00/month after a strike. [43] [46] [47]
Construction begun[ edit ]
The Central Pacific broke ground on January 8, 1863. Due to the lack of transportation alternatives from the manufacturing centers on the east coast, virtually all of their tools and machinery including rails, railroad switches , railroad turntables , freight and passenger cars, and steam locomotives were transported first by train to east coast ports. They were then loaded on ships which either sailed around South America's Cape Horn , or offloaded the cargo at the Isthmus of Panama , where it was sent across via paddle steamer and the Panama Railroad . The Panama Railroad gauge was 5 feet (1.5 m), which was incompatible with the 4 ft 8 1⁄2 inch gauge used by the CPRR equipment. The latter route was about twice as expensive per pound.[ citation needed ] Once the machinery and tools reached the San Francisco Bay area, they were put aboard river paddle steamers which transported them up the final 130 miles (210 km) of the Sacramento River to the new state capital in Sacramento . Many of these steam engines, railroad cars, and other machinery were shipped dismantled and had to be reassembled.[ citation needed ] Wooden timbers for railroad ties, trestles, bridges, firewood, and telegraph poles were harvested in California and transported to the project site.
The Union Pacific Railroad did not start construction for another 18 months until July 1865. They were delayed by difficulties obtaining financial backing and the unavailability of workers and materials due to the Civil War. Their start point in the new city of Omaha, Nebraska was not yet connected via railroad to Council Bluffs, Iowa . Equipment needed to begin work was initially delivered to Omaha and Council Bluffs by paddle steamers on the Missouri River . The Union Pacific was so slow in beginning construction during 1865 that they sold two of the four steam locomotives they had purchased.[ citation needed ]
After the U.S. Civil War ended on June 22, 1865, the Union Pacific still competed for railroad supplies with companies who were building or repairing railroads in the south, and prices rose.[ citation needed ]
Rail standards[ edit ]
First Day Cover for the 75th Anniversary of the Driving of the Last Spike (May 10, 1944)
At that time in the United States, there were two primary standards for track gauge, the distance between the rails. In England, the standard gauge was 4 ft 8 1⁄2 inch (1.435 m), and this had been adopted by the majority of northern railways. But the south had adopted a 5-foot gauge. Transferring railway cars and locomotives between different railways required changing out the wheel trucks. Alternatively, cargo was offloaded and reloaded, a time-consuming effort that delayed cargo shipments. For the transcontinental railroad, the builders adopted the English standard, what is now called standard gauge . [48]
The Bessemer process and open hearth furnace steel-making were in use by 1865, but the advantages of steel rails which lasted much longer than iron rails had not yet been demonstrated.[ citation needed ] The rails used initially in building the rail way were nearly all made of iron of a flat-bottomed modified I-beam profile weighing 56 pounds (25 kg) per 1 yard (0.91 m) or 66 pounds (30 kg) per 1 yard (0.91 m).[ citation needed ] The railroad companies were intent on completing the project as rapidly as possible at a minimum cost. Within a few years, nearly all railroads converted to steel rails.
Time zones and telegraph usage[ edit ]
Time was not standardized across the United States until about 1883. In 1865, each railroad set its own time to minimize scheduling errors. To communicate easily up and down the line, the railroads built telegraph lines alongside the railroad. These lines eventually superseded the original First Transcontinental Telegraph which followed much of the Mormon Trail up the North Platte River and across the very thinly populated Central Nevada Route through central Utah and Nevada. The telegraph lines along the railroad were easier to protect and maintain. Many of the original telegraph lines were abandoned as the telegraph business was consolidated with the railroad telegraph lines.
Union Pacific route[ edit ]
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Route of the first American transcontinental railroad from Sacramento, California, to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Other railroads connected at Council Bluffs to cities throughout the East and Midwest.
The Union Pacific's 1,087 miles (1,749 km) of track started at MP 0.0 in Council Bluffs, Iowa , [7] on the eastern side of the Missouri River . Omaha was chosen by President Abraham Lincoln as the location of its Transfer Depot where up to seven railroads could transfer mail and other goods to Union Pacific trains bound for the west.
Trains were initially transported across the Missouri River by ferry before they could access the western tracks beginning in Omaha , Nebraska Territory . The river froze in the winter, and the ferries were replaced by sleighs. A bridge was not built until 1873, when the new 2,750 feet (840 m) long Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge was completed.
After the rail line's initial climb through the Missouri River bluffs west of Omaha and out of the Missouri River Valley, the route bridged the Elkhorn River and then crossed over the new 1,500 feet (460 m) Loup River bridge as it followed the north side of the Platte River valley west through Nebraska along the general path of the Oregon , Mormon and California Trails .
By December 1865, the Union Pacific had only completed 40 miles (64 km) of track, reaching Fremont, Nebraska , and a further 10 miles (16 km) of roadbed. [49]
At the end of 1865, Peter A. Dey, Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific, resigned over a routing dispute with Thomas C. Durant , one of the chief financiers of the Union Pacific.[ citation needed ]
With the end of the Civil War and increased government supervision in the offing, Durant hired his former M&M engineer Grenville M. Dodge to build the railroad, and the Union Pacific began a mad dash west.[ citation needed ]
Former Union General John "Jack" Casement was hired as the new Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific. He equipped several railroad cars to serve as portable bunkhouses for the workers and gathered men and supplies to push the railroad rapidly west. Among the bunkhouses Casement added a galley car to prepare meals, and he even provided for a herd of cows to be moved with the rail head and bunk cars to provide fresh meat. Hunters were hired to provide buffalo meat from the large herds of American bison.[ citation needed ]
The small survey parties who scouted ahead to locate the roadbed were sometimes attacked and killed by raiding Indian. In response, the U.S. Army instituted active cavalry patrols that grew larger as the Indians grew more aggressive. Temporary, "hell-on-wheels" towns, made mostly of canvas tents, accompanied the railroad as construction headed west.[ citation needed ]
The Platte River was too shallow and meandering to provide river transport, but the Platte river valley headed west and sloped up gradually at about 6 feet (1.8 m) per 1 mile (1.6 km), often allowing to lay a mile (1.6 km) of track a day or more in 1866 as the Union Pacific finally started moving rapidly west. Building bridges to cross creeks and rivers was the main source of delays. Near where the Platte River splits into the North Platte River and South Platte River , the railroad bridged the North Platte River over a 2,600 feet (790 m) long bridge (nicknamed ½ mile bridge). It was built across the shallow but wide North Platte resting on piles driven by steam pile drivers . [50] Here they built the "railroad" town of North Platte, Nebraska in December 1866 after completing about 240 miles (390 km) of track that year. In late 1866, former Major General Grenville M. Dodge was appointed Chief Engineer on the Union Pacific, but hard working General "Jack" Casement continued to work as chief construction "boss" and his brother Daniel Casement continued as financial officer.
The original emigrant route across Wyoming of the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails, after progressing up the Platte River valley, went up the North Platte River valley through Casper, Wyoming , along the Sweetwater River and over the Continental Divide at 7,412 feet (2,259 m) South Pass . The original westward travellers in their ox and mule pulled wagons tried to stick to river valleys to avoid as much road building as possible—gradients and sharp corners were usually of little or no concern to them. The ox and mule pulled wagons were the original off-road vehicles in their day, since nearly all of the Emigrant Trails went cross country over rough, un-improved trails. The route over South Pass's main advantage for wagons pulled by oxen or mules was a shorter elevation over an "easy" pass to cross and its "easy" connection to nearby river valleys on both sides of the continental divide for water and grass. The emigrant trails were closed in winter. The North Platte/South Pass route was far less beneficial for a railroad, as it was about 150 miles (240 km) longer and much more expensive to construct up the narrow, steep and rocky canyons of the North Platte. The route along the North Platte was also further from Denver, Colorado , and went across difficult terrain, while a railroad connection to that City was already being planned for and surveyed.
Efforts to survey a new, shorter, "better" route had been under way since 1864. By 1867, a new route was found and surveyed that went along part of the South Platte River in western Nebraska and after entering what is now the state of Wyoming , ascended a gradual sloping ridge between Lodgepole Creek and Crow Creek to 8,200 feet (2,500 m) Evans pass (also called Sherman's Pass) which was discovered by the Union Pacific employed English surveyor and engineer, James Evans, in about 1864. [51] This pass now is marked by the Ames Monument (41.131281,-105.398045 lat., long.) marking its significance and commemorating two of the main backers of the Union Pacific Railroad. From North Platte, Nebraska (elevation 2,834 feet (864 m)), the railroad proceeded westward and upward along a new path across the Nebraska Territory and Wyoming Territory (then part of the Dakota Territory ) along the north bank of the South Platte River and into what would become the state of Wyoming at Lone Pine, Wyoming. Evans Pass was located between what would become the new "railroad" towns of Cheyenne and Laramie . Connecting to this pass, about 15 miles (24 km) west of Cheyenne, was the one place across the Laramie Mountains that had a narrow "guitar neck" of land that crossed the mountains without serious erosion at the so-called "gangplank" (41.099746,-105.153205 lat., long.) discovered by Major General Grenville Dodge in 1865 when he was in the U.S. Army. [52] The new route surveyed across Wyoming was over 150 miles (240 km) shorter, had a flatter profile, allowed for cheaper and easier railroad construction, and also went closer by Denver and the known coalfields in the Wasatch and Laramie Ranges .
The railroad gained about 3,200 feet (980 m) in the 220 miles (350 km) climb to Cheyenne from North Platte, Nebraska—about 15 feet (4.6 m) per mile (1.6 km)--a very gentle slope of less than one degree average. This "new" route had never become an emigrant route because it lacked the water and grass to feed the emigrants' oxen and mules. Steam locomotives did not need grass, and the railroad companies could drill wells for water if necessary.
Coal had been discovered in Wyoming and reported on by John C. Frémont in his 1843 expedition across Wyoming, and was already being exploited by Utah residents from towns like Coalville, Utah and later Kemmerer, Wyoming by the time the Transcontinental railroad was built. Union Pacific needed coal to fuel its steam locomotives on the almost treeless plains across Nebraska and Wyoming. Coal shipments by rail were also looked on as a potentially major source of income—this potential is still being realized.
Dale Creek Bridge
The Union Pacific reached the new railroad town of Cheyenne in December 1867, having laid about 270 miles (430 km) that year. They paused over the winter, preparing to push the track over Evans (Sherman's) pass. At 8,247 feet (2,514 m), Evans/Sherman's pass is the highest point reached on the transcontinental railroad. About 4 miles (6.4 km) beyond Evans/Sherman's pass, the railroad had to build an extensive bridge over the Dale Creek canyon (41.103803, −105.454797, lat., long.). The Dale Creek Crossing was one of their more difficult railroad engineering challenges. [53] Dale Creek Bridge was 650-foot (200 m) long and 125 feet (38 m) above Dale Creek. [54] The bridge components were pre-built of timber in Chicago, Illinois and then shipped on rail cars to Dale Creek for assembly. The eastern and western approaches to the bridge site, near the highest elevation on the transcontinental railroad, required cutting through granite for nearly a mile on each side. [55] The initial Dale Creek bridge had a train speed limit of 4 miles (6.4 km) per hour across the bridge. Beyond Dale Creek, railroad construction paused at what became the town of Laramie, Wyoming to build a bridge across the Laramie River .
Located 35 miles (56 km) from Evans pass, Union Pacific connected the new "railroad" town of Cheyenne to Denver and its Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company railroad line in 1870. Elevated 6,070 feet (1,850 m) above sea level, and sitting on the new Union Pacific route with a connection to Denver, Cheyenne was chosen to become a major railroad center and was equipped with extensive railroad yards, maintenance facilities and a Union Pacific presence. Its location made it a good base for helper locomotives to couple to trains with snowplows to help clear the tracks of snow or help haul heavy freight over Evans pass. The Union Pacific's junction with the Denver Railroad with its connection to Kansas City, Kansas , Kansas City, Missouri and the railroads east of the Missouri River again increased Cheyenne's importance as the junction of two major railroads. Cheyenne later became Wyoming's largest city and the capital of the new state of Wyoming.
The railroad established many townships along the way: Fremont , Elkhorn , Grand Island , North Platte , Ogallala and Sidney as the railroad followed the Platte River across Nebraska territory. The railroad even dipped into what would become the new state of Colorado after crossing the North Platte River as it followed the South Platte River west into what would become Julesburg before turning northwest along Lodgepole Creek into Wyoming. In the Dakota Territory (Wyoming) the new towns of Cheyenne , Laramie , Rawlins (named for Union General John Aaron Rawlins , who camped in the locality in 1867. [56] ), Green River and Evanston (named after James Evans) were established, as well as many more fuel and water stops. The Green River was crossed with a new bridge, and the new "railroad" town of Green River constructed there after the tracks reached the Green River on October 1, 1868—the last big river to cross.
On December 4, 1868, the Union Pacific reached Evanston, having laid almost 360 miles (580 km) of track over the Green River and the Laramie Plains that year. By 1871, Evanston became a significant maintenance shop town equipped to carry out extensive repairs on the cars and steam locomotives.
In the Utah Territory , the railroad once again diverted from the main emigrant trails to cross the Wasatch Mountains and went down the rugged Echo Canyon (Summit County, Utah) and Weber River canyon. To speed up construction as much as possible, Union Pacific contracted several thousand Mormon workers to cut, fill, trestle, bridge, blast and tunnel its way down the rugged Weber River Canyon to Ogden, Utah , ahead of the railroad construction. The Mormon and Union Pacific rail work was joined in the area of the present-day border between Utah and Wyoming. [57] The longest of four tunnels built in Weber Canyon was 757 feet (231 m) long Tunnel 2. Work on this tunnel started in October 1868 and was completed six months later. Temporary tracks were laid around it and Tunnels 3 (508 feet (155 m)), 4 (297 feet (91 m)) and 5 (579 feet (176 m)) to continue work on the tracks west of the tunnels.
The tunnels were all made with the new dangerous nitroglycerine explosive which expedited work but caused some fatal accidents. [58] While building the railroad along the rugged Weber River Canyon, Mormon workers signed the Thousand Mile Tree which was lone tree alongside the track 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from Omaha. A historic marker has been placed there. [59]
The tracks reached Ogden, Utah , on March 27, 1869, although finishing work would continue on the tracks, tunnels and bridges in Weber Canyon for over a year. From Ogden, the railroad went north of the Great Salt Lake to Brigham City and Corinne using Mormon workers, before finally connecting with the Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Summit in Utah territory on May 10, 1869. [60] [61] Some Union Pacific officers declined to pay the Mormons all of the agreed upon construction costs of the work through Weber Canyon, and beyond, claiming Union Pacific poverty despite the millions they had extracted through the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal . Only partial payment was secured through court actions against Union Pacific. Fortunately, the Union Pacific railroad land grants in Utah were mostly worthless territory through mountains and deserts so they did not gain too much extra. [57] The portion of the original railroad around the north shore of the Great Salt Lake is no longer used. In 1904, the Lucin Cutoff , a causeway across the center of the Great Salt Lake to Promontory Point , bypassed Promontory Summit. The cutoff shortened the rail route by approximately 43 miles (69 km).
Central Pacific route[ edit ]
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Central Pacific Rail road at Cape Horn circa 1880
The Central Pacific laid 690 miles (1,110 km) of track, starting in Sacramento, California, in 1863 and continuing over the rugged 7,000-foot (2,100 m) Sierra Nevada mountains at Donner Pass into the new state of Nevada. The elevation change from Sacramento (elev. 40 ft or 12 m) to Donner summit (elev. 7,000 ft or 2,100 m) had to be accomplished in about 90 miles (140 km) with an average elevation change of 76 feet per mile (14 meters per km), and there were only a few places in the Sierras where this type of "ramp" existed. The discovery and detailed map survey with profiles and elevations of this route over the Sierra Nevada (U.S.) is credited to Theodore Judah , chief engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad up till his death in 1863. This route is up a ridge between the North fork of the American River on the south and Bear River (Feather River) and South Yuba River on the north. As the railroad climbed out of Sacramento up to Donner summit, there was only one 3-mile (4.8 km) section near "Cape Horn CPRR" [62] where the railroad grade slightly exceeded two percent.
1864 advertisement for the opening of the Dutch Flat Wagon Road .
In June 1864, the Central Pacific railroad entrepreneurs opened Dutch Flat and Donner Lake Wagon Road (DFDLWR). [63] Costing about $300,000 and a years worth of work, this toll road wagon route was opened over much of the route the Central Pacific railroad (CPRR) would use over Donner Summit to carry freight and passengers needed by the CPRR and to carry other cargo over their toll road to and from the ever advancing rail head and over the Sierras to the gold and silver mining towns of Nevada. As the railroad advanced, their freight rates with the combined rail and wagon shipments would become much more competitive. The volume of the toll road freight traffic to Nevada was estimated to be about $13,000,000 a year as the Comstock Lode boomed, and getting even part of this freight traffic would help pay for the railroad construction. When the railroad reached Reno, it had the majority of all Nevada freight shipments, and the price of goods in Nevada dropped significantly as the freight charges to Nevada dropped significantly. The rail route over the Sierras followed the general route of the Truckee branch of the California Trail , going east over Donner Pass and down the rugged Truckee River valley.
The route over the Sierra had been plotted out by Judah in preliminary surveys before his death in 1863. Judah's deputy, Samuel S. Montague was appointed as Central Pacific's new Chief Engineer, with Lewis M. Clement as Assistant Chief Engineer and Charles Cadwalader as second assistant. To build the new railroad, detailed surveys had to be run that showed where the cuts, fills, trestles, bridges and tunnels would have to be built. Work that was identified as taking a long time was started as soon as its projected track location could be ascertained and work crews, supplies and road work equipment found to be sent ahead. Tunnels, trestles and bridges were nearly all built this way. The spread-out nature of the work resulted in the work being split into two divisions, with L.M. Clement taking the upper division from Blue Cañon to Truckee and Cadwalader taking the lower division from Truckee to the Nevada border. Other assistant engineers were assigned to specific tasks such as building a bridge, tunnel or trestle which was done by the workers under experienced supervisors. [37]
The CPRR grade at Donner Summit as it appeared in 1869 and 2003.
In total, the Central Pacific had eleven tunnel projects (Nos. 3 through 13) under construction in the Sierra from 1865–68, with seven tunnels located in a 2-mile (3.2 km) stretch on the east side of Donner Summit . The tunnels were usually built by drilling a series of holes in the tunnel face, filling them with black powder and detonating it to break the rock free. The black powder was provided by the California Powder Works near Santa Cruz, California . These works had started production in 1864 after the U.S. Civil War had cut off shipments of black powder from the East to the mining and railroad industry of California and Nevada. The Central Pacific was a prolific user of black powder, often using up to 500 kegs of 25 pounds (11 kg) each per day. [64]
The summit tunnel (Number 6), 1,660 feet (510 m), was started in late 1865, well ahead of the rail head. Through solid granite, the summit tunnel progressed at a rate of only about 0.98 feet (0.30 m) per day per face as it was being worked by three eight-hour shifts of workers, hand drilling holes with a rock drill and hammer, filling them with black powder and trying to blast the granite loose. One crew worked drilling holes on the faces and another crew collected and removed the loosened rock after each explosion. The workers were pulled off the summit tunnel and the track grading east of Donner pass in the winter of 1865/66 as there was no way to supply them, nor quarters they could have lived in. The crews were transferred to work on bridges and track grading on the Truckee River canyon.
The vertical central shaft of the CPRR "Summit Tunnel" (Tunnel #6) at Donner Summit which allowed drilling and excavation to be carried out on four faces at once.
In 1866 they put in a 125-foot (38 m) vertical shaft in the center of the summit tunnel and started work towards the east and west tunnel faces, giving four working faces on the summit tunnel to speed up progress. A steam engine off an old locomotive was brought up with much effort over the wagon road and used as a winch driver to help remove loosened rock from the vertical shaft and two working faces. By the winter of 1866/67, work had progressed sufficiently and a camp had been built for workers on the summit tunnel which allowed work to continue. The cross section of a tunnel face was a 16-foot-wide (4.9 m), 16-foot-high (4.9 m) oval with an 11-foot (3.4 m) vertical wall. Progress on the tunnel sped up to over 1.5 feet (0.46 m) per day per face when they started using the newly discovered nitroglycerin —manufactured near the tunnel. They used nitroglycerin to deepen the summit tunnel to the required 16-foot (4.9 m) height after the four tunnel faces met, and made even faster progress. Nearly all other tunnels were worked on both tunnel faces and met in the middle. Depending on the material the tunnels penetrated, they were left unlined or lined with brick, rock walls or timber and post. Some tunnels were designed to bend in the middle to align with the track bed curvature. Despite this potential complication, nearly all the different tunnel center lines met within 2 inches (5.1 cm) or so. The detailed survey work that made these tunnel digs as precise as required were nearly all done by the Canadian born and trained Lewis Clement, the CPRR's Chief Assistant Engineer and Superintendent of Track, and his assistants. [37]
Hills or ridges in front of the railroad road bed would have to have a flat-bottomed, V shaped "cut" made to get the railroad through the ridge or hill. The type of material determined the slope of the V and how much material would have to be removed. Ideally, these cuts would be matched with valley fills that could use the dug out material to bring the road bed up to grade-- cut and fill construction. In the 1860s there was no heavy equipment that could be used to make these cuts or haul it away to make the fills. The options were to dig it out by pick and shovel, haul the hillside material by wheelbarrow and/or horse or mule cart or blast it loose. To blast a V shaped cut out, they had to drill several holes up to 20 feet (6.1 m) deep in the material, fill them with black powder, and blast the material away. Since the Central Pacific was in a hurry, they were profligate users of black powder to blast their way though the hills. The only disadvantage came when a nearby valley needed fill to get across it. The explosive technique often blew most of the potential fill material down the hillside, making it unavailable for fill. [65] [66] Initially, many valleys were bridged by "temporary" trestles that could be rapidly built and were later replaced by much lower maintenance and permanent solid fill. The existing railroad made transporting and putting material in valleys much easier—load it on railway dump cars, haul where needed and dump it over the side of the trestle.
The Summit Tunnel at Donner Summit , West Portal
The route down the eastern Sierras was done on the south side of Donner Lake with a series of switchbacks carved into the mountain. The Truckee River , which drains Lake Tahoe , had already found and scoured out the best route across the Carson Range of mountains east of the Sierras. The route down the rugged Truckee River Canyon, including required bridges, was done ahead of the main summit tunnel completion. To expedite the building of the railroad through the Truckee River canyon, the Central Pacific hauled two small locomotives, railcars , rails and other material on wagons and sleighs to what is now Truckee, California and worked the winter of 1867/68 on their way down Truckee canyon ahead of the tracks being completed to Truckee. In Truckee canyon, five Howe truss bridges had to be built. This gave them a head start on getting to the "easy" miles across Nevada.
In order to keep the higher portions of the Sierra grade open in the winter, 37 miles (60 km) of timber snow sheds were built between Blue Cañon and Truckee in addition to utilizing snowplows pushed by locomotives, as well as manual shovelling. With the advent of more efficient oil fired steam and later diesel electric power to drive plows, flangers, spreaders, and rotary snow plows, most of the wooden snowsheds have long since been removed as obsolete. Tunnels 1–5 and 13 of the original 1860s tunnels on Track 1 of the Sierra grade remain in use today, while additional new tunnels were later driven when the grade was double tracked over the first quarter of the twentieth century. In 1993, the Southern Pacific Railroad (which operated the CPRR-built Oakland – Ogden line until its 1996 merger with the UP ) closed and pulled up the 6.7-mile (10.8 km) section of Track #1 over the summit running between the Norden complex (Shed 26, MP 192.1) [67] and the covered crossovers in Shed #47 (MP 198.8) [68] about a mile east of the old flyover at Eder , bypassing and abandoning the tunnel 6–8 complex, the concrete snowsheds just beyond them, and tunnels 9–12 ending at MP 195.7, all of which had been located on Track 1 within two miles of the summit. [69] Since then all east- and westbound traffic has been run over the Track #2 grade crossing the summit about one mile (1.6 km) south of Donner Pass through the 10,322-foot-long (3,146 m) Tunnel #41 (aka "The Big Hole" ) running under Mt. Judah between Soda Springs and Eder, which was opened in 1925 when the summit section of the grade was double tracked. This routing change was made because the Track 2 and Tunnel 41 Summit crossing is far easier and less expensive to maintain and keep open in the harsh Sierra winters. [70]
On June 18, 1868, the Central Pacific reached Reno, Nevada , after completing 132 miles (212 km) of railroad up and over the Sierras from Sacramento, California . By then the railroad had already been prebuilt down the Truckee River on the much flatter land from Reno to Wadsworth, Nevada , where they bridged the Truckee for the last time. From there, they struggled across a forty mile desert to the end of the Humboldt river at the Humboldt Sink . From the end of the Humboldt, they continued east over the Great Basin desert bordering the Humboldt River to Wells, Nevada . One of the most troublesome problems found on this route along the Humboldt was at Palisade Canyon (near Carlin, Nevada ), where for 12 miles (19 km) the line had to be built between the river and basalt cliffs. From Wells, Nevada to Promontory Summit , the Railroad left the Humboldt and proceeded across the Nevada and Utah desert. Water for the steam locomotives was provided by wells, springs, or pipelines to nearby water sources. Water was often pumped into the water tanks with windmills . Train fuel and water spots on the early trains with steam locomotives may have been as often as every 10 miles (16 km). On one memorable occasion, not far from Promontory, the Central Pacific crews organized an army of workers and five train loads of construction material, and laid 10 miles (16 km) of track on a prepared rail bed in one day—-a record that still stands today. The Central Pacific and Union Pacific raced to get as much track laid as possible, and the Central Pacific laid about 560 miles (900 km) of track from Reno to Promontory Summit in the one year before the Last Spike was driven on May 10, 1869.
Central Pacific had 1,694 freight cars available by May 1869, with more under construction in their Sacramento yard. Major repairs and maintenance on the Central Pacific rolling stock was done in their Sacramento maintenance yard. Near the end of 1869, Central Pacific had 162 locomotives, of which 2 had two drivers (drive wheels), 110 had four drivers, and 50 had six drivers. The steam locomotives had been purchased in the eastern states and shipped to California by sea. Thirty-six additional locomotives were built and coming west, and twenty-eight more were under construction. There was a shortage of passenger cars and more had to be ordered. The first Central Pacific sleeper, the "Silver Palace Sleeping Car", arrived at Sacramento on June 8, 1868. [71]
The CPRR route passed through Newcastle and Truckee in California, Reno , Wadsworth , Winnemucca , Battle Mountain , Elko and Wells in Nevada (with many more fuel and water stops), before connecting with the Union Pacific line at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory. When the eastern end of the CPRR was extended to Ogden by purchasing the Union Pacific Railroad line from Promontory for about $2.8 million in 1870, it ended the short period of a boom town for Promontory , extended the Central Pacific tracks about 60 miles (97 km) and made Ogden a major terminus on the transcontinental railroad, as passengers and freight switched railroads there.
CPRR issued ticket for passage from Reno to Virginia City, NV on the V&TRR, 1878
With the opening four months after the railheads met at Promontory Summit, U.T. of the original San Joaquin River Bridge at Mossdale Crossing on September 8, 1869 near present-day Lathrop, the western part of the route was extended from Sacramento the Alameda Terminal in Alameda, California , and shortly thereafter, to the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point in Oakland, California , and on to San Jose, California . Train ferries transferred some railroad cars to and from the Oakland wharves and tracks to wharves and tracks in San Francisco . Before the CPRR was completed, developers were building other feeder railroads like the Virginia and Truckee Railroad to the Comstock Lode diggings in Virginia City, Nevada , and several different extensions in California and Nevada to reach other cities there. Some of their main cargo was the thousands of cords of firewood needed for the many steam engines and pumps, cooking stoves, heating stoves etc. in Comstock Lode towns and the tons of ice needed by the miners as they worked ever deeper into the "hot" Comstock Lode ore body. In the mines, temperatures could get above 120 °F (49 °C) at the work face and a miner often used over 100 pounds (45 kg) of ice per shift. This new railroad connected to the Central Pacific near Reno , and went through Carson City , the new capital of Nevada. [72]
After the transcontinental railroads were completed, many other railroads were built to connect up to other population centers in Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado, Oregon, Washington territories, etc. In 1869, the Kansas Pacific Railway started building the Hannibal Bridge , a swing bridge across the Missouri River between Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas which connected railroads on both sides of the Missouri while still allowing passage of paddle steamers on the river. After completion, this became another major east-west railroad. To speed completion of the Kansas Pacific Railroad to Denver, construction started east from Denver in March 1870 to meet the railroad coming west from Kansas city. The two crews met at a point called Comanche Crossing, Kansas Territory, on August 15, 1870. Denver was now firmly on track to becoming the largest city and the future capitol of Colorado . The Kansas Pacific Railroad linked with the Denver Pacific Railway via Denver to Cheyenne in 1870.
The original transcontinental railroad route did not pass through the two biggest cities in the so-called Great American Desert — Denver, Colorado , and Salt Lake City, Utah . Feeder railroad lines were soon built to service these two and other cities and states along the route.
Modern-day Interstate 80 closely follows the path of the railroad from Sacramento across modern day California, Nevada, Wyoming and Nebraska, with two major exceptions: Interstate-80 crosses Donner Summit and proceeds east down the north side of Donner Lake while the railroad goes down the south side; and east of Wells, Nevada , Interstate 80 passes through Wendover, Utah and then goes across the salt flats on the south shore of the Great Salt Lake on its way to Salt Lake City, while the original railroad went on the north side and now goes across the Great Salt Lake. The Interstate then passes up Parley's Canyon before rejoining the railroad near the Echo Canyon junction of Interstate 84 and Interstate 80 .
I-84, built much later, blasted its way down Weber Canyon with no tunnels. The interstate diverges from the railroad route in rugged terrain as it was built much later, with much more powerful equipment, better explosives and at much higher cost. In addition, interstate highways can tolerate up to about six-percent grades which allows them to go many places the railroads had to go around, since their goal was to hold their grades to less than two percent.
Construction[ edit ]
The Jupiter, which carried Leland Stanford (one of the "Big Four" owners of the Central Pacific) and other railway officials to the Last Spike Ceremony.
Most of the capital investment needed to build the railroad was generated by selling government-guaranteed bonds (granted per mile of completed track) to interested investors. The Federal donation of right-of-way saved money and time as it did not have to be purchased from others. The financial incentives and bonds would hopefully cover most of the initial capital investment needed to build the railroad. The bonds would be paid back by the sale of government-granted land, as well as prospective passenger and freight income. Most of the engineers and surveyors who figured out how and where to build the railroad on the Union Pacific were engineering college trained. Many of Union Pacific engineers and surveyors were Union Army veterans (including two generals) who had learned their railroad trade keeping the trains running and tracks maintained during the U.S. Civil War. After securing the finances and selecting the engineering team, the next step was to hire the key personnel and prospective supervisors. Nearly all key workers and supervisors were hired because they had previous railroad on-the-job training, knew what needed to be done and how to direct workers to get it done. After the key personnel were hired, the semi-skilled jobs could be filled if there was available labor. The engineering team's main job was to tell the workers where to go, what to do, how to do it, and provide the construction material they would need to get it done.
Survey teams were put out to produce detailed contour maps of the options on the different routes. The engineering team looked at the available surveys and chose what was the "best" route. Survey teams under the direction of the engineers closely led the work crews and marked where and by how much hills would have to be cut and depressions filled or bridged. Coordinators made sure that construction and other supplies were provided when and where needed, and additional supplies were ordered as the railroad construction consumed the supplies. Specialized bridging, explosive and tunneling teams were assigned to their specialized jobs. Some jobs like explosive work, tunneling, bridging, heavy cuts or fills were known to take longer than others, so the specialized teams were sent out ahead by wagon trains with the supplies and men to get these jobs done by the time the regular track-laying crews arrived. Finance officers made sure the supplies were paid for and men paid for their work. An army of men had to be coordinated and a seemingly never-ending chain of supplies had to be provided. The Central Pacific road crew set a track-laying record by laying 10 mi (16 km) of track in a single day, commemorating the event with a signpost beside the track for passing trains to see. [73]
In addition to the track-laying crews, other crews were busy setting up stations with provisions for loading fuel, water and often also mail, passengers and freight. Personnel had to be hired to run these stations. Maintenance depots had to be built to keep all of the equipment repaired and operational. Telegraph operators had to be hired to man each station to keep track of where the trains were so that trains could run in each direction on the available single track without interference or accidents. Sidings had to be built to allow trains to pass. Provisions had to be made to store and continually pay for coal or wood needed to run the steam locomotives . Water towers had to be built for refilling the water tanks on the engines, and provisions made to keep them full.
Labor[ edit ]
The majority of the Union Pacific track across the Nebraska and Wyoming territories was built by veterans of the Union and Confederate armies, as well as many recent immigrants. Brigham Young , President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , landed contracts with the Union Pacific that offered jobs for around 2,000 members of the church with the hope that the railroad would support commerce in Utah. Church members built most of the road through Utah.[ citation needed ]
Construction superintendent Durant repeatedly failed to pay the wages agreed upon. The Union Pacific train carrying him to the final spike ceremony was held up by a strike by unpaid workers in Piedmont, Wyoming until he paid them for their work. Representatives of Brigham Young had less success, and failed in court to force him to honor the contract. [74]
Chinese railroad workers greet a train on a snowy day.
The manual labor to build the Central Pacific's roadbed, bridges and tunnels was done primarily by many thousands of emigrant workers from China under the direction of skilled non-Chinese supervisors. The Chinese were commonly referred to at the time as " Celestials " and China as the "Celestial Kingdom." Labor-saving devices in those days consisted primarily of wheelbarrows , horse or mule pulled carts, and a few railroad pulled gondolas. The construction work involved an immense amount of manual labor. Initially, Central Pacific had a hard time hiring and keeping unskilled workers on its line, as many would leave for the prospect of far more lucrative gold or silver mining options elsewhere. Despite the concerns expressed by Charles Crocker , one of the "big four" and a general contractor, that the Chinese were too small in stature, standing at about 58 inches (1.5 m), weighing about 120 pounds (54 kg), [75] and lacking previous experience with railroad work, they decided to try them anyway. After the first few days of trial with a few workers, with noticeably positive results, Crocker decided to hire as many as he could, looking primarily at the California labor force, where the majority of Chinese worked as independent gold miners or in the service industries (e.g.: laundries and kitchens). Most of these Chinese workers were represented by a Chinese "boss" who translated, collected salaries for his crew, kept discipline and relayed orders from an American general supervisor. Most Chinese workers spoke only rudimentary or no English, and the supervisors typically only learned rudimentary Chinese. Many more workers were imported from the Guangdong Province of China, which at the time, beside great poverty, suffered from the violence of the Taiping Rebellion . Most Chinese workers were planning on returning with their new found "wealth" when the work was completed. Most of the men received between one and three dollars per day, the same as unskilled white workers; but the workers imported directly from China sometimes received less. A diligent worker could save over $20 per month after paying for food and lodging—a "fortune" by Chinese standards. A snapshot of workers in late 1865 showed about 3,000 Chinese and 1,700 white workers employed on the railroad. Nearly all of the white workers were in supervisory or skilled craft positions and made more money than the Chinese.
Most of the early work on the Central Pacific consisted of constructing the railroad track bed, cutting and/or blasting through or around hills, filling in washes, building bridges or trestles, digging and blasting tunnels and then laying the rails over the Sierra Nevada (U.S.) mountains. Once the Central Pacific was out of the Sierras and the Carson Range, progress sped up considerably as the railroad bed could be built over nearly flat ground. In those days, the Central Pacific once did a section of 10 miles (16 km) of track in one day as a "demonstration" of what they could do on flat ground like most of the Union Pacific had in Wyoming and Nebraska.
The track laying was divided up into various parts. In advance of the track layers, surveyors consulting with engineers determined where the track would go. Workers then built and prepared the roadbed, dug or blasted through hills, filled in washes, built trestles, bridges or culverts across streams or valleys, made tunnels if needed, and laid the ties. The actual track-laying gang would then lay rails on the previously laid ties positioned on the roadbed, drive the spikes, and bolt the fishplate bars to each rail. At the same time, another gang would distribute telegraph poles and wire along the grade, while the cooks prepared dinner and the clerks busied themselves with accounts, records, using the telegraph line to relay requests for more materials and supplies or communicate with supervisors. Usually the workers lived in camps built near their work site. Supplies were ordered by the engineers and hauled by rail, possibly then to be loaded on wagons if they were needed ahead of the rail head. Camps were moved when the rail head moved a significant distance. Later, as the railroad started moving long distances every few days, some railroad cars had bunkhouses built in them that moved with the workers—the Union Pacific had used this technique since 1866. [76] Almost all of the roadbed work had to be done manually, using shovels, picks, axes, two-wheeled dump carts, wheelbarrows, ropes, scrapers, etc., with initially only black powder available for blasting. Carts pulled by mules, and horses were about the only labor saving devices available then. Lumber and ties were usually provided by independent contractors who cut, hauled and sawed the timber as required.
CPRR Tunnel #3 near Cisco, California (MP 180.1) opened in 1866 and remains in daily use today.
Tunnels were blasted through hard rock by drilling holes in the rock face by hand and filling them with black powder. Sometimes cracks were found which could be filled with powder and blasted loose. The loosened rock would be collected and hauled out of the tunnel for use in a fill area or as roadbed, or else dumped over the side as waste. A foot or so advance on a tunnel face was a typical day's work. Some tunnels took almost a year to finish and the Summit Tunnel, the longest, took almost two years. In the final days of working in the Sierras, the recently invented nitroglycerin explosive was introduced and used on the last tunnels including Summit Tunnel. [77]
Supply trains carried all the necessary material for the construction up to the rail head, with mule or horse-drawn wagons carrying it the rest of the ways if required. Ties were typically unloaded from horse-drawn or mule-drawn wagons and then placed on the track ballast and levelled to get ready for the rails. Rails, which weighed the most, were often kicked off the flatcars and carried by gangs of men on each side of the rail to where needed. The rails just in front of the rail car would be placed first, measured for the correct gauge with gauge sticks and then nailed down on the ties with spike mauls . The fishplates connecting the ends of the rails would be bolted on and then the car pushed by hand to the end of the rail and rail installation repeated.
Track ballast was put between the ties as they progressed. Where a proper railbed had already been prepared, the work progressed rapidly. Constantly needed supplies included "food, water, ties, rails, spikes, fishplates, nuts and bolts, track ballast, telegraph poles, wire, fire wood (or coal on the UP) and water for the steam train locomotives, etc." [76] After a flatcar was unloaded, it would usually be hooked to a small locomotive and pulled back to a siding, so another flatcar with rails etc. could be advanced to the rail head. Since juggling railroad cars took time on flat ground, where wagon transport was easier, the rail cars would be brought to the end of the line by steam locomotive, unloaded, and the flat car returned immediately to a siding for another loaded car of either ballast or rails. Temporary sidings were often installed where it could be easily done to expedite getting needed supplies to the rail head.
The railroad tracks, spikes, telegraph wire, locomotives, railroad cars, supplies etc. were imported from the east on sailing ships that sailed the about 18,000 miles (29,000 km) and about 200 day trip around Cape Horn . Some freight was put on Clipper ships which could do the trip in about 120 days. Some passengers and high priority freight were shipped over the newly (1855) completed Panama Railroad across the Isthmus of Panama . Using paddle steamers to and from Panama, this short cut could be done in as little as 40 days. Supplies were normally offloaded at the Sacramento, California docks where the railroad started.
Central Pacific construction[ edit ]
On January 8, 1863, Governor Leland Stanford ceremoniously broke ground in Sacramento, California, to begin construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. After great initial progress along the Sacramento Valley, construction was slowed, first by the foothills of the Sierra Nevada (U.S.) , then by cutting a railroad bed up the mountains themselves. As they progressed higher in the mountains, winter snowstorms and a shortage of reliable labor compounded the problems. Consequently, after a trial crew of Chinese workers was hired and found to work successfully, the Central Pacific expanded its efforts to hire more emigrant laborers—mostly Chinese . Emigrants from poverty stricken regions of China, many of which suffered from the strife of the Taiping Rebellion , seemed to be more willing to tolerate the living and working conditions on the railroad construction, and progress on the railroad continued. The increasing necessity for tunneling as they proceeded up the mountains then began to slow progress of the line yet again.
Example of hand drilled granite from within Tunnel #6, the "Summit Tunnel".
The first step of construction was to survey the route and determine the locations where large excavations, tunnels and bridges would be needed. Crews could then start work in advance of the railroad reaching these locations. Supplies and workers were brought up to the work locations by wagon teams and work on several different sections proceeded simultaneously. One advantage of working on tunnels in winter was that tunnel work could often proceed since the work was nearly all "inside". Unfortunately, living quarters would have to be built outside and getting new supplies was difficult. Working and living in winter in the presence of snow slides and avalanches caused some deaths. [78]
To carve a tunnel, one worker held a rock drill on the granite face while one to two other workers swung eighteen-pound sledgehammers to sequentially hit the drill which slowly advanced into the rock. Once the hole was about 10 inches (25 cm) deep, it would be filled with black powder, a fuse set and then ignited from a safe distance. Nitroglycerin, which had just been invented, was only used to help construct the longest tunnel, the Summit Tunnel (a.k.a. Tunnel No. 6), which reached 1,659 feet (506 m).
The Chinese built 15 tunnels for Central Pacific. These tunnels were about 32 feet high and 16 feet wide. [79] When tunnels with vertical shafts were dug to increase construction speed, and tunneling began in the middle of the tunnel, at first hand powered derricks were used to help remove loose rocks up the vertical shafts. These derricks were later replaced with steam hoists as work progressed. By using vertical shafts, four faces of the tunnel could be worked at the same time, two in the middle and one at each end. The average daily progress in some tunnels was only 0.85 feet a day per face, which was very slow, [79] or 1.18 feet daily according to historian George Kraus. [80] J. O. Wilder, a Central Pacific-Southern Pacific employee, commented that "The Chinese were as steady, hard-working a set of men as could be found. With the exception of a few whites at the west end of Tunnel No. 6, the laboring force was entirely composed of Chinamen with white foremen and a "boss/translator". A single foreman (often Irish) with a gang of 30 to 40 Chinese men generally constituted the force at work at each end of a tunnel; of these, 12 to 15 men worked on the heading, and the rest on the bottom, removing blasted material. When a gang was small or the men were needed elsewhere, the bottoms were worked with fewer men or stopped so as to keep the headings going." [80] The laborers usually worked three shifts of 8 hours each per day, while the foremen worked in two shifts of 12 hours each, managing the laborers. [81] Once out of the Sierras, construction was much easier and faster. Horace Hamilton Minkler, track foreman for the Central Pacific, laid the last rail and tie before the Last Spike was driven.
CPRR snow gallery under construction in 1868.
In order to keep the CPRR's Sierra grade open during the winter months, beginning in 1867, 37 miles of massive wooden snow sheds and galleries were built between Blue Cañon and Truckee, covering cuts and other points where there was danger of avalanches. 2,500 men and six material trains were employed in this work, which was completed in 1869. The sheds were built with two sides and a steep peaked roof mostly of locally cut hewn timber and round logs. Snow galleries had one side and a roof that sloped upward until it met the mountain side, thus permitting avalanches to slide over the galleries, some of which extended up the mountainside as much as two hundred feet. Masonry walls such as the "Chinese Walls" at Donner Summit were built across canyons to prevent avalanches from striking the side of the vulnerable wooden construction. [82] [83] [84] A few concrete sheds (mostly at crossovers) are still in use today.
Union Pacific construction[ edit ]
Grenville M. Dodge wearing a major general 's uniform
The major investor in the Union Pacific was Thomas Clark Durant, [85] who had made his stake money by smuggling Confederate cotton with the aid of Grenville M. Dodge . Durant chose routes that would favor places where he held land, and he announced connections to other lines at times that suited his share dealings. He paid an associate to submit the construction bid to another company he controlled, Crédit Mobilier , manipulating the finances and government subsidies and making himself another fortune. Durant hired Dodge as chief engineer and Jack Casement as construction boss.[ citation needed ]
In the East, the progress started in Omaha, Nebraska, by the Union Pacific Railroad which initially proceeded very quickly because of the open terrain of the Great Plains . This changed, however, as the work entered Indian-held lands. The Native Americans saw the railroad as a violation of their treaties with the United States. War parties began to raid the moving labor camps that followed the progress of the line. Union Pacific responded by increasing security and hiring marksmen to kill American Bison , which were both a physical threat to trains and the primary food source for many of the Plains Indians. The Native Americans then began killing laborers when they realized that the so-called "Iron Horse" threatened their existence. Security measures were further strengthened, and progress on the railroad continued.[ citation needed ]
The "Last Spike" ceremony[ edit ]
Golden spike, one of four ceremonial spikes driven at the completion (but not the final one)
The Last Spike by Thomas Hill (1881)
Six years after the groundbreaking, laborers of the Central Pacific Railroad from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad from the east met at Promontory Summit , Utah Territory. It was here on May 10, 1869, that Leland Stanford drove The Last Spike (or golden spike ) that joined the rails of the transcontinental railroad. The spike is now on display at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University , while a second "Last" Golden Spike is also on display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. [86] In perhaps the world's first live mass-media event, the hammers and spike were wired to the telegraph line so that each hammer stroke would be heard as a click at telegraph stations nationwide—the hammer strokes were missed, so the clicks were sent by the telegraph operator. As soon as the ceremonial "Last Spike" had been replaced by an ordinary iron spike, a message was transmitted to both the East Coast and West Coast that simply read, "DONE." The country erupted in celebration upon receipt of this message. Travel from coast to coast was reduced from six months or more to just one week.
Railroad developments[ edit ]
Display ads for the CPRR and UPRR the week the rails were joined on May 10, 1869
UPRR & CPRR "Great American Over-Land Route" Timetable cover 1881
When the last spike was driven, the rail network was not yet connected to the Atlantic or Pacific but merely connected Omaha to Sacramento. To get from Sacramento to the Pacific, the Central Pacific purchased the struggling Western Pacific Railroad (unrelated to the railroad of the same name that would later parallel its route) and resumed construction on it, which had halted in 1866 due to funding troubles. In November 1869, the Central Pacific finally connected Sacramento to the east side of San Francisco Bay by rail at Oakland, California , where freight and passengers completed their transcontinental link to the city by ferry .
The original route from the Central Valley to the Bay skirted the Delta by heading south out of Sacramento through Stockton and crossing the San Joaquin River at Mossdale , then climbed over the Altamont Pass and reached the East Bay through Niles Canyon . The Western Pacific was originally chartered to go to San Jose , but the Central Pacific decided to build along the East Bay instead, as going from San Jose up the Peninsula to San Francisco itself would have brought it into conflict with competing interests . The railroad entered Alameda and Oakland from the south, roughly paralleling what would later become U.S. Route 50 and later still Interstates 5 , 205 , and 580 . A more direct route was obtained with the purchase of the California Pacific Railroad , crossing the Sacramento River and proceeding southwest through Davis to Benicia , where it crossed the Carquinez Strait by means of an enormous train ferry , then followed the shores of the San Pablo and San Francisco bays to Richmond and the Port of Oakland (paralleling U.S. Route 40 which ultimately became Interstate 80 ). In 1930, a rail bridge across the Carquinez replaced the Benicia ferries.
Very early on, the Central Pacific learned that it would have trouble maintaining an open track in winter across the Sierras . At first they tried plowing the road with special snowplows mounted on their steam engines. When this was only partially successful, an extensive process of building snow sheds over some of the track was instituted to protect it from deep snows and avalanches. These eventually succeeded at keeping the tracks clear for all but a few days of the year. [87]
Both railroads soon instituted extensive upgrade projects to build better bridges, viaducts and dugways as well as install heavier duty rails, stronger ties, better road beds etc. The original track had often been laid as fast as possible with only secondary attention to maintenance and durability. The primary incentive had been getting the subsidies, which meant that upgrades of all kinds were routinely required in the following years.
Frontispiece of Crofutt's Great Trans-Continental Tourist's Guide, 1870
The Union Pacific would not connect Omaha to Council Bluffs until completing the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge in 1873.
Several years after the end of the Civil War, the competing railroads coming from Missouri finally realized their initial strategic advantage and a building boom ensued. In July 1869, the H&SJ finished the Hannibal Bridge in Kansas City which was the first bridge to cross the Missouri River. This in turn connected to Kansas Pacific trains going from Kansas City to Denver, which in turn had built the Denver Pacific Railway connecting to the Union Pacific. In August 1870, the Kansas Pacific drove the last spike connecting to the Denver Pacific line at Strasburg, Colorado and the first true Atlantic to Pacific United States railroad was completed.
Kansas City's head start in connecting to a true transcontinental railroad contributed to it rather than Omaha becoming the dominant rail center west of Chicago.
The Kansas Pacific became part of the Union Pacific in 1880.
On June 4, 1876, an express train called the Transcontinental Express arrived in San Francisco via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after it had left New York City . Only ten years before, the same journey would have taken months over land or weeks on ship, possibly all the way around South America.
The Central Pacific got a direct route to San Francisco when it was merged with the Southern Pacific Railroad to create the Southern Pacific Company in 1885. The Union Pacific initially took over the Southern Pacific in 1901 but was forced by the U.S. Supreme Court to divest it because of monopoly concerns. The two railroads would once again unite in 1996 when the Southern Pacific was sold to the Union Pacific.
Having been bypassed with the completion of the Lucin Cutoff in 1904, the Promontory Summit rails were pulled up in 1942 to be recycled for the World War II effort. This process began with a ceremonial "undriving" at the Last Spike location. [88] In 1957, Congress authorized the Golden Spike National Historic Site . On May 10, 2006, on the anniversary of the driving of the spike, Utah announced that its state quarter design would be a representation of the driving of the Last (Golden) Spike.
Main article: Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
Despite the transcontinental success and millions in government subsidies, the Union Pacific faced bankruptcy less than three years after the Last Spike as details surfaced about overcharges that Crédit Mobilier had billed Union Pacific for the formal building of the railroad. The scandal hit epic proportions in the United States presidential election, 1872 , which saw the re-election of Ulysses S. Grant and became the biggest scandal of the Gilded Age . It would not be resolved until the death of the congressman who was supposed to have reined in its excesses but instead wound up profiting from it.
Durant had initially come up with the scheme to have Crédit Mobilier subcontract to do the actual track work. Durant gained control of the company after buying out employee Herbert Hoxie for $10,000. Under Durant's guidance, Crédit Mobilier was charging Union Pacific often twice or more the customary cost for track work (thus in effect paying himself to build the railroad). The process mired down Union Pacific work.
Lincoln asked Massachusetts Congressman Oakes Ames , who was on the railroad committee, to clean things up and get the railroad moving. Ames got his brother Oliver Ames Jr. named president of the Union Pacific, while he himself became president of Crédit Mobilier. [89]
Ames then in turn gave stock options to other politicians while at the same time continuing the lucrative overcharges. The scandal was to implicate Vice President Schuyler Colfax (who was cleared) and future President James Garfield among others.
The scandal broke in 1872 when the New York Sun published correspondence detailing the scheme between Henry S. McComb and Ames. In the ensuing Congressional investigation, it was recommended that Ames be expelled from Congress, but this was reduced to a censure and Ames died within three months.
Durant later left the Union Pacific and a new rail baron Jay Gould became the dominant stockholder. As a result of the Panic of 1873 , Gould was able to pick up bargains, among them the control of the Union Pacific Railroad and Western Union . [90]
Visible remains[ edit ]
Visible remains of the historic line are still easily located—hundreds of miles are still in service today, especially through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and canyons in Utah and Wyoming. While the original rail has long since been replaced because of age and wear, and the roadbed upgraded and repaired, the lines generally run on top of the original, handmade grade. Vista points on Interstate 80 through California's Truckee Canyon provide a panoramic view of many miles of the original Central Pacific line and of the snow sheds which made winter train travel safe and practical.
In areas where the original line has been bypassed and abandoned, primarily in Utah, the road grade is still obvious, as are numerous cuts and fills, especially the Big Fill a few miles east of Promontory. The sweeping curve which connected to the east end of the Big Fill now passes a Thiokol rocket research and development facility.
The Last Spike site is preserved as a National Historical Site, with replica engines of Union Pacific No. 119 and Central Pacific Jupiter having been built by O'Connor Engineering Laboratories . The engines are fired up periodically by the National Park Service for the public. [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99]
Current passenger service[ edit ]
Amtrak 's California Zephyr , a daily passenger service from Emeryville, California ( San Francisco Bay Area ) to Chicago , uses the First Transcontinental Railroad from Sacramento central Nevada. Because this rail line currently operates in a directional running setup across most of Nevada, the California Zephyr will switch to the Central Corridor at either Winnemucca or Wells . [100]
In popular culture[ edit ]
The joining of the Union Pacific line with the Central Pacific line in May 1869 at Promontory Summit, Utah , was one of the major inspirations for French writer Jules Verne 's book entitled Around the World in Eighty Days , published in 1873. [101]
Poster for the film Union Pacific .
The feat is depicted in various movies, including the 1939 film Union Pacific , starring Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck and directed by Cecil B. DeMille , which depicts the fictional Central Pacific investor Asa Barrows obstructing attempts of the Union Pacific to reach Ogden, Utah.
While not exactly accurate, John Ford's 1924 silent movie The Iron Horse captures the fervent nationalism that drove public support for the project. Among the cooks serving the film's cast and crew between shots were some of the Chinese laborers who worked on the Central Pacific section of the railroad.
The 1962 film How the West Was Won has a whole segment devoted to the construction; one of the movie's most famous scenes, filmed in Cinerama , is of a buffalo stampede over the railroad.
The construction of what presumably is – or is suggested to be – the Transcontinental Railroad provides the backdrop of the 1968 epic spaghetti western Once Upon a Time in the West , directed by Italian director Sergio Leone .
Kristiana Gregory 's book The Great Railroad Race (part of the "Dear America" series) is written as the fictional diary of Libby West, who chronicles the end of the railroad construction and the excitement which engulfed the country at the time.
Graham Masterton 's 1981 novel A Man of Destiny (published in the UK as Railroad) is a fictionalised account of the line's construction.
In the 1999 Will Smith film, Wild Wild West , the joining ceremony is the setting of an assassination attempt on then U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant by the film's antagonist Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless .
The building of the railway is covered by the 2004 BBC documentary series Seven Wonders of the Industrial World in episode 6, "The Line".
The series American Experience also documents the railway in the episode titled "Transcontinental Railroad".
The main character in The Claim (2000) is a surveyor for the Central Pacific Railroad , and the film is partially about the efforts of a frontier mayor to have the railroad routed through his town.
The popular British television show Doctor Who featured the Transcontinental Railroad in a BBC audio book entitled The Runaway Train , read by Matt Smith and written for audio by Oli Smith.
The children's book Ten Mile Day by Mary Ann Fraser tells the story of the record setting push by the Central Pacific in which they set a record by laying 10 miles (16 km) of track in a single day on April 28, 1869, to settle a $10,000 bet.
The construction of the Transcontinental Railroad provides the setting for the AMC television series Hell on Wheels . Thomas Durant is a regular character in the series and is portrayed by actor Colm Meaney .
In 2015, a Lego model depicting the Golden Spike Ceremony, the event that symbolically marked the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad, was submitted to the Lego Ideas website. [102] [103]
Notes[ edit ]
^ The total value of the thirty year 6% US Government subsidy bonds issued to the three companies was $55,092,192 and the amount of federal lands specified by Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864 to which the UPRR, CPRR and WPRR were entitled was 21,100,000 acres (8,500,000 hectares) of which 2,390,009 acres (967,202 hectares) had been patented as of March 1876. [6]
^ "The charter of the last-named Company [Western Pacific Railroad] contemplated a line from Sacramento toward San Francisco, making the circuit of the Bay of that name [to San José]. Their franchise has recently [late 1867] been assigned to parties in the interest of the Central Pacific Railroad Company; and it is probable that this line will be formally incorporated with the Central Pacific Railroad, and the road extended from Sacramento to San Francisco by the "best, most direct and practicable route" so soon as the overland connection is completed. In the meantime the travel is abundantly accommodated by first-class steamers." – Central Pacific Railroad Company of California "Railroad Across the Continent, with an account of the Central Pacific Railroad of California", pp. 9-10, New York: Brown & Hewitt, Printers. September 1868.
^ The legal "date of completion" of the WPRR grade was subsequently designated to be January 22, 1870. [12] The formal consolidation of the Central Pacific Railroad of California with the Western Pacific Railroad Co., San Joaquin Valley Railroad Co., and San Francisco, Oakland & Alameda Railroad Co. under the name of the Central Pacific Railroad Company became effective on June 22, 1870 with the filing of Articles of Consolidation drawn under the laws of California with the California Secretary of State. [13] [14]
^ The new terminus opened on November 8, later deemed to be two days after the official "completion date" of the Pacific Railroad. Section 6 of the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, et seq. required that an official date of completion be determined for the purpose of determining how other provisions of the Acts would be carried out. November 6, 1869 was confirmed as being that date by the US Supreme Court in Part I of the Court's Opinion and Order dated January 27, 1879, in re Union Pacific Railroad vs. United States (99 U.S. 402). [17] [18]
^ Later, the Northern Pacific Railway (NP) found and built a better route across the northern tier of the western United States from Minnesota to the Pacific Coast. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly 40 million acres (160,000km2) of land grants, which it used to raise money in Europe. Construction began in 1870 and the main line opened all the way from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean on September 8, 1883.
^ The southern route was constructed in 1880 when the Southern Pacific Railroad crossed Arizona territory.
| i don't know |
Born Karl Friedrich Hieronymus on May 11, 1720, what German born member of the nobility was well known for outrageous tall tales, such as riding cannonballs, travelling to the Moon, and escaping from a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair? | Baron Munchausen : Wikis (The Full Wiki)
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This article is about a historical and literary character. For the psychiatric disorder, see Münchausen syndrome . For the film and radio personality, see Jack Pearl . For the 1988 film, see The Adventures of Baron Munchausen .
A portrait of Baron Karl Münchhausen ca. 1740 as a Cuirassier in Riga.
Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhausen (11 May 1720 – 22 February 1797) (often spelled Munchausen in English) was a German baron born in Bodenwerder , who in his youth was sent to serve as page to Anthony Ulrich II of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel , and later joined the Russian military . He served until 1750, in particular taking part in two campaigns against the Ottoman Turks . Returning home, Münchhausen supposedly told a number of outrageous tall tales about his adventures. He died in his birthplace of Bodenwerder .
According to the stories, as retold by others, the Baron's astounding feats included riding cannonballs , travelling to the Moon , and escaping from a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair (or bootstraps , depending on who tells the story).
Contents
7 External links
Life
Born in Bodenwerder , Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg , Münchhausen was page to Anthony Ulrich II of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel , and moved to his employer to the Russian Empire in 1737/38. He followed Anthony Ulrich as a page during the Russo-Turkish War (1735–1739) . In 1737 he attended the siege of Turkish Fortress of Ochakiv .
He was named a cornet in the Russian cavalry regiment ”Brunswick- Cuirassiers “ when Anthony Ulrich became Russian generalissimo in 1739. In 1740, he was promoted to lieutenant . He was stationed in Riga , but participated in two campaigns against the Swedes in 1740 and 1741. When Anthony Ulrich was imprisoned in 1741, Münchhausen remained in the service of the Russian military. In 1750, he was named a Rittmeister , a cavalry captain .
In 1744, he married Jacobine von Dunten at Pernigel ( Latvian : Liepupe) near Dunteshof ( Latvian : Duntes muiža) in Livonia . After his retirement, he lived with his wife at his manor in Bodenwerder until her death in 1790. Here, he acquired a reputation for his witty and exaggerated tales; at the same time, he was considered an honest man in business affairs. Münchhausen remarried in 1794; the marriage ended in a contested, ruinous divorce. Münchhausen died childless in 1797.
Adaptations
Doré 's caricature of Münchhausen
The stories about Münchhausen were first collected and published by an anonymous author in 1781. An English version was published in London in 1785, by Rudolf Erich Raspe , as Baron Munchhausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia, also called The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchhausen. However, much of the humorous material in them is borrowed from other sources. Indeed, the Baron himself was not notable for immodesty within his profession and relative to his accomplishments, and Raspe's publication rather damaged his reputation. Most historians agree that Munchhausen disapproved of some of the more outrageous of the tall tales that Raspe's book attributed to him.
Some of it is said to be a spoof based upon James Bruce [citation needed].
In 1786, Gottfried August Bürger translated Raspe's stories back into German, and extended them. He published them under the title of Wunderbare Reisen zu Wasser und zu Lande: Feldzüge und lustige Abenteuer des Freiherrn von Münchhausen ("Marvellous Travels on Water and Land: Campaigns and Comical Adventures of the Baron of Münchhausen"). Bürger's version is the one best known to German readers today.
In the 19th century, the story had undergone expansions and transformations by many notable authors and had been translated into numerous languages, totalling over 100 various editions. Baron Munchhausen's adventures have also been published in Russia, where they are quite commonly known, especially the versions adapted for children. In 2005 a statue of Munchhausen was erected in the city of Kaliningrad ( Königsberg ).
It is not clear how much of the story material derives from the Baron himself; however, it is known that the majority of the stories are based on folktales that have been in circulation for many centuries before Münchhausen's birth.
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Art
Illustration 9 by Doré
Münchhausen was an object of numerous works of art, but the final say to his visual image belongs to an edition of the book produced in 1862 and illustrated by the artist Gustave Doré .
The 1895 edition
Table of contents of the 1895 edition
Title: The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolph Erich Raspe
Chapters 1-20: Volume 1, Chapters 21-34: Volume 2.
Chapter 1: The Baron relates an account of his first travels — The astonishing effects of a storm — Arrives at Ceylon ; combats and conquers two extraordinary opponents — Returns to Holland .
Chapter 2: In which the Baron proves himself a good shot — He loses his horse, and finds a wolf — Makes him draw his sledge — Promises to entertain his company with a relation of such facts as are well deserving their notice
Chapter 3: An encounter between the Baron's nose and a door-post, with its wonderful effects — Fifty brace of ducks and other fowl destroyed by one shot — Flogs a fox out of his skin — Leads an old sow home in a new way, and vanquishes a wild boar
Chapter 4: Reflections on Saint Hubert 's stag — Shoots a stag with cherry-stones; the wonderful effects of it — Kills a bear by extraordinary dexterity; his danger pathetically described — Attacked by a wolf, which he turns inside out — Is assailed by a mad dog, from which he escapes — The Baron's cloak seized with madness, by which his whole wardrobe is thrown into confusion
Chapter 5: The effects of great activity and presence of mind — A favourite hound described, which pups while pursuing a hare; the hare also litters while pursued by the hound — Presented with a famous horse by Count Przobossky, with which he performs many extraordinary feats
Chapter 6: The Baron is made a prisoner of war , and sold for a slave — Keeps the Sultan's bees , which are attacked by two bears — Loses one of his bees; a silver hatchet , which he throws at the bears, rebounds and flies up to the moon; brings it back by an ingenious invention; falls to the earth on his return, and helps himself out of a pit — Extricates himself from a carriage which meets his in a narrow road, in a manner never before attempted nor practised since — The wonderful effects of the frost upon his servant's French horn
Chapter 7: The Baron relates his adventures on a voyage to North America, which are well worth the reader's attention — Pranks of a whale — A sea-gull saves a sailor's life — The Baron's head forced into his stomach — A dangerous leak stopped а posteriori
Chapter 8: Bathes in the Mediterranean — Meets an unexpected companion — Arrives unintentionally in the regions of heat and darkness, from which he is extricated by dancing a hornpipe — Frightens his deliverers, and returns on shore
Chapter 9: Adventures in Turkey , and upon the river Nile — Sees a balloon over Constantinople ; shoots at, and brings it down; finds a French experimental philosopher suspended from it — Goes on an embassy to Grand Cairo , and returns upon the Nile, where he is thrown into an unexpected situation, and detained six weeks
Chapter 10: Pays a visit during the siege of Gibraltar to his old friend General Elliot — Sinks a Spanish man-of-war — Wakes an old woman on the African coast — Destroys all the enemy's cannon; frightens the Count d'Artois, and sends him to Paris — Saves the lives of two English spies with the identical sling that killed Goliath ; and raises the siege
Chapter 11: An interesting account of the Baron's ancestors — A quarrel relative to the spot where Noah built his ark — The history of the sling, and its properties — A favourite poet introduced upon no very reputable occasion — Queen Elizabeth 's abstinence — The Baron's father crosses from England to Holland upon a marine horse, which he sells for seven hundred ducats
Chapter 12: The frolic; its consequences — Windsor Castle — St. Paul's — College of Physicians — Undertakers, sextons, &c., almost ruined — Industry of the apothecaries
Chapter 13: The Baron sails with Captain Phipps, attacks two large bears, and has a very narrow escape — Gains the confidence of these animals, and then destroys thousands of them; loads the ship with their hams and skins; makes presents of the former, and obtains a general invitation to all city feasts — A dispute between the Captain and the Baron, in which, from motives of politeness, the Captain is suffered to gain his point — The Baron declines the offer of a throne, and an empress into the bargain
Chapter 14: Our Baron excels Baron Tott beyond all comparison, yet fails in part of his attempt — Gets into disgrace with the Grand Seignior, who orders his head to be cut off — Escapes, and gets on board a vessel, in which he is carried to Venice — Baron Tott's origin, with some account of that great man's parents — Pope Ganganelli 's amour — His Holiness fond of shell-fish
Chapter 15: A further account of the journey from Harwich to Helvoetsluys — Description of a number of marine objects never mentioned by any traveller before — Rocks seen in this passage equal to the Alps in magnitude; lobsters , crabs , &c., of an extraordinary magnitude — A woman's life saved — The cause of her falling into the sea — Dr. Hawes' directions followed with success
Chapter 16: This is a very short chapter, but contains a fact for which the Baron's memory ought to be dear to every Englishman, especially those who may hereafter have the misfortune of being made prisoners of war
Chapter 17: Voyage eastward — The Baron introduces a friend who never deceived him: wins a hundred guineas by pinning his faith upon that friend's nose — Game started at sea — Some other circumstances which will, it is hoped, afford the reader no small degree of amusement
Chapter 18: A second visit (but an accidental one) to the moon — The ship driven by a whirlwind a thousand leagues above the surface of the water, where a new atmosphere meets them and carries them into a capacious harbour in the moon — A description of the inhabitants, and their manner of coming into the lunarian world — Animals, customs, weapons of war, wine, vegetables, &c
Chapter 19: The Baron crosses the Thames without the assistance of a bridge, ship, boat, balloon, or even his own will: rouses himself after a long nap, and destroys a monster who lived upon the destruction of others
Chapter 20: The Baron slips through the world: after paying a visit to Mount Etna he finds himself in the South Sea ; visits Vulcan in his passage; gets on board a Dutchman; arrives at an island of cheese, surrounded by a sea of milk; describes some very extraordinary objects — Lose their compass; their ship slips between the teeth of a fish unknown in this part of the world; their difficulty in escaping from thence; arrive in the Caspian Sea — Starves a bear to death — A few waistcoat anecdotes — In this chapter, which is the longest, the Baron moralises upon the virtue of veracity
Chapter 21: The Baron insists on the veracity of his former Memoirs — Forms a design of making discoveries in the interior parts of Africa — His discourse with Hilaro Frosticos about it — His conversation with Lady Fragrantia — The Baron goes, with other persons of distinction, to Court; relates an anecdote of the Marquis de Bellecourt
Chapter 22: Preparations for the Baron's expedition into Africa — Description of his chariot ; the beauties of its interior decorations; the animals that drew it, and the mechanism of the wheels
Chapter 23: The Baron proceeds on his voyage — Convoys a squadron to Gibraltar — Declines the acceptance of the island of Candia — His chariot damaged by Pompey's Pillar and Cleopatra's Needle — The Baron out-does Alexander — Breaks his chariot, and splits a great rock at the Cape of Good Hope
Chapter 24: The Baron secures his chariot, &c., at the Cape and takes his passage for England in a homeward-bound Indiaman — Wrecked upon an island of ice, near the coast of Guinea — Escapes from the wreck, and rears a variety of vegetables upon the island — Meets some vessels belonging to the negroes bringing white slaves from Europe, in retaliation, to work upon their plantations in a cold climate near the South Pole — Arrives in England, and lays an account of his expedition before the Privy Council — Great preparations for a new expedition — The Sphinx , Gog and Magog , and a great company attend him — The ideas of Hilaro Frosticos respecting the interior parts of Africa
Chapter 25: Count Gosamer thrown by Sphinx into the snow on the top of Teneriffe — Gog and Magog conduct Sphinx for the rest of the voyage — The Baron arrives at the Cape, and unites his former chariot, &c., to his new retinue — Passes into Africa, proceeding from the Cape northwards — Defeats a host of lions by a curious stratagem — Travels through an immense desert — His whole company, chariot, &c., overwhelmed by a whirlwind of sand — Extricates them, and arrives in a fertile country
Chapter 26: A feast on live bulls and kava — The inhabitants admire the European adventurers — The Emperor comes to meet the Baron, and pays him great compliments — The inhabitants of the centre of Africa descended from the people of the moon proved by an inscription in Africa, and by the analogy of their language, which is also the same with that of the ancient Scythians — The Baron is declared sovereign of the interior of Africa on the decease of the Emperor — He endeavours to abolish the custom of eating live bulls, which excites much discontent — The advice of Hilaro Frosticos upon the occasion — The Baron makes a speech to an Assembly of the states, which only excites greater murmurs — He consults with Hilaro Frosticos
Chapter 27: A proclamation by the Baron — Excessive curiosity of the people to know what fudge was — The people in a general ferment about it — They break open all the granaries in the empire — The affections of the people conciliated — An ode performed in honour of the Baron — His discourse with Fragrantia on the excellence of the music
Chapter 28: The Baron sets all the people of the empire to work to build a bridge from their country to Great Britain — His contrivance to render the arch secure — Orders an inscription to be engraved on the bridge — Returns with all his company, chariot, etc., to England — Surveys the kingdoms and nations under him from the middle of the bridge
Chapter 29: The Baron's retinue is opposed in a heroic style by Don Quixote , who in his turn is attacked by Gog and Magog — Lord Whittington, with the Lord Mayor's Show , comes to the assistance of Don Quixote — Gog and Magog assail his Lordship — Lord Whittington makes a speech, and deludes Gog and Magog to his party — A general scene of uproar and battle among the company, until the Baron, with great presence of mind, appeases the tumult
Chapter 30: The Baron arrives in England — the Colossus of Rhodes comes to congratulate him — Great rejoicings on the Baron's return, and a tremendous concert — The Baron's discourse with Fragrantia, and her opinion of the Tour to the Hebrides
Chapter 31: A litigated contention between Don Quixote, Gog, Magog, &c. — A grand court assembled upon it — The appearance of the company — The matrons, judges, &c. — The method of writing, and the use of the fashionable amusement quizzes — Wauwau arrives from the country of Prester John , and leads the whole Assembly a wild-goose chase to the top of Plinlimmon , and thence to Virginia — The Baron meets a floating island in his voyage to America — Pursues Wauwau with his whole company through the deserts of North America — His curious contrivance to seize Wauwau in a morass
Chapter 32: The Baron harangues the company, and they continue the pursuit — The Baron, wandering from his retinue, is taken by the savages, scalped, and tied to a stake to be roasted; but he contrives to extricate himself, and kills the savages — The Baron travels overland through the forests of North America, to the confines of Russia — Arrives at the castle of the Nareskin Rowskimowmowsky, and gallops into the kingdom of Loggerheads — A battle, in which the Baron fights the Nareskin in single combat, and generously gives him his life — Arrives at the Friendly Islands , and discourses with Omai — The Baron, with all his attendants, goes from Otaheite to the isthmus of Darien , and having cut a canal across the isthmus, returns to England
Chapter 33: On his way to Petersburgh a snow storm arrives and covers the entire landscape, the Baron succeeds to tie his horse to the single post outstanding in the landscape. On the next morning the snow has melted and he realizes that his horse is tied to a steepletop high above in the air. Arriving in Russia the Baron converses with the Empress — Persuades the Russians and Turks to cease cutting one another's throats , and in concert cut a canal across the Isthmus of Suez — The Baron discovers the Alexandrine Library , and meets with Hermes Trismegistus — Besieges Seringapatam , and challenges Tippoo Sahib to single combat — They fight — The Baron receives some wounds to his face, but at last vanquishes the tyrant — The Baron returns to Europe, and raises the hull of the " Royal George "
Chapter 34: The Baron makes a speech to the National Assembly , and drives out all the members — Routs the fishwomen and the National Guards — Pursues the whole rout into a Church, where he defeats the National Assembly, &c., with Rousseau , Voltaire , and Beelzebub at their head, and liberates Marie Antoinette and the Royal Family
Films
In 1943 Raspe's book was adapted into a German language film Münchhausen directed by Josef von Báky , with Hans Albers in the title role and Brigitte Horney as the empress Katherine the Great, written by Erich Kästner . This was Germany's fourth full-color motion picture, lushly filmed with amazing effects for the time, and produced at UFA studios.
In 1961, the Czech director Karel Zeman made an 83 minute film " Baron Prášil " (Baron Munchhausen), using his unique combination of animation and live actors, starring Miloš Kopecký as the Baron. (There had been an earlier Baron Prášil film in 1940 too.)
In 1979 Mark Zakharov shot the Russian film, based on the play written by Grigori Gorin , The Very Same Munchhausen , relaying the story of the baron's life after the adventures portrayed in the book, particularly his struggle to prove himself sane. In the movie, baron Munchausen is portrayed as multi-dimensional, colorful, non-conformist man living in a gray, plain, dull and conformist society that ultimately tries to destroy him.
In 1983 a French cartoon version was made, called Le Secret des sélénites. It subsequently became available in English under the title Moon Madness.
Terry Gilliam adapted the stories into the 1988 film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen [sic], shot in Belchite , Spain, and at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome. The film starred John Neville as the Baron and nine-year-old Sarah Polley as Sally Salt. Supporting the Baron as his faithful crew were Eric Idle , Charles McKeown , Winston Dennis and Jack Purvis . The film also featured Uma Thurman , Oliver Reed , Jonathan Pryce , Sting and Robin Williams (credited as Ray D. Tutto).
Various shorts are also known to have been made about the baron's life, including Les Hallucinations de baron de Munchhausen and Les Aventures de baron de Munchhausen by George Méliès .
Additionally, the Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics episode "The Six Who Went Far" is clearly Munchausen's troupe, but the baron himself is omitted for obvious legal reasons [ citation needed ].
Role-playing game (RPG)
In 1998 a multi-player storytelling / role-playing game entitled The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Münchhausen was produced by James Wallis of Hogshead Publishing. [1] Players of the role-playing game assume the role of a noble person and challenge one another to relate an improvised tale based on an opening line given by another player (for example: "Grand Poobah, please tell our assemblage about the time you singlehandedly defeated the entire Turkish army using only a plate of cheese and a corkscrew!"). Players are able to interject and introduce a limited number of complications to the tall tale at any time ("But, my dear Grand Poobah, is it not true that you have a horrible allergy to cork?"), and eventually all vote for the best storyteller. [1] The game has several adaptations into drinking games .
In 1999 Pyramid magazine named The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Münchhausen as one of the Millennium's Best Games. Editor Scott Haring said it "is the roleplaying game that comes closest of them all to pure storytelling. In fact, it disregards so many conventions of 'traditional' RPGs ... that many folks argue it's not a roleplaying game at all. ... But who cares? It's huge fun." [2]
In his 2007 essay, game designer and writer Allen Varney said that the game "can be beastly in play" since it "requires improvisation worthy of its namesake, and thus you need a particular kind of player and a particular mood for a session to proceed smoothly." However, he also described it as a "strikingly original exercise in competitive storytelling". [1]
The game has been republished in an augmented version by Mongoose Publishing in 2008 as part of its Flaming Cobra line. Two versions were published, hardcover and softcover. The new version adds simplified rules for kids and a 1001 nights addition.
Fandom
There is a club "Munchhausen's Grandchildren" (Внучата Мюнхаузена) in Kaliningrad , Russia. With the help of its sister city Bodenwerder, the birthplace of the Baron, the club amassed a number of "historical proofs" of presence of the Baron in Königsberg : an ancient silver thaler "returned" to Kaliningrad by Bodenwerder's mayor as a debt for a mug of beer drunk by Munchhausen, Order of Saint Anna issued to the Baron by Paul I of Russia for his "faultless service", and the skeleton of the whale in whose belly the Baron was entrapped for a while. On 18 June 2005 there was the grand opening of a monument of the Baron, which was presented to Kaliningrad by Bodenwerder. The monument portrays the Baron's cannonball ride.
A monument of the Baron is also installed in his city of birth.
An international tour over the places visited by Baron Munchhausen is established as a joint venture of Germany, Lithuania , Latvia , and Kaliningrad.
Münchausen Syndrome
In 1951 Richard Asher first described the factitious disorder in which a patient will feign or simulate illness in themselves to gain attention and sympathy, a syndrome Asher "respectfully dedicated to the Baron, and named after him." [3] Munchausen syndrome by proxy is an extension of this condition in which the sufferer, acting with similar motives to a Munchausen syndrome sufferer, will intentionally inflict or prolong the symptoms of an illness upon an individual under their care (most often a mother upon her child).
See also
| Baron Munchausen |
What is the name given to the type of journalism created by Hunter Thompson in which reporters involve themselves in the action to such a degree that they become the central figures of their stories? | (909) 593-7078
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A while back we posted a link to Meg's write up of the Village Expansion, which she calls "the new mall," and her review of Casablanca, the new Mediterranean restaurant in the Claremont Packing house.
Meg's post generated a number of comments, which you can see here .
The best comment was from an anonymous respondent, who said:
I like to think of "Village West" as a work in progress. Given what is now residing there I predict there will be a turn over in 60% of the spaces within 12 months. The restaurants so far are obviously being operated by first timers (except for 3 Forks which by the way needs at least 3 entrees less than $20 on their menu to succeed in Claremont).
I have a feeling the overhead for the newbies is so high that they may not be able to tread water long enough to learn from their mistakes. First lesson these fine folks must learn is: Produce consistently good food. I have met the owner of Casa Blanca a very nice man, but he seems to believe he has a successful restaurant simply because he has a lease in Claremont. The key is and always will be the food, every plate that comes out of the kitchen. People in Claremont know good food, it is a shame it's so rare to find it in Claremont these days.
Another anonymous writer had this to say about Three Forks:
I have eaten at 3 Forks and I was shocked at the prices. There will never be any justification in my mind to pay that kind of money for food unless I am in an environment that dictates those prices. A steak is a steak is a steak. It may be a really good piece of meat but it is a steak for Pete's sake. If I am looking out at the Grand Canal in Venice or a storybook Square in Salzberg I could open my wallet as part of that whole experience. But $70 for a steak for 2 people (the Porterhouse) to look out and enjoy the view of a factory across from the restaurant is crazy. The pricing is alla carte so if a solo piece of meat is not your idea of a meal be prepared to pay another chunk of change for a salad or a vegetable. Plus if you feel the need to order a beverage of some kind to wash this all down well you can always get a second on your house.
My personal opinion is this type of restaurant has no place being in Claremont.
The Daily Bulletin's editorial board yesterday called for the resignation of disgraced Three Valleys Municipal Water District board member Xavier Alvarez of Pomona .
An Insider reader wrote in to remind us that Alvarez might have more than a little in common with the Baron Von Münchhausen , whose Wikipedia entry reads:
Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhausen (11 May 1720 – 22 February 1797) (sometimes spelled Munchausen), was a German baron who in his youth was sent to serve as page to Anthony Ulrich II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and later joined the Russian military. He served until 1750, in particular taking part in two campaigns against the Turks. Returning home, Münchhausen supposedly told a number of outrageous tall tales about his adventures. The Baron was born in Bodenwerder and died there as well.
According to the stories, as retold by others, the Baron's astounding feats included riding cannonballs, travelling to the Moon, and escaping from a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair.
The Baron lent his name to Münchhausen syndrome, the psychological disorder in which sufferers pretend to be ill or sometimes induce real symptoms of illnesses in order to get attention.
At least Alvarez might be able to legitimately claim an insanity defense in the criminal charge(s) against him.
The Dog That Did Not Bark
We can learn from history. In Claremont, we learn that with the Claremont 400 and their fellow travelers, history doesn't necessarily repeat itself. There's no intellectual consistency. Part of the reason the Insider too often dredges up historical events is that these events are available to us. If we tried to show things using future events, that would be speculative and not too convincing.
In that vein, we want to remind folks about the mean-spirited and clearly orchestrated attack that took place against one particular school board candidate in the last election. An element used in the attack was the church-state separation issue we have examined the past few days with respect to 2007 candidate Beth Bingham.
On a single day, October 12, 2005, the Claremont Courier printed five separate letters, all from college faculty members (four from Pomona College, one from Pitzer College), all similarly attacking 2005 candidate Kris Meyer. One letter quotes Nobel Laureate James Watson--a fraught endeavor given Watson's recent fall from grace . One calls Meyer a "scary guy" and goes on, in quite rational and measured professorial tones to say that Meyer can "spout cockamamie creationist theory in the privacy of his own home..." Another refers to Meyer's writing as "an incoherent rant". Say what you will, these are at least passionate people and the Insider hopes they treat their students with more courtesy than they treat their political foes. (We provide the letters opposite these paragraphs because we think they are instructive. Click on the small images for a readable image. We did some cutting and pasting for continuity and coherence and we don't think we messed up anywhere; not intentionally in any event.)
What surprises us--well, it doesn't really surprise us--is that there is no such orchestrated and passionate defense of the separation of church and state this year with an ordained, active minister running for office. We are shocked--shocked! It's the dog that did not bark. So, with apologies to Professor John Seery at Pomona, we will write the letter he doubtless would have written had his vigilant citizen cabal brought this issue to his attention. (His original letter is the middle one in the group to the right, under the head VIGILANCE: Thanks.)
Dear Editor,
I'd like to express my gratitude to several vigilant Claremont citizens and the Claremont Insider for alerting the rest of us to school board candidate Beth Bingham's stealth agenda and deceptive tactics.
In a letter to the COURIER (and I join others in urging the COURIER, as an act of public service and in the spirit of full disclosure to reprint her letter), Bingham has taken very adamant stances on school issues (decrying, for instance, the use of business concepts in the management of the school district, and a concern for the wall of separation between church and state when it's someone else's religion), and yet she reveals none of these positions in her current campaign literature .
My own view is that we need to elect board members who will exemplify high standards of integrity, candor and transparency. My question: Do the Claremont residents now displaying Beth Bingham signs know the full story about her views and nonetheless support them and her campaign, or have they been misled into believing she is simply a straightforward "children's" candidate.
definitely not written by John Seery
Claremont, CA
The point here is not to pile on Beth Bingham--though she felt compelled in her letter of November 5, 2005 to pile on Kris Meyer (linked two paragraphs above and here also ). The point is that these crudely- and transparently-orchestrated attacks are well-oiled parts of the Claremont machine. It is never enough to put forward your own positions--in fact, that is seldom done. Gathering testimonials and lists of the usual suspect supporters is their way. Better to demonize and smear your opponent than to engage. Think of Glenn Southard's smearing of Obie Landrum , or the queasy activities of Preserve Claremont .
The Cheerful Shepherd
Beth Bingham's October 17th Courier advertisement in the school board race carried the tag line, "Schools where every child matters and somebody knows their name." She seems to have settled on this as the theme for her campaign. It appears on her website as well.
It has kind of a nice ring--pretty friendly and inclusive--but we couldn't shake the feeling that we'd heard it somewhere before. You know how that is?--You're trying to remember something but you just can't get it back? Don't you just hate when that happens?
Then it hit us. Cheers. It's the theme song from Cheers.
Now it's not direct appropriation. We weren't even sure there was any conscious connection until we read the Rev. Dr. Bingham's April 28, 2007 sermon at Pilgrim Congregational Church. Her inspiration came from the sermon's first page:
...Not being known by a name erases us.
It was the theme song of a television show that pointed out the other side of all that, the beautiful side of all that: Many of you remember the lyrics, and the endearing, if hilarious [sic] friendships that developed at Cheers:
'Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where every body knows your name...'
We want to go where everybody knows your name, when they're awfully glad you came. You wanna go where everybody knows your name [sic, paraphrasing these and subsequent lines].
He knows your name. Jesus always knows our name and calls us by name and how precious is that?...
Bingham took her campaign theme from the lyrics of a television show jingle. We can only imagine the meeting where the theme was decided:
"Schools where everybody knows their name." No, that's kind of ambiguous; wouldn't everybody know their own name?
"Schools where children matter and everybody knows their name." Better in one sense; just as bad in the other. The reference isn't clear
"Schools where some child matters and everybody knows their name." That's no good. Why don't you switch "some" and "every"?
"Schools where every child matters and somebody knows their name." Kind of a low bar on the name recognition, but we'll go with it.
It's lucky she didn't take her inspiration from CSI. That's another television program that is mentioned more than once in her sermons. The mind boggles. Well, we've had our fun with that. No more beating that halt, lame, or possibly dead horse.
In the aforementioned sermon, Bingham proceeds to weave the passage in John 10 about the good shepherd with the 23rd Psalm. You ought to read the entire sermon if you have the time.
She doesn't mention John 10:16, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."
Which is why Beth Bingham makes such a great trustee of a private college with strong church connections. But the same thought gives us pause when considering her for a public school board. In 2005, such concerns bothered her as well .
The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Bingham for School Board?
click image to read
In 2005, Elizabeth Bingham worried in print--in what then seemed to be a throwaway line--about a candidate in that year's school board race dimming the line between church and state. She said, "As deep as my concerns are about the possibility that Mr. Meyer would dim the line that separates church and state, this comment is equally worrisome..."
Now, in 2007, this same Elizabeth Bingham, an active Congregational Minister, is a candidate running for the Claremont Unified School Board. Of course she professes, when asked the question, great respect for and fidelity to the separation of church and state, but how well does that claim hold up?
The Insider thinks it would take, well, a saint, to pull it off. And though the Rev. Dr. Bingham is a nice lady with a very pastoral demeanor, we don't think she can do it.
For starters, let's look at the Covenant of her own church, Pilgrim Congregational Church in Pomona, where she is Senior Minister. In the second paragraph, she has covenanted not only to accept the Holy Scriptures as her rule of faith--fair enough--but also as her rule of practice. Does this mean, as we interpret it, that she would be ruled by religious precepts in her public actions? Even more worrisome is the next line where she, every member, and the church accept the duty of the advancement of His Kingdom in the world. Is the Claremont Unified School District Board a vehicle by which to advance this aspect of the Covenant?
If the Rev. Dr. Bingham denies these duties, isn't she violating her covenant to her God and her church? If she doesn't deny them, isn't she setting aside the principle of separation of church and state that she professed--in 2005--to hold as important? It seems to us that while it might be possible for a lay-person somehow--temporarily--to back-burner these important church commitments, it would be well-nigh impossible for a Senior Minister of a large congregation to do so.
How does she square her candidacy now as an ordained minister with her concern about the "line that separates church and state" expressed in the 2005 letter above? Isn't there, as she puts it, a "possibility" of a problem?
The Rev. Dr. Bingham is also a trustee of Piedmont College, an avowedly church-related institution in Georgia supported strongly by the Congregational Church for more than a century. In 2003, the Rev. Dr. Bingham participated in a ceremony founding a new Congregational church at the school.
During this ceremony, the president of Piedmont College, Ray Cleere, said: "While many colleges in recent years have been moving away from their historical church affiliations, at Piedmont we have worked to strengthen our ties to the churches that have supported us for many years."
The Rev. Dr. Bingham is a trustee at this college. And we think this is exactly the right kind of institution for her to serve. She has an M.A. from the Yale Divinity School and a Doctor of Ministry from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary . (The seminary's world view is informed by historic prophetic and social justice strands of United Methodism that equip Christians for engagement with the world.-- from the website ) She belongs with the kind of institution that Piedmont is and doubtless does an excellent job in its service.
However, as you read her biography and list of qualifications for service as a trustee of a public school, you find them pretty thin with respect to public education. Sure, she spoke at the Claremont Baccalaureate in 2007--possibly an audition for the school board race because the word on the street is that the departing board members "found" her to run. She was in the Baseball Dugout Booster Club, and was an "involved parent" at Condit, El Roble, and CHS. And, she was on the budget advisory committee in the district.
Her work on the budget must have inoculated her against common sense, since she wrote in the 2005 letter reproduced above that "Public education is not a business". And, "I shudder at the thought that decisions about the best way to teach our children will be made by dollars and cents..." This sounds naive. District staff and board members balance priorities and resources--dollars and cents--all the time.
All in all, we have little faith in the competence of the Rev. Dr. Bingham in the public school setting; and there is that whole Church and State thing...
She is asking herself to do the impossible in trying to reconcile these two sides. Where she is committed to her church, she is "involved" as a parent. That's like the difference between ham and eggs: the chicken was "involved", the pig was committed.
(While the Insider has no fear to step in it when the subject is local politics, the mix of politics and religion is, as they say, incendiary. It's been a long time since we flunked out of divinity school--at least we think that was us. So it's probably pointless to engage us in a debate of some of the nicer theological points raised above. It would be like having a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.)
Claremont: "Security through Obscurity"
A reader sent us a reaction to the City's plan to hide the report of the security consultant on problems with the City of Claremont website and computer system.
As a computer professional, I'm astounded that the city would decide to hide the results of their security audit. "Security through Obscurity" is a widely-derided concept. It isn't that hard to make a website secure, and it really shouldn't involve any deep secrets. Presumably thousands of cities across the country have done it.
What this regular human being does not understand is that secrecy and obfuscation is a way of life, a credo, a hard-wired response with these people. It is a reflexive reaction that occurs without thought or consideration. It is limbic. It won't change until the voters make it change. Our guess is that the City Council will sit up there like potted plants on this matter. We get the kind of government we deserve.
Item #11 on the agenda is a proposed amendment to the city's Land Use and Development Code . Staff proposes that the council approve raising the amount charged to businesses for the city's in-lieu parking fee from $9,000 per parking space to $20,000.
The in-lieu fee is charged to Claremont Village businesses - a restaurant adding seating spaces, for instance - that want to increase expand or intensify their use but don't have land available to add parking spaces for the additional customers. The business can instead pay the in-lieu fee, which is supposed to go into a fund dedicated to buying land for parking or to building new parking structures.
In 1990, the last time the in-lieu parking fee was raised, the council agenda materials contained 55 pages that included a breakdown of how staff arrived at the per-space cost estimate:
Click on Image to Read
The 55 pages of staff materials also included an initial study under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and a negative declaration with several mitigations to offset adverse impacts.
So, in 1990 you had at least the appearance of staff doing the work to justify their recommendation that the in-lieu fee be set at $9,000.
Fast-forward to tonight's council meeting, and you see a three-page document with no supporting analysis. And two of the pages are taken up by the proposed council resolution language with the code change concering the fees. Community Development Director Anthony Witt and Housing and Redevelopment Manager Brian Desatnik simply have one sentence that says "The average cost of a structured parking space today is approximately $20,000."
Click on Image to Read
No supporting data, as in 1990. They just pull a number out of thin air that may or may not be true. We don't know because there's no information to evaluate the statement - Claremont 400 reasoning distilled to perfection!
This is the "process" that City Councilperson Linda Elderkin and her friends over at the League of Women Voters crow on and on about. And businesses in town will pay for that process - a process the Claremont Chamber of Commerce seems to endorse, given its silence on the matter.
No doubt Witt and Desatnik cut the material down to three pages to save the city the expense of their staff time (Witt: $148,223.77 in earnings per year, plus $51,532.43 in benefits; Desatnik: $111,846.06 in earnings, plus $43,450.38 in benefits).
Sometimes you don't get what you pay for.
Unfortunate for Torres because without Norma's backing, Alvarez, who only won his seat by 50 votes, most likely would not have been elected .
Dave Allen may have had the best comment of anyone observing the Alvarez spectacle:
If the feds really want to stick it to Alvarez, I suggest they go after him for a more obvious crime, one of fashion.
C'mon, wearing that mustache has got to be a felony.
Three Valleys has been a scandal magnet in the past few years. In 2000 or 2001, the water district put General Manager Richard Hansen--never fired--on administrative leave and reduced his benefits for harassing his administrative assistant following a steamy affair that had tongues wagging over in the offices on Miramar. The woman had been hired by Hansen at what seemed to be an unusually high salary. The district settled with her for more than $60,000 as we recall, and later had to pay some $20,000 or $30,000 in court costs in the ensuing flurry of public records request lawsuits by the Courier, the Los Angeles Times, and others.
Then there is the matter referred to recently by the Daily Bulletin about former Three Valleys director Paul Stiglich getting drunk on a MWD-sponsored trip to the Colorado River in the late 1990s; about that whole unsavory episode the less said the better. ( The September 27, 2007 article is behind a paywall in the archive ; search on "Stiglich" and be prepared to pay a small fee.)
The FC Blog has a discussion thread going on the lastest Paystubgate news . They included these comments by one in-the-know reader:
Only the most predictable thing in the world, although it’s still an incredible pleasure to watch. Here’s the rule: Anything you hear out of Claremont city hall, flip it and assume that the reverse is true. It’s like a law of physics.
But what I love is that they do it EVERY. EFFING. TIME. They spew and rant and threaten: The police are investigating, and we’re gonna sue these people, and and and we’re gonna send a report to the sheriff’s department and and and, uh…
(sotto voce)We regret that an error occurred, but human error is a natural phenomenon. Mumble mumble cough.
Clown shoes and fright wigs. Extra-hilarious to watch them row back every word they’ve spoken in the last month.
We couldn't have said it better ourselves.
* * *
And then there was this email from one of our readers:
What a surprise!
City Admits Error in Paystubgate
Will Bigham reports in today's Daily Bulletin that we at Insider were right all along about the city of Claremont having employee pay stubs available on their on-line document archive:
CLAREMONT - The release of city employee pay stubs through the city's Web site was caused by human error, according to a report commissioned by the city.
The report confirms claims made by the Claremont Insider blog that the information was available on the city's online public document archive.
The report also confirms that there was no security breach or theft related to the release of the pay stubs.
"I regret the error was made, but human error is a natural phenomenon that occurs in life," City Manager Jeff Parker said.
Where to begin...?
It's always great to hear that bureaucratese passive voice - "the error was made," not a simple, "We goofed." (For the record, anytime you hear that passive voice from these people you know that they are trying to avoid responsibility for something.)
Just as the sun rises in east, you can count on a non-apology from these folks , from the Claremont 400, from their candidates for office, and from city staff.
Parker is right that errors happen. We understand that and do not fault anybody for an honest mistake. It's the constant claims of infallibility by the Claremont 400 that cause them to look stupid. So when the inevitable fall comes, as it did this case, it's a just one - call it karma or schadenfreude .
And, it's not just that they refuse accountability, it's that they treat you as stupid or worse if you cross them, no matter how right you are. In the case of Paystubgate, the city assumed the Insider stole the information we published, falsely accused us of theft, had the city attorney contact Google to have this site terminated (does that sound temporary?) in an unsuccessful attempt at illegal and unconstitutional prior restraint, and had Google remove the pay stub images from this site (either because the information was confidential, because the images were copyrighted, or because the information was stolen, depending on what day it was).
Stop to consider who was right and who was wrong in this matter. Then apply the same lessons to any divisive issue that has come before the city in the past 20 or so years: the Landscaping and Lighting District, the roundabout at Indian Hill Blvd. and Bonita Ave., the Irvin Landrum shooting, the Padua Sports Park, the homes destroyed by fire in Palmer Canyon and Padua Hills, the Parks and Pasture Assessment District, the affordable housing project on Base Line Rd.
Everyone who has dealt with the city in those issues and many more has experienced the same thing we have with Paystubgate. That incompetence and the refusal to acknowledge their wrong actions have been constants in the city, and it will not change because the Claremont 400 will not let it and because city staff and the city attorney lack the integrity to tell them when they are wrong.
It is up to you to demand accountability. Until you do, get ready for the next Paystubgate, in whatever form it takes.
| i don't know |
For a point each, name the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” | Filthy Words by George Carlin
The following is a verbatim transcript of "Filthy Words" (the George Carlin monologue at issue in the Supreme Court case of FCC v. Pacifica Foundation) prepared by the Federal Communications Commission:
Aruba-du, ruba-tu, ruba-tu. I was thinking about the curse words and the swear words, the cuss words and the words that you can't say, that you're not supposed to say all the time, ['cause] words or people into words want to hear your words. Some guys like to record your words and sell them back to you if they can, (laughter) listen in on the telephone, write down what words you say. A guy who used to be in Washington knew that his phone was tapped, used to answer, Fuck Hoover, yes, go ahead. (laughter) Okay, I was thinking one night about the words you couldn't say on the public, ah, airwaves, um, the ones you definitely wouldn't say, ever, [']cause I heard a lady say bitch one night on television, and it was cool like she was talking about, you know, ah, well, the bitch is the first one to notice that in the litter Johnie right (murmur) Right. And, uh, bastard you can say, and hell and damn so I have to figure out which ones you couldn't and ever and it came down to seven but the list is open to amendment, and in fact, has been changed, uh, by now, ha, a lot of people pointed things out to me, and I noticed some myself. The original seven words were, shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. Those are the ones that will curve your spine, grow hair on your hands and (laughter) maybe, even bring us, God help us, peace without honor (laughter) um, and a bourbon. (laughter) And now the first thing that we noticed was that word fuck was really repeated in there because the word motherfucker is a compound word and it's another form of the word fuck. (laughter) You want to be a purist it doesn't really -- it can't be on the list of basic words. Also, cocksucker is a compound word and neither half of that is really dirty. The word -- the half sucker that's merely suggestive (laughter) and the word cock is a half-way dirty word, 50% dirty -- dirty half the time, depending on what you mean by it. (laughter) Uh, remember when you first heard it, like in 6th grade, you used to giggle. And the cock crowed three times, heh (laughter) the cock -- three times. It's in the Bible, cock in the Bible. (laughter) And the first time you heard about a cock-fight, remember -- What? Huh? naw. It ain't that, are you stupid? man. (laughter, clapping) It's chickens, you know, (laughter) Then you have the four letter words from the old Anglo-Saxon fame. Uh, shit and fuck. The word shit, uh, is an interesting kind of word in that the middle class has never really accepted it and approved it. They use it like, crazy but it's not really okay. It's still a rude, dirty, old kind of gushy word. (laughter) They don't like that, but they say it, like, they say it like, a lady now in a middle-class home, you'll hear most of the time she says it as an expletive, you know, it's out of her mouth before she knows. She says, Oh shit oh shit, (laughter) oh shit. If she drops something, Oh, the shit hurt the broccoli. Shit. Thank you. (footsteps fading away) (papers ruffling)
Read it! (from audience)
Shit! (laughter) I won the Grammy, man, for the comedy album. Isn't that groovy? (clapping, whistling) (murmur) That's true. Thank you. Thank you man. Yeah. (murmur) (continuous clapping) Thank you man. Thank you. Thank you very much, man. Thank, no, (end of continuous clapping) for that and for the Grammy, man, [']cause (laughter) that's based on people liking it man, yeh, that's ah, that's okay man. (laughter) Let's let that go, man. I got my Grammy. I can let my hair hang down now, shit. (laughter) Ha! So! Now the word shit is okay for the man. At work you can say it like crazy. Mostly figuratively, Get that shit out of here, will ya? I don't want to see that shit anymore. I can't cut that shit, buddy. I've had that shit up to here. I think you're full of shit myself. (laughter) He don't know shit from Shinola. (laughter) you know that? (laughter) Always wondered how the Shinola people feel about that (laughter) Hi, I'm the new man from Shinola. (laughter) Hi, how are ya? Nice to see ya. (laughter) How are ya? (laughter) Boy, I don't know whether to shit or wind my watch. (laughter) Guess, I'll shit on my watch. (laughter) Oh, the shit is going to hit de fan. (laughter) Built like a brick shit-house. (laughter) Up, he's up shit's creek. (laughter) He's had it. (laughter) He hit me, I'm sorry. (laughter) Hot shit, holy shit, tough shit, eat shit, (laughter) shit-eating grin. Uh, whoever thought of that was ill. (murmur laughter) He had a shit-eating grin! He had a what? (laughter) Shit on a stick. (laughter) Shit in a handbag. I always like that. He ain't worth shit in a handbag. (laughter) Shitty. He acted real shitty. (laughter) You know what I mean? (laughter) I got the money back, but a real shitty attitude. Heh, he had a shit-fit. (laughter) Wow! Shit-fit. Whew! Glad I wasn't there. (murmur, laughter) All the animals -- Bull shit, horse shit, cow shit, rat shit, bat shit. (laughter) First time I heard bat shit, I really came apart. A guy in Oklahoma, Boggs, said it, man. Aw! Bat shit. (laughter) Vera reminded me of that last night, ah (murmur). Snake shit, slicker than owl shit. (laughter) Get your shit together. Shit or get off the pot. (laughter) I got a shit-load full of them. (laughter) I got a shit-pot full, all right. Shit-head, shit-heel, shit in your heart, shit for brains, (laughter) shit-face, heh (laughter) I always try to think how that could have originated; the first guy that said that. Somebody got drunk and fell in some shit, you know. (laughter) Hey, I'm shit-face. (laughter) Shitface, today. (laughter) Anyway, enough of that shit. (laughter) The big one, the word fuck that's the one that hangs them up the most. [']Cause in a lot of cases that's the very act that hangs them up the most. So, it's natural that the word would, uh, have the same effect. It's a great word, fuck, nice word, easy word, cute word, kind of. Easy word to say. One syllable, short u. (laughter) Fuck. (Murmur) You know, it's easy. Starts with a nice soft sound fuh ends with a kuh. Right? (laughter) A little something for everyone. Fuck (laughter) Good word. Kind of a proud word, too. Who are you? I am FUCK. (laughter) FUCK OF THE MOUNTAIN. (laughter) Tune in again next week to FUCK OF THE MOUNTAIN. (laughter) It's an interesting word too, [']cause it's got a double kind of a life -- personality -- dual, you know, whatever the right phrase is. It leads a double life, the word fuck. First of all, it means, sometimes, most of the time, fuck. What does it mean? It means to make love. Right? We're going to make love, yeh, we're going to fuck, yeh, we're going to fuck, yeh, we're going to make love. (laughter) we're really going to fuck, yeah, we're going to make love. Right? And it also means the beginning of life, it's the act that begins life, so there's the word hanging around with words like love, and life, and yet on the other hand, it's also a word that we really use to hurt each other with, man. It's a heavy. It's one that you have toward the end of the argument. (laughter) Right? (laughter) You finally can't make out. Oh, fuck you man. I said, fuck you. (laughter, murmur) Stupid fuck. (laughter) Fuck you and everybody that looks like you. (laughter) man. It would be nice to change the movies that we already have and substitute the word fuck for the word kill, wherever we could, and some of those movie cliches would change a little bit. Madfuckers still on the loose. Stop me before I fuck again. Fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump. Easy on the clutch Bill, you'll fuck that engine again. (laughter) The other shit one was, I don't give a shit. Like it's worth something, you know? (laughter) I don't give a shit. Hey, well, I don't take no shit, (laughter) you know what I mean? You know why I don't take no shit? (laughter) [']Cause I don't give a shit. (laughter) If I give a shit, I would have to pack shit. (laughter) But I don't pack no shit cause I don't give a shit. (laughter) You wouldn't shit me, would you? (laughter) That's a joke when you're a kid with a worm looking out the bird's ass. You wouldn't shit me, would you? (laughter) It's an eight-year-old joke but a good one. (laughter) The additions to the list. I found three more words that had to be put on the list of words you could never say on television, and they were fart, turd and twat, those three. (laughter) Fart, we talked about, it's harmless It's like tits, it's a cutie word, no problem. Turd, you can't say but who wants to, you know? (laughter) The subject never comes up on the panel so I'm not worried about that one. Now the word twat is an interesting word. Twat! Yeh, right in the twat. (laughter) Twat is an interesting word because it's the only one I know of, the only slang word applying to the, a part of the sexual anatomy that doesn't have another meaning to it. Like, ah, snatch, box and pussy all have other meanings, man. Even in a Walt Disney movie, you can say, We're going to snatch that pussy and put him in a box and bring him on the airplane. (murmur, laughter) Everybody loves it. The twat stands alone, man, as it should. And two-way words. Ah, ass is okay providing you're riding into town on a religious feast day. (laughter) You can't say, up your ass. (laughter) You can say, stuff it! (murmur) There are certain things you can say its weird but you can just come so close. Before I cut, I, uh, want to, ah, thank you for listening to my words, man, fellow, uh space travelers. Thank you man for tonight and thank you also. (clapping whistling)
| Seven dirty words |
A barnstormer performs stunts using what type of vehicle or craft? | George Carlin - Wikiquote
George Carlin
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I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.
George Denis Patrick Carlin ( May 12 , 1937 – June 22 , 2008 ) was a Grammy-winning American stand-up comedian, actor and author, noted especially for his irreverent attitude and his observations on politics, language, psychology and religion as well as some taboo subjects.
Contents
FM & AM (1972)[ edit ]
I was on a talk show recently, and the host asked me, "What do you think about the dope problem?" I said, "Definitely, I feel we have too many dopes." No question about it. That's why we have a drug problem, I feel; it's because everyone has access to drugs...it's all those DRUG stores, right? Every three or four blocks, there's a big sign: "DRUGS", "Open All Night – DRUGS", "We Deliver – DRUGS", "Cut-rate DRUGS"...it's the biggest thing on their sign: "Cosmetics – Sundries – DRUGS". [1]
When they talk about drugs, they don't talk about all of them. They never mention coffee. The low end of the speed spectrum, I grant you, but there are coffee freaks. And they're walking around, nobody worrying about it.
Birth control pills are still on prescription. You still need a note to get laid. [1]
Some day birth control will come off prescription, and they'll need those cute little catchy names like the patent medicines have...some day birth control pills will have names like, "Preg-Not"! Doctors prefer "Embry-No"! Here's one for the ladies, "Nary-A-Carry"! Something lofty and poetic: "Nay Family Way"; something earthy and crude: "Mom Bomb"; something for the youngsters, "Junior Miss"; here's a real man's product, "Inconceivable"! "Mommy-Not", "Fetus Fail", "Kiddie Kill", "Papa Stopper", "Womb Broom", "Humpty Dumpty"...I wouldn't be surprised if they came up with a birth control pill that doesn't work all the time; they'd call it "Baby Maybe"! [1]
I used to be Irish Catholic; Now I'm an American. You know, you grow. [2]
O Beautiful, for smoggy skies, insecticided grain
for strip-mined mountains' majesty, above the asphalt plain
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee
and hides the pines, with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea. [2]
There are four hundred thousand words in the English language, and there are seven you can't say on television. What a ratio that is: 399,993 to 7. They must really be bad; they'd have to be outrageous to be separated from a group that large! "All of you over here, you seven? BAD WORDS." That's what they told us they were, remember? "That's a bad word!" …No bad words; bad thoughts, bad intentions...and words. You know the seven, don't you, that you can't say on television? Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that will infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war. [2]
There are two-way words, like, it's okay for Curt Gowdy to say, "Roberto Clemente has two balls on him!" But he can't say, "I think he hurt his balls on that play, Tony, don't you?" [2]
And the other two-way word is "prick". It's okay if it happens to your finger; yes, you can prick your finger, but don't finger your prick! [2]
Occupation: Foole (1973)[ edit ]
Nobody goes right to work. You might get there on time, but, screw the company, those first twenty minute belong to you, right? It's not an attitude in line with the American Spirit, but there it is: we all screw around first. "I just got here, man, you kiddin' me?" Really. You never see a memo that says 9:01. [3]
If you take five white guys and put 'em with five black guys, and let 'em hang around together for about a month, and at the end of the month, you'll notice that the white guys are walking and talking and standing like the black guys do. You'll never see the black guys going, "Oh, golly! We won the big game today, yes sir!" But you'll see guys with red hair named Duffy going, "What's happenin'?" [3]
It was in 1951, when I was 14, when grass swept the neighborhood. We hadn't been into grass before, we were into gang fighting, and wine and beer in the park, and punching the shit out of people, and having jackets with your name, and your girls were your 'debs', and you had turf, and all that dumb shit, and we would get into fights over girls...and then pot came along and gang fighting went away. In one semester, in shop class, all the guys went from making zip guns to hash pipes. [3]
Spoiler: advertising man says, "It's Good!" [3]
Toledo Window Box (1974)[ edit ]
The seven dwarfs were each on different little trips. Happy was into grass and grass alone … Happy, that's all he did. Sleepy was into reds. Grumpy, too much speed. Sneezy was a full blown coke freak. Doc was a connection. Dopey was into everything. Any old orifice will do for Dopey. He's always got his arm out and his leg up. And then, the one we always forget, because he was Bashful. Bashful didn't use drugs. He was paranoid on his own. Didn't need any help on that ladder. [4]
Hansel and Gretel discovered the ginger bread house about 45 minutes after they discovered the mushrooms. [4]
I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a man nailed to two pieces of wood. Especially if it's me!
"Interview With Jesus"
Don't give your money to the church. They should be giving their money to you.
"Interview With Jesus"
Have you noticed that most of the women who are against abortion are women you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place, man? There's such balance in nature.
"Abortion"
"Fussy eater" is a euphemism for "big pain in the ass".
"Fussy Eater, Pt. 1"
And, of course, the funniest food: "kumquats". I don't even bring them home anymore. I sit there laughing and they go to waste.
"Fussy Eater, Pt. 1"
So I say live and let live. That's my motto. Live and let live. Anyone who can't go along with that, take him outside and shoot the motherfucker. It's a simple philosophy, but it's always worked in our family.
"Prayer"
Reminds me of something my grandfather would say. He'd say, "I'm goin' upstairs and fuck your grandmother." Well he was an honest guy ya know, he wasn't gonna bullshit a 4-year-old.
Help me find some shoes I really like. Help me also to find a nymphomaniac coke connection who owns a Ferrari dealership.
Let me arrive safely back at my hotel room. Don't let me be attacked by a maniac wearing a french tickler and a space helmet. Don't let my beard become entangled in the gears of a transcontinental bus. And don't let me be hit by a flying turd.
Let's go for a drive OK? Well I'll go for a drive, you'll go for a ride. The person who drives the car they go for a drive, the other people they go for a ride. People don't know that, tell them when they're in your car. Say "you assholes are goin' for a ride!"
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
Playing With Your Head (1986)[ edit ]
Have you noticed that there are some people, who when they lose something, their first reaction is that it had to be stolen? First thing- "Hey! It was stolen!" It's an ego defense. They can't stand the fact that they might have been stupid enough to have lost something. And even if it's something that anyone would really want that much. "Hey! Who stole my collection of used bandages?! And they also got away with my nude pictures of Ernest Borgnine!"
There are battered husbands. Apparently this happens when the woman is real big, the man is very small, and they each drink a quart of whiskey a day.
I never fucked a 10, but one night I fucked 5 twos!
And you know, I always wanted to work in a delicatessen just so that a woman would come in one day and ask me to give her some tongue . And I'd say "Well, I don't get off 'till four o'clock." And she'd say "Well, I don't get off at all. That's why I'm looking for some tongue!"
You know how you speed up baseball? Everybody gets one swing. That's it one swing fuck you, you're out sit down!
And now, ladies and gentlemen, that we've enjoyed some good times this evening, and enjoyed some laughter together, I feel it is my obligation to remind you of some of the negative, depressing, dangerous, life-threatening things that life is really all about; things you have not been thinking about tonight, but which will be waiting for you as soon as you leave the theater or as soon as you turn off your television sets. Anal rape, quicksand, body lice, evil spirits, gridlock, acid rain, continental drift, labor violence, flash floods, rabies, torture, bad luck, calcium deficiency, falling rocks, cattle stampedes, bank failure, evil neighbors, killer bees, organ rejection, lynching, toxic waste, unstable dynamite, religious fanatics, prickly heat, price fixing, moral decay, hotel fires, loss of face, stink bombs, bubonic plague, neo-Nazis, friction, cereal weevils, failure of will, chain reaction, soil erosion, mail fraud, dry rot, voodoo curse, broken glass, snake bite, parasites, white slavery, public ridicule, faithless friends, random violence, breach of contract, family scandals, charlatans, transverse myelitis, structural defects, race riots, sunspots, rogue elephants, wax buildup, killer frost, jealous coworkers, root canals, metal fatigue, corporal punishment, sneak attacks, peer pressure, vigilantes, birth defects, false advertising, ungrateful children, financial ruin, mildew, loss of privileges, bad drugs, ill-fitting shoes, widespread chaos, Lou Gehrig's disease, stray bullets, runaway trains, chemical spills, locusts, airline food, shipwrecks, prowlers, bathtub accidents, faulty merchandise, terrorism, discrimination, wrongful cremation, carbon deposits, beef tapeworm, taxation without representation, escaped maniacs, sunburn, abandonment, threatening letters, entropy, nine-mile fever, poor workmanship, absentee landlords, solitary confinement, depletion of the ozone layer, unworthiness, intestinal bleeding, defrocked priests, loss of equilibrium, disgruntled employees, global warming, card sharks, poisoned meat, nuclear accidents, broken promises, contamination of the water supply, obscene phone calls, nuclear winter, wayward girls, mutual assured destruction, rampaging moose, the greenhouse effect, cluster headaches, social isolation, Dutch elm disease, the contraction of the universe, paper cuts, eternal damnation, the wrath of God, and PARANOIAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988)[ edit ]
For a while, I thought of myself as an atheist until I realized it was a belief, too. It's a shame everything has to have a label.
I really haven't seen this many people in one place since they took the group photographs of all the criminals and lawbreakers in the Ronald Reagan Administration.
It's a great country, but it's a strange culture. … This has got to be the only country in the world that could ever come up with a disease like bulimia; gotta be the only country in the world where some people have no food at all, and other people eat a nourishing meal and puke it up intentionally. This is a country where tobacco kills four hundred thousand people a year, so they ban artificial sweeteners! Because a rat died! You know what I mean? This is a place where gun store owners are given a list of stolen credit cards, but not a list of criminals and maniacs! And now, they're thinking about banning toy guns – and they're gonna keep the fucking real ones!
Next time you're at a wishing well. Doesn't happen often. Next time you're at a wishing well ask to see the manager! Tell him you've been coming there for 10 years and none of your wishes have come true. Either you gimme my money back—or I'm shittin' in the well!
It's the old American Double Standard, ya know: Say one thing, do somethin' different. And of course this country is founded on the double standard, that's our history! We were founded on a very basic double standard: This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free.
So about 80 years after the Constitution is ratified, the slaves are freed. Not so you'd really notice it of course; just kinda on paper. And that of course was at the end of the Civil War. Now there is another phrase I dearly love. That is a true oxymoron if I've ever heard one — civil war. D'you think anybody in this country could ever really have a civil war? "Say, pardon me...*machinegun sounds*...I'm awfully sorry! Awfully sorry."
Now of course the Civil War has been over for about 120 years. But...not so you'd really notice it. Because you see we have these people called "Civil War buffs"...in fact some of these people actually get dressed up once a year and then go out and re-fight these battles. D'you know what I say to these people? USE LIVE AMMUNITION ASSHOLES, WOULD YA PLEASE?!
Doin' It Again / Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics (1990)[ edit ]
I know that. Some people don't want you to mention certain things. Some people don't want you to say this, some people don't want you to say that. Some people think if you mention some things they might happen. Some people are really fucking stupid. Did you ever notice that, how many stupid people you run into during the day? Goddamn there's a lot of stupid bastards walking around. Carry a pad and pencil with you, you'll wind up with thirty or forty names by the end of the day. Think about this; think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of 'em are stupider than that.
Let me get a sip of water here...you figure this stuff is safe to drink? [audience yells "No"] Actually, I don't care, I drink it anyway. You know why? 'Cause I'm an American and I expect a little cancer in my food and water. I'm a loyal American and I'm not happy unless I let government and industry poison me a little bit every day.
Government want to tell you things you can't say because they're against the law, or you can't say this because it's against a regulation, or here's something you can't say because its a...secret; "You can't tell him that because he's not cleared to know that." Government wants to control information and control language because that's the way you control thought, and basically that's the game they're in.
Same with religion. Religion is nothing but mind control. Religion is just trying to control your mind, control your thoughts, so they're gonna tell you some things you shouldn't say because they're...sins. And besides telling you things you shouldn't say, religion is gonna suggest some things that you ought to be saying; "Here's something you ought to say first thing when you wake up in the morning; here's something you ought to say just before you go to sleep at night; here's something we always say on the third Wednesday in April after the first full moon in spring at 4 o'clock when the bells ring." Religion is always suggesting things you ought to be saying.
Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins. It's as simple as that. The CIA doesn't kill anybody anymore, they neutralize people, or they depopulate the area. The government doesn't lie, it engages in disinformation. The Pentagon actually measures nuclear radiation in something they call sunshine units. Israeli murderers are called commandos, Arab commandos are called terrorists. Contra killers are called freedom fighters. Well, if crime fighters fight crime, and firefighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?
Jammin' in New York (1992)[ edit ]
I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don't believe anything the government tells me. [...] I look at war a little bit differently. To me, war is a lot of prick-waving! OK? Simple thing. That's all it is. War is a whole lot of men standing out on a field waving their pricks at one another. Men are insecure about the size of their dicks, and so they have to kill one another over the idea. That's what all that asshole jock bullshit is all about. That's what all that adolescent, macho, male posturing and strutting in bars and locker rooms is all about. It's called "dick fear!" Men are terrified that their pricks are inadequate and so they have to compete with one another, to feel better about themselves, and since war is the ultimate competition, basically, men are killing each other in order to improve their self-esteem! You don't have to be a history major or a political scientist to see the bigger-dick foreign policy theory. It sounds like this: "What, they have bigger dicks? Bomb them!" And of course, the bombs and the rockets and the bullets are all shaped like dicks. It's a subconscious need to project the penis into other people's affairs. It's called "fucking with people!"
"Rockets And Penises In The Persian Gulf"
Now, to balance the scale, I'd like to talk about some things that bring us together, things that point out our similarities instead of our differences. 'Cause that's all you ever hear about in this country. It's our differences. That's all the media and the politicians are ever talking about—the things that separate us, things that make us different from one another. That's the way the ruling class operates in any society. They try to divide the rest of the people. They keep the lower and the middle classes fighting with each other so that they, the rich, can run off with all the fucking money! Fairly simple thing. Happens to work. You know? Anything different—that's what they're gonna talk about—race, religion, ethnic and national background, jobs, income, education, social status, sexuality, anything they can do to keep us fighting with each other, so that they can keep going to the bank! You know how I define the economic and social classes in this country? The upper class keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class. Keep 'em showing up at those jobs.
"Little Things We Share"
That's another complaint of mine – too much use of this prefix "pre". It's all over the language now — "pre"-this, "pre"-that, place the turkey in a "pre-heated" oven. It's ridiculous! There are only two states an oven can possibly exist in: Heated or unheated! "Pre-heated" is a meaningless fucking term! It's like "pre-recorded" — "This program was pre-recorded." Well, of course it was pre-recorded! When else are you gonna record it, afterwards? That's the whole purpose of recording; to do it beforehand! Otherwise it doesn't really work, does it? "Pre-existing", "pre-planning", "pre-screening" — you know what I tell these people? Pre-suck my genital situation! And they seem to understand what I'm talking about.
"Airline Announcements"
There are over seventeen thousand golf courses in America, they average over one hundred and fifty acres a piece – that's three million plus acres, four thousand, eight hundred and twenty square miles – you could build two Rhode Islands and a Delaware for the homeless on the land currently being wasted on this meaningless, mindless, arrogant, elitist, racist—there's another thing; the only blacks you'll find at country clubs are carrying trays—and a boring game. A boring game for boring people. You ever watch golf on television? It's like watching flies fuck! And a mindless game, too.
"Golf"
We're so self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. I'm tired of this shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day. I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn't going anywhere. WE are!
We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little Styrofoam … The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.
The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?"
"Plastic... asshole."
Back in Town (1996)[ edit ]
Why, why, why, why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't wanna fuck in the first place? Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked. Conservatives don't give a shit about you until you reach military age. Then they think you're just fine. Just what they've been looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. Pro-life... pro-life... These people aren't pro-life, they're killing doctors! What kind of pro-life is that? What, they'll do anything they can to save a fetus but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it? They're not pro-life. You know what they are? They're anti-woman. Simple as it gets, anti-woman. They don't like them. They don't like women. They believe a woman's primary role is to function as a brood mare for the state.
"Abortion"
Here's another question I have. How come when it's us, it's an abortion, and when it's a chicken, it's an omelet? Are we so much better than chickens all of a sudden? When did this happen; that we passed chickens in goodness? Name six ways we're better than chickens... See, nobody can do it! You know why? 'Cause chickens are decent people. You don't see chickens hanging around in drug gangs, do you? No. You don't see a chicken strapping some guy to a chair and hooking up his nuts to a car battery, do you? When's the last chicken you heard about came home from work and beat the shit out of his hen, huh? Doesn't happen... 'cause chickens are decent people.
"Abortion"
Catholics and other Christians are against abortions and they're against homosexuals. Well who has less abortions than homosexuals? Leave these fucking people alone for Christ's sake. Here is an entire class of people guaranteed never to have an abortion and the Catholics and the Christians are just tossing them aside. You'd think they'd make natural allies. Don't look for consistency in religion.
"Abortion"
"Life is sacred"? Who said so? God? Hey, if you read history, you realize that God is one of the leading causes of death! Has been for thousands of years! Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians; all taking turns killing each other because God told 'em it was a good idea. The sword of god, the blood of the lamb, 'vengeance is mine'; millions of dead motherfuckers. Millions of dead motherfuckers, all because they gave the wrong answer to The God Question: "Do you believe in God?" "No." BAM! Dead. "Do you believe in God?" "Yes." "...Do you believe in my God?" "No." BAM! Dead. "My God has a bigger dick than your God!"
"Sanctity of Life"
And you might have noticed something else. The sanctity of life doesn't seem to apply to cancer cells, does it? You rarely see a bumper sticker that says 'Save the tumors'. Or 'I brake for advanced melanoma'. No, viruses, mold, mildew, maggots, fungus, weeds, E. Coli bacteria, the crabs. Nothing sacred about those things. So at best the sanctity of life is kind of a selective thing. We get to choose which forms of life we feel are sacred, and we get to kill the rest. Pretty neat deal, huh? You know how we got it? We made the whole fucking thing up!
"Sanctity of Life"
I'm also tired of hearing about 'innocent victims'. This is an outmoded idea. There are no innocent victims. If you live on this planet, you're guilty, period, fuck you, end of report, next case. Next fucking case! Your birth certificate is proof of guilt!
"Free-Floating Hostility"
And what can we do to silence these Christian athletes who thank Jesus whenever they win, never mention his name when they lose? Not a word. You never hear them say "Jesus made me drop the ball." "The good Lord tripped me up behind the line of scrimmage." According to these guys, Jesus is undefeated, meanwhile these assholes are in last place. Must be another one of those "miracles."
"Free-Floating Hostility"
A lot of these cultural crimes I've been complaining about can be blamed on the Baby Boomers, something else I'm getting tired of hearing about...whiny, narcissistic, self-indulgent people with a simple philosophy: "GIMME IT, IT'S MINE!" "GIMME THAT, IT'S MINE!" These people were given everything. Everything was handed to them. And they took it all: sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and they stayed loaded for 20 years and had a free ride. But now they're staring down the barrel of middle-age burnout, and they don't like it. So they've turned self-righteous. They want to make things harder on younger people. They tell 'em, abstain from sex, say no to drugs; as for the rock and roll, they sold that for television commercials a long time ago...so they could buy pasta machines and stairmasters and soybean futures! They're cold, bloodless people. It's in their slogans, it's in their rhetoric: "No pain, no gain." "Just do it." "Life is short, play hard." "Shit happens, Deal with it." "Get a life." These people went from 'do your own thing' to 'just say No'. They went from 'love is all you need' to 'whoever winds up with the most toys wins'. And they went from cocaine to Rogaine. And you know something, they're still counting grams, only now it's fat grams. And the worst of it is, the rest of us have to watch these commercials on TV for Levi's loose-fitting jeans and fat-ass Docker pants, because these degenerate yuppie Boomer cocksuckers couldn't keep their hands off the croissants and the Haagen-Dazs, and their big fat asses have spread all over and they have to wear fat-ass Docker pants. Fuck these Boomers, fuck these yuppies...and fuck everybody, now that I think of it.
"Free-Floating Hostility"
So let me ask you something: how's everybody doing tonight, huh? (audience cheers) Good, well, fuck you! Just trying to make you feel at home.
Opening
Most people seem to have been indoctrinated to believe that bullshit only comes from certain places, certain sources: advertising, politics, salesmen – not true. Bullshit is everywhere. Bullshit is rampant. Parents are full of shit, teachers are full of shit, clergymen are full of shit, and law enforcement people are full...of...shit – this entire country. This entire country is completely full of shit, and always has been. From the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution to the Star-Spangled Banner, it's still nothing more than one big steaming pile of red, white and blue, all-American bullshit. Because, think of how we started. Think of that. This country was founded by a group of slave-owners who told us all men are created equal. Oh yeah, all men, except for Indians and niggers and women, right? I always like to use that authentic American language. This was a small group of unelected, white, male, land-holding, slave-owners who also suggested their class be the only one allowed to vote. Now, that is what's known as being stunningly and embarrassingly full of shit. And I think Americans really show their ignorance when they say they want their politicians to be honest. What are these fuckin' cretins talking about? If honesty were suddenly introduced into American life, the whole system would collapse!
"American Bullshit"
Everybody knows by now, all businessmen are completely full of shit; just the worst kind of low-life, criminal, cocksuckers you could ever wanna' run into – a fuckin' piece of shit businessman. And the proof of it, the proof of it is, they don't even trust each other. They don't trust one another. When a business man sits down to negotiate a deal, the first thing he does is to automatically assume that the other guy is a complete lying prick who's trying to fuck him outta his money. So he's gotta do everything he can to fuck the other guy a little bit faster and a little bit harder. And he's gotta do it with a big smile on his face. You know that big, bullshit businessman smile? And if you're a customer – Whoah! – that's when you get the really big smile. Customer always gets that really big smile, as the businessman carefully positions himself directly behind the customer, and unzips his pants, and proceeds to service...the...account. I am servicing this account. This customer needs service. Now you know what they mean. Now you know what they mean when they say, "We specialize in customer service." Whoever coined the phrase " let the buyer beware " was probably bleeding from the asshole. That's business.
"Businessmen"
Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time... But He loves you! He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Ho-ly Shit!
I decided to look around for something else to worship. Something I could really count on. And immediately, I thought of the sun. Happened like that. Overnight I became a sun-worshiper. Well, not overnight, you can't see the sun at night. But first thing the next morning, I became a sun-worshiper. Several reasons. First of all, I can see the sun, okay? Unlike some other gods I could mention, I can actually see the sun. I'm big on that. If I can see something, I don't know, it kind of helps the credibility along, you know?...
Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the Divine Plan? Remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn't in God's Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a Divine Plan. What's the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayer book can come along and fuck up Your Plan? And here's something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? "Well, it's God's will." "Thy Will Be Done." Fine, but if it's God's will, and He's going to do what He wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn't you just skip the praying part and go right to His Will? It's all very confusing.
"There Is No God"
It's ridiculous and it goes to ridiculous lengths! In prisons, before they give you a lethal injection, they swab your arm with alcohol! It's true! It's true. It's true! Well, they don't want you to get an infection! And you can see their point: wouldn't want some guy to go to Hell and be sick! It would take all the sportsmanship out of the whole execution. Fear of germs? Why, these bunch of goddamn pussies! You can't even get a decent hamburger anymore. They cook the shit out of everything now, 'cause everybody's afraid of food poisoning! Hey, where's your sense of adventure? Take a fucking chance, will ya? You know how many people die in this country from food poisoning every year? Nine thousand! That's all - it's a minor risk! Take a fucking chance, bunch of goddamn pussies! Besides, what do you think you have an immune system for? It's for killing germs! But it needs practice. It needs germs to practice on. So listen, if you kill all the germs around you and live a completely sterile life, then when germs do come along, you're not gonna be prepared. And never mind ordinary germs. What are you gonna do when some supervirus comes along that turns your vital organs into liquid shit? I'll tell you what you're gonna do. You're gonna get sick, you're gonna die, and you're gonna *deserve it* 'cause you're fucking' weak and you've got a fucking weak immune system!
"Fear of Germs"
The Little David Years (1971–1977) (1999)[ edit ]
[in response to someone in the audience yelling something] Would somebody just put a dick in that guy's mouth, please? 'Cause that's what he wants. He's a cocksucker in disguise. He's got his mouth open 'cause he wants someone to cum in it. Now, do you wanna keep making noise, motherfucker, and we can find you that way, or are you just a punk coward asshole bullshit loud motherfucker and you're gonna shut up now so we don't find out where the fuck you're sitting? 'Cause if you keep it up, we'll grab your ass and throw you on the fucking street, where you belong, with your mother! And I'm fucking her in the asshole every night anyway, so fuck you and your sister and your wife! If you got a kid, I hope your fucking kid dies in a car fire! How do you like that, you stupid cocksucker? Shut the fuck up and get the fuck out of here! … You know? See … You gotta use psychology. You gotta be a bit of a psychologist up here and know how to appeal to a person.
"How to Handle a Heckler"
Complaints and Grievances (2001)[ edit ]
Here's some bumper stickers I'd like to see:
We are the proud parents of a child whose self esteem is sufficient that he doesn't need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car.
We are the proud parents of a child who has resisted his teachers' attempts to break his spirit and bend him to the will of his corporate masters.
We have a daughter in public school who hasn't been knocked up yet.
We have a son in public school who hasn't shot any of his classmates yet. But he does sell drugs to your honor student. Plus he knocked up your daughter.
We are the embarrassed parents of a cross-eyed little nit-wit who at the age of ten not only continues to wet the bed but also shits on the school bus.
If my car should be in such a position where I can't quite see what's going on, can't get a good enough look, I'm not the least bit shy about asking the police to bring the bodies over a little closer to the car. "Pardon me, officer, would you mind dragging that twisted-looking chap over here a little closer to the car, please? My wife has never seen anyone shaped quite like that. Look at that, Sugar Lips! That's his ribcage sticking out the glove compartment. That will be all, officer. You can throw him back on the pile."
"Traffic Accidents: Keep Movin'!"
Here's my problem with the ten commandments: why are there ten? Why are there ten? You don't need ten. I believe the list of ten commandments was artificially and deliberately inflated to get it up to ten. Here's what happened:
About 5,000 years ago a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together to try to figure out how to control people, how to keep them in line. They knew people were basically stupid and would believe anything they were told, so they announced that God had given them some commandments, up on a mountain, when no one was around... God had given them the Ten Commandments.
Well let me ask you this- when they were making this shit up, why did they pick ten? Why not nine, or eleven? I'll tell you why- because ten sounds official. Ten sounds important! Ten is the basis for the decimal system, it's a decade, it's a psychologically satisfying number, the top ten, the ten most wanted, the ten best dressed. So having ten commandments was really a marketing decision. And it's clearly a bullshit list. It's a political document, artificially inflated to sell better.
I give you my revised list of the two commandments: "Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie", and "thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than the one you pray to". Two is all you need; Moses could have carried them down the hill in his fuckin' pocket, and I wouldn't mind those folks in Alabama posting them on the courthouse wall, as long as they provided one additional commandment: "Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself".
I'm a modern man, a man for the millennium, digital and smoke-free. A diversified multicultural postmodern deconstructionist. Politically, anatomically, and ecologically incorrect.
"Modern Man"
You know the best thing about necrophilia? You don't have to bring flowers. Yeah, usually they're already there. Isn't that nice? It's nice. It's convenient.
"Extreme Human Behavior"
People are fucking nuts. This country is full of nitwits and assholes. You ever notice that? Nitwits, assholes, fuckups, scumbags, jerkoffs, and dipshits. And they all vote. In fact, sometimes you get the impression that they're the only ones who vote.
There's a reason for this, there's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you've got... because the owners of this country don’t want that. I'm talking about the real owners now... the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking . They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right.
They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later 'cause they own this fuckin' place. It’s a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. ...The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. ...And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream, 'cause you have to be asleep to believe it.
Americans love to eat. They are fatally attracted to the slow death of fast food... This country is big-time pig time... Change the bald eagle to a big bowl of macaroni and cheese. A big bowl. 'Cause everything in this country is king size, extra large and super jumbo. Especially the fucking people! Have you seen some of the people in this country? Have you taken a good look at some of these big, fat motherfuckers walking around? Big fat motherfuckers! Oh, my God. Huge piles of redundant protoplasm, lumbering through the malls like a fleet of interstate buses. The people in this country are immense. Massive bellies, monstrous thighs, and big fat fucking asses! Next time you're in the vicinity of one of these creatures, stand there for a minute and observe. And if you stand there for a minute you'll begin to wonder, "How does this woman take a shit?" How does she shit? And more frightening still, how does she wipe her ass? Can she even locate her asshole? She must require assistance. Are paramedics trained in this field?
One great thing about getting old is that you can get out of all sorts of social obligations just by saying you're tired.
"Getting old"
This conversation is bound to turn up. Two guys in a street meet each other, and one of them says, "Hey, did you hear? Phil Davis died." "Phil Davis? I just saw him yesterday." "Yeah? … Didn't help. He died anyway. Apparently, the simple act of you seeing him did not slow his cancer down. In fact, it may have made it more aggressive. You know, you could be the cause for Phil's death. How do you live with yourself?"
"Death"
I call him Governor Bush because that's the only political office he's ever held legally in this country. I don't care where they hang his portrait, I don't care how big his library is. To me, he'll always be "Governor Bush." I don't even capitalize his name when I type it anymore.
"George Bush"
But let’s say it’s true; let’s say God gave us these rights. Why would he give us a certain number of rights? The Bill of Rights of this country has ten stipulations, okay? Ten rights. And apparently God was doing sloppy work that week because we've had to amend the Bill of Rights an additional seventeen times. So God forgot a couple of things. Like...SLAVERY! Just fuckin' slipped his mind.
Rights aren't rights if someone can take them away. They're privileges. That's all we've ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter. You see all, sooner or later. Sooner or later, the people in this country are gonna realize the government does not give a fuck about them! The government doesn't care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety. It simply does not give a fuck about you! It's interested in its own power. That's the only thing. Keeping it and expanding it wherever possible.
Brain Droppings (1997)[ edit ]
I'm gettin' tired of guys who smoke pipes. When are they gonna outlaw this shit? Guy with a fuckin' pipe! It's an arrogant thing to place a burning barrier between you and the rest of the world. It's supposed to imply thoughtfulness or intelligence. It's not intelligent to stand around with a controlled fire sticking out of your mouth. I say, "Hey, professor! You want somethin' hot to suck on? Call me! I'll give ya somethin' to put in your mouth!" I think these pipe-smokers oughta just move to the next level and go ahead and suck a dick. There's nothing wrong with suckin' dicks. Men do it, women do it; can't be all bad if everybody's doin' it. I say, Drop the pipe, and go to the dick! That's my advice. I'm here to help.
I've also grown weary of reading about clouds in a book. Doesn't this piss you off? You're reading a nice story, and suddenly the writer has to stop and describe the clouds. Who cares? [...] I'm not interested. Skip the clouds and get to the fucking. The only story I know of where clouds are important was Noah's Ark!
Don Ho can sign autographs 3.4 times faster than Ephraim Zimbalist Jr.
Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence. If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic. It is a coincidence. If Barry Bonds attains lifetime statistics identical to his father's, it will not be ironic. It will be a coincidence. Irony is "a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result." For instance: a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck. He is the victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence. But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah! Then he is the victim of an irony. If a Kurd, after surviving bloody battle with Saddam Hussein's army and a long, difficult escape through the mountains, is crushed and killed by a parachute drop of humanitarian aid, that, my friend, is irony writ large. Darryl Stingley, the pro football player, was paralyzed after a brutal hit by Jack Tatum. Now Darryl Stingley's son plays football, and if the son should become paralyzed while playing, it will not be ironic. It will be coincidental. If Darryl Stingley's son paralyzes someone else, that will be closer to ironic. If he paralyzes Jack Tatum's son, that will be precisely ironic.
There is something refreshingly ironic about people lying on the beach contracting skin cancer in an attempt to acquire a purely illusory appearance of good health, while germ-laden medical waste washes up on the sand all around them. (entitled Surf's Down Forever, p. 207)
"One thing leads to another"? Not always. Sometimes one thing leads to the same thing. Ask an addict.
Try explaining Hitler to a kid.
I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.
When it comes to God's existence, I'm not an atheist and I'm not an agnostic- I'm an acrostic, the whole thing puzzles me.
I put a dollar in a change machine. Nothing changed.
I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven't tried that for a while. Maybe this time it'll work.
We're all fucked. It helps to remember that.
Meow means "woof" in cat.
Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that shit.
Cf. Bernard Shaw , Back to Methuselah (1921), Pt. I : In the Beginning: I hear you say "Why?" Always "Why?" You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
I do not torture animals, and I do not support the torture of animals, such as that which goes on at rodeos: cowardly men in big hats abusing simple beasts in a fruitless search for manhood. In fact, I regularly pray for serious, life-threatening rodeo injuries. I wish for a cowboy to walk crooked, and with great pain, for the rest of his life.
Animal Instincts
I am perfectly willing to share the room with a fly, as long as he is patrolling that portion of the room I don't occupy. But if he starts that smart-ass fly shit, buzzing my head and repeatedly landing on my arm, he is engaging in high-risk behavior.
Animal Instincts
I think I am, therefore I am. I think.
An art thief is a man who takes pictures.
"Undisputed heavyweight champion." Well, if it's undisputed, what's all the fighting about?
I don't understand why prostitution is illegal. Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal? You know, why should it be illegal to sell something that's perfectly legal to give away? I can't follow the logic on that one at all! Of all the things you can do, giving someone an orgasm is hardly the worst thing in the world. In the army they give you a medal for spraying napalm on people! In civilian life you go to jail for giving someone an orgasm! Maybe I'm not supposed to understand it...
The mayfly lives only one day. And sometimes it rains.
I recently bought a book of free verse. For twelve dollars.
There's something I like about the clitoris, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven't tried that for a while. Maybe this time it'll work.
If people stand in a circle long enough, they'll eventually begin to dance.
One of the more pretentious political self-descriptions is "libertarian". People think it puts them above the fray. It sounds fashionable and, to the uninitiated, faintly dangerous. Actually, it's just one more bullshit political philosophy.
You might have noticed that I never complain about politicians. I leave that to others. And there's no shortage of volunteers; everyone complains about politicians. Everyone says they suck. But where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky; they don't pass through a membrane from a separate reality. They come from American homes, American families, American schools, American churches, and American businesses. And they're elected by American voters. This is what our system produces, folks. This is the best we can do. Let's face it, we have very little to work with. Garbage in, garbage out.
So maybe it's not the politicians who suck; maybe it's something else. Like the public. That would be a nice realistic campaign slogan for somebody: "The public sucks. Elect me." Put the blame where it belongs: on the people. Because if everything is really the fault of politicians, where are all the bright, honest, intelligent Americans who are ready to step in and replace them? Where are these people hiding? The truth is, we don't have people like that. Everyone's at the mall, scratching his balls and buying sneakers with lights in them. And complaining about the politicians.
For myself, I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way. On Election Day, I stay home. Two reasons: first of all, voting is meaningless; this country was bought and paid for a long time ago. That empty shit they shuffle around and repackage every four years doesn't mean a thing. Second, I don't vote, because I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. I know some people like to twist that around and say, "If you don't vote, you have no right to complain." But where's the logic in that? Think it through: If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and you screw things up, then you're responsible for what they've done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote—who, in fact, did not even leave the house on Election Day—am in no way responsible for what these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess you created. Which I had nothing to do with. Why can't people see that?
"One thing leads to another"? Not always. Sometimes one thing leads to the same thing. Ask an addict.
People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point.
I had no shoes, and I felt sorry for myself until I met a man who had no feet. I took his shoes. Now I feel better.
They say rather than cursing the darkness, one should light a candle. They don't mention anything about cursing a lack of candles.
Here's all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.
Catholic kids are stupid; they don't know how to handle a pedophile priest. Here's what you do: First of all, you don't get all scared and do whatever he tells you. Who wants to get sucked off by a forty-three-year-old clergyman with beard stubble? Not me. Instead, what you do is kick him in the nuts. You kick him squarely in the nuts, and you get the fuck out of there as fast as you can, and you go tell somebody right away; you tell as many grown-up people as you can––one of them is bound to believe you. That's what you do. You don't wait thirty years. You kick the priest in the nuts and say, "Fuck you, Father, I don't do that shit"… And you're out the door.
Regarding public Christmas displays: At some point, someone who worked at Rockefeller Center must have said, "Boys, I have a great idea for Christmas. Let's kill a beautiful tree that's been alive for seventy-five years and bring it to New York City. We'll stand it up in Rockefeller Plaza and conceal its natural beauty by hanging shiny, repulsive, man-made objects on it, and let it stand there slowly dying for several weeks while simpleminded children stare at it and people from Des Moines take pictures of it. That way, perhaps we can add our own special, obscene imprint to Christmas in Midtown."
During bombing raids in Iraq, the media liked to say that Saddam Hussein used people as human shields. That's not accurate. Although it's true they were used as shields, the fact is they were humans already. So if these humans were used as shields, they were human shields. They weren't being used as human shields. Got that?
The fanatics have another name for fetuses. They call them the pre-born. Now we're getting creative. If you accept pre-born, I think you would have to say that, at the moment of birth, we go instantly from being pre-born to being pre-dead. Makes sense, doesn't it? Technically, we're all pre-dead.
p. 162
Dear Political Activists,
All your chanting, marching, voting, picketing, boycotting and letter-writing will not change a thing; you will never right the wrongs of this world. The only thing your activity will accomplish is to make some of you feel better. Such activity makes powerless people feel useful, and provides them the illusion that they're making a difference. But it doesn't work. Nothing changes. The powerful keep the power. That's why they're called the powerful.
This is similar to people's belief that love can overcome everything, that it has some special power. It doesn't. Except one on one. One on one, love is incredibly powerful. It is a beautiful thing. But if love had any power to change the world, it would have prevailed by now. Love can't change the world. It's nice. It's pleasant. It's better than hate. But it has no special power over things. It just feels good. Love yourself, find another person to love and feel good.
Love, George
Las Vegas CityLife , August 9, 2007 [1]
For a while, I thought of myself as an atheist until I realized it was a belief, too. It's a shame everything has to have a label. I feel that if I was figuratively dropped on the Earth and there was a political line, I would be just left of center. The difference for me is that conservatives are more interested in property values and rights and free markets, and liberals are more interested in human rights. In the end, there are people who don't fit into the marketplace and are not equipped. I believe the government should step in where the free market fails.
Las Vegas CityLife , August 9, 2007 [2]
[On why he lacked faith in humanity] The two big mistakes were the belief in a sky god – that there's a man in the sky with ten things he doesn't want you to do and you'll burn for a long time if you do them – and private property, which I think is at the core of our failure as a species. That's the source of my indignations, my dissatisfactions, however it comes out on stage. I feel betrayed by the people I'm part of, these creatures, these magnificent creatures.
Mother Jones Magazine , March/April 1997
[On the existence of God] No. No, there's no God, but there might be some sort of an organizing intelligence, and I think to understand it is way beyond our ability. It's certainly not a judgmental entity. It's certainly not paternalistic and all these qualities that have been attributed to God. It's probably a dispassionate... That's why I say, "Suppose He doesn't give a shit? Suppose there is a God but He just doesn't give a shit?" That's the kind of thing that might be at work.
Bill Maher 's program on ABC
The planet is fine. The people are [bleeped out]. Because everyone is trying to save the planet. The planet doesn’t need that. The planet will take care of itself. People are selfish. And that's what they're doing is trying to save the planet for themselves to have a nicer place to live. They don't care about the planet in theory. They just care about having a comfortable place. And these people with the fires and the floods and everything, they overbuild, they put nature to the test and they get what's coming to them. That's what I say. That's what's happening, and I can't wait for the sea levels to rise. I can't wait for some of these cities to disappear. There are places that are going to go away. The map is going to change and that's because -- people think nature is outside of them. They don't take into them the idea that we are part of it. They say, "oh, we're going for a nature walk. We're going to the country because we like nature." Nature is in here. [points to chest] And if you're in tune with it, like the Indians, the Hopis, especially, the balance of life, the balance, the harmony of nature, if you understand that, you don't overbuild. You don’t do all this moron stuff.
The View, 24 October 2007
We are on a nice downward glide. I call it circling the drain … And the circles get smaller and smaller and faster and faster, if you watch the sink empty... Huish! And we'll be gone. And that's fine. I welcome it. I wish I could live 1000 years to watch it happen. From a distance — so I can see it all.
Archive of American Television , from one of Carlin's final interviews (2008)
I gave up on this stuff. I gave up on my species and … I gave up on my countrymen. Because I think we squandered great gifts. I think humans were given great great gifts: walking upright, binocular vision, opposable thumb, large brain … We grew. We had great gifts, and we gave it all up for both money and God … We gave it all up to superstition, primitive superstition, primitive shit … Invisible man in the sky, looking down, keeping track of what we do, make sure we don't do the wrong thing, if we do, he puts us in hell, where we burn forever. That kind of shit is very limiting for this brain we have. So we keep ourselves limited. And then we want a toy and a gizmo and gold and we want shiny things, and we want something to plug in that will make big big big things for us... And all that shit is nothing! It's nothing.
Archive of American Television , from one of Carlin's final interviews (2008)
You know what, I said it this way: when you're born in this world, you're given a ticket to the freak show. And when you're born in America, you're given a front row seat. And some of us get to sit there with notebooks. And I'm a notebook kind of guy: [pretends to be taking notes] "Oh, my God, did you see that? Did you see what he just did?..." And I watch the freak show, and I kept my notes, and I make up stuff about it, and I talk about the freaks. And the freaks are all humans, and they are all like me, and we are all the same. I'm not better, I'm not different, I'm just apart now. I'm separate, I'm over here, because I put myself out of the mix. I don't have a stake at the outcome. I'm not a cheerleader for a given outcome now.
Archive of American Television , from one of Carlin's final interviews (2008)
They say if you scratch a cynic, you'll find a disappointed idealist. And I would admit, that somewhere underneath all this there's a little flicker of a flame of idealism that would love to see it all — huish! — change. But it can't happen that way. And incremental change — it just seems the pile of shit is too deep.
Misattributed[ edit ]
Over the years, dozens of joke lists and rants have been forwarded around the internet and misattributed to George Carlin.
The Paradox of Our Time is one of many stories that has been forwarded around the internet and attributed to Carlin, but is actually by Bob Moorehead .
| i don't know |
May 14, 1804 saw what group break camp at Camp Dubois for 2 year expedition to the Pacific coast and back? | Thomas Jefferson and the Lewis and Clark Expedition | Thomas Jefferson's Monticello
Lewis and Clark Study Resource
Thomas Jefferson and the Lewis and Clark Expedition
Long before he became the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson had dreamed of sending explorers across North America. When Jefferson took office in 1801, most of the United States population lived within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean. Knowledge of the western part of the continent was limited to what had been learned from French traders and fur trappers and Spanish and British explorers. On January 18, 1803, President Jefferson sent a secret letter to Congress asking for $2,500 to fund an expedition to the Pacific Ocean. He hoped to establish trade with the Native American people of the West and find a water route to the Pacific. Jefferson also was fascinated by the prospect of what could be learned about the geography of the West, the lives and languages of the Native Americans, the plants and animals, the soil, the rocks, the weather, and how they differed from those in the East.
President Jefferson's choice to lead an expedition was Meriwether Lewis, his former secretary and a fellow native of Albemarle County, Virginia. Having reached the rank of captain in the U.S. Army, Lewis possessed military discipline and experience that would prove invaluable. While in the Army, Lewis had served in a rifle company commanded by William Clark. It was Clark whom Lewis chose to assist him in leading this U.S. Army expedition, commonly known today as the "Corps of Discovery." On February 28, 1803, Congress appropriated funds for the Expedition, and Jefferson's dream came closer to becoming a reality.
It was important for Lewis to gain certain scientific skills and to buy equipment that would be needed on the journey. In the spring of 1803, Lewis traveled to Philadelphia to study with the leading scientists of the day. Andrew Ellicott taught Lewis map making and surveying. Benjamin Smith Barton tutored Lewis in botany, Robert Patterson in mathematics, Caspar Wistar in anatomy and fossils, and Benjamin Rush in medicine.
While in Philadelphia Lewis purchased many of the items required for the journey. His shopping list included scientific instruments such as a chronometer and a sextant, an air rifle, arms and ammunition, medicines, ink and other materials for journal keeping, and a large array of other items, including 193 pounds of portable soup, a corn mill, mosquito netting, blankets, oiled linen for making tents, candles, tools, and reference books.
Lewis also purchased gifts for Native Americans. It was well known that in Indian cultures gift exchange was an important sign of friendship and allegiance. To prepare for this, he bought glass beads, mirrors, scissors, thimbles, needles, tobacco, knives, and peace medals. Through the exchange of gifts, and following Jefferson's instructions to treat the Indians "in the most friendly and conciliatory manner," it was hoped that knowledge of them could be acquired and trade increased.
While Lewis was back in Washington in July 1803, the United States's purchase of the Louisiana territory from France was announced. Now the journey was even more important. Lewis and his party would be exploring land that belonged to the United States. Armed with Jefferson's letter of instructions, Lewis traveled to Pittsburgh and then set out on the Ohio River. At Clarksville, in present-day Indiana, he met up with William Clark. They packed the keelboat, which Lewis had designed, and two pirogues (canoe-like boats) with supplies and headed downriver. They were accompanied by some recruited soldiers, Clark's African-American slave York, and Lewis's Newfoundland dog Seaman.
Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1803-04 at Camp Dubois on the east bank of the Mississippi River, upstream from St. Louis. Here the captains recruited more men, increasing the ranks of the "Corps of Volunteers for Northwest Discovery" to more than 40. As spring approached, the members of the Expedition gathered food and supplies and packed them into barrels, bags, and boxes. The boats were loaded and the party made ready to depart. On May 14, 1804, the Lewis & Clark Expedition began its trip up the Missouri River.
Lewis, Clark, and other members of the Expedition began writing in their journals, a practice that continued throughout the journey. Map-making was equally important, particularly in the previously unexplored regions. As the explorers encountered new rivers and streams, they were responsible for naming them. They named some for famous Americans, such as Jefferson and James Madison, and others for friends and members of the Expedition. The same was true for some of the new plants and animals they encountered. Many of these names are still in use today.
In late July the explorers camped north of the mouth of the Platte River, at a site they called Council Bluff. Lewis noted in his journal that the location was good for a trading post. It was here on August 3 that Lewis and Clark had their first council with Native Americans, a small group of Oto and Missouri Indians. During this time Sergeant Charles Floyd, one of the soldiers, became ill and died of a ruptured appendix on August 20. He was the only member of the Expedition to die during the journey.
As the Expedition traveled up the Missouri River during late August and into September, the landscape along the river changed drastically. The forests receded, replaced first by tall prairie grass and then the shorter grass of the high plains. Thousands of buffalo were seen grazing, and prairie dogs were first sighted. The evening temperatures became colder, with frost on the ground some mornings. Lewis and Clark planned to winter near long-established villages inhabited by large numbers of the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes, north of present-day Bismarck, North Dakota. On October 26, 1804, the Expedition arrived at the earth-lodge Indian villages, approximately 1,600 miles from Camp Dubois. A good site was found for a camp, and the men set about building Fort Mandan across the river from the Indian villages.
During the winter Lewis and Clark worked to establish good relations with the Indians, who had been dealing with English and French-Canadian traders for some time. One of these traders, Toussaint Charbonneau, was persuaded to accompany the Expedition as an interpreter when it left in the spring. His young pregnant wife, Sacagawea, who had been captured from her Lemhi Shoshone tribe years before by Hidatsas, was to go along as well. Sacagawea thus became the only female member of the Expedition. Her baby, named Jean Baptiste, was born on February 11, 1805. Lewis and Clark realized Sacagawea would be useful as a guide as the Expedition proceeded west, and believed the presence of the woman and her child would signal that the party was a peaceful one.
During the cold winter at Fort Mandan, the members of the Expedition prepared a shipment that was to be sent back to President Jefferson. The shipment included maps, written reports, items made by Native Americans, the skins and skeletons of previously unknown animals, soil samples, minerals, seeds, and cages containing a live prairie dog, a sharp-tailed grouse, and magpies. The large keelboat and about a dozen men were dispatched downriver on April 7. The shipment was received at the President's House in Washington four months later. Many of these items, including a painted Mandan buffalo robe, were eventually put on display in Jefferson's "Indian Hall," the entrance hall of Monticello, his home near Charlottesville, Virginia. Other objects were later displayed in Charles Willson Peale's museum in Philadelphia. The same day the shipment was sent downriver, the "permanent party" of the Expedition left Fort Mandan in the two pirogues and six dugout canoes and headed westward into uncharted territory.
Proceeding into present-day Montana, the explorers were amazed by herds of buffalo numbering more than 10,000 and by the ferocity of grizzly bears. On June 13, more than two months after leaving Fort Mandan, the Expedition reached the Great Falls of the Missouri River, one of the greatest natural obstacles it would face. The falls gave off a thunderous roar, which emanated from a 10-mile stretch of river that dropped more than 400 feet over five cascades. The members of the Expedition unloaded the supplies from the boats and undertook a difficult overland portage around the falls.
In late July, the Expedition reached the Three Forks of the Missouri River then headed southwest, up the shallow, swift stream they named the Jefferson River. Sacagawea recognized Beaverhead Rock (north of present-day Dillon, Montana) and said the party was near the home of her people, the Shoshone. Desperate to find the Indians and their horses, Lewis decided to scout ahead with three men. On August 12, Lewis ascended the final ridge to the Continental Divide on the Lemhi Pass (on the present-day border between Montana and Idaho). From the summit he expected to see plains with a large river flowing to the Pacific Ocean. But when he reached the peak and looked west, he came to the realization that there was no water route to the Pacific Ocean, only more mountains.
A few days later, Lewis came upon a Shoshone village and tried to negotiate for horses needed to cross the daunting mountains. Clark and the rest of the Expedition arrived and Sacagawea was brought in to help translate. She was reunited with her brother, Cameahwait, the Shoshone chief. The explorers set up camp near the Indian village and named it Camp Fortunate. The Shoshones provided the Expedition with some horses, a guide named Old Toby who had traveled through the mountains before, and information about mountain trails and other Indian tribes the explorers might encounter. The entire Expedition proceeded through the Lemhi Pass and made camp along a creek. This camp was called Traveler's Rest.
Even though winter was fast approaching and snow was covering some of the peaks, Lewis and Clark decided to continue on through the Bitterroots, a range of the Rocky Mountains. Cameahwait had told them of a trail (Lolo Trail) used by the Nez Perce, a tribe that lived west of the mountains. Unfortunately, the Expedition failed to locate this trail and spent many more days in the treacherous mountains than necessary. Temperatures dropped below freezing and the trail was steep and rocky. The men were fatigued and food supplies were low, but the Expedition succeeded in making it across the mountains. Once out of the Bitterroots, the explorers made canoes using the Indian method of burning out the inside of logs. Game was still scarce, so Lewis and Clark purchased roots, fish, and dogs from the Nez Perce.
On October 7, the Expedition put five new canoes into the Clearwater River and, for the first time since leaving St. Louis, paddled downstream. The party went down the Clearwater and Snake Rivers to the Columbia River, which the explorers knew flowed into the Pacific Ocean. By the end of October the Expedition had made its way around the falls of the Columbia and sighted Mount Hood. In November the Pacific Ocean was sighted. Clark estimated in his journal that the party had traveled 4,162 miles from the mouth of the Missouri River.
By Christmas, the men had nearly finished their winter quarters, which they called Fort Clatsop after the local Indian tribe. The explorers spent the cold, rainy, generally miserable winter updating their journals, trading with the Indians for food and other needed items, and preparing for the long return journey.
On March 23, 1806, Lewis and Clark presented Fort Clatsop to Chief Coboway (a Clatsop Indian) and the Expedition began its trek home. The party reached the Nez Perce lands in May but had to wait there until late June for the snows to melt on the Bitterroots. Once it crossed the mountains and reached Traveler's Rest, the Expedition split up. Lewis took part of the men north and Clark led a party down the Yellowstone River. On July 26, Lewis and his men become engaged in a fight with Blackfeet warriors, who were attempting to take horses and guns. Two of the warriors were killed. On August 12, the entire Expedition was reunited at the point where the Yellowstone flows into the Missouri River.
Traveling with the Missouri's current, the Expedition was able to cover up to 70 miles in a day. The explorers reached the Mandan villages on August 14, and there parted company with Charbonneau, Sacagawea, and young Jean Baptiste. The Expedition finished its journey when it reached St. Louis on September 23, 1806. President Jefferson had thought that the men would be gone for about a year, and consequently had feared for their safety. In fact, it took the Lewis and Clark Expedition two years, four months, and nine days to travel across the western part of the continent and back.
President Jefferson's instructions to Lewis were so extensive as to be almost impossible to fulfill, yet he viewed the Expedition as a tremendous success. The discoveries made by the explorers changed the vision of this young country. No water route to the Pacific was found, but accurate and detailed maps were drawn. Peaceful contact was made with Native American tribes and trade was discussed. The body of knowledge added to the scientific community proved to be truly invaluable and vast reaches of North America had been explored. Lewis and Clark's "voyage of discovery" turned out to be one of Thomas Jefferson's most enduring legacies.
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| Corps of Discovery |
Paul Revere, patriot and midnight rider, actually made his living in what profession? | 1000+ images about lewis & clark on Pinterest | Thomas jefferson, Lesson plans and The western
In 1804, Jefferson sends a team to explore lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery will travel nearly 8,000 miles over three years, reaching the Pacific Ocean and clearing the path for westward expansion.
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Hurricane Katrina aftermath. Many area boats are damaged or destroyed, in the background boats that were sunk by the storm remain in the waterway Southern Louisiana, September 12, 2005 -fema/illinoisphoto.com- Large boats remain on this road, closing it to traffic.
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Featuring prominently in the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the pirate Edward Teach is better known by what name? | Mississippi Artists - painters, sculptors, photographers, realists, watercolorists
William Pittman Andrews
Former Instructor of Art at MSU, His show Fortnight was shown at Mississippi University for Women Fine Arts Gallery, February 25 to March 7, 2008. He was director of MSU's McComas Art Gallery and previously taught art at Starkville High School. He is now the new director of the University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses. Well known in the art community statewide and beyond, Andrews was named the 2008 Mississippi Arts Commission Visual Arts Fellow. He has had solo exhibitions in Ellisville, Greenville, Columbus, Laurel, and Meridian. He has also participated in group exhibitions in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, Brooklyn and Little Rock.
John Armistead
Artist and writer from Tupelo, Mississippi. He paints primarily in watercolor and oil. This painting (r.) is called Blue Mountain, Mississippi, and is a watercolor 22 x 30. He has published three mysteries and two young adult fiction works. The Tupelo Daily Journal recently (February, 2006) published a new novelette by Armistead in serialized form called Bramlett's Return. He was the first write r chosen for the One Book One Community program of Starkville Reads.
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Louisville, MS, native, specializes in watercolors.
Antoinette Badenhorst
Potter, born in South Africa, now lives in Saltillo, MS
William Baggett
Although born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1946, William Baggett is currently a Professor of Art at the University of Southern Mississippi, in Hattiesburg. He now lives in Poplarville, Mississippi. Prior to his current position, he taught for thirteen years at the University of Mississippi and at Auburn University. He was recognized at Auburn in 1982 with an endowed Alumni Professorship for Scholarly and Creative Achievement. He also received the University of Southern Mississippi's Faculty Award for Creative Research and Achievement.
Since 1995, his painting has focused primarily on the development and execution of three huge murals for the Library of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, the Winfred Wiser Hospital at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, and the auditorium of the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University. According to the Winfield Wiser Hospital's web site, Baggett's "Sharing Life" is a dramatic streetscape mural. The 22-by-11-foot mural in the building's main stairwell is painted in alkyd enamel on stainless steel and celebrates the diverse roles of women.
Jo Bailey (1918-2002)
Born July 4, 1918 in Corinth, MS., Died June 29, 2002. Grew up in Delta and Oxford, MS. Painter of oils and watercolors in many locations all over the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She made yearly visits to the Artists Colony outside Jackson each fall. Appeared on WJBS TV to show and discuss her artwork. She was born in Corinth, MS.
Van Bankston
Carrollton, MS, minimalist abstract paintings
Christen Craven Barnard
More than 20 years of mural experience, Barnard offers a unique blend of painting expertise and public art experience. Her murals are on display in schools, parks, churches, cities, towns and residences across the Mid-South region. An award winning artist, Barnard works on both interior and exterior mural projects.
Nevada Barr
Well-known Mississippi mystery novelist but also a painter-- Beastly Art Show in Clinton featured art works by Clinton novelist Nevada Barr and her friends Tracy Sugg and Robert Sugg which benefited the Mississippi Animal Rescue League; the sale featured paintings of animals by Barr (accompanied by tongue-in-cheek “beastly tales”) and over 50 pieces of pottery and sculpture, some solo works of Tracy’s and Robert’s, as well as several collaborations. Show dates were Oct. 22 through Oct. 30, 2004, at Olde Towne Events located at 302 Jefferson Street, Clinton.
Ann Barron
Painter in Jackson, MS, received her Bachelor of Fine Art from MSCW, In 2002 and 2003, she had paintings accepted into both the American Watercolor Society Show in New York and the National Watercolor Society Show in California, making her the first Mississippi artist to gain acceptance into the top two national juried shows in the same calendar year.
Richmond Barthe (1901-1989)
Born in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. One of the most important African American sculptors of this century. Received classical training in painting and sculptures. Some sculptures are of famous African Americans, while others are of African dancers, singing slaves, etc. Work permanently on display at Whitney Museum of American Art, also Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, University of Southern Mississippi campus in Hattiesburg, Chicago Art Institute, 1924-1928. Art Students League, New York, 1931 M.A., Xavier University, New Orleans, 1934 A.F.D., St. Francis College, Brooklyn, New York, 1947. Died 1989. Featured in American Masters of the Mississippi Gulf Coast: George Ohr, Dusti Bonge, Walter Anderson, Richmond Barthe exhibit and book by Patti Carr Black, 2009, at Mississippi State University. Major Exhibitions: Delphic Studios, New York, 1925. Caz-Delbos Gallery, New York, 1933. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1933, 1935, 1939. World's Fair, New York, 1947.
Lea Barton
Paradox in Paradise exhibit at University of Mississippi ( June 16 - August 25, 2002) in the Lawrence and Fortune Galleries; Barton uses text and collage to explore new ways to present her ideas visually. Born February 23, 1956, in Yazoo, City, Mississippi, she graduated from Millsaps College in 1996 and moved to New York for two years to earn a Master of Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute. She has commented that she
Lea Barton and her work. Photo by Nancy Jacobs
became more of a Southerner after living in the North when she was being asked to “tell about the South.” She was motivated to re-examine the culture that she “had ignored, rebelled against, and taken for granted.” Barton currently lives in Flora, Mississippi; She had an exhibit at MUW in October, 2002, and Paradox in Paradise: Paintings by Lea Barton appeared from November 9, 2002 to January 12, 2003, at the Mississippi Museum of Art.
In Ghost (see photo) Barton makes a strong social comment by using this quotation from William Faulkner in the border: “Years ago we in the South made our women into ghosts.” Faulkner’s words surround a collage of three identical dresses, each accented with a different necklace. A photograph of the ruins of Windsor, the once great, dowry-built antebellum mansion in Port Gibson, Mississippi, appears near the top. Faulkner's words continue around the edge “So what else can we do, being gentlemen, but listen to them being ghosts?”
Willie Barton
Folk artist born in Union, Mississippi, in 1905, lived in Newton County, whimsical wood carvings are in Smithsonian Institution. Died in 1983.
Blanche Batson
Pike County, Mississippi, background in decorative arts, architecture and printmaking, most recently concentrated on prints, embossings and cast paper-pulp pieces.
Martin Bean
Native of McComb, Mississippi. He was born in 1972 in Montecello, Mississippi, close to McComb. He studied painting at Mississippi State University before receiving a Master's degree (2001) in painting at LSU in Baton Rouge. He currently teaches painting at Alabama A and M in Huntsville and has an exhibit at Southside Gallery. His works include still life to portrait paintings.
William Beckwith
Sculptor, work on display at Southern Breeze Gallery in Jackson; most famous work is bronze sculpture of William Faulkner which sits in front of city hall on the square in Oxford; has done other Mississippi authors including Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, and Tennessee Williams.
Beckwith donated a bronze bust of world-renowned blues icon B.B. King he created to the University of Mississippi's Blues Archive. According to Elaine F. Pugh of Ole Miss, Beckwith said he couldn't be happier that the bust of King is to be permanently displayed in the Faulkner Room in close proximity to a bust of William Faulkner by artist Leon Koury. Beckwith said, "Leon Koury was like a father to me, and I'm proud to be in the same room with him." Beckwith and Koury first met when Beckwith was 14 years old, and Koury became his longtime mentor.
Beckwith has produced public and private bronzes for more than 30 years. He is represented in public and private collections nationwide. His commissioned work includes "B.B. King," city of Indianola; "Flag Bearer, Mississippi 11th," Gettysburg National Military Park; "William Faulkner," Oxford City Hall, and in 2010 Beckwith sculpted Q. C. Lamar, who was a Supreme Court Justice and secretary of the Interior after representing Mississippi in both U. S. Senate and House of Representatives before he died in 1893.
William Faulkner bronze by William Beckwith in courtyard of Oxford City Hall. Photo by Nancy Jacobs
Beckwith's numerous awards and honors include winner of the statewide Governor's Award of Excellence in the Arts in 2001. His exhibition venues have included Splashlight Studios and Frank Marino Gallery in New York City, National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., Louisiana World's Fair in New Orleans and Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson.
Originally from Greenville, Beckwith works out of his studio in Taylor. He also is an adjunct assistant professor of art at Ole Miss.
George Berry, Sr.
Wood carver, Pearl, Mississippi, carves life-like animal statues out of wood, won $5,000 Folk Artist Fellowship from Mississippi Arts Commission, no classical training, moved to Mississippi from Oklahoma in 1972, instructor at Allison Wells School of Arts and Crafts in Canton and Craftsmen's Guild programs at the Jim Buck Ross Agricultural Museum in Jackson. Wrote Wood Carving: An Expression in Wood.
Early photographer, did portrait of Jefferson Davis
Sammy Britt
Britt taught painting and drawing at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi for 35 years and retired from Delta State in 2002. He has taught and practiced the art of seeing and painting color through the language of the limitless light keys of nature since he first began studying with Henry Hensche at the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1963. Britt has won many awards in competitive shows and has served as a juror for art shows in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. He was invited to participate in the "A Painter's Painter: Charles Webster Hawthorne; The Influence of Provincetown and Henry Hensche on Sammy Britt, Gerald DeLoach, Richard Kelso, and George T. Thurmond Exhibition " in 1999 at the Lauren Rodgers Museum of Art in Laurel, Mississippi. Britt continues to paint and teaches workshops throughout Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee in the tradition of Henry Hensche. Sammy Britt has been named the guest artist and judge for Starkville's Cotton District Arts Festival for 2010.
Paul T. Brown
Nationally known writer and wildlife photographer. His work has appeared in Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, and many others. The Mississippi Wildlife Federation named him the 2003 Conservation Communicator of the year. He has won honors from the Outdoor Writers Association of America and the Southeastern Outdoors Press Association. He is co-author of Escape in Iraq: The Thomas Hamill Story.
Glenda Shaw Brown
Portrait artist, native of Eupora, Mississippi, now lives in Arlington, Tennessee, grand prize winner at the American Society of Portrait Artists' competition, portrait was of her second cousin Hannah
Marion L. Brown
Photographer, awarded Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award in photography in 1997, work shown in Through the Lens: Images of Mississippi at Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, one called Tombstone Detail, Girl with Rose, his
photographs are in major collections in the USA, Germany, Russia, etc., such as The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas; Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.; International Center of Photography, New York City, International Photograph Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, the famous Helmut Gernsheim Collection, Switzerland; major corporations; and many others. His work has been exhibited across the US and in Italy, Germany, Finland, and Russia -- in the U.S. in one-person exhibits in Mississippi Museum of Art, Atlanta Center for Photography, International Photograph Hall of Fame, Oklahoma, Fine Arts Museum of the South, Mobile; George Ohr Museum, Biloxi; Mississippi State University, and many more. Marion Brown's photographs are in major collections in the USA, Germany, Russia, etc., such as The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas; Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.; International Center of Photography, New York City, International Photograph Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, the famous Helmut Gernsheim Collection, Switzerland; major corporations; and many others.
Brown moved from Yazoo City to Petal in 2003.
Paul T. Brown
Greenwood, Mississippi, 1949, award winning photographer and writer, photos in
many publications such as Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, Sporting Classics, North American Whitetail, Buckmasters Whitetail Magazine, Turkey Call, and others, graduated from Mississippi State University and currently lives in Brandon, MS, most recent book featuring his photography is Conserving Wild America
Andrew Bucci
Bucci was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. At twenty-five he had his first solo exhibition by the Mississippi Art Association and won first place in watercolor at the Memphis Biennial. He has been an artist for more than sixty years, studying in the 30's with artist Marie Hull. He majored in architectural engineering at Louisiana State University and worked as a meteorologist. While serving in W.W. II, he studied at the Academie Julian. He received B. F. A. and M. F. A. degrees from the Art Institute in Chicago. Although he has lived in the Washington, D.C., area much of his life, he has presented a major body of his work to the Mississippi Museum of Art. His paintings in oil and watercolor have been exhibited in many prestigious institutions, including the Smithsonian. In 2009 he received the Mississippi Governor's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts. (Photo of Andrew Bucci by Nancy Jacobs)
Jane Rule Burdine
Photographer, a native of Greenville, Mississippi. She has lived since 1984 in
north Mississippi, Oxford, and currently Taylor (where she served as mayor for twelve years). Earlier she lived in Jackson for several years and in Baton Rouge for a short time where she worked for the Louisiana Tourism Bureau. She has a new book of her work being published in September of 2008 called Delta Deep Down. She has been documenting Mississippi for over 30 years.
Byron Leslie Burford, Jr., 1920 -
Byron Burford was born in Jackson, Mississippi July 12, 1920. He studied with Grant Wood at the University of Iowa, earning a BFA in 1942. He returned to the university after serving in the U.S. Air Force during World War II, and in 1947 received his MFA. Upon graduation he was appointed to the faculty and proceeded to teach painting until 1986, when he was named professor emeritus. He did additional teaching at the University of Minnesota, California College of Arts and Crafts, and the Joslyn Museum. Burford is a prolific artist and his work can be found in several museums and institutional collections, including the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), the J. S. Guggenheim Collection (New York), the Des Moines Art Center (Iowa), the Nelson-Atkins Museum (Kansas City), the Joslyn Museum (Omaha), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the High Art Museum (Atlanta), and the Eastman House (Rochester, NY), to name only a few. His extensive list of exhibits includes one man shows at the Walker Art Center (1958), the Des Moines Art Center (1961 & 73), Babcock Galleries, New York (1966, 67, 69 & 75), the American Academy of Arts Annual, New York (1966, 72, 79, & 96), and Foslley/Leach Gallery, Washington (1987 & 92). Selected group exhibits include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1942), the Chicago Art Institute (1943 & 59), the Corcoran Biennial (1952), the Venice Biennale, Italy (1968), the Bienal Arte Coltejer, Colombia (1970), and the Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland (1972). Awards include Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships (1960 & 61), the Ford Foundation Award (1961, 62 & 64), National Institute of Arts & Letters Grants (1967, 72 & 75), and a Midwest Arts National Endowment Regional Fellowship (1988). Burford is known primarily as a painter and printmaker. Almost all of his work is figurative and done with a muted palette. He is perhaps best known for images depicting circus life. When he was only 14 or 15 years old, he briefly joined the Tom Mix Circus. Since that time, he has gone out with circuses whenever he can including Clark and Walters, Famous Cole, Franzen Brothers, and Great American-- often as a drummer in the circus band. Other bodies of work deal with the military, industry and sports. Common elements include the passage of time and human endurance.
A mural he painted as part of the New Deal Art program entitled Post near Houston on the Natchez Trace, 1803 is displayed in the historic Houston Post Office in Houston, Mississippi. He is 89 years old.
(Information provided by Jonathan Reeves)
Linda Burgess
Artist who is married to Mississippi artist William Dunlap. Her daughter Maggie Dunlap is also a budding artist.
Born in Philadelphia, MS and currently living in Raymond, MS
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Susan Brumfield Farris
Photographer and oil painter, won the major award (Julian Onderdonk Memorial Purchase Prize) at the San Antonio Art League and Museum's 80th Annual Juried Artists Exhibition in San Antonio (where she now lives) in 2010, married to Texas artist Aaron Farris.
Martha Ferris
Vicksburg, MS, painter, married to writer Kos Kostmayer. She won several public art commissions, including the first riverfront mural for Vicksburg in 2001. In 2003 she was commissioned to paint a mural on stainless steel for the 55-foot central rotunda of the new McWillie School in Jackson. This year she will create the Mill Street Project, in which she will provide 22 masonry inlays for the new viaducts at the renovated train station in Jackson. Ferris has begun exploring the theme of shadows through a combination of photography, printmaking, collage and painting. She lives and works in her studio on her family's farm near Vicksburg.
Charles Henri Ford
(Feb. 10, 1913-2002) Brookhaven, Mississippi, the son of Charles Lloyd Ford and Gertrude (Cato) Ford, grew up in small towns all over the South, where his family operated hotels, American poet, editor, artist, and filmmaker, helped introduce surrealism to America through his poems and his avant-garde magazine of the 1940s, died on Friday, September 27, 2002, in Manhattan at the age of 94.
Susan Ford
Glass blower
Brent Funderburk
Painter who creates large watercolor paintings on paper, primarily of nature. He is professor of painting and drawing at Mississippi State University in Starkville where he has been awarded the John Grisham Faculty Excellence Award as well as the Burlington Northern Teaching Excellence Award. He has exhibited widely in regional, national and international exhibitions; and has shown in 22 one-person exhibitions across Mid-America and the South. He is a native of North Carolina. Brent Funderburk designed the signature image for the 2010 USA International Ballet Competition (IBC) in Jackson. His painting Wave (Reclamation) was recently selected to join the permanent collection of the Mississippi Museum of Art, in Jackson, MS. The large watercolor, which was completed in 2009, will be shown as a part of “The Mississippi Story,” which consists of over 200 works by Mississippi artists and “reveals the remarkable history of visual arts in the Magnolia State
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Portrait of Son Thomas called Playing the Blues
Marion Viola Stark Gaines 1950-1942
Born in Columbus, Gaines and her family then moved to Mobile, AL. In 1879, she married Captain Abner Gaines and moved to “Peachwood,” his family’s plantation and nursery at State Line in Wayne County, Mississippi. She developed skills as a photographer during a cultural and artistic movement known as Pictorialism. Her photographs incorporate the stylistic influence of this period by transforming her subjects into works of art. In 1900, Marion won an award in portraiture from the American Camera Club in Mobile and subsequently became Mississippi’s first woman photographer to be recognized by inclusion of her work in several publications, including Ladies’ Home Journal. In a 1997 issue of Mississippi Magazine, Gene Fant, Jr. described her as a “pioneering photographer” whose “photographs provide...a glimpse of a talented artist’s vision of her surroundings, as well as the images of the toughness of farm life at Peachwood Nursery.” Photographs depict floral themes in her community and still lifes of various native plants as well as some exotic horticultural varieties. Her photographs also provide unique glimpses of rural life that existed in southern Mississippi during early years of the past century. The photos include African Americans captured in their daily farm chores as well as uniquely posed photos and portraits which reveal stoical character in their faces. Several of her images also include Native American women. Gaines's interest in photography lessoned after her husband died in 1905. She moved back to Mobile where she lived until her death in 1942. (Source: Mona Vance, Archivist for Local History, Columbus-Lowndes Public Library.)
John Gaddis
Jackson, watercolorist
Sam Gilliam
Born in 1933 in Tupelo, Mississippi, famous in the 1960's for abstract canvases and paintings with brilliant colors. He draped with brightly colored cloth buildings and made enormous paintings that resembled quilts.
Amy Giust
Lives in Hattiesburg (10 years), born in Cincinnati, best-selling visual artist at Southern Breeze Gallery, acrylic paintings, some watercolor, show at SBG called People and Places
Rolland Golden
Moved to Natchez, Mississippi, from Folsom, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina, 2010 exhibit of 45 paintings at Mississippi Museum of Art entitled River and Reverie: Paintings of the Mississippi
Melody Swaney Golding
Photographer of the Katrina devastation in project called Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember, Vicksburg.
Edwina Goodman
Jackson, watercolorist
Lori K. Gordon
Lori K. Gordon works in mixed media and lives on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Her work may be found in public and private collections around the world including the Smithsonian Institution, Mississippi Humanities Council, Safeco Corporate Collection, University of Southern Mississippi, University of Kentucky, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Art Across Arkansas, a joint venture of Thea Foundation and William J. Clinton Foundation. Private collectors include President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama, President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalyn Carter, ABC's Robin Roberts, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, ESPN's Jon Miller and CNN's Tom Foreman.
MSNBC, CBS, National Public Radio, Christian Science Monitor, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, New York Times, Travel Mail (UK), Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden) and numerous regional magazines and newspapers across the nation have featured her work. Several documentaries have shown her work, including the award-winning Mississippi Son. Her best known works include Six Degrees:West to East, The Katrina Collection, and The Labat Project. Other works are Student Nurse, a bronze nurse in the lobby of Mississippi Baptist Medical Center in Jackson and The Working Man, at the Jim Buck Ross Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum in Jackson. She won the MIAL award for Visual Arts in 1997 and teaches at Mississippi College.
Samuel Marshall Gore
Winner of MIAL award for Visual Arts in 1997. On faculty at Mississippi College since 1951. Most familiar works are Student Nurse, a bronze nurse which stands in the lobby of Mississippi Baptist Medical Center in Jackson, The Working Man, located in front of the Jim Buck Ross Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum in Jackson. Head of Christ, Madonna and Child on other religious figures.
Marita Gootee
Photographer, MSU Professor, 2003 Mississippi Invitational, Mississippi Museum of Art, one of 18 artists selected for the exhibition, also selected in 2005, presented "Sand Shadows and Creative Pinholes" at the national Photographic Imaging Education Association conference in Orlando, Florida - Feb. 2005, received HARP award from MSU Humanities Institute in 2005
Paul Jacobs, Marita Gootee, Gary Myers
Photo by Nancy Jacobs
Edwin Phillips Granberry
Created comic strip Buz Sawyer for more than 30 years, also a writer. See Mississippi Writers page.
Jason Greene
BFA from Mississippi State University in 1997 where he was an illustrator for archaeologists at the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at MSU. He worked for several years as a designer and fabricator of interactive children's exhibits. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Jill and their two dogs.
Les Green
Miniature works of art, Meridian, figures in landscape, arrangement of florals, works now almost entirely with colored pencils, now legally blind
Myra Green
Exhibited at the Municipal Art Gallery in Jackson, daughter Lynn Green Root is also an artist, exhibit called Crossing the Threshold: Five Paths through
Mississippi at Mississippi Museum of Art, Nov. 7, 1999. She died in 2002. A book celebrating Myra and her daughter has been published entitled Breathing Art: The Lives and Art of Myra Hamilton Green and Lynn Green Root (2008).The double biography, with text by historian and author Patti Carr Black and 80 reproductions of paintings plus family pictures, features a choice of two covers, one by each artist. See Lynn Green Root below.
Dan Guravich
Photographer for 19 books, first was Man and The River - The Mississippi published in 1968 with Hodding Carter, lived in Greenville, died in 1997, founded Polar Bears Alive, photographer for National Geographic
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Theora Hamblett
(1895-1977) Became primitive painter at 54 years of age, first Mississippi artist to have work exhibited at Museum of Modern Art in New York bought house in Oxford, MS, worked in primitive, innocent style, based her drawings on visions and dreams and girlhood memories, grew up on farm in north Mississippi, colorful, childlike paintings of children playing games, rural scenes reflections of farm life in Mississippi, known as visionary but primitive artist.
Sarah Frances Hardy
Solo exhibition in Jackson at Pearl River Glass Studio/Gallery called Nature's Pieces (29 recent works in acrylic on paper) one show called Elements of Nature at Agora Gallery, Soho, NY., now lives in Tupelo, uses thick, sturdy rag paper, scenes from Noxubee Wildlife Refuge and Wall Doxey State Park, flower and still lifes, degree in studio art from Davidson College in NC, also studied in NY and Paris, went to law school.
Marvin Hayes
Born in Canton, Mississippi, in 1939. He grew up in Hamshire, Texas, and studied art at Texas A & M, Lamar University, and Columbia University. Hayes won First Award in 1972 in the 22nd Annual New England Painting and Sculpture Exhibition Graphics Exhibition. The same year he had work accepted in the International Graphics Exhibition. He is best known for the suite of fifty-three Biblical etchings in copper for which he did considerable research and travel. The etchings were shown in New York City in 1976 at the FAR Gallery and reproduced in the book God's Images, which combines the vision of poet James Dickey (Deliverance) and the artist Marvin Hayes. Many of the completed fifty-three paintings were accepted for the permanent collections of the Rijksmuseum, the Vatican, la Bibliotheque Nationale, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Palais du Louvre.
Randy Hayes
Randy Hayes was born in 1944 in Jackson, MS. He grew up in the country near the then small town of Clinton. His family moved to Tupelo when Hayes was sixteen where he graduated from high school. He attended college in Memphis at both Rhodes and the Memphis College of Arts where he received a B.F.A. in sculpture in 1968. He dropped out of school briefly to take a freighter to Europe when he was nineteen. After graduation Hayes worked as a VISTA Volunteer in Seattle for a year.
Moving to Boston, Hayes worked as a freelance scene painter and designer. This work, primarily with WGBH PBS Television, had an enormous influence on the painter's life and art. Hayes returned to Seattle in 1976 to open a used and rare book store which included a small gallery. The gallery exhibited primarily vintage and contemporary photographs. Steeped in the history of photography, by 1983 Hayes felt that he could realize his dream and work full time as an artist.
In 1979 Hayes walked into a gym to try to photograph some boxers. These photographs became his first mature body of work. He continued to photograph sub cultures in Los Angeles and New York before working in Rome for two months in 1987. A commission from the Port of Seattle allowed the artist to travel to three continents and India and amass a large archive of negatives to further his examination of culture and history.
In 1990 Hayes began to paint directly onto photographs. About the same time he was drawn back to his original environment of the Deep South. He continues to work on this Southern series
Jim Henson
Talented artist, writer, actor, director, producer, born in Greenville, Mississippi, in 1936. He lived part of his life in Leland, MS, and was the creator of the Muppets. His work is the basis for Sesame Street books, Muppet movies, and much more. He died in 1990 of pneumonia. (Click on his name for more information.)
Katrina Estes Hill
Acrylic painter on recycled wood, born in Louisville, MS, lived in White Bluff, Tennessee, but she has recently moved back home to Louisville, Mississippi.
. She is an artist, writer, and storyteller. Her collection of stories called “Fat daddy’s Watermelon and Other Tales from the Hollow” is reminiscent of childhood on her grandparent’s farm in rural Winston County. She performs storytelling for civic events, conventions, churches, fairs and festivals and, schools. Her children’s book, My Imagination, released in August of 2007, won the Mom's Choice Gold Award and was listed in ForeWord Magazine's top twenty finalists for Best Children's Book of 2008. Estes Hill is the official artist for “Good People Brewing Company” headquartered in Birmingham, AL.
William Hollingsworth
1910-1944, Jackson born, regionalist, drawings, paintings, lithographs, watercolors of Jackson, shown at Mississippi Museum of Art's Collection Gallery (called William Hollingsworth: The Back Road Home-- paintings of days gone by), 300 works in the museum's collection given by wife Jane Oakley Hollingsworth. He died at 34, book about him called Hollingsworth: The Man, the Artist, and His Work
Joseph Horn
Fine art bird sculptor in wood, does wood carvings of birds of prey, owls, hawks,
eagles, falcons
Robert Hubbard
Photographer, Artist of the Year 1990 at Rembrandt Society of the Mississippi Museum of Art, many awards.
Joe Mac Hudspeth
Freelance wildlife photographer, published work more than 500 times in state, regional, and national publications, including Mississippi Outdoors, Birder's World, Ducks Unlimited, Awarded the Roger Tory Peterson Institute for National History's Grand Prize for Wildlife of a least bittern that appeared in The Nature Conservancy's calendar, his photos were selected for the 1997-98 and 99 Mississippi Duck Stamp and on the Mississippi Sportsman's License for more than three years
Florence Huffman
Photographer, photographed the land and people who came to Deer Camp in the Mississippi Delta, historically significant.
Marie Atkinson Hull
(1890-1980) Born in Summit, lived in Belhaven of Jackson for many years, known for her landscapes and still-life oil paintings in several impressionistic styles. classifies her work in three categories,---traditional , transitional, and contemporary, vivid colors of near abstract flowers and landscapes, much of work features European scenes, but also sharecroppers, participated in Allison's Wells Art Colony, Hull was the recipient of a gold medal at the Mississippi Art Association (1920); first prize at the Southern States Art League (1926); second prize at the Davis Wildflower Competition, San Antonio, Texas (1929); watercolor prizes, Southern States Art League (1931); and the New Orleans Art Association and the Benjamin prize at the New Orleans Arts and Crafts Club (1932)--both in Louisiana. Her work is represented in private and public permanent collections, including the Mississippi Art Association; high schools in Laurel and Jackson, Mississippi; Southwestern Texas Normal School; the Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio, Texas; and others
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Timothy T. Isbell
Gulfport, Mississippi, is a photojournalist with the 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning Sun Herald in Biloxi. He is a former photojournalist-in-residence at the University of Southern Mississippi and a Knight Foundation/National Endowment of the Arts recipient for his photographic study of the Vietnamese people of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He is the author and photographer of Gettysburg: Sentinels of Stone and Vicksburg: Sentinels of Stone
Birney Imes
Photographer, books JukeJoint and Whispering Pines (photos of people, artifacts of a roadhouse in Columbus, Mississippi) editor of Columbus Commercial Dispatch
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Paul Jackson
Starkville, MS, born in Kansas, but grew up in Starkville, attended SHS and graduated from MSU, world-renowned for his watercolor art and technique. He was primarily responsible for the use and perfecting of a reflection technique used by many watercolor artists now, designed Lewis
and Clark for the U.S.quarter for Missouri and created a spectacular tile mural at the University of Missouri-Columbia that was used in tandem with the local schools teaching the complicated math required to design and place the mural. Jackson is a Signature member of the American Watercolor Society and National Watercolor Society and is considered one of the Master Painters of the World by International Artists Magazine. He is the author of Painting Spectacular Light Effects in Watercolor.
Don Jacobs
Jackson artist/ muralist who specializes in realistic large-scale paintings and murals.
Painted the conference room of the Mississippi Governor's mansion in 2005 and has
works in collections scattered from California to Europe. Grew up primarily in Brookhaven, MS, After high school he spent nearly a decade in Europe where he studied art and received his degree in Graphic Design. Eventually returned to
Mississippi to pursue a career as a Commercial Artist, which eventually led to a fascination with large-scale painting and eventually a specialization in mural work. Though trained in Graphic Design, he's self-taught as a painter. Jacobs is also a songwriter and musician with two albums of original music to his credit and is the producer of an annual musical event in Brookhaven, Mississippi, known as Brookstock.
Elizabeth Johnson
Vibrant still lifes, 35 paintings on display at Brown's Fine Art and Framing in Jackson.
Bessie Johnson
African American basket maker from Tibbee near West Point, MS, winner of a Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2010, featured in the Smithsonian's Traveling Exhibit of Folk Art, selected in 1994 to design and create Christmas ornaments for White House
Bonnie Jones
Artist living in Natchez, makes dolls in polymer clay which are fired or air dried
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Dylan Karges
Starkville sculptor, ceramics, pastels, illustrator for archaeologists, Bodies in Clay Exhibit at the Cobb Institute of Archaeology, similar exhibits in Memphis and Meridian Museums of Art, 2005, winner of first place award at Starkville Arts Festival, 2005, and first place, 2006 Beaumont Art League National. Kargas is native of Pisgah in Rankin County, Mississippi, and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from MSU in 2002, with an emphasis in sculpture.
Eyd Kazery
Bern and Franke Keating
Greenville, photographers, world travelers on assignment for leading periodicals,(Photo right of Bern Keating and Franke Keating from Mississippi book flap). Bern Keating published 24 books and several hundred articles in Life, The New Yorker, Reader's Digest, Playboy, National Geographic, Bern and Franke compiled and wrote Mississippi (Mississippi Department of Economic Development). Bern Keating died in 2004. Franke is known world-wide as one of the most celebrated photographers for National Geographic. She traveled to some of the world's most exotic locales, including 17 trips to Kenya. She is known in Greenville, Mississippi, as a talented portrait photographer who has photographed some of the area's best known families and authors. She died in Atlanta at the age of 95. She had been living with her son, a doctor, the last six months of her life.
A joint exhibit of the work of Franke Keating and her son John was hosted by the Greenville Arts Council in 2011. It was titled “Franke and John Keating: Mother and Son - An exhibit of their photography and etchings.”
The Keatings' son John Keating pursued an education in art at Bowdoin College in Maine. While showing his work in Atlanta, he made the life-altering decision to pursue medicine as a career, so he attended Tulane University, where he earned his medical degree and is currently an orthopedic surgeon with the Keating Group, a clinic he opened in 1986 that specializes in sports medicine, orthopedic trauma, and neck and back injuries. The Keatings' daughter died earlier at the age of 23.
Franke Keating was born in McGehee, Ark., and Bern Keating was a Canada native. The couple moved to Greenville, MS, in 1946. Both were literary and artistic forces in the Delta for decades.
J. B. Keith
Photo courtesy of Baxter Knowlton
Leon Z. Koury
Born in Greenville, MS, in 1909, Son of Syrian immigrants who owned grocery in Greenville. Koury wrote to Greenville writer Walker Percy Alexander and asked
advice on writing. Percy invited Koury to his house and was impressed by the art on Koury's poetry notebook. He convinced Koury to become an artist and later Koury became a sculptor of busts of William Faulkner, William Alexander Percy (in 1964 Percy bust was covered by Time and Life magazines) and busts of Negro heads. In 1939 Koury was named director of then new Delta Art Center in Greenville. He was the mentor of many Mississippi artists and writers including William Beckwith, but Koury died in poverty in 1993.
Photo right of sculptor Leon Koury and his bust of William Faulkner. Photo courtesy of Marcius.
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Roy LaGrone
LaGrone (b. 1966) is a Tupelo native based in Italy. He received his B.F.A. from the Atlanta College of Art, Atlanta, GA (1989), and a M.F.A. from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA (2000). He creates computer-generated artwork centered on transforming discarded artifacts, places, and entities into sacred projections. His first exhibition in his hometown, The Beauty of the Impossible at the GumTree Museum of Art in Tupelo, presented eighteen works from his Beta Projection series, a suite of large-scale photomontage constructed from found objects, which address issues of 21st century displacement and renewal. The exhibit opened August 1 and ended September 20, 2008. His work has also been shown at the Smithsonian Institution; SIGGRAPH; the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, in Austin.
Andrew Lark
Teacher of art at Starkville High School for nine years , awarded Mississippi Teacher of the Year (2003), Starkville School District Teacher of the Year (2002), the Governor's Award in Art Education, and Starkville High School Teacher of the Year. He had five scholastic art winners between 1998-2002, won 44 state scholastic art awards and four national scholastic art winners and the 3rd Congressional District Art Award (2002).
In 2001 his students won 37 state scholastic awards and four national scholastic art awards. From 1997-98, his students have won 32 state scholastic awards, two national scholastic awards and one student won the Kennedy Center Creative Ticket Award. Other outstanding accomplishments include directing and/or assisting the visual art students who received 28 national awards and more than 400 state awards. Altogether his students have received more than $1.2 million in scholarships during the past two years because of their advanced art skills. In addition, two students (one finishing in the top ten, the other in the top four among 20,000 students) were named finalists for the highest award given to a visual art student, the Presidential Scholars Award. In 2008 his students again won many awards.
Photo by Nancy Jacobs
Photographer for Walls of Light (book of the murals of Walter Anderson).
Stephen Little
Photographer whose work has been featured in Portico of Jackson's "Best of 2006, Jackson Free Press, The Clarion Ledger, File Magazine, Ten Most Endangered Historic Places in
Mississippi, the Mississippi Arts Commission gallery, and various other art events around the state.
In 2010, his "Eddie Cotton" photograph was
published in Mississippians coffee table book.
Ross Lunz
Raised in Vicksburg, MS, and born in 1969. Ross makes concept-based sculpture or forms based on an ideas rather than traditions within a sculptural medium. Themes of his pieces generally revolve around the environment and ecological issues. He works primarily as a metalsmith, using fine hand skills and many jewelry tools. Ross creates detail-oriented pieces from metal, wood and found objects such as bone, plastic, and glass.
He taught art on the university level for five years at University of Kansas, Loyola University in New Orleans and guest lectured all over the country. Ross was chosen for fifth Mississippi Invitational (2005) at Mississippi Museum of Art and exhibits work nationally.
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Joe MacGown
Lives in Starkville and does surreal artwork, mostly in the form of ink drawings. He won first place in the Starkville Cotton District Arts Festival in 2007 and third in 2006. Work has been shown in a number of exhibitions --mostly in the South, although currently he has a work in a gallery in France. He works at Mississippi Entomological Museum at Mississippi State University where he is a scientific illustrator, has illustrations in journals, books, cd cover designs, numerous T-shirt designs, ad layouts, book covers. First prize winner of juried art in 2010 Starkville Cotton District Art Festival.
Gwendolyn Magee
Textile artist. Winner of 2011 Mississippi Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. Originally from High Point, North Carolina, she was a resident of Jackson, Mississippi since 1972. Work is found in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American
Art Museum and the Mississippi Museum of Art and has been exhibited internationally. It is archived at the National Museum of Women in the Art. In 2006 she was named as an "Honored Artist" by its Mississippi State Committee. In 2005 she was awarded an Artist Fellowship Grant by the Mississippi Arts Commission and recognized by the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters as Visual Artist of the Year in 2003. She was a board member for the Craftmen's Guild of Mississippi who turned a traditional art form into a contemporary art centered around African-American life and history. Magee died at 67 on April 27, 2011, following an illness. She was creating a work commemorating the Freedom Riders for the May 19 opening of the museum in the historic Montgomery Greyhound bus station at the time of her death.
Robert Malone
Malone is an adjunct assistant professor at Ole Miss since 1997. Received his MFA from Memphis College of Art and his BFA from the University of Mississippi. his landscape paintings in oil capture the sublimity of nature. Has exhibited at the Nicole-Perry Gallery, Memphis,TN.; Carol Robinson Gallery, New Orleans LA; Yeiser Museum, Paducah, KY; Meridian Museum of Art, Meridian, MS; Brooks Museum, Memphis, TN; Allen Price Gallery, University of Wisconsin; University of Melbourne, Australia. His work is in the corporate collections of AT&T, Ochsner Clinic, and the National Bank of Commerce. He has work in many private collections throughout the United States including New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Washington, DC; Memphis, TN; Nashville, TN; Atlanta, GA; New Orleans, LA; Winter Park, FL; and Jackson, MS. Has taught beginning through advanced painting and drawing. Previous teaching experience includes three years as an adjunct at Middle Tennessee State University, teacher seminars, and Art League Workshops. He is a working artist who depends on his painting to provide the majority of his income
Sally Mann
Photographer
Robert Marcius
Born in Greenville, Mississippi, began designing and creating works of art before the age of twelve. At the age of thirteen he began studying under Leon Koury, a protégé of Malvina Hoffman, a student of Auguste Rodin. After attending Delta State University in Mississippi, and Dayton Art Institute in Ohio, he continued his studies of the arts as he traveled throughout Europe for nine months. Marcius began designing and producing jewelry,sculptures, and objets d’art after moving to New Hope, Pennsylvania, in 1972. He moved his business to Manhattan and supplied Bergdorf Goodman, Henri Bendel and Bloomingdale's with jewelry and Karl Springer with accessories, furniture and sculptures. He has returned to his roots and is designing, crafting and supplying his own decorative arts through MARCIUS LLC .
Merigold Potters known for creations from Mississippi mud
Sharon McConnell
Blind sculptor of historic life cast portrait project honoring great living blues musicians. The casts are lifelike with their eyes all permanently shut. McConnell lives in Como, Mississippi. She was a former chef with corporate aviation until she was diagnosed with uveitis, a complete degenerative disease of the eye, at age 27. McConnell was born in Connecticut, and as a child she spent her summers at Kennebunkport. She began researching moving to Mississippi in 2006. She purchased an historic home in Como which is within walking distance of everything that she needs. In an article about McConnell by Leah Miller, Miller says that McConnell's casts are a "specialized molding applied directly to the face, layered with yet more materials until the cast begins to harden. It's an involved, lengthy and intimate process. McConnell said she never talks about music with the musicians while completing their casts. 'We talk about stuff. Life stuff,' she said."
Mary Katharine Loyacono McCravey
Lives in Forest, Mississippi. A leading contributor to many state wide charities, she donated thousands of dollars of paintings for auctions each year to such organizations as Mississippi Cancer Hospital for Children, Mississippi Heart Association, Mississippi Animal Rescue League. She was a teacher for many years. The McCravey-Triplett Student Center opened in Jackson, Mississippi, at Belhaven College is partially named for her. Born April 1, she was 93 in 2003. She has been painting since 1928. She has had several one person shows at the Mississippi Museum of Art. Her distinct impressionistic style is sought after by collectors in Mississippi and across the country but are very difficult to acquire at this point. She received the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2004 for Lifetime Achievement.
Eric McDonald
Best known for his maritime paintings and portraits. A member of the American Society of Marine Artists, he comes from a long line of Gulf Coast residents; his family has lived there since the 1880s and the sea is a way of life to him. McDonald works out of three different studios: one in Jackson, one in Florida, and the third aboard Ti Kabana, his two-masted topsail schooner. He was the featured artist in the Mississippi Heart Association’s Art for Heart program in 1999 and his paintings are collected around the country
F. S. McKnight
Photographer from 1894 to 1930 in Aberdeen
Fannie McMurtry
Work exhibited in Crossing the Threshold at MS Museum of Art
P. Sanders McNeal
McNeal has studied in Argenton-Chateau, France, at the Florence Academy of Art, in Florence, Italy, and with Daniel E. Greene in Southwest Ireland. Her work has shown in numerous one woman shows and group exhibitions throughout the United States and in Ireland. On August 1, 2002, she opened a one-woman show with original music by Maestro Colman Pearce at the Bridge Gallery in Dublin. McNeal was also the first commissioned artist for Jubilee Jam's 10 painting series with her painting, "The Rehearsal," which now hangs in Thalia Mara Hall. Nationally recognized, McNeal has been painting portraits, landscapes, still life and figurative studies professionally for over 30 years. A classical realist, she works out of her studio in Jackson, Mississippi,
Ethel Wright Mohamed
Born in 1908 in Fame, MS, lived in Belzoni, did stitchery, needlework, (Sacred Harp Singing), Style has flair for color influenced by family and community traditions and memories, primitive artist, died in 1992.
Joe Moran
Biloxi boat builder turned artist, is known worldwide for his works showing life in a small fishing village on the coast of Mississippi. Joe fathered ten children and by no means was your stereo-typical starving artist. Life was a struggle for him and his large family but hardship was never in the way when pouring his soul into the paintings he created. He founded Moran's Art Studio in Biloxi where people from around the world stop to see his works
Mary Moran
Daughter of Joe Moran, who taught her to paint. She specializes in underwater scenes and wildlife and angels and manages Moran's Art Gallery in Biloxi.
Tommy Moran
Son of Joe Moran who also paints the beauty of the gulf coast on canvas, uses a true-to-life form and a build-up of paints to give a scene an almost three dimensional effect.
Thomas Morrison
Morrison, a Jackson artist, created "Virtuous Woman," which is believed to be the largest porcelain sculpture in the country. The 14-by-8-foot outdoor sculpture hangs above the Winfield Wiser Hospital's main entrance.
Alice Latimer Moseley 1909-2004
Self-taught folk artist who lived in Bay St. Louis, began painting at age 65 to deal with her mother's Alzheimer's disease, Miss Alice, as she was known, lived in Birmingham, AL, and Memphis, TN, before moving to Bay St. Louis, MS, after she attended an art show there in 1988. She had been a school teacher before retiring. Her son Tim Moseley,an antique collector and part-time antique dealer talked his mother into taking her paintings to a flea market in Nashville. One man bought all 30 paintings, and Miss Alice became a full-time artist. Today the Alice Moseley Folk Art and Antique Museum is open in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
David Rae Morris
Photographer and son of Mississippi writer Willie Morris. Morris had a one-man show at MUW in Columbus, Mississippi, in October, 2002, which highlighted his work for My Mississippi, a book he and his father did together. The exhibit was entitled "Look Away," a photographic narrative.
Photo of David Rae Morris by Nancy Jacobs.
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Tom Nawrocki
One of sixty-three contemporary printmakers whose work was chosen for Printmakers Today, a 256 page full color compendium on those who create "museum quality work" while translating an ancient art with 21st century vision and technical skill. Lives in Columbus, MS, and teaches at Mississippi University for Women (the W).
Gloria Norris
Ridgeland, MS, painter and sculptor, Nicaraguan artist married to a Mississippian.
Jean Cappadonna Nichols
Does ceramic sculptures, received MIAL Award for Visual Arts in 1999, from Tupelo, moved to Florida.
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George Ohr
Called mad potter of Biloxi, ETV Documentary of same name, born before Civil War, opened the Ohr Museum pottery shop called "Pot-Ohr-e," Pottery often humorous, eccentric, fanciful, called by him his "mud babies," died in 1926, Pop art of Andy Warhol caused Ohr's work to be recognized after his death, largest collection of his pottery at George E. Ohr Arts and Cultural Center in Biloxi, MS.
Photo: Mad Potter of Biloxi
Robbie O'Kelly
Lives in Southhaven, Mississippi, commissioned to do stained-glass portrait of Bill Clinton for the Clinton Presidential Library. Owns the MidTown Art Glass Studio in Memphis.
Alex O'Neal
Painter, a Mississippi native, born in Starkville, raised in Jackson and Greenville, now lives in Brooklyn, NY., had an installation at Mississippi Museum of Art in 2005. In 1999 received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Painting. Has received other awards from National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and Tennessee arts Commission. His drawings and paintings address American community, especially the American South. Drawn images are combined with collage materials from the 1930s to the 1970s and depict typically American themes, such as the homestead and family, Hollywood, or dramatic landscapes.
Mary Lovelace O'Neal
Born Jackson, Mississippi, 1942. B.F.A., Howard University, Washington, D.C., 1964. Currently, O'Neal has a one-woman art show at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson open December 7, 2002--February 9, 2003. MFA. Columbia University, 1969. Painter/printmaker. Teaches painting and drawing at Berkeley. Works included in SF MOMA, CA; Oakland Museum, CA; National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago, Chile. Recipient of "ARTISTE EN FRANCE" Award from French Government. Included in international traveling exhibitions: The Biennale Internationale des Arts, Dakar, Senegal; The Troisieme Triennale Mondiale D'Estampes Petit Format.
R. Dan Overly
Born in 1944 in Dayton, Ohio. Died Oct. 18, 2010, in Jackson, Mississippi. He graduated in 1962 from Northmont High School, and later Ohio Northern University with degrees in biology and art in 1967. After graduation, he taught at Upper Scioto Valley High School, McGuffey and Big Walnut Middle School in Sunbury, Ohio. In 1970, he moved to Greenwood, Mississippi, where he served as a special assistant to the superintendent of schools, coordinating the arts. He earned his master's degree from Delta State University in Art Administration and had a studio where he painted, sculpted, and dabbled in stained glass. He became Director of the Arts for the state of Mississippi. In 1972, at the request of Gov. Bill Waller, Overly formed the Mississippi Crafts Guild and served as the Executive Director for 15 years. He was appointed by the Carter administration to serve on the crafts panel for the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. He served on the editorial advisory board for the Crafts Reporter and a number of his book reviews, articles and photographs were published in the American Craft magazine. He was the founder of the Schools of Craft and Design at Millsaps College in Jackson. The school was an alternate program which ran in tandem with the art department and featured professional seminars, speakers and international guest artists. He retired from the Guild in 1987 due to health issues. In 1996, First Lady Pat Fordice presented him the Governor's Award for Art Partnership. Dan was also an avid gardener who combined his biology background with his artistic talent. His garden, on 25 acres of part of a former plantation and the log cabin where he lived adjacent the plantation house, was featured in a 1994 book, Secret Gardens Revealed by Their Owners by Rosemary Verey, an adviser to the British Royal Family. After 27 years building the secret garden, Dan was forced to leave his home and gardens for a city apartment complex. The move was captured by Kathryn Rodenmeyer in the documentary film, Uprooted.
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Sherry Pace
Photographer who lives in Madison County, MS. Her first photography book, Victorian Houses of Mississippi, was published in October 2005 by University Press of Mississippi. Her second book, Historic Churches of Mississippi, was published in June 2007.
Starkville collage artist who cuts and pastes colored paper to create illustrations for her ten books, also creator of unique jewelry (pins and pendants)
James Patterson
Photographer of Willie Morris, Eudora Welty, Beth Henley, master printer 911 Gallery owner.
Live William Pates
Columbus, MS, In 2003, Pates relocated his studio from Britain to rural Mississippi. He spent his first six months painting the transition from autumn to winter to spring in a local slough. When the lushness of late spring had completely taken over, he moved back to his former, and more open, view in the shade of the Old Bridge by the Tombigbee River. In this period of time he has delighted Mississippi art lovers with solo exhibitions at Delta State University, Mississippi University for Women, and Twenty Minutes of Light at Gallery 119 in the capitol city of Jackson, invited to represent the state of contemporary arts in Mississippi in the 2005 Mississippi Museum of Art’s Mississippi Invitational.
Lucy Phillips
Lucy Phillips won the Thirty-Fifth Anniversary Prize from the Yogen School of Suibokuga in Tokyo and is the first foreigner to be awarded a prize in this national exhibition sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education among others. Her winning monochrome brush painting Mississippi Marsh is on display at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum. The Anniversary Prize is awarded at five year intervals for technical originality. Phillips lives in Starkville.
Lallah Miles Perry 1926-2008
Perry was the 2008 winner of the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts for Artistic Achievement. Born in 1926, she began studying art in Starkville, Mississippi, at the age of fifteen. She enrolled in Auburn College to study art and was married a year later, receiving a degree in commercial art in March 1946.
In 1956, her work was selected for the “First Mid-South Exhibition of Painting” at the Brooks Memorial Gallery in Memphis, Tennessee, and her work was chosen for inclusion for the following ten years. Her work was also chosen for the “Second Delta Art Annual” at the Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1959. Her paintings have been exhibited from New York to New Orleans, and her work has hung in the National Watercolor Exhibition at the Smithsonian, as well as in the American Embassy in Rabat, Morocco.
Perry taught in the Choctaw School System, at Delta State University, and at Meridian Community College. In 1963 when a fire burned Allison's Wells Arts Colony, Perry is credited with keeping the colony alive. Perry became the first Director of the Mississippi Art Colony, which, with the aid of the Mississippi Library Commission, started the the Colony Traveling Exhibit, which continues today to be been hung in small town libraries, hotels, schools, and restaurants throughout Mississippi. An artist and educator for many years, she died at the age of 81 in October 2008 and was buried in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Mary Anderson Pickard
Eldest daughter of famed artist Walter Anderson, she lives in Ocean Springs, MS, and wrote essays in Form and Fantasy: The Block Prints of Walter Anderson, which features full-color and black-and-white reproductions of over 250 of the artist's prints.
Co-editor of the book is Patricia Pinson, curator of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, with a chronology by Christopher Maurer, author of Fortune's Favorite Child: The Uneasy Life of Walter Anderson (University Press of Mississippi).
See NPR story on A Family of Artists Picks Up the Pieces by Debbie Elliott and photo of Mary Anderson Pickard by Tracy Wahl
Elijah Pierce
From Baldwin, Mississippi, said by some to be one of greatest folk wood carvers in American history.
Gail Pittman
Jackson-based artist of pottery , ceramics studio, on NBC's Today, business specializing in hand-painted dinnerware and home accessories, illustrator for Catherine Carter's book Anna's Choice (2005, Quail Ridge Press)
Gaither Pope
Artist born and raised in Jackson, now living in Louisiana
H. C. Porter
Jackson, MS, born 1963, painter and photographer, creates serigraphs by creating hand-painted
film positives representing each color, owns and exhibits at Creative Spirit Studio, Art Director and master printer for sports artist Rick Rush. Limited Edition serigraphs for NBC Sports, Wimbledon, Churchill Downs, and the NFL. Her recent exhibit at the Mississippi Museum of Art entitled Backyards & Beyond: Mississippians and Their Stories - the first year after Katrina, ran from March 8, 2008 to June 8, 2008. Porter's interactive, multimedia experience includes painted portraits paired with live field recordings, floor installations, video, and a book. Porter has teamed up with fellow Mississippian Ellis Anderson to provide cover art for Anderson's book, Under Surge, Under Seige.
Chase Quarterman
Youngest artist of the gallery of The South's show entitled QuARTet. QuARTet exhibition, a 2003
graduate of Mississippi College, Quarterman has traveled in Europe and Asia, drawing inspiration from different cultures and the arts that influence those cultures. Utilizing elements of post-impressionism, Oriental art, and expressionism, and the influence of different Southern artists, Quarterman has created a timeless sort of art, one that is both retro and modern, connecting with different viewers at different levels. Chase received his B.S. degree in Graphic Design from Mississippi College in 2003 and his M.A. degree in Advertising from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006. A semester in London and travels in China, Taiwan, and Mexico have greatly influenced his style and approach to painting. Chase works in oils, acrylics, gouache colors, India ink and woodcuts. He currently resides in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Bonnie. Quarterman’s mentor is Clinton’s Wyatt Waters.
Kenneth Quinn
Show called God's Graces and Special Places, does watercolor/prismacolor pencil, of houses, schools, churches, art instructor at Mississippi College.
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Marshall Ramsey
Ramsey is a political cartoonist for the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, has been nominated for five Pulitzer prizes and was a finalist in 2002. He has also appeared in USA Today, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, The New York Times and 450 other newspapers. In college he won the top prize for collegiate cartoonists (The John Locher Memorial Award), has been featured in Editor and Publisher magazine. He is syndicated nationally by Copley News Service. His cartoons appear in Marshall Ramsey's Greatest Hits.
Herbert Randall
Photographer, exhibit at University of Southern Mississippi Museum of Art in Hattiesburg called "Freedom Summer: The Photographs of Herbert Randall"
Hysterine Rankin
Exhibited in Crossing: Five Paths, modern-day African-American applique quilter.
Lee Renninger
Gulfport, MS, ceramic artist, wife of artist Jeff Schmuki, chosen for fifth Mississippi Invitational (2005) at Mississippi Museum of Art, born and raised in Miami, Florida. Originally a painter, Renninger was part of the Movimiento Artistico del Rio Salado (MARS) Artspace in Phoenix, Arizona from 1995-2000. While there, she teamed up with fellow artist and ceramist Jeff Schmuki, who introduced her to clay. Since then she has worked in that medium, creating ceramic-based installations. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Mississippi Museum of Art, and The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, among other venues. Renninger was a recipient of a 2003 Mississippi Arts Commission Fellowship Award. In 2013 she received the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Visual Arts.
Elizabeth Robinson
Jackson glass artist , works on display at the Mississippi Museum of Art, November, 2002
Jack Robinson, Jr.
Photographer, born in Meridian and grew up in Clarksdale, for more information go to this web site. Born September 18, 1928, he died in November 1997.
Lynn Green Root
Died in 2001 at age 46, daughter of Jackson artist Myra Hamilton Green and Josh
Green. Painted mural at Bravo Italian Restaurant and Bar and portrait of Thalia Mara in Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson. A book celebrating Lynn and her mother Myra Green, has been published entitled Breathing Art: The Lives and Art of Myra Hamilton Green and Lynn Green Root. The double biography, with text by historian and author Patti Carr Black and 80 reproductions of paintings plus family pictures, features a choice of two covers, one by each artist.
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Jeff Schmuki
Gulfport, MS, ceramics, husband of ceramic artist Lee Renninger, hand-built, laminated and compressed sculptural objects, site responsive installations and clay drawings represent the Mississippi landscape, chosen for fifth Mississippi Invitational (2005) at Mississippi Museum of Art,
Martha Butcher Skelton
A renowned quilter whose work has been displayed in the Smithsonian and the Museum of American Folk Art in New York. She died at 89. She was a founding member of the state quilting organization and had sewn more than 200 quilts since age 15. Born in West Virginia, she moved from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Vicksburg in 1947.
Earl Simmons
Bovina artist, featured in Karekin Geokjian's book, Light of the Spirit: Portraits of Southern Outsider Artists.
Joey Kim Sessums, Dr.
Sculptor, Brookhaven OB-GYN, born in Forest, MS, did bust of Eudora Welty at MUW. He also created a life-sized bronze bust of Dr. Wiser for the Winfield Wiser Hospital. Sessums is a physician and one of Wiser's former students.
Pam Sharp
Ceramic artist, Rankin County
Lesley Silver
Photographer, owner of Attic Gallery in Vicksburg, uses pinhole cameras, toning, hand tinting , double exposures, etc.
Martha Butcher Skelton
Master quilter whose home is Vicksburg. Skelton was born in West Virginia and grew up in Oklahoma. She became a school librarian while her children were growing up. Her quilting developed into an art, and she completed more than two hundred quilts. Skelton was selected twice to participate in the Smithsonian Institution's Folklife Festival. She helped establish the quilting program for the Mississippi State Fair and taught in almost every Mississippi county. Two of her quilts are a part of the Museum of the American Quilter's Society's permanent collection, and her quilts are also included in the Mountain Mist quilt collection and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History collection. Her life has been documented in a book by quilt scholar Mary Elizabeth Johnson.
Cliff Speaks
Brandon, MS, Member of the Jackson-based Brecon Arts group . A recent graduate of University of Southern Mississippi, Speaks has been a working professionally as a graphic artist for more than six years, and has been active in the fine arts for three. Speaks enjoys painting landscapes and still life works, but lately he has done more abstract and figurative expressionistic art. He uses various shapes, colors, and textures to create designs that are unique and are immediately recognizable as his own. His has a deeply rooted interest in portraying Southern culture and uses it as a source of inspiration.
Jack Spencer
Photographer, Did Native Soil: Images of the South with Ellen Douglas.
Christopher Inglis Stebly
Son of Mary Anderson Pickard, Walter Anderson's first born and first daughter, born in 1967 in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where he still lives. He decorates pottery at his family's business, Shearwater Pottery. He formally trained for one year at New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts under Auseklis Ozols (the founder), in 1991. but he has been painting on his own ever since. His paintings are for sale at the Walter Anderson Museum.
Robert Sugg
Pottery, Beastly Tales art show in Jackson with novelist Nevada Barr
Tracy H. Sugg
Pottery, Beastly Tales art show in Jackson with novelist Nevada Barr, Bronze sculptor, originally from New Mexico, now resides in Jackson and has exhibited across the country, most notably in the Rotunda of the Russell Senate Building in Washington, DC. She sculpted the monument to Congressman “Sonny” Montgomery on the MSU campus, and the “General Kosciusko” monument for the town of Kosciusko, along with numerous other pieces across the state in public and private collections.
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Sarah Mary Taylor
Folk artist and quilter, now in her eighties, quilts have figures and animals, Left Hand, drawings.
Wynn "Matsy" Richards Taylor
Born 1889 in Greenville, playhouse named for her, first woman judge of Miss America pageant in 1948, Died in 1960, was fashion photograher for Vogue magazine early in career, love of gardening led her to form Greenville Garden Club (the first in the State), became involved in theater and helped form Twin Cities Theater Guild, premier female fashion photograher of the 1930's,
Emmitt Thames
Gulfport, paints in watercolor, oil and egg tempera scenes of and around Mississippi, self taught artist, work sold at Brown's Gallery since the early 1970's, born in Lincoln County, Mississippi.
James "Son" Thomas
Born 1926, he is best known as a blues singer who was rediscovered by William Ferris in 1967. His other interest was sculpture which was made from clay he collected from banks of the nearby Yazoo River. He enjoyed creating animal forms. He also enjoyed making trucks from the clay, which earned him the nickname "Ford." Once he decided to play a joke on his grandfather, who had a deep fear of the paranormal. Son shaped a skull, complete with teeth made out of corn, and placed it in a dark location that would become fully lit when his grandfather turned on a light. The effect was terrifying, and Son went go on to shape these skulls the rest of his life, often using actual teeth that he would collect from local dentists. His clay art alone would have made Thomas's career as a folk artist. Many galleries, including those in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have held shows displaying his work. In 1981 the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., held an exhibit displaying the folk art of the American South, and the sculptures of James Thomas were a prominent feature of the show. Then First Lady Nancy Reagan attended the show, and Son had his photo taken with her. As a result of this encounter, Son was asked to perform at a Republican Party fundraiser in Mississippi in 1983 which featured President Ronald Reagan as the keynote speaker. Son Thomas was paid $100 for his appearance.
In his later years Son Thomas was accompanied by Swiss harmonica player Walter Liniger. Thomas was recorded by several small record labels but is probably best known for his album Gateway to the Delta which was recorded by Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Son Thomas appeared in the films Delta Blues Singer: James "Sonny Ford" Thomas in 1970 and Give My Poor Heart Ease: Mississippi Delta Bluesmen in 1975, plus the short Mississippi Delta Blues in 1974. Thomas died on June 26, 1993, in Greenville, Mississippi, and is buried in Leland.
Stanley Thomas, Jr
Artist in wood from Batesville, Mississippi; a member of the Craftmen's Guild of Mississippi, has been featured on PBS.
Photo right: Wooden bowls by Thomas of Batesville.
Tommy Thompson
Born and lived near Starkville, MS, until he was 36 years old. Before relocating to Florence, AL, he served as head of the Art and Photography Department of the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station at Mississippi State University for seven years. He was enrolled in the graphic arts program at Mississippi State University. Thompson was an architectural and commercial illustrator for more than 30 years before he began to paint oil landscapes in 2002. He now concentrates on painting pastoral landscapes that include horses, figures, and architecture. Thompson's paintings have been featured in American Art Collector; Southwest Art, Horses in Art; Hills and Hamlets; Greater Nashville House, Home, and Garden; The Tennessean, Brentwood Life, and other
publications. A web site, The Judge's Choice, selected Thompson to be its featured artist during July 2009. Thompson's artwork was recently juried into the 14th Annual 2009 Fine Art in Brentwood (TN) Show and Sale. He was named one of ten featured artists to participate in the Gadsden (AL) Museum of Art's Southeastern Plein Air Festival in 2009. During 2007/09 he was invited to conduct five solo exhibitions by organizations in Birmingham and Guntersville, AL; Starkville, MS (the Greater Starkville Development Partnership and Chamber of Commerce exhibited his oil paintings), and Memphis and Nashville, TN. Thompson has studied with some of the nation’s premier painters including Kevin Macpherson (in Canada), Ken Auster, Kenn Backhaus, Roger Dale Brown, Scott Christensen, Ned Mueller, Michael Shane Neal, and Dawn Whitelaw. In October 2009, he will participate in the Alabama Plein Air Workshop, under the direction of California painter, Elio Camacho.
The artist now lives in Florence, AL. Traveling to Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island,Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming, as well as Canada and Europe, has afforded the artist a wide array of subject matter.
Before changing to the oil painting arena, Thompson, with his two daughters, produced composite, architectural-style drawings of more than 350 towns across 12 states (including Mississippi). These drawings provided civic organizations with fund-raising projects, grossing more than $2 million in proceeds for those community organizations.
George T. Thurmond
Impressionist landscape painter from Starkville, born in 1949 in Hollandale, graduated from Delta State in 1968. Thurmond book His book Nature and Light: A Personal View explains his view of light and painting. A devoted adherent of Plein-air, he made the pilgrimage to Provincetown, Mass in 1969, 1970, 1971, and 1973 to confront the teachings firsthand, MSU 2004 Art Exhibition Show featured George T. Thurmond Color Studies: Light Keys in the Landscape, at The Gallery in McComas Hall, October 4, 2004.
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A squabble over a pig started a famous 13 year feud between what two Appalachian families? | The Hatfield & McCoy Feud | HISTORY
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The Hatfield & McCoy Feud
The Hatfields and McCoys. Mere mention of their names stirs up visions of a lawless and unrelenting family feud. It evokes gun-toting vigilantes hell-bent on defending their kinfolk, igniting bitter grudges that would span generations. Yet many people familiar with these surnames may know little about the faded history of these two families and the legends they inspired. Who were the Hatfields and McCoys, and what was the source of this vicious and violent clash between the families?
During the most heated years of the feud, each family was ruled by a well-known patriarch. William Anderson Hatfield, known as “Devil Anse,” had the appearance of a backwoods, rough-hewn mountain dweller. By the 1870s Devil Anse was an increasingly successful timber merchant who employed dozens of men, including some McCoys. On the other side of the feud stood Randolph “Old Ranel” McCoy. Though not as prosperous as Devil Anse, Randolph owned some land and livestock. Both families lived along the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River, which snaked along the boundary between Kentucky and West Virginia, and both families had complex kinship and social networks. Family loyalty was often determined not only by blood but by employment and proximity. The families even intermarried and sometimes switched family loyalties, even once the feud had started.
The first event in the decades-long feud was the 1865 murder of Randolph’s brother, Asa Harmon McCoy, by the Logan Wildcats, a local militia group that counted Devil Anse and other Hatfields among its members. Many people—even members of his own family—regarded Asa Harmon, who had served in the Union Army during the American Civil War, as a traitor. While some have surmised that his murder set the stage for the feud, most historians now see this incident as a standalone event.
Relations between the two families continued to sour over the next decade before flaring again over a seemingly small matter: a dispute over a single hog. In 1878 Randolph McCoy accused Floyd Hatfield, a cousin of Devil Anse, of stealing one of his pigs, a valuable commodity in the poor region. Floyd Hatfields’s trial took place in McCoy territory but was presided over by a cousin of Devil Anse. It hinged on the testimony of star witness Bill Staton, a McCoy relative married to a Hatfield. Staton testified in Floyd Hatfield’s favor, and the McCoys were infuriated when Floyd was cleared of the charges against him. Two years later, Staton was violently killed in a fracas with Sam and Paris McCoy, nephews of Randolph. Sam stood trial for the murder but was acquitted for self-defense reasons.
Within months of Staton’s murder, a heated affair of a different sort was set ablaze. At a local election day gathering in 1880, Johnse Hatfield, the 18-year-old son of Devil Anse, encountered Roseanna McCoy, Randolph’s daughter. According to accounts, Johnse and Roseanna hit it off, disappearing together for hours. Supposedly fearing retaliation from her family for mingling with the Hatfields, Roseanna stayed at the Hatfield residence for a period of time, drawing the ire of the McCoys.
Although they certainly shared a romance, it rapidly became clear that Johnse was not about to settle down with Roseanna. Several months later he abandoned the pregnant Roseanna and quickly moved on. In May 1881 he married Nancy McCoy, Roseanna’s cousin. According to the romanticized legend, Roseanna was heartbroken by these events and never recovered emotionally.
The real turning point in the feud, according to most historical accounts, occurred on another local election day in August 1882. Three of Randolph McCoy’s sons ended up in a violent dispute with two brothers of Devil Anse. The fight soon snowballed into chaos as one of the McCoy brothers stabbed Ellison Hatfield multiple times and then shot him in the back. Authorities soon apprehended the McCoys, but the Hatfields interceded, spiriting the men to Hatfield territory. After receiving word that Ellison had died, they bound the McCoys to some pawpaw bushes. Within minutes, they fired more than 50 shots, killing all three brothers.
Though the Hatfields might have felt their revenge was warranted, the law felt otherwise, quickly returning indictments against 20 men, including Devil Anse and his sons. Despite the charges, the Hatfields eluded arrest, leaving the McCoys boiling with anger about the murders and outraged that the Hatfields walked free. Their cause was taken up by Perry Cline, an attorney who was married to Martha McCoy, the widow of Randolph’s brother Asa Harmon. Years earlier Cline had lost a lawsuit against Devil Anse over the deed for thousands of acres of land, and many historians believe this left him looking for his own form of revenge. Using his political connections, Cline had the charges against the Hatfields reinstated. He announced rewards for the arrest of the Hatfields, including Devil Anse.
With the pressure cooker gathering steam, the media started to report on the feud in 1887. In their accounts, the Hatfields were often portrayed as violent backwoods hillbillies who roamed the mountains stirring up violence. The sensationalist coverage planted the seed for the rivalry to become cemented in the American imagination. What had been a local story was becoming a national legend.
The Hatfields may or may not have been paying attention to these stories, but they were certainly paying attention to the bounty on their heads. In an effort to end the commotion once and for all, a group of the Hatfields and their supporters hatched a plan to attack Randolph McCoy and his family. Led by Devil Anse’s son Cap and ally Jim Vance, a group of Hatfield men ambushed the McCoys’ home on New Year’s Day in 1888. Randolph fled, escaping into the woods. His son Calvin and daughter Alifair were killed in the crossfire; his wife Sarah was left badly beaten by the Hatfields, suffering a crushed skull.
A few days after what became known as the New Year’s massacre, bounty hunter Frank Phillips chased down Jim Vance and Cap Hatfield, killing Vance. Phillips rounded up nine Hatfield family members and supporters and hauled them off to jail. Years of legal permutations unfolded as a series of courts judged the legal merits of the Hatfield case. Eventually, the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided that the Hatfields being held in custody could be tried.
The trial began in 1889, and in the end, eight of the Hatfields and their supporters were sentenced to life in prison. Ellison Mounts, who was believed to be the son of Ellison Hatfield, was sentenced to death. Nicknamed Cottontop, Mounts was known to be mentally challenged, and many viewed him as a scapegoat even though he had confessed his guilt. Although public executions were against the law in Kentucky, thousands of spectators gathered to witness the hanging of Ellison Mounts on February 18, 1890. Reports claim that his last words were: “They made me do it! The Hatfields made me do it!”
As the feud faded, both family leaders attempted to recede into relative obscurity. Randolph McCoy became a ferry operator. In 1914 he died at the age of 88 from burns suffered in an accidental fire. By all accounts, he continued to be haunted by the deaths of his children. Devil Anse Hatfield, who had long proclaimed his skepticism about religion, was born again later in life when he was baptized for the first time at age 73. Although the conflict subsided generations ago, the names Hatfield and McCoy continue to loom large in the American imagination.
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Featured in the musical The King and I, what country was formerly known as Siam until June 23, 1939, and again from 1945 to May 11, 1949? | McCoy Family Genealogy
McCoy Family Genealogy
McCoy
The McCoys trace their origin back to Scotland. The family was first found in Sutherland, where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D. Their origin there is possibly Lowland, but they had intermarried with the Highland Celtic strain, giving some a slight olive complexion and some dark or auburn hair. They were in general tall and lithe and handsome. They had a great deal of family pride and clannishness.
The McCoy Coat of Arms is a Blue with a silver chevron, on which there are two daggers pointing at a buck's head, all between three silver bears' heads. The family motto: "Manu forti," means "With a strong hand." The McCoys were in Scotland until around 1700 A.D. at which time they migrated to Ireland. In the early 1700s, the McCoys started to migrate to America, which was a British Colony.
The earliest known ancestor is a Jacobite in Ireland named JOHN McCOY, whom was (according to some sources) the son of Alexander McCoy and Francis Katherine Sutherland, born in 1690, in Sutherland Shire, Scotland. The Jacobites were loyal supporters of the Stuart King, James II. It is believed that John migrated to Belfast, County Antrim, Ireland, after a failed rebellion in 1715, which was to return King James II to the English throne. John worked as a mercenary for English Lord Berresford (as did his brother).
John married a woman with the last name of MARTIN. The family then migrated to America, traveling from Belfast, Antrim County, Ireland, to America in 1732. John's brothers, James and Daniel, may have come from Ireland with him.
In 1737, he received a land grant in Charles County, Maryland, which was a 150-acre tract. (Located today outside of Funkstown, Washington County, Maryland.)
John purchased another 50-acre plot in Prince George's County, Maryland, on 11/09/1742 that he named "Neglect" (with 129 more acres in Queen Anne County, on 12/01/1748), and on 08/17/1747, he purchased 54 acres in Charles County, Maryland, which was referred to as "Slatford's Roost Extension."
CHILDREN OF JOHN McCOY AND (UNKNOWN) MARTIN
ARCHIBALD McCOY was born on 12 Jul 1732 in Washington Co. Maryland. Married ELIZABETH BLAIR (b: Abt 1734) in @ 1751. Death: 19 Apr 1810 in Washington Co. MD.
DAVID McCOY
JOHN McCOY, JR.
Blair
John died in Washington County, Maryland, in 1762, having become a prominent land owner in the Colonies. Land was extremely important to this family, and would be the underlying source of their later battles with the Hatfield family, which became the most famous feud in American history.
Very little has been recorded on the next generation of the McCoys. Upon John's death, his property was divided amongst the children, each son getting a large tract of land. If there were any daughters, their names weren't recorded.
The next ancestor in our line, ARCHIBALD McCOY, was born in 1732 in Washington County, Maryland. He inherited the plantation called "Neglect," which had been his father's property, with its imposing stone mansion. It is also believed he is buried there.
Archibald married ELIZABETH BLAIR (b: Abt 1734) around the year 1751 in Washington County, Maryland, and they had the following children:
CHILDREN OF ARCHIBALD McCOY AND ELIZABETH BLAIR
WILLIAM McCOY was born @ 1752 in Washington Co., Maryland. He was married to CORDELLA CAMPBELL @ 1772 in Maryland. William was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. He served in the Virginia Continental Line and was given a land grant in what is now Pike & Floyd counties, KY. He and Cordella had 13 children. Died in Pike Co., Kentucky, in 1822.
JOHN W. McCOY was born in 1755, in Washington Co., Md. He married Rebecca Blair - 12 children. Alexander, Sussanah, James, Brice, John W., Joseph, William, Edmund, Mary, Agnes, Archibald & George. He died in 1818, in Bedford Co., Pa.
JAMES McCOY was born on 26 Mar 1757, in Washington Co., Md. He married Mary Cheney, and they had seven children: Jeremiah, John, Archibald, Naomi, James, William & Andrew. He died on 14 Feb 1838.
RACHEL McCOY was born in 1758, in Washington Co., Md. She married Joseph Powell Abt. 1780 in Md. - 16 children. Mary, George, Archibald McCoy, Joseph, Sarah, Elizabeth, Thomas, Mary, Rachel, John, Jonathan, William,Robert, Susannah, Nancy & David.
MARY McCOY was born in 1759, in Washington Co., Md. She married George Powel or Powell June 19, 1779. They had two children - Mary & Rachel.
SUSANNAH McCOY was born in 1762, in Hagerstown, Washington, Maryland. She married Daniel South (1760-1819) in Hagerstown. They had the following children: Mary Jane (1788-1830), Thomas (1789-1865), Elizabeth (b. 1789), Benjamin (1792-1844), Archibald (1794-1855), Susannah (1794-1868), John N (1795-1856), Benjamin C (1797-1868), Henry (1800-1865), James Daniel (1800-1865) and Elizabeth South (1805-1866). Susannah died on 18 Mar 1824 and is buried with her husband in the Daniel South Family Cemetery in Clermont County, Ohio.
LAVINA McCOY was born in 1764, in Washington Co., Md. No further information.
LYDIA McCOY was born in 1766, in Washington Co., Md. She married a man named Elverston. No further information.
ELIZABETH McCOY was born in 1768, in Washington Co., Md. She married an unknown "white man." No further information.
NANCY AGNES McCOY was born on 11 Jan 1769 in Washington Co., Md. She married Brice Blair August 28, 1779 in Bedford Co., Pa. - 13 children. John, Archibald, Susannah, Mary Polly, Rachel, Rebecca, Susanna, Sarah, Edmund, James,Nancy, Elizabeth & Brice. She died in 1829.
ARCHIBALD McCOY was born in 1772, in Washington Co., Md. He married Ann Grower May 31, 1806 & Mary Ferby January 12, 1812.
EDMUND McCOY was born on 8 Aug 1776, in Washington Co., Md. He married Mary Bond February 29, 1796 - 12 children. John, Mary, Elizabeth, Archibald, Jelia/Jelis/Jelas, Edmund, George V., James Bond, Nancy, Susan, Walter & David. Death: 29 Feb 1828.
Campbell
WILLIAM "OLD WILLIAM" McCoy was born between 1750-1755. His birthplace is unknown, but he was the progenitor of the McCoys of the Kentucky-West Virginia border, and the forefather of all the McCoy's that were involved in the Hatfield-McCoy Feud.
Personal Information
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SOURCE INFORMATION: 1790 United States Federal Census. Data imaged from National Archives and Records Administration. 1790 Federal Population Census. M637, 12 rolls. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration. It is thought that the "William McCoys" came from Maryland, and there is evidence that two sons, John and Samuel, were born there.
Some descendants say that William lived near Cumberland, Maryland, and one descendant was told many years ago by an older McCoy relative that the McCoys once lived where the Antietam Battleground now stands.
William and his wife (probably named CORDELLA CAMPBELL of Giles, Virginia) were married in @ 1772, and became the parents of 13 children: ten sons and three daughters.
The names of those children were:
CHILDREN OF WILLIAM McCOY AND CORDELLA CAMPBELL
WILLIAM McCOY was born in 1773, in Maryland. He married Barbara Tollinger on November 23, 1796 in Montgomery County, West Virginia. Children: A son, Thomas (b. 1800); maybe another John 1823. Was living in Gallatin County, Illinois, in 1820. He served in the War of 1812.
EZEKIEL McCOY was born in 1775, in Maryland. He married Nancy Davis on April 7, 1798 in Ranger, West Virginia. She was probably the sister of Elizabeth Davis, who married Ezekiel's brother, Samuel. Ezekiel also ended up in Gallatin County, Illinois.
WALTER McCOY was born in 1777, in Maryland. Walter migrated west early in his life, with brothers William and Ezekiel. No further information.
SAMUEL McCOY was born in 1782, in Maryland. He married ELIZABETH DAVIS on August 12, 1801, and they had 17 Children. The 1850 United States Census has a Samuel McCoy living in Ohio: Year: 1850; Census Place: Washington, Carroll, Ohio; Roll: M432_664; Page: 112; Image: 225. Died in Stringtown, Pike Co., Kentucky, on 28 July 1855. Family listed below.
NANCY McCOY was born in 1784, in Maryland. She married Thomas McColley June 7, 1803 - 7 children. James, Elizabeth, Nancy, Margaret, Barbara, Charles & Thomas. Died in 1823.
ELIZABETH McCOY was born in 1786, in Maryland. She married William Scott and they had 10 children: Mary, Nancy, Andrew, John, Acton or Axton, Daniel, Barnabus, Evan, James T. & Rebecca. Charles Manson is a descendant, through son Andrew Scott.
JOHN "BUTTERMILK" McCOY was born on 24 Apr 1788, in Maryland or Virginia. He married Margaret Jackson Abt. 1808 in Knoxville Tn. - 10 children. Nancy, Rachel, Wiilliam, Andrew, Pleasant, Randolph, John, Margaret, Elizabeth & Asa Peter. Death: 8 Sep 1872 in Pike Co., Ky. Burial: McCoy Cemetery, Kentucky.
DANIEL McCOY was born in 1790, in Montgomery Co., Va. He married Margaret "Peggy" Taylor (b: 12 Nov 1800 in Russell Co., Va.) on 12 Feb 1817. Daniel And Margaret divorced in 1872. It is believed he Married Mary Ann "Polly" Varney in his later years. Note: THE HATFIELDS AND THE McCOYS by Otis K. Rice, 1982, Univ. of KY Press, pedigree chart, and p. 4: Williams' son Daniel married Margaret Taylor in Floyd Co., KY, prob. in the part that became Pike Co. They had 13 children, including Randolph, who became the leader of the McCoy side of the feud. In 1840, Daniel McCoy and his wife moved to Logan Co., VA/WV, where they lived until their deaths. Death: 1885 in Logan Co., WV.
RICHARD McCOY was born in 1793, in Virginia. He married Betsy Adkins, Mary Ann Chaney & Jane Allen. He had 13 children with Jane Allen: William, Phoebe, Barbara, Elizabeth, Louisa, Frances, Nancy, John, Margaret, James A., William, Lewis & Harrison.
JOSEPH McCOY was born in 1795, in Virginia. He married Mary Maynard July 7, 1816 in Floyd Co., Ky. They had the following children: Sarah & Mary.
BENJAMIN THOMAS McCOY was born in 1798, in Virginia. He married Melia Maynard on April 17, 1821, in Floyd Co., Ky. They had the following children: William, Lockey, Samuel, Elijah, Elizabeth, Nancy, Leannah, Rebecca & John.
RANDOLPH McCOY was born in 1801, in Virginia. He married Mary Ann Stafford on November 20, 1823, in Pike Co., Ky. They had the following children: John R., Malinda Ellen, William & Marion. Possibly another daughter named Louisa.
Female McCoy (Nothing known)
Most census records give either Maryland or Virginia as the birthplace of William's children. After leaving Maryland, William lived in Montgomery County, Virginia, and some of his children were probably born there. Several of his older children seem to have married there. Two sons, Ezekiel and Walter, lived in Tazewell County, Virginia, just prior to following their father to a new home, when William was awarded 200 acres of Land in Virginia in what is now Floyd and Pike County, Kentucky, for services in the Virginia Continental Army during Revolution (Land Office Military Warrant #3348):
Warrant ID 3348.0 for William McCoy; Assignee: Nancarrow, John; Vaughan, John & January, Peter. Acres: 200. Rank: Soldier. Unit: Virginia Continental Line. Date: 7/22/1784. Note: Used in Ohio Military District. See VA Grant Bk 16, pgs 348-9. SOURCE: West of Tennessee River Military Patents .
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SOURCE INFORMATION: 1790 United States Federal Census. Data imaged from National Archives and Records Administration. 1790 Federal Population Census. M637, 12 rolls. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration. William Scott, who married William's daughter, Elizabeth, probably came to Kentucky first. Then William and his family settled on John's Creek, near a Scott settlement (now Gulnare) about 1804. He brought a large family of ten sons and two daughters to the Tug Valley region. Four of his sons continued their migration westward, but the eight other children settled there, and many descendants still call the area their home, 200 years later.
The six remaining sons settled near William, on both the Kentucky and West Virginia sides of the Tug River, just to the north and south of present-day Matewan.
The Tug Fork is a tributary of the Big Sandy River, 154 miles long, in southwestern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia, and eastern Kentucky in the United States. It rises in the Appalachian Mountains of extreme southwestern West Virginia, in southern McDowell County, near the Virginia state line. It flows in a meandering course through the mountains generally northwest, past Welch. It forms part of the boundary between West Virginia (east) and Kentucky (west), flowing northwest past Williamson, West Virginia. It joins the Levisa Fork at Louisa, Kentucky to form the Big Sandy.
William McCoy's Revolutionary War Bounty Card Voucher, from 1784, signed by Lieut. J. Brown and Br. Genl. James Wood (courtesy of June White).
The Tug Fork at Williamson, West Virginia. Pike County, Kentucky is at left.
The Tug Fork river flows through an especially remote mountainous region in its upper course. It was here in the river valley between Pike County, Kentucky and Mingo County, West Virginia, that William McCoy settled with his family, and it would be ground-zero of the famous Hatfield-McCoy feud in the late 19th century.
William McCoy first appeared in the Floyd County, Kentucky, census of 1810 with several of their sons living with or nearby them. William and his wife then appeared alone in the 1820 Floyd County census. They are missing in the 1823 Pike County tax list, and it is assumed that they died before that time.
Personal Information
SOURCE INFORMATION: United States Federal Census. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC
Davis
Our next ancestor is their son, SAMUEL McCOY, born in 1782. He held 1500 acres of land on the river, the most of any of William's sons, but they were all fairly prosperous for the region. On 15 Apr 1823, he bought 50 acres at Tug Fork, Sandy River; A day later, on 16 Apr 1823, another 100 acres at Tug Fork (Source: THE KENTUCKY LAND GRANTS Volume 1 Part 1 CHAPTER VI, pages 651-656); On 31 Jan 1839, 100 acres of Mud Lick; On 10 Sept. 1839, 50 acres at Blackberry Fork; On 5 Feb 1849, 1,200 acres at Tug Fork, Big Sandy River; On 10 Feb 1850, 50 acres at Pond Creek.
Samuel married ELIZABETH DAVIS on 12 Aug 1802 in Tazewell County, Virginia. Samuel and Elizabeth lived in that portion of Floyd County, Kentucky, which later became Pike County, near William in the Stringtown area. He appears with William in the 1810 census (above), He would live in the area for the next forty years ( 1820 Census ; 1830 Census ; 1840 Census ), and have an astounding eighteen children. Samuel married a second time, to the widow NANCY MAYNARD on 12 Sep 1841. They're listed on the 1850 census together, but it's doubtful that they had any children. He's buried in the McCoy cemetery at Stringtown (Note: His will is on record in Pike CountyWill Book A, p.42: 6 Jul 1855).
Altogether, Samuel had the following children:
CHILDREN OF SAMUEL McCOY AND ELIZABETH DAVIS
HIRAM McCOY was born in 1803, in Pike Co., Kentucky. He married Chloe Sansom (b: 1807 in Virginia) in 1837, and they had the following children: Julia Ann McCoy b: 1831 in Logan Co., WV; Lewis J. McCoy b: 1833 in Logan Co., WV; William Johnson McCoy b: 1836 in Lawrence Co., Ky.; and George Thomas McCoy b: 1844 in Logan Co., WV. Hiram died in 1860, in Logan, Virginia.
REBECCA McCOY was born in 1805, in Pike Co., Kentucky. No further information.
JOHN McCOY was born in 1807, in Pike Co., Kentucky. He married Margaret Burress (b: 1815) on 2 Dec 1827 in Pike Co., Ky., and they had the following children: William T. McCoy b: 1831 in Pike Co., Ky; Samuel McCoy b: 1833 in Pike Co., Ky; Mary Jane McCoy b: 1835 in Pike Co., Ky; Phoebe McCoy b: 1837 in Pike Co., Ky; Jemima McCoy b: 1838 in Pike Co., Ky; Addison McCoy b: 1840 in Pike Co., Ky; Lucinda McCoy b: 1842 in Pike Co., Ky; Mary McCoy b: 1844 in Pike Co., Ky; Daniel McCoy b: 1846 in Pike Co., Ky; Ellen McCoy b: 1849 in Pike Co., Ky; Elizabeth McCoy b: 1830 in Pike Co., Ky; and Keziah McCoy b: 1828 in Pike Co., Ky.
ASA McCOY was born in 1810, in Pike Co., Kentucky. He married Eleanor Burriss (b: 1808 in Virginia) on 14 Sep 1832 in Pike Co., Ky, and they had the following children: Selkirk McCoy b: 1833 in Paw Paw, Pike, Kentucky; Alex McCoy b: 1832 in Pike Co., Ky; Alafair McCoy b: 1835 in Pike Co., Ky; Parlee J. McCoy b: 1834 in Pike Co., Ky; William McCoy b: Feb 1840 in Pike Co., Ky; Andrew B. McCoy b: Dec 1837 in Pike Co., Ky; Elizabeth Ann McCoy b: 1839 in Pike Co., Ky; Emily McCoy b: 1842 in Pike Co., Ky; Sarag McCoy b: 1844 in Pike Co., Ky; Uriah McCoy b: 23 Jul 1847 in Logan Co., WV; Albert Gallatin McCoy b: May 1848 in Logan Co., WV; and Mary McCoy b: 1849 in Logan Co., WV.
WILLIAM McCOY was born Abt 1811 in Pike Co., Kentucky. He married Mary Ann Burress (b: 1821 in Virginia) on 27 Apr 1837, and they had the following children: Elizabeth McCoy b: 1838 in Pike Co., Ky; Pleasant McCoy b: 1840 in Pike Co., Ky; James H. McCoy b: 1841 in Pike Co., Ky; Rachel J. McCoy b: 1843 in Pike Co., Ky; Careless McCoy b: 1845 in Pike Co., Ky; Anderson McCoy b: 1847 in Pike Co., Ky; and Robert McCoy b: 1849 in Pike Co., Ky.
ELLENDER McCOY was born in 1815, in Pike Co., Kentucky. She married Compton Stafford (b: 1805 in Kentucky) and they had the following children: Sarah A. Stafford b: 1838 in Pike Co., Ky; Harrison Stafford b: 1839 in Pike Co., Ky; Thomas Stafford b: 1843 in Pike Co., Ky; Montville Stafford b: 1845 in Pike Co., Ky; and Levisy Stafford b: 1849 in Pike Co., Ky.
PHOEBE McCOY was born in 1816, in Pike Co., Kentucky. No further information.
PLESANT McCOY was born in 1818 in Pike Co., Kentucky. No further information.
BENJAMIN McCOY was born in 1820 in Floyd, Pike, Kentucky. He married PHOEBE McCOY on 31 Oct 1839, and had three children. In the 1850 census, he is listed as living with Letta Prater and her kids. Then he married NANCY ROBINETTE in 1851. Family listed below.
LUCINDA McCOY was born in 1821, in Pike Co., Kentucky. She married Henderson Maynard (b: 1814 in Kentucky) on 17 Mar 1842, in Pike Co., Ky. They had the following children: Tabitha Maynard b: 1843 in Kentucky; Elizabeth Maynard b: 1845 in Kentucky; Caroline Maynard b: 1846 in Kentucky; Samantha Maynard b: 1847 in Kentucky; Lewis Maynard b: 1850 in Kentucky; Virginia L. Maynard b: 1851 in Kentucky; Clarinda Maynard b: 14 Nov 1853 in Kentucky; Ira Maynard b: 25 Nov 1855 in Kentucky; Henderson Maynard b: 1858 in Kentucky; Florence Maynard b: 1863; and Andrew J. Maynard b: 1866
ALLEN McCOY was born in 1823, in Pike Co., Kentucky. He married Elizabeth Blankenship (b: 1827 in Kentucky) on 9 Sep 1841, and they had the following children: Sylvester McCoy b: 1843 in Pike Co., Ky; Easter McCoy b: 1844 in Kentucky; Jane McCoy b: 1847 in Kentucky; Henderson McCoy b: 1848 in Kentucky; Hannes McCoy b: 1850 in Kentucky; Leonidas McCoy b: 1852 in Kentucky; Larkin McCoy b: 1854 in Kentucky; and Marrietta McCoy b: 1856 in Kentucky.
PYRRUS (PIERCE) McCOY was born in 1824, in Pike Co., Kentucky. He married Malinda Hunt (b: 1833 in Russell Co., Va.) on 5 Nov 1846, and they had the following children: Martha McCoy b: 1848 in Kentucky; Pricy McCoy b: 1850; and Eva McCoy b: 1862 in Kentucky.
LETTA McCOY was born @ 1826, in Virginia. No further information.
ULYSSUS McCOY was born in 1826, in Pike Co., Kentucky. He married a woman named Rebecca, abt. 1847. No further information.
URIAH McCOY was born in 1827, in Pike Co., Kentucky. He married Elizabeth Rutherford (b: 1829 in Kentucky) and they had the following children: Andrew (Acy) McCoy b: 1854 in Kentucky; Asa McCoy b: 16 May 1854 in Kentucky; John Wesley McCoy b: 12 Feb 1856 in Kentucky; Reuben McCoy b: 5 Jun 1858 in Kentucky; Thomas McCoy b: 1861 in Pike Co., Ky; Polly McCoy b: 1866 in Pike Co., Ky; Howard McCoy b: Dec 1869 in Pike Co., Ky; Sarah "Sally" McCoy b: 1872 in Pike Co., Ky; Arizona McCoy b: 1875 in Pike Co., Ky; and Elliott Alexander (Uncle Doc) McCoy b: 1860 in Pike Co., Ky.
SARAH "SALLY" McCOY was born in 1829 in Pike Co., Kentucky. She married her first cousin, RANDOLPH "OLD RANDALL" McCOY, the leader of the clan in the Hatfield/McCoy feud (b: 30 Oct 1825 in Pike Co., Ky.). They were married on 9 Dec 1849 in Pike Co., Ky., and had the following children: Joseph b: Abt 1848; James H. b: Mar 1849; Floyd b: 4 May 1853 in Pike Co., Ky.; Tolbert b: 16 Jun 1854 in Pike Co., Ky.; Samuel b: 10 Dec 1855 in Pike Co., Ky.; Lilburn b: Abt 1856 in Pike Co., Ky.; Female unnamed b: 1 Feb 1857 in Pike Co., Ky.; Allifair b: 10 Jun 1858 in Pike Co., Ky.; Rosanna b: 21 Mar 1859 in Pike Co., Ky.; Calvin b: Abt 1862 in Pike Co., Ky.; Pharmer b: Abt 1863 in Pike Co., Ky.; Randolph "Bud" b: Abt 1864 in Pike Co., Ky.; William b: Abt 1866 in Pike Co., Ky.; Trinvilla "Trinnie" b: Abt 1868 in Pike Co., Ky.; Adelaide b: Abt 1870; and Fanny McCoy b: Abt 1873 in Pike Co., Ky.
JANE McCOY was born in 1833, in Pike Co., Kentucky. married Risley? or Riley Roberts. No further information.
THOMAS McCOY was born in 1839, in Pike Co., Kentucky. He died on 25 Sep 1857. Never married. No further information.
Personal Information
View blank 1840 census form
SOURCE INFORMATION: United States Federal Census. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC. So what we can see happening is that this region on the border of West Virginia and Kentucky was overrun with McCoys: siblings, cousins, second cousins, etc. Life was harsh, and outsiders were distrusted, so the families became their own communities, their own corporations. Pretty much the only other people a McCoy could hang out with would be other McCoys (or descendants of a female McCoy), and because of this, there were a lot of McCoy/McCoy marriages.
Samuel's son BENJAMIN McCOY married his cousin, PHOEBE McCOY (probably the daughter of his uncle Richard McCoy and Betsy Adkins) on 31 Oct 1839. They lived on the farm next to Samuel's in the 1840 census, and they had three children:
CHILDREN OF BENJAMIN AND PHOEBE McCOY
JOHN R. McCOY, b. Abt 1840 in Pike Co., Kentucky. He married RACHEL BLANKENSHIP (1846 - Mar 1870) on 3 Jun 1859 in Pike, Kentucky, and had a daughter, Polly (b. 1860). After Rachel's death he married LETTA "Letty" E. ELSWICK on 3 Mar 1870 in Pike Co., KY. They had the following children; Benjamin (b: Abt 1870); Frances (b: Abt 1873); Mary Emily "Emma" (b: Abt 1875); and James (b: Abt 1878).
ELLEN J. McCOY, b. Abt 1845 in Pike Co., Kentucky. She married WILLIAM WASHINGTON BLANKENSHIP on 13 Jun 1866 in Pike Co., KY. They had the following children: Almeda (b: Abt 1867); Rhiburn (b: Abt 1868); Daniel B. (b: Abt 1872); Ulisses (b: Abt 1874); Elzara (b: Abt 1877); and James M. (b: Abt 1879).
ULYSSES McCOY, b. Abt 1846 in Pike Co., Kentucky. He married NANCY BLANKENSHIP (b. 1852) in Mar 1868, and they had Sarah (b: Abt 1879) and John (Oct 1882 - 30 Apr 1959). Ulysses died on 24 Jul 1897 in Gary, McDowell, West Virginia
Robinette
Phoebe then disappears from the record. She probably died, but there's no record of it. Meanwhile, Benjamin was acquiring more land. On 7 Jan 1846, he purchased fifty acres at First Fork, Blackberry Creek. On 29 Nov 1847, he bought 100 acres at Camp Creek. Now on top of improving hundreds of acres of land, Benjamin was now forced to raise three children on his own, so he needed a wife at home to raise his children. So he married a second time.
Apparently running out of Blankenships, he was betrothed to NANCY ROBINETTE, on 28 Sep 1851 in Pike County, Kentucky. She was the daughter of NATHAN ROBINETTE (1794 - 1870) and his wife NANCY (1799 -1860).
Not only did Nancy raise Benjamin's three children with Phoebe, she had another FOURTEEN with him, nearly breaking his father's record! The last child came in 1879, when Benjamin was almost sixty. Meanwhile, Benjamin's land holdings increased: On 31 Jan 1853 he bought 100 more acres at Big Fork, Camp Creek, and on 1 Apr 1866, 262 more acres on Our Forks, Camp Creek.
Benjamin and Nancy had the following children:
CHILDREN OF BENJAMIN McCOY AND NANCY ROBINETTE
BENJAMIN McCOY, JR., b: 17 Mar 1852
NANCY McCOY b: 25 Apr 1853. She died in 1901.
ADDISON "ATT" McCOY b: Jul 1855 in Virginia or Kentucky. He married ELIZABETH ESTEP on 8 Dec 1877 in Pike County.
NATHANIEL McCOY b: ABT 1856 in Kentucky. He died on 6 Jun 1858 in Pike, Kentucky.
ELIZABETH McCOY b: 26 May 1858 in Pike Co., Kentucky. Married Joseph Estep on 13 Jul 1876 in Pike County, Kentucky.
PRICY McCOY b: ABT 1860 in Kentucky. She married Joe Simpkins, then Anderson Jude, then another Simpkins.
PHOEBE McCOY b: ABT 1862 in Kentucky. She married John Rhiburn McCoy (b. 1858), son of Pharmer McCoy and HIS cousin, Sarah McCoy (b. 1842), on 28 Jun 1880, and they had a daughter, America McCoy (b. 1878).
NATHANIEL McCOY b: ABT 1866 in Kentucky. Married (Unknown) in 1880 and had Elza (b. Feb 1888); then he married Malissa McCoy on 12 Oct 1891 in Pike County, Kentucky, and they had Evaline (b. Nov 1891), Laura Lina (b. Apr 1893), Mary (b. Jul 1894), Ben (b. Feb 1898), Polly (b. Feb 1900), Christoper (b. 1901), Sally (b. 1904), Tina (b. 1905), and Euel (b. 1909). Nathaniel died in 1920.
DANIEL H. McCOY b: ABT 1868 in Kentucky. He died in 1870.
HARRISON McCOY b: ABT 1871 in Pike Co, Kentucky
POLLY McCOY b: ABT 1872. in the 1880 census, she lives with the McCoy family in Peters Creek, Pike, Kentucky. She then married Mitchell Hurley on 27 Aug 1887 in Pike County, Kentucky.
CORDELLA McCOY b: ABT 1874
BETTE (ZETTA?) McCOY b: ABT 1875
MARY F. McCOY b: ABT 1879
Randolph "Old Randall" McCoy, the leader of the feud for the McCoys.
Kentucky was a neutral state during the Civil War, but Benjamin registered for duty in the Union Army on 30 Oct 1863, in Kentucky, at the age of 40. This area of the country was particularly violent, and it was often neighbor against neighbor, and even brother against brother. Those rivalries would linger even after the war, and result in the McCoys fighting in the most famous family feud in American history. Benjamin's first cousin (and brother-in-law), Randolph "Old Ranel" or "Old Randell" McCoy (1839-1921), by way of his uncle Daniel and his sister Sarah helped start the feud that would engulf the entire family until the 1900's.
The Hatfield & McCoy feud took place in the mountain terrain of Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. At the head of the hostilities on the Hatfield side was William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield (1825-1909). He was once described as "6 foot of devil and 180 pounds of hell." On the McCoy side was Randolph, who was known as "Old Randall" McCoy. The McCoys lived on the Kentucky side of the Tug River and the Hatfields lived on the West Virginia side. For several years these families crossed over the river and courted, married and were friends. That is until the Civil War, and that "damnable pig!"
The border battles of neutral state Kentucky and West Virginia began when Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers for the Union Army, asking states to furnish their quotas of regiments. State leaders organized Home Guard Units to keep local law and order. The men of the mountains heard the call and had to ask themselves which side to fight on. Some stayed neutral as Kentucky had voted to do. Some went Confederate and some went Union, like Benjamin. As time went on, the Home Guard Units continued to exist without broad state supervision or restraint, and they became lawless and disorderly bands, bent on murder, robbery, and revenge. They and other more criminal elements became known as Bushwhackers and committed such crime and sin and destruction that the people even now only say, "They caused the most awful times that ever was."
Both families were pre-dominantly Southern sympathizers. All, that is, except for Old Randall's younger brother, Asa Harmon McCoy. Harmon waited two years after the war started to enlist in the Union Army where he served for twelve months. After suffering a broken leg, he was discharged on December 24, 1864. Asa Harmon was then warned by Devil Anse's uncle, Jim Vance, that The Logan Wildcats (Confederate Raiders formed by Devil Anse) would be "visiting him." They shot Harmon to death on January 8, 1865, while he hid in a cave. But since Harmon's military service was considered an act of disloyalty, even his family believed the man had brought his murder on himself. No one was ever brought to trial but it was always felt that Jim Vance was involved.
LEFT TO RIGHT: Sitting ducksHatfield and Vance, who reportedly killed Harmon McCoy to start the feud; The Hatfield clan moves in next door; Old Randall finally at rest in 1914.
Over the next decade there was no retaliation, but grudges were held and dislike grew stronger. Especially when the Hatfield's started moving across the river, into McCoy territory. "Old Ranel" dominated the Kentucky side of the Tug River, putting Pike County on the Kentucky map. "Devil Anse" ruled the West Virginia side of the Tug in the area of Matewan and Mate Creek which was then known as Logan County. Then, in the fall of 1878, Old Randall thought he spotted one of his pigs being stolen by one of his wife's Hatfield relatives, Floyd Hatfield. Old Randall was enraged and demanded Floyd be brought to trial. In the end, the final verdict hinged on the testimony of Old Randall's nephew, Bill Staton. Staton swore it was Floyd Hatfield's pig. The "jury of his peers" for Floyd's trial was made up of six Hatfields and six McCoys. Old Randall would lose the case. It seems one of the McCoy jurors, Selkirk McCoy, had bad feelings for the family and sided with the Hatfields. As a result, the Hatfields were acquitted of the crime with a 7-5 verdict in their favor.
From that date on Bill Staton's fate was sealed. Within a few months Staton was shot to death by Paris and Sam McCoy. The pair was tried for Staton's murder but they were acquitted with a plea of self-defense. It was felt that in order to keep peace between the families, Devil Anse had arranged for the acquittal. Instead of being grateful, the McCoys were enraged that Sam and Paris were tried at all.
In August, 1882, three of Old Randall's sons, Randall, Jr. (Bud), Pharmer and Tolbert, attacked Devil Anse's younger brother, Ellison Hatfield. According to many accounts of the incident, the attack was apparently unprovoked. They stabbed Ellison 26 times and then Pharmer McCoy shot him in the back. The Hatfields ambushed the posse that was taking Pharmer, Tolbert and Bud to jail and held them in a school pending Ellison's recovery or death. Devil Anse had said if his brother lived he would allow Pharmer, Tolbert and Bud to proceed to trial. If Ellison died, he would seek retribution. Ellison lived for 3 days after the attack. After he died, The Hatfields dragged the three McCoy brothers across the Tug River, tied them to paw-paw bushes and shot them to death. Devil Anse was the prime suspect until it was determined that he was ill in bed when the three McCoy brothers were killed.
Soon after this incident, the Hatfields broke into the home of Mary McCoy Daniels and whipped Mary and her daughter with a cow's tail. Even though she was married to a Hatfield relation, they thought she was leaking information to the McCoys. Her brother, Jeff McCoy, tried to seek revenge for the whippings. He was promptly shot to death on the banks of the Tug River.
This feud featured "The American Romeo & Juliet." Old Randall had a daughter named Roseanna. In the spring of 1880, she fell for Devil Anse's son, Johnse Hatfield. At 18, Johnse was already a well-established bootlegger and womanizer. Roseanna slipped off into the bushes with Johnse and the rest is history. Instead of returning home, she went to live at Devil Anse's house. But Johnse refused to marry her, and she went home at the pleading of her mother. Because of her affair with Johnse, she was an outcast in Ol' Randall's house. One night as the lovers lay in each other's arms, Roseanna's brothers surrounded them and took Johnse prisoner. Roseanna borrowed a neighbor's horse and rode bareback, hatless, and coatless to tell Devil Anse. Anse rallied his sons and neighbors and rescued his son. Johnse never reunited, but the damage was already done. She was pregnant. Per Truda McCoy in The McCoy's: Their Story, Roseanna had a daughter, who died as an infant. To add to her shame, Johnse married Roseanna's 16 year old first cousin, Nancy McCoy. She died a few years later, "of a broken heart." PHOTOS, LEFT TO RIGHT: The real Roseanna ( another image ); The real Johnse; The Hollywood versionSamuel Goldwyn's "Roseanna McCoy," starring Farley Granger and Joan Evans (1949). Sample dialogue: "Don't talk with yer knife in yer mouth!" Theme song by Frank Loesser: "Roseanna, Roseanna, the wind sings her name; And all night through, all chilly night through, she sets my heart aflame!"© Copyright 1949 (Renewed) Frank Music Corp.
Sarah McCoy beaten by Hatfields.
It took five years for the case to go to trial, and the Hatfields thought if they eliminated Old Randall McCoy, there wouldn't be anyone to testify and bring them to trial. So on January 1, 1888, the McCoy home was raided by the Hatfields. The raiding party consisted of Johnse Hatfield, Ellison "Cotton Top" Mounts (a suspected illegitimate son of Ellison Hatfield), "Wall" Hatfield, Selkirk McCoy and several other Hatfield sympathizers. They set the McCoy cabin on fire and waited outside with rifles. When the New Year's Day raid was over, Old Randall's son Calvin and daughter Alifair were dead and his wife, Sarah, had been savagely beaten. THE HATFIELDS AND THE McCOYS by Otis K. Rice, 1982, Univ. of KY Press, p. 4; pp. 62-63 describes the slaughter of the McCoy family and the beating of Sarah by the Hatfields on 1 Jan 1888. Sarah begged to be allowed to tend her dying daughter Alifair (pictured at right), and was beaten severely in the head with a gun butt by Johnse Hatfield. Her skull was crushed and her arm and hip broken. She is buried in Dills Cemetery, Pike County, Kentucky. According to the newspaper articles of the time, Sarah's bloody head had been frozen to the ground with her own blood. When help arrived the next morning, Old Randall's daughter Adelaide was found sitting on the floor cradling her dead brother's head in her arms. On the bed was the body of her dead sister, Alifair, and her unconscious mother. The February 16, 1888 article in the Ironton Register stated Adelaide had "gone stark raving mad."
Eight Hatfields were kidnapped and brought to Kentucky to stand trial for the murder of Alifair. Because of issues of due process and illegal extradition, the Supreme Court of the United States became involved. Eventually, the eight men were tried in Kentucky, and all eight were found guilty. Seven received life imprisonment, and the eighth was executed in a public hanging (even though it was prohibited by law), probably as a warning to end the violence. Thousands of spectators attended the hanging in Pikeville, Kentucky. The families finally agreed to disagree in 1891.
McCoy headstone in the Dill Cemetery, Pike County, Kentucky.
"Old Ranel" later in life.
Between 1880 and 1891, the feud claimed more than a dozen members of the two families, becoming headline news around the country and compelling the Governors of both Kentucky and West Virginia to call up the United States National Guard to restore order after the disappearance of dozens of bounty hunters sent to calm the bloodlust.
The Hatfields claimed more lives than the McCoys did by the time order had been restored. According to "The West Virginia Encyclopedia" (which may be a little biased, after all), "Defeated, McCoy moved to Pikeville. From then on, Cline was the effective leader of the McCoy forces in the feud and Ranel McCoy became an embittered old man, running a ferry in Pikeville and talking to anyone who would listen about his sufferings at the hands of the Hatfields. He died while tending a cook fire at the age of 88. He and Sarah McCoy are buried in the Dils Cemetery in Pikeville."
Fortunately, the next McCoy in our lineage survived: Samuel McCoy had died on 28 July 1855, and was buried in the McCoy Cemetery in Stringtown. His will is on record in Pike County (Will Book A, p. 42). So not only did he miss out on the feud and the Civil War, he also missed the birth of a grandson, the next in our line...
Personal Information
SOURCE INFORMATION: Data imaged from National Archives and Records Administration.
Estep
ADDISON "ATT" MCCOY, was born in July of 1855, in Virginia. Att became a farmer and married ELIZABETH "BESTSY" ESTEP, daughter of John Frazier Estep (1812-1896) and Mary Ann Rains (1815-1858), who was born in Pike, Kentucky, on May 8, 1857. John Frazier Estep of Pike County, Kentucky was the son of Sarah Frazier. It is not certain who was his father. In the 1850 census he is John Frazier (his mother's maiden name), but in the later census he is known by John Estep. His adopted name, "Estep," is a name that pops up quite a bit in this genealogy over the 18th and 19th Centuries, marrying into various lines of our family tree. It's a proud family, dating back to the earliest days of the American Colonies.
They were wed on the eighth of December, 1877, in Pike County, Kentucky, right in the middle of the feud.
Fortunately for us, Elizabeth was crazy enough to marry a McCoy in the middle Pike County, Kentucky, at ground zero of the largest feud in American history. (Later Att married Melvina [UNKNOWN] in 1908).
Att and Betsy had the following children:
CHILDREN OF ADDISON McCOY AND ELIZABETH ESTEP
BETTIE McCOY was born in 1877 in Pike, Kentucky. She's in the 1880 census, then no further record.
VANDORA McCOY was born 31 Oct 1879. Married Samuel McCoy (Nov 1854 - 1941), son of Samuel and Benina Phillips-McCoy, on 2 May 1897, and they had: Leander Lee (b. 20 Feb 1898); Nancy Eizabeth "Nina" (b. 20 Dec 1898); George (1 Dec 1899 - 1944); Hobert (b. 9 Nov 1900); James (1 Feb 1904 - Aug 1904); Amanda (12 Jun 1906 - 21 Mar 1974); Lark (b. 23 Mar 1909); William Wilson (10 Apr 1910 - Jan 1974) and Surrilda (10 Feb 1919 - 1919). Vandora died in 1919 in Coffeyville, Montgomery, Kansas.
PERRY McCOY was born in Pike, KY 25 Nov 1881, and is in the 1900 census, age 18. No further record.
MARY McCOY was born in Pike, KY 24 Feb 1883. She died before 1895, when the McCoys had another daughter whom they named Mary.
SALSBERRY McCOY was born 15 Mar 1884. He married AMERICA "AMMIE" McCOY (b. 1890) in 1907 and they had Perry (b. 1908); Dorathy (b. abt. 1912); John (b. abt. 1914); Eddy (b. abt. 1916); and William (b. abt. 1918).
ROSETTA McCOY was born in Pike, KY ca 1884. She married ELIAS DOTSON (1874 - 8 May 1959) on 7 May 1903 ln Pike, Kentucky, and they had: Pricy (18 Feb 1901 - 19 Feb 1989); Myrtle (b. abt 1903); John (b. abt 1905); Mary (b. abt 1907); Sallie (b. abt 1908); and Lallie Dotson, (b. abt 1909).
NANCY McCOY was born in Pike, Kentucky, on 6 May 1886. She married WILLIE DOTSON (18 May 1884 - 29 Dec 1966). Family listed below. Nancy died on 31 Aug 1960 in Pike, Kentucky.
JOSEPH FRANK McCOY was born in Pike, Kentucky, on 25 Dec 1888. He married an unknown person bef 1912.
POLLY McCOY was born 30 May 1891. She married WILBURN "WILLIE" WOLFORD (7 Feb 1884 - 12 Dec 1963) on 27 Mar 1909 in Pike, Kentucky. He was the grandson of DANIEL BOONE WOLFORD and SARAH SALLY DOTSON , through their son, DANIEL WOLFORD (1863 - 1932) and NANCY HURLEY (b. 1867). They had: Robert (21 Feb 1911 - 17 Aug 1984); Nancy (12 Jul 1912 - 24 May 1986); and Omar (26 Oct 1917 - 1972). Polly died on 7 Jun 1972 in Freeburn, Pike, Kentucky.
MARY McCOY was born in Feb 1895 in Pike, Kentucky. No further record.
CORA McCOY was born in Pike, KY Jan 1897. She's in the 1900 census, then no further record.
View blank 1900 census form
SOURCE: 1900 US Census data; National Archives and Records Administration. Washington, DC. Magisterial District 5, Pike, Kentucky; Roll: T623 548; Page: 6A; Enumeration District: 83. Addison passed away after 1900 but before 1917, and Elizabeth spent her last days as a widow living in Columbus, Ohio (according to a R.L. Polk and Co.'s 1917 Columbus, Ohio, City Directory ).
Their daughter, NANCY McCOY, was born in May of 1886, attended school into her teens (three months of schooling are reported in the 1900 census). She married WILLIE DOTSON , an extremely colorful character. He never learned to read or write, according to the census, but he was a pretty slick operator. They became moonshinershiding the 'shine under their fence posts (so the revenuers wouldn't find it) and delivering it together by riding horses around the mountains. It sounds unseemly, but bootlegging was one of the few ways a farmer could still make a living in the area.
Willie and Nancy had the following children:
CHILDREN OF WILLIE DOTSON AND NANCY McCOY
GREEN J. DOTSON was born 23 Feb 1921. He died mysteriously sometime around 21 Dec 1957
DREWY DOTSON was born on 14 Nov 1908. He died on 25 Jan 1989 in Freeburn, Pike County, Kentucky.
CHARLEY DOTSON was born in 1917
WALTER DOTSON was born on 4 Aug 1917
ROY DOTSON was born on 11 Nov 1911 in Pike County, Kentucky. He died in Mar 1978 in Phelps, Pike, Kentucky.
BRADY DOTSON
JAMES DOTSON was born on 14 Feb 1915 in Pike, Kentucky, but died before 1920.
HOMER DOTSON was born in 1915
HARRISON DOTSON was born on 28 Jan 1905 in Pike County, Kentucky. He died on 9 June 1972 in Phelps, Pike, Kentucky.
LOUISA "ELSIE" DOTSON was born on 8 Feb 1907 in Pike County, Kentucky.
ONA DOTSON was born in 1919
In 2003, a symbolic peace treaty was signed by 60 descendants from the McCoys and Hatfields, 138 years after the feud began. But the feud really ended in 1979, when descendants appeared on the TV game show Family Feud and vied for thousands of dollars in cash and prizes including, of course, a pig.
GENEALOGY
JOHN McCOY (1690 - 1762) married (Unknown) MARTIN and begat...
ARCHIBALD McCOY (1732 - 1810), who married ELIZABETH BLAIR (b: Abt 1734) and begat...
WILLIAM McCOY (@ 1750 - 1822), who married CORDELLA CAMPBELL and begat...
SAMUEL McCOY (1782 - 1855), who married ELIZABETH DAVIS and begat...
BENJAMIN McCOY (b. 1820), who married NANCY ROBINETTE and begat...
ADDISON "ATT" McCOY (b. 1855), who married ELIZABETH ESTEP and begat...
NANCY McCOY (1887-1960), who married WILLIE DOTSON (b. 1884) and begat...
GREEN JR. DOTSON (1921-1957), who married JACQULENE BALDRIDGE (1926-2003) and begat...
TERRY LEE DOTSON (b. 12 May 1950), who married CYNTHIA ANN PALMER (b. 03 Jan 1951) and begat...
LORI ANN DOTSON (b. 07 Oct 1973), who married JEFFREY HAUSE (b. 07 Jun 1961).
SOURCES:
"The McCoys: Their Story," by Truda Williams McCoy. Preservation Council Press of Pike County, Inc. Pikeville, Kentucky. 1976.
"The real McCoy genealogy reference book: The Descendants of Archibald McCoy and Old William McCoy the Feuding McCoy's and Oh, those Famous Ancestors, "notes" and much, much more" by Donald Lee Blankenship; Published by Donald Lee Blankenship, Sr; First edition (2001). 1496 pages.
Barry McCoy and the great people on " The Hatfield McCoy Jury " group on Facebook.
Rod Hatfield ([email protected]), who alerted me to incorrect information on his family, and Jerry Hatfield's heavily-researched family tree data on the WV and KY Hatfields .
"Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, 1775-1783" by the Archives of Maryland; Publication: Clearfield Company by Genealogical publishing 1996. Page: 139: Lists Musters of Maryland Troops Vol I: William McCoy, Private, Enlisted 30 April 1778 Discharged 16 Aug 1780, Prisioner.
The McCoys, reborn.
UPDATE: Hatfields & McCoys, a massive three-part, six-hour dramatic miniseries, premiered on the History Channel over the nights of May 28-30, 2012, to monster ratings. The series, with the tagline, "NEVER FORGIVE. NEVER FORGET", starred actors Kevin Costner (as Devil Anse) and Bill Paxton (as Old Ranel), and was produced by Thinkfactory Media, with Leslie Greif executive producing, and Costner, Darrell Fetty and Herb Nanas producing.
Hatfields & McCoys, quote, "tells the true American story of a legendary family feud that spanned decades and nearly launched a war between Kentucky and West Virginia," according to publicity material, and recieved generally favorable reviews: "Directed by Kevin Reynolds and written by Ted Mann and Ronald Parker, Hatfields & McCoys is a star-studded, gorgeously produced and astonishingly nuanced look at America's most famous family feud," said critic Mary McNamara in the Los Angeles Times. But Tim Goodman of the Hollywood Reporter griped, "Hatfields & McCoys is less dark and dramatically difficult than it is pointlessly trying to tell each side of the story and ultimately making the case for neither. Hatfield vs. McCoy vs. Hatfield vs. McCoy vs. Hatfield vs. McCoy ad nauseam isn't dramatic. It's tedious. Somewhere around the three-hour mark, all you want to do is have both families line up opposite each other, pull the trigger and fade to black." David Hinkley of the New York Daily News said, "producer/star Kevin Costner and his team have done well. Hatfields & McCoys doesn't just explain a feud, it humanizes the people on both sides and reminds us how differently some of our ancestors lived just a few generations back."
Historians also weighed in. Altina Waller, professor emerita at the University of Connecticut, and the author of Feud: Hatfields, McCoys and Social Change in Appalachia, 1860-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), said: "The film perpetuates the myth that the Hatfields and McCoys were two different entities, very clearly defined. In reality, there was a LOT of intermarriageRoseanna and Johnse were not unusual in that regard." As to the performances, she said: "Paxton, although portrayed as younger than he actually was at the time of the feud, is good at showing his obsession with Devil Anse and the irrationality he had in regard to the pig incident and his daughter's affair with Johnse. Roseanna is well portrayed although she was a stronger person than you might think. In fact, she made the decision to leave Johnse when she discovered his affairs with other women and Johnse was certainly not a devoted or faithful lover/spouse."¹
Mare Winningham drew critical praise for her portrayal of Lori Ann Dotson's 3rd great grand aunt, Sarah "Sally" McCoy.
One thing that everybody could agree on was that the miniseries was wildly popular. The premiere episode drew a staggering 13.9 million total viewers (it showed twice that night and combined, the two airings had 17 million viewers). "With all the success we have had at History, we felt strongly for some time that we should own historical drama, and in true History fashion, we have done it, withpardon the punguns ablazin," said History's president and general manger Nancy Dubuc. While the show was criticized by some critics for being so relentlessly violent, Dubuc disagreed. "It's a gruesome story and it's easy on the surface to judge it as a violent western," Dubuc said. "But it has these very emotional threads about love and protection of family, losing your children, which are very relatable."²
Night three of the miniseries was the highest-rated of all, with 14.3 million total viewers (6.3 million adults 25-54 and 5.1 million adults 18-49), making it the most-watched entertainment telecast of all time on ad-supported cable (breaking the record previously held by... night one of the same miniseries). Overall, over the three nights it premiered, Hatfields & McCoys averaged 13.8 total viewerspresumably split evenly between 6.9 million Hatfields and 6.9 million McCoys.
NOTES ON THIS PAGE:
¹How Realistic is 'Hatfields and McCoys'? by Christopher John Farley, Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2012
²'Hatfields & McCoys' is a History-changing success, By T. L. Stanley, Special to the Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2012.
Sorry, moonshiners, this is the official beverage of the annual Hatfield/McCoy reunion in Pike County, Kentucky. (Click here for another view.)
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Before scattering itself over Western Australia, May 14, 1973 saw the US launch what first ever space station, which orbited the earth for 6 years, even though it was only visited 3 times? | Skylab Space Station
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Skylab was the first US space station and the world’s first big space station. It was launched on May 14th, 1973 by a Saturn V Rocket. Skylab Space Station was assembled from Saturn V and Apollo components. Skylab’s purpose was to serve as a laborarory for scientific experiments in space until February 1974.
An Apollo Spacecraft was used to transport the crew to Skylab and to return them to the Earth’s surface. It was a launched on a Saturn 1B rocket.
Skylab was used to study:
– the Sun.
– microgravity research
– learn more about Earth.
– to test the effects of long-duration space flights and to see how the human body reacts in space
– to helped us learn to live and work in space.
– to conduct a variety of scientific and technological experiments, such as metallic-crystal growth in the weightless state.
– and function as a laboratory in earth orbit.
Skylab Specifications:
Structure Weight: 91 metric ton (100-ton)
Height: 36 metres (118 feet)
Diamater: 6.7 metres (22 feet)
Altitude of Orbit: 435km (270 miles)
Orbital Mass: 77,088kg
Habitable Volume: 283 cubic metres (10,000 cubic feet)
Skylab Space Station was a modified third stage of a Saturn V moon rocket. Skylab was actually the refitted S-IVB second stage of a Saturn IB booster (from the AS-212 vehicle), a leftover from the Apollo program originally intended for one of the canceled Apollo earth orbital missions. A product of the Apollo Applications program (a program tasked with finding long-term uses for Apollo program hardware).
Skylab consisted of five parts:
Orbital Workshop was the living and working area for the crew.
Airlock Module was used by the Astronauts to access the outside of Skylab for spacewalks.
Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) was attached to one end of the cylindrical workshop. It was used to study our sun, stars and earth with no atmospheric interference.
Multiple Docking Adapter allowed more than one Apollo spacecraft to dock to the station at once.
The Saturn Instrument Unit (IU) was used by NASA teams in Huntsville to reprogram the space station using a massive ring of computers. The unit was used to guide Skylab itself into orbit. IU also controlled the jettisoning of the protective payload shroud and activated the onboard life support systems, started the solar inertial attitude maneuver, deployed the Apollo Telescope mount at a 90-degree angle and deployed Skylab’s solar wings.
SKYLAB FLIGHTS
Skylab orbited Earth 2,476 times during the 171 days and 13 hours of its occupation during the three manned Skylab missions. Astronauts performed ten spacewalks totalling 42 hours 16 minutes.
Skylab 1 – May 14, 1973 Unmanned
A two-stage version of the Saturn V rocket launched Skylab to orbit on May 14, 1973 from the NASA Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
During the launch, the station was damaged. A critical meteoroid shield and one of the station’s two main solar panels were ripped off and the other solar panel was not fully stretched out. That meant that Skylab had little electrical power and the internal temperature rose to 126 degrees Fahrenheit (52 degrees Celsius).
Originally it was planned that a crew would be launched from Earth the next day to inhabit the space station. Sixty-three seconds after liftoff, however, a critical meteoroid shield ripped off, taking one of the craft’s two solar panels with it and preventing the other from deploying properly. Ground command maneuvered Skylab so its solar panels faced the Sun to provide as much electricity as possible. But because the meteoroid shield was gone (which also operated as a sun shield), temperatures inside the workshop rose to 126˚F (52˚C). The launch of Skylab 2 (the first crew to inhabit the space station) was postponed for 10 days while scientists, engineers, astronauts and management personnel at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and elsewhere developed procedures and trained the crew to make the workshop habitable. At the same time, engineers “rolled” Skylab to lower the temperature of the workshop.
Almost immediately, technical problems developed due to vibrations during lift-off. A critical meteoroid shield ripped off taking one of the craft’s two solar panels with it; a piece of the shield wrapped around the other panel keeping it from deploying. Skylab was maneuvered so its Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) solar panels faced the Sun to provide as much electricity as possible. Because of the loss of the meteoroid shield, however, this positioning caused workshop temperatures to rise to 52 degrees Celsius (126 degrees F). The launch of Skylab 2 was postponed while NASA engineers, in an intensive 10-day period, developed procedures and trained the crew to make the workshop habitable. At the same time, engineers “rolled” Skylab to lower the temperature of the workshop.
On the first launch, part of Skylab fell off. It tore one solar panel. It wrapped around the other panel so it could not open. The crew was supposed to go up the next day. They had to wait until a way to solve these problems was found. They flew to Skylab 11 days later. The first thing they had to do was fix the problems.
Skylab 2
Skylab 2 was launched on May 25, 1973 and landed on June 22, 1973. The mission duration was 28 days, 50 minutes. This was the first manned mission to Skylab. They orbited the Earth 404 times, completed 392 experiment hours, and carried out three spacewalks totalling six hours, 20 minutes.
The first Skylab crew were:
– Charles C. Conrad Jr.
– Paul J. Weitz
– Joseph P. Kerwin
The first task was to make repairs. These included positioning of a parasol sunshade that cooled the inside temperatures to a more comfortable 75˚F (23.8˚C). By June 4, 10 days after launch, the workshop was fully operational, and the crew began to conduct solar astronomy and Earth resources experiments, medical studies, and student experiments. In the period up to June 22, when the crew left for home.
Skylab was damaged during launch on May 25, 1973, but the crew, veteran astronaut Conrad (Commander), Joseph P. Kerwin, and Paul J. Weitz, all of the navy, carried out EVA repairs, erected a heat-shielding canopy over the exterior of the spacecraft and freed a jammed solar panel. Their flight lasted 28 days.
INSTALLED SOLAR SHIELD “PARASOL” FROM SCIENTIFIC AIRLOCK RELEASED SOLAR ARRAY WING ON EVA DOUBLED PREVIOUS LENGTH OF TIME IN SPACE
The first crew was launched 10 days later to fix the ailing station. The astronauts stretched out the remaining solar panel and set up an umbrella-like sunshade to cool the station.
Joe Kerwin was on the first Skylab crew. He said that the first 2 weeks on the station were very hard. They did not have enough power to run things. They didn’t even have enough power to make coffee! The crew had to change their plans until everything was fixed. Once the power was running, the crew could start the real work on Skylab.
Skylab 3
Skylab 3 was launched on July 28, 1973 and landed on September 25, 1973. This was the second Skyab maned mission. The mission duration was 59 days, 11 hours. The crew completed 858 Earth orbits and 1,081 hours of solar and Earth experiments and carried out three spacewalks totalling 13 hours, 43 minutes.
The second crew were:
– Jack R. Lousma
– Owen K. Garriott
After an early bout of motion sickness, they continued the work of the previous crew. Garriott and Lousma deployed a second sun shield during a spacewalk that lasted six and a half hours.
The second crew also had a problem. On the way up, Jack Lousma looked out the window. He thought he saw a nozzle floating by. It wasn’t. It was a piece of ice. That ice showed there was a problem. There was a leak in the engine. Once the crew was on the station, another engine started leaking. People on the ground were afraid that the crew might not be able to come home. A rescue mission was planned. Two astronauts would fly to Skylab to bring the crew back home. But, they didn’t have to go. The capsule that took the crew to Skylab was able to bring them home safely.
Installed twinpole solar shield durng space walk, performed major inflight maintenace, doubled prvious length of time in space.
Skylab 4
Skylab 4 was lauched on November 16, 1973 and landed on February 8, 1974. This was the final mamed mission to Skylab. The mission duration was 84 days, 1 hour. At 84 days and 1 hour, Skylab 4 remains the longest U.S. spaceflight to date. The crew completed 1,214 Earth orbits and four spacewalks totalling 22 hours, 13 minutes. Increased previous length in space by 50%.
The last skylab crew were:
– Gerald P. Carr
– William R. Pogue
– Edward G. Gibson
The crew used a treadmill in addition to the on-board bicycle-like ergometer to help stay in shape. The last of the Skylab missions, its experiments. They observed and photgraphed Comet Kohoutek.
The Skylab project was considered completely successful. More than 740 hr were spent in observing the sun by telescopes, and 175,000 solar pictures were returned to earth, as were about 64 km (about 40 mi) of electronic data tape and 46,000 photographs of the earth’s surface. On July 11, 1979, during its 34,981st orbit, Skylab plunged to earth, raining fiery debris over sparsely populated western Australia and over the Indian Ocean.
during the three manned Skylab missions.
When the flight of the third crew was finished, Skylab was abandoned. Skylab remained aloft until intense solar flare activity caused its orbit to decay sooner than expected. Skylab re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and burned over Australia in 1979.
Following the last mission the Station was positioned in a parking orbit expected to last at least 8 years. Increased solar activity heating the outer layers of the earth’s atmosphere and thereby increasing drag on the Station led to an early reentry on July 11, 1979. Skylab disintegrated over Western Australia and the Indian Ocean, casting large pieces of debris in populated areas (fortunately, the only casualty being an Australian cow). The reentry prevented any further use by the then unfinished Space Shuttle as was envisioned by some at NASA.
After all crew activities had been completed and the crews had returned to Earth, Skylab was positioned into a stable attitude and systems were shut down. It was expected that Skylab would remain in orbit for eight to ten years. However, in the fall of 1977, Skylab was no longer flying in a stable attitude as a result of greater than predicted solar activity. On July 11, 1979, the empty Skylab spacecraft returned to Earth, scattering debris from the south-eastern Indian Ocean across a sparsely settled region of western Australia. NASA and the U.S. space program were criticized for allowing this to happen-ranging from the sale of hardhats as “Skylab Survival Kits” to serious questions about the propriety of space flight altogether if people were likely to be killed by falling debris. It was an inauspicious ending to the first American space station, not one that its originators had envisioned. Nevertheless, the experiment had whetted the appetite of NASA leaders for a permanent presence in space
On the 11th July, 1979, Skylab re-entered the Earth’s atmoshpere and scattered debris over the Indian Ocean and the sparsely settled region of Western Australia.
Conclusion
Three crews visited Skylab. Each of the Skylab crews set new time records. The last crew set a record that was not broken for over 20 years.
Did you know?
* Two flight-quality Skylabs were built. The second (backup) is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, USA.
* Skylab was launched in one launch and required no assembly. The International Space Station (ISS) will take many years to put together in orbit.
* Skylab was the first and only United States Space Station to date. The ISS involves many countries.
A POST-APOLLO PROGRAM
In 1969 a Space Task Group recommended to President Richard Nixon a space program to follow the missions to the Moon. The plan included a permanently occupied space station, a reusable shuttle spacecraft, and eventual missions to Mars. But because of increasing budget pressures these ideas received little political or public support. Only the Space Shuttle won favor and funding, and even that decision was controversial.
When the last two Apollo missions were cancelled, NASA used some of the remaining Apollo hardware for an experimental space station, Skylab, as an interim program before the Shuttle was ready to fly.
Although the STS-107 spiders were the first Australian animals in space, they weren’t the first spiders in space. Anita and Arabella, two female cross spiders (Araneus diadematus) went into orbit in 1973 for Skylab 3 space station. Like the STS-107 experiment, the Skylab experiment was a student project. Judy Miles, from Lexington, Massachusetts, wanted to know if spiders could spin webs in near-weightlessness. Here is Judith Miles:
In zero gravity, a lot of things tumble, roll, flip and tip. Can you name something that spins in zero-gravity? Hint: it has eight legs and would scare Miss Muffet.
That’s right: a spider. In this case, two of them. Anita and Arabella took off into space way back in 1973. They were on board Skylab, an early, experimental orbiting space station. Also on board were 720 fruit flies, six mice, two minnows and 50 minnow eggs! Busy place.
What was this creature-zoo up to? They were all part of student experiments. Anita and Arabella were onboard for high school student Judy Miles from Lexington, Massachusetts. Judy wondered if spiders could spin webs in weightlessness. Good question.
So, the lucky student got to team up with NASA space scientists to design an experiment that would measure how well spiders weave their webs in space.
So what did Judy and NASA learn? Zero gravity didn’t stop Anita and Arabella from doing what spiders do — spin webs.
This little bit of
first spider in space
Spiders have been astronauts in space missions. In 1973, the two common cross spiders “aranous diadematus” Arabella and Anita became famous for their stay in the Skylab space station.
Both spiders were successful in spinning webs in weightlessness; examples can be seen in above images.
Unfortunately, these two spiders did not return safely: Anita died in-flight before returning, and Arabella was found dead after splash-down of the Skylab-3 (2nd manned mission) Apollo CM.
Arabella and Anita have the right stuff. These two common spiders were NASA’s first eight-legged astronauts! Anita and Arabella got their mission because a high-school student named Judy Miles wondered if spiders could spin webs in a weightless environment. She suggested sending spiders into space to find out. NASA space scientists liked her proposal and went to work designing special cages, lights, and cameras.
On August 5, 1973, Arabella and Anita blasted off into space on Skylab II. On her first day in orbit, Arabella didn’t do well. She spun sloppy webs and obviously felt the effects of weightlessness. However, by her third day in space, she was spinning just as though she were back at home. Her webs were finer in space, which was expected. But the pattern remained the same. She proved that spiders can spin nearly Earth-like webs in space.
Though Arabella and Anita have both died, their bodies remain at the Smithsonian, memorialized for their small, vital part in increasing our knowledge of space.
Skylab Links:
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Which controversial politician of the 1950s earned the nickname Tail-gunner Joe, from his service during WWII? | lidiasanchez238
lidiasanchez238
8.3 Environment.
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US) for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, the Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national security and symbolic of technological and ideological superiority. The Space Race involved pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, sub-orbital and orbital human spaceflight around the Earth, and piloted voyages to the Moon. It effectively began with the Soviet launch of the Sputnik 1 artificial satellite on 4 October 1957, and concluded with the co-operative Apollo-Soyuz Test Project human spaceflight mission in July 1975. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project came to symbolize détente, a partial easing of strained relations between the USSR and the US.
The Space Race had its origins in the missile-based arms race that occurred just after the end of the World War II, when both the Soviet Union and the United States captured advanced German rocket technology and personnel.
The Space Race sparked unprecedented increases in spending on education and pure research, which accelerated scientific advancements and led to beneficial spin-off technologies. An unforeseen effect was that the Space Race contributed to the birth of the environmental movement; the first color pictures of Earth taken from deep space were used as icons by the movement to imply that the planet was a fragile "blue marble" surrounded by the blackness of space.
Some famous probes and missions include Sputnik 1, Explorer 1, Vostok 1, Mariner 2, Ranger 7, Luna 9, Alouette 1, Apollo 8, and Apollo 11.
Origins of the space race:
World War II:
The Space Race can trace its origins to Germany, beginning in the 1930s and continuing during World War II when Nazi Germany researched and built operational ballistic missiles. Starting in the early 1930s, during the last stages of the Weimar Republic, German aerospace engineers experimented with liquid-fueled rockets, with the goal that one day they would be capable of reaching high altitudes and traversing long distances.The head of the German Army's Ballistics and Munitions Branch, Lieutenant Colonel Karl Emil Becker, gathered a small team of engineers that included Walter Dornberger and Leo Zanssen, to figure out how to use rockets as long-range artillery in order to get around the Treaty of Versailles' ban on research and development of long-range cannons. Wernher von Braun, a young engineering prodigy, was recruited by Becker and Dornberger to join their secret army program at Kummersdorf-West in 1932. Von Braun had romantic dreams about conquering outer space with rockets, and did not initially see the military value in missile technology.
During the Second World War, General Dornberger was the military head of the army's rocket program, Zanssen became the commandant of the Peenemünde army rocket centre, and von Braun was the technical director of the ballistic missile program.They would lead the team that built the Aggregate-4 (A-4) rocket, which became the first vehicle to reach outer space during its test flight program in 1942 and 1943.By 1943, Germany began mass-producing the A-4 as the Vergeltungswaffe 2 (“Vengeance Weapon” 2, or more commonly, V2), a ballistic missile with a 320 kilometres (200 mi) range carrying a 1,130 kilograms (2,490 lb) warhead at 4,000 kilometres per hour (2,500 mph).Its supersonic speed meant there was no defense against it, and radar detection provided little warning.Germany used the weapon to bombard southern England and parts of Allied-liberated western Europe from 1944 until 1945.After the war, the V-2 became the basis of early American and Soviet rocket designs.
At war’s end, American, British, and Soviet scientific intelligence teams competed to capture Germany's rocket engineers along with the German rockets themselves and the designs on which they were based. Each of the Allies captured a share of the available members of the German rocket team, but the United States benefited the most with Operation Paperclip, recruiting von Braun and most of his engineering team, who later helped develop the American missile and space exploration programs. The United States also acquired a large number of complete V2 rockets.
Cold War arms.
The Cold War (1947–1991) developed between two former allies, the Soviet Union and the United States, soon after the end of the Second World War. It involved a continuing state of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition, primarily between the Soviet Union and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, particularly the United States. Although the primary participants' military forces never clashed directly, they expressed this conflict through military coalitions, strategic conventional force deployments, extensive aid to states deemed vulnerable, proxy wars, espionage, propaganda, a nuclear arms race, and economic and technological competitions, such as the Space Race.
In simple terms, the Cold War can be viewed as an expression of the ideological struggle between communism and capitalism. The United States faced a new uncertainty beginning in September 1949, when it lost its monopoly on the atomic bomb. American intelligence agencies discovered that the Soviet Union had exploded its first atomic bomb, with the consequence that the United States potentially could face a future nuclear war that, for the first time, might devastate its cities.Given this new danger, the United States participated in an arms race with the Soviet Union that included development of the hydrogen bomb, as well as intercontinental strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of delivering nuclear weapons. A new fear of communism and its sympathizers swept the United States during the 1950s, which devolved into paranoid McCarthyism. With communism spreading in China, Korea, and Eastern Europe, Americans came to feel so threatened that popular and political culture condoned extensive "witch-hunts" to expose communist spies. Part of the American reaction to the Soviet atomic and hydrogen bomb tests included maintaining a large Air Force, under the control of the Strategic Air Command (SAC). SAC employed intercontinental strategic bombers, as well as medium-bombers based close to Soviet airspace (in western Europe and in Turkey) that were capable of delivering nuclear payloads.
For its part, the Soviet Union harbored fears of invasion. Having suffered at least 27 million casualties during World War II after being invaded by Nazi Germany in 1941, the Soviet Union was wary of its former ally, the United States, which until late 1949 was the sole possessor of atomic weapons. The United States had used these weapons operationally during World War II, and it could use them again against the Soviet Union, laying waste its cities and military centers. Since the Americans had a much larger air force than the Soviet Union, and the United States maintained advance air bases near Soviet territory, in 1947 Stalin ordered the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in order to counter the perceived American threat.
In 1953, Korolev was given the go-ahead to develop the R-7 Semyorka rocket, which represented a major advance from the German design. Although some of its components (notably boosters) still resembled the German G-4, the new rocket incorporated staged design, a completely new control system, and a new fuel. It was successfully tested on 21 August 1957 and became the world's first fully operational ICBM the following month.It would later be used to launch the first satellite into space, and derivatives would launch all piloted Soviet spacecraft.
The United States had multiple rocket programs divided among the different branches of the American armed services, which meant that each force developed its own ICBM program. The Air Force initiated ICBM research in 1945 with the MX-774.However, its funding was cancelled and only three partially successful launches were conducted in 1947. In 1951, the Air Force began a new ICBM program called MX-1593, and by 1955 this program was receiving top-priority funding.The MX-1593 program evolved to become the Atlas-A, with its maiden launch occurring on 11 June 1957, becoming the first successful American ICBM. Its upgraded version, the Atlas-D rocket, would later serve as an operational nuclear ICBM and be used as the orbital launch vehicle for Project Mercury and the remote-controlled Agena Target Vehicle used in Project Gemini.
With the Cold War as an engine for change in the ideological competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, a coherent space policy began to take shape in the United States during the late 1950s. Korolev would take much inspiration from the competition as well, achieving many firsts to counter the possibility that the United States might prevail.
Early Space Race: 1950s
Beginnings.
In 1955, with both the United States and the Soviet Union building ballistic missiles that could be utilized to launch objects into space, the "starting line" was drawn for the Space Race.In separate announcements, just four days apart, both nations publicly announced that they would launch artificial Earth satellites by 1957 or 1958. On 29 July 1955, James C. Hagerty, president Dwight D. Eisenhower's press secretary, announced that the United States intended to launch "small Earth circling satellites" between 1 July 1957 and 31 December 1958 as part of their contribution to the International Geophysical Year (IGY). Four days later, at the Sixth Congress of International Astronautical Federation in Copenhagen, scientist Leonid I. Sedov spoke to international reporters at the Soviet embassy, and announced his country's intention to launch a satellite as well, in the "near future". On 30 August 1955, Korolev managed to get the Soviet Academy of Sciences to create a commission whose purpose was to beat the Americans into Earth orbit: this was the defacto start date for the Space Race.
Initially, President Eisenhower was worried that a satellite passing above a nation at over 100 kilometres (62 mi), might be construed as violating that nation's sovereign airspace. He was concerned that the Soviet Union would accuse the Americans of an illegal overflight, thereby scoring a propaganda victory at his expense. Eisenhower and his advisors believed that a nation's airspace sovereignty did not extend into outer space, acknowledged as the Kármán line, and he used the 1957–58 International Geophysical Year launches to establish this principle in international law. Eisenhower also feared that he might cause an international incident and be called a "Warmonger" if he were to use military missiles as launchers. Therefore he selected the untried Naval Research Laboratory's Vanguard rocket, which was a research-only booster. This meant that von Braun's team was not allowed to put a satellite into orbit with their Jupiter-C rocket, because of its intended use as a future military vehicle. On 20 September 1956, von Braun and his team did launch a Jupiter-C that was capable of putting a satellite into orbit, however the launch was used only as a suborbital test of nose cone reentry technology. Had von Braun's team been allowed to orbit a satellite in 1956, the Space Race might have been over before it gained sufficient momentum to yield real benefits.
First artificial satellites:
Korolev received word about von Braun's 1956 Jupiter-C test, but thinking it was a satellite mission that failed, he expedited plans to get his own satellite in orbit. Since his R-7 was substantially more powerful than any of the American boosters, he made sure to take full advantage of this capability by designing Object D as his primary satellite. It was given the designation 'D', to distinguish it from other R-7 payload designations 'A', 'B', 'G', and 'V' which were nuclear weapon payloads.Object D would dwarf the proposed American satellites, by having a weight of 1,400 kilograms (3,100 lb), of which 300 kilograms (660 lb) would be composed of scientific instruments that would photograph the Earth, take readings on radiation levels, and check on the planet's magnetic field. However, things were not going along well with the design and manufacturing of the satellite, so in February 1957, Korolev sought and received permission from the USSR Council of Ministers to create a prosteishy sputnik (PS-1), or simple satellite. The Council also decreed that Object D be postponed until April 1958. The new sputnik was a shiny spherical ball that would be a much lighter craft, weighing 83.8 kilograms (185 lb) and having a 58-centimetre (23 in) diameter. The satellite would not contain the complex instrumentation that Object D had, but it did have two radio transmitters operating on different short wave radio frequencies, the ability to detect if a meteoroid were to penetrate its pressure hull, and the ability to detect the density of the Earth's thermosphere.
Korolev was buoyed by the first successful launches of his R-7 rocket in August and September, paving the way for him to launch his sputnik. Word came that the Americans were planning to announce a major breakthrough at an International Geophysical Year conference at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington D.C., with a paper entitled "Satellite Over the Planet", on 6 October 1957. Korolev's fear was that von Braun might launch a Jupiter-C with a satellite payload, on, or around, the fourth or fifth of October, in conjunction with the paper. The fear of being beaten made him hasten the launch, moving it to the fourth of October.The launch vehicle for PS-1, was a modified R-7 – vehicle 8K71PS number M1-PS– without much of the test equipment and radio gear that was present in the previous launches. It arrived at the Soviet missile base Tyura-Tam in September and was prepared for its mission at launch site number one. On Friday, 4 October 1957, at exactly 10:28:34 pm Moscow time, the R-7, with the now named Sputnik 1 satellite, lifted off the launch pad, and placed this artificial "moon" into an orbit a few minutes later.This “fellow traveler,” as the name is translated in English, was a small, beeping ball, less than two feet in diameter and weighing less than 200 pounds. But the celebrations were muted at the launch control centre until the down-range far east tracking station at Kamchatka received the first distinctive beep...beep...beep sounds from Sputnik 1's radio transmitters, indicating that it was on its way to completing its first orbit.About 95 minutes after launch, the satellite flew over its launch site, and its radio signals were picked up by the engineers and military personnel at Tyura-Tam: that's when Korolev and his team celebrated the first successful artificial satellite placed into Earth-orbit.
Replica of Sputnik 1.
The Soviet success caused public controversy in the United States, and Eisenhower ordered the civilian rocket and satellite project, Vanguard, to move up its timetable and launch its satellite much sooner than originally planned. The 6 December 1957 Project Vanguard launch failure occurred at Cape Canaveral in front of a live broadcast television audience (it was the first live countdown broadcast nationally) in the United States. It was a monumental failure, exploding a few seconds after launch, and it became an international joke. The satellite appeared in newspapers under the names Flopnik, Stayputnik, Kaputnik,and Dudnik.In the United Nations, the Russian delegate offered the U.S. representative aid “under the Soviet program of technical assistance to backwards nations.”Only in the wake of this very public failure did von Braun's Redstone team get the go-ahead to launch their Jupiter-C rocket as soon as they could.
Nearly four months after the launch of Sputnik 1, von Braun and the United States successfully launched its first satellite, on a modified Redstone booster, under the "civilian" name Juno 1 to differentiate it from the army's Redstone missile. Explorer 1 was the first successful American satellite. It was launched at Cape Kennedy in Florida (known as Cape Canaveral at the time) on January 31, 1958. It was 4,8 kg in mass and was launched on a four stage Juno 1 vehicle. It carried a micrometeorite gauge and a Geiger-Müller tube. It passed in and out of the Earth-encompassing radiation belt with its 360 km by 2534 km orbit therefore saturating the tube’s capacity and proving what Dr. James Van Allen, a space scientist at the University of Iowa, had previously only theorized. It not only confirmed his theory, but also brought him to fame. Said radiation belt is actually now known as the Van Allen radiation belt. This belt consists of a doughnut shaped zone of high-level radiation intensity around the Earth above the magnetic equator. Van Allen was also the man who designed and built the satellite instrumentation of Explorer 1. It was because of the previous failure of the Vanguard rocket of December 1957 that scientist made the decision of using a military rocket allowing the successful launch of the satellite. The satellite actually measured three phenomena. They are cosmic ray and radiation levels, the temperature in the spacecraft and finally the frequency of collisions with micrometeorites. The satellite had no space for data storage though which meant that it had to transmit continuously. A couple of months later in March 1958, a second satellite was sent into orbit with augmented cosmic ray instrument.
Space Race in the 1960s.
First humans in space.
By 1959 American observers believed that the Soviet Union would be the first to get a human into space, because of the time needed to prepare for Project Mercury's first launch. On 12 April 1961, the USSR launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit around the Earth on Vostok 1. They dubbed Gagarin the first cosmonaut, roughly translated from Russian and Greek as "sailor of the universe". Although he had the ability to take over manual control of his spacecraft in an emergency by opening an envelope he had in the cabin that contained a code that could be typed into the computer, it was flown in an automatic mode as a precaution; medical science at that time did not know what would happen to a human in the weightlessness of space. Vostok 1 orbited the Earth for 108 minutes and made its reentry over the Soviet Union, with Gagarin ejecting from the spacecraft at 7,000 metres (23,000 ft), and landing by parachute. Under Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (International Federation of Aeronautics) FAI qualifying rules for aeronautical records, pilots must both take off and land with their craft, so the Soviet Union kept the landing procedures secret until 1978, when they finally admitted that Gagarin did not land with his spacecraft. When the flight was publicly announced, it was celebrated around the world as a great triumph, not just for the Soviet Union, but for the mankind itself. Yet it once again shocked and embarrassed the United States.
The United States called their space travelers astronauts ("star sailors" from the Greek), and it was 3 weeks later, on 5 May 1961, when Alan Shepard became the first American in space, launched on a suborbital mission Mercury-Redstone 3, in a spacecraft named Freedom 7. Though he did not achieve orbit, unlike Gagarin he was the first person to exercise manual control over his spacecraft's attitude and retro-rocket firing. The first Soviet cosmonaut to exercise manual control was Gherman Titov in Vostok 2 on 6 August 1961.
Almost a year after the Soviet Union put a human into orbit, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, on 20 February 1962. His Mercury-Atlas 6 mission completed three orbits in the Friendship 7 spacecraft, and splashed-down safely in the Atlantic Ocean, after a tense reentry, due to what falsely appeared from the telemetry data to be a loose heat-shield.
Yuri Gangarin, the first person in space. 1961.
Kennedy launches the Moon race
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.
John F. Kennedy,
Speech at Rice University, Houston, 12 September 1962
On 20 April 1961, about one week after Gagarin's flight, American President John F. Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking him to look into the state of America's space program, and into programs that could offer NASA the opportunity to catch up. Johnson responded about one week later, concluding that the United States needed to do much more to reach a position of leadership. Johnson recommended that a piloted moon landing was far enough in the future that it was likely that the United States could achieve it first.
On 25 May, Kennedy announced his support for the Apollo program and redefined the ultimate goal of the Space Race in an address to a special joint session of Congress: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." His overall support of NASA and the space program was unexpected because of how often he attacked the administration’s inefficiency during the election.His justification for the Moon Race was both that it was vital to national security and that it would focus the nation's energies in other scientific and social fields.He expressed his reasoning in the famous "We choose the Moon" speech, on 12 September 1962, before a large crowd at Rice University Stadium, in Houston, Texas, near the site of the future Johnson Space Center.
Proposed Joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. Moon Program
On 20 September 1963, in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly, President Kennedy proposed that the United States and the Soviet Union join forces in their efforts to reach the moon. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev initially rejected Kennedy's proposal; however, during the next few weeks he concluded that both nations might realize cost benefits and technological gains from a joint venture. Khrushchev was poised to accept Kennedy's proposal at the time of Kennedy's assassination in November 1963.
Khrushchev and Kennedy had developed a measure of rapport during their years as leaders of the world's two superpowers, especially during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. That trust was lacking with Vice President Johnson; when Johnson assumed the Presidency after Kennedy's assassination, Khrushchev dropped the idea of a joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. moon program.
Vostoks and Voskhods.
The Soviet Union achieved another first, with the first dual-piloted flights, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 on 11–15 August 1962. The two spacecraft came within approximately 6.5 kilometres (4.0 mi) of one another, close enough for radio communication. The launching of two spacecraft from the same pad during a very short period of time represented a significant technical accomplishment, however there was no capability for the spacecraft to maneuver closer to each other, and over the course of the mission they continued to drift as far as 2,850 kilometres (1,770 mi) apart.
The Soviet Union achieved yet another first when it launched not only the first woman, but also the first civilian, in space-- Valentina Tereshkova, on 16 June 1963, in Vostok 6. Launching a woman was reportedly Korolev's idea, and it was accomplished purely for propaganda value. Tereshkova was one of a small corps of female cosmonauts who were amateur parachutists, but Tereshkova was the only one to fly. The USSR didn't again open its cosmonaut corps to women until 1980, two years after the United States opened its astronaut corps to women.
Korolev had planned further, long-term missions for the Vostok spacecraft, and had four Vostoks in various stages of fabrication in late 1963 at his OKB-1 facilities. At that time, the Americans announced their ambitious plans for the Project Gemini flight schedule. These plans included major advancements in spacecraft capabilities, including a two-person spacecraft, the ability to change orbits, the capacity to perform an extravehicular activity (EVA), and the goal of docking with another spacecraft.These represented major advances over the previous Mercury or Vostok spaceships, and Korolev felt the need to try to beat the Americans to many of these innovations. Korolev already had begun designing the Vostok's replacement, the next-generation Soyuz spacecraft, a multi-cosmonaut spacecraft that had at least the same capabilities as the Gemini spacecraft. However, Soyuz would not be available for at least three years, and it could not be called upon to deal with this new American challenge in 1964 or 1965. Political pressure in early 1964–which some sources claim was from Khrushchev while other sources claim was from other Communist Party officials—pushed him to modify his four remaining Vostoks to beat the Americans to new space firsts in the size of flight crews, and the duration of missions.
On 12 October 1964, the Chief Designer delivered another Soviet space-first when Voskhod 1 launched the first multi-person spacecraft, with three cosmonauts in a modified Vostok spacecraft. The USSR touted another technological achievement during this mission: it was the first space flight during which cosmonauts performed in a shirt-sleeve-environment.However, flying without spacesuits was not due to safety improvements in the Soviet spacecraft's environmental systems; rather this innovation was accomplished because the craft's limited cabin space did not allow for spacesuits. Flying without spacesuits exposed the cosmonauts to significant risk in the event of potentially fatal cabin depressurization.This feat would not be repeated until the US Apollo Command Module flew in 1968; this later mission was designed from the outset to safely transport three astronauts in a shirt-sleeve environment while in space.
Between 14–16 October 1964, Leonid Brezhnev and a small cadre of high-ranking Communist Party officials, deposed Premier Khrushchev as Soviet government leader a day after Voskhod 1 landed, in what was called the "Wednesday conspiracy".The new political leaders, along with Korolev, ended the technologically troublesome Voskhod program, cancelling Voskhod 3 and 4, which were in the planning stages, and started concentrating on the race to the moon.Voskhod 2 would end up being Korolev's final achievement before his death, as it would become the last of the many space firsts that demonstrated the USSR's domination in spacecraft technology during the early 1960s. According to historian Asif Siddiqi, Korolev's accomplishments marked "the absolute zenith of the Soviet space program, one never, ever attained since." There would be a two-year pause in Soviet piloted space flights while Voskhod's replacement, the Soyuz spacecraft, was designed and developed.
On 18 March 1965, about a week before the first American piloted Project Gemini space flight, the USSR accelerated the Space Race competition, by launching the two-cosmonaut Voskhod 2 mission with Pavel Belyayev and Alexey Leonov. Voskhod 2's design modifications included the first airlock to allow for extravehicular activity (EVA), also known as a spacewalk. Leonov performed the first-ever EVA as part of the mission. A fatality was narrowly avoided when Leonov's spacesuit expanded in the vacuum of space, preventing him from re-entering the spacecraft. He had to improvise, and perform the potentially fatal partial depressurization of his spacesuit in order to re-enter the airlock. He succeeded in safely re-entering the ship, but he and Belyayev faced further challenges when the spacecraft's atmospheric controls flooded the cabin with 45% pure oxygen, which had to be lowered to acceptable levels before re-entry.The reentry involved two more challenges: an improperly timed retrorocket firing caused the Voskhod 2 to land 386 kilometres (240 mi) off its designated target area, the town of Perm; and the instrument compartment's failure to detach from the descent apparatus caused the spacecraft to become unstable during reentry.
Vostok rocket displayed at Ostankino
Project Gemini
Focused by the commitment to a moon landing, in January 1962 the US introduced Project Gemini, a two-crew-member spacecraft that would support Apollo by developing the key spaceflight technologies of space rendezvous and docking of two craft, flight durations of sufficient length to simulate going to the Moon and back, Extra-vehicular Activity for extended periods, and accomplishing useful work rather than just "walking in space." Although Gemini took a year longer than planned to accomplish its first flight, Gemini took advantage of the USSR's two-year hiatus after Voskhod, which enabled the US to catch up and surpass the previous Soviet lead in piloted spaceflight.
Gemini 12 lifts off.
Soviet Moon program
The Soviet Union had planned to divide their lunar program into two separate manned programs: circumlunar flights in 1967 and lunar landings from 1968.
The circumlunar missions were to be launched by a UR-500 rocket, later known as the Proton. The cosmonauts would be flown to the Moon in the Soyuz 7K-L1 (Zond), which made four unsuccessful unmanned flights from 1967–1970. One flight of the Zond was, however, successful and returned its non-human passengers (tortoises) to Earth; had it been used for a manned circumlunar mission, the flight would have carried two cosmonauts.
The Soviet lunar landing missions would use spacecraft derived from the Soyuz 7K-L1. The orbital module (Soyuz 7K-L3), the "Lunniy Orbitalny Korabl" (LOK), had a crew of two. The LOK and a separate lunar lander, the "Lunniy Korabl" (LK), had 40% of the mass of the Apollo CSM/LM due to the launch vehicle's capabilities.
The launch vehicle would have been the N1 rocket, which was roughly the same height and takeoff mass as the American Saturn V, exceeded its takeoff thrust by 28%, and yet had roughly half the TLI payload capability. The N1 was unsuccessfully tested four times, exploding each time due to problems with the first stage's thirty engines.
The Soviet leadership cancelled the program in 1970 after the first two successful American Moon landings.
Lunniy Korabl (LK)
Fatalities and disasters of the 1960s
Likely the worst disaster during the Space Race was the Soviet Union's Nedelin catastrophe in 1960. It happened on 24 October 1960, when Chief Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin gave orders to use improper shutdown and control procedures on an experimental R-16 rocket. The hasty on-pad repairs caused the missile's second stage engine to fire straight onto the full propellant tanks of the still-attached first stage. The resulting explosion, toxic-fuel spill and fire, killed anywhere from 92 to 150 top Soviet military and technical personnel. Marshal Nedelin was vaporized, and his only identifiable remains were his war medals, especially the Gold Star of the Soviet Union. His death was officially explained as an airplane crash. It was also a huge set-back for the rocket's chief designer, Mikhail Yangel, who was trying to unseat Korolev as the person responsible for the Soviet human spaceflight program.Yangel survived only because he went for a cigarette break in a bunker that was removed from the launch pad, but he would not rival Korolev during the rest of this period. The Nedelin catastrophe would remain an official secret until 1989, and the survivors of the incident were not allowed to discuss it until 1990, thirty-one years after it occurred.
In 1986, in a series of newspaper articles in Izvestia, it was disclosed for the first time that the USSR had officially covered up the 23 March 1961 death of Soviet cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenko from massive third-degree burns from a fire in a high-oxygen isolation test chamber.This revelation subsequently caused some speculation as to whether the Apollo 1 disaster might have been averted had NASA been aware of the incident. Bondarenko, at age 24, was the youngest of the early Vostok cosmonauts.The Soviet government literally erased all traces of Bondarenko's existence in the cosmonaut corps upon his death.
In 1967, both nations faced serious challenges that brought their programs to a halt. Both nations had been rushing at full-speed on the Apollo and Soyuz programs, without paying due diligence to growing design and manufacturing problems. The results proved fatal to both pioneering crews.
In the United States, the first Apollo mission crew, Command Pilot "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger Chaffee, were killed by suffocation in a cabin fire that swept through their Apollo 1 spacecraft during a ground test on 27 January 1967. The fire was probably caused by an electrical spark. It grew out-of-control, fed by the spacecraft's pure oxygen atmosphere maintained at greater-than-normal atmospheric pressure.An investigative board detailed design and construction flaws in the spacecraft, and procedural failings including failure to appreciate the hazard of the pure-oxygen atmosphere as well as inadequate safety procedures.All these flaws had to be corrected over the next twenty-two months until the first piloted flight could be made. Mercury and Gemini veteran Gus Grissom had been a favored choice of Deke Slayton, the grounded Mercury astronaut who became NASA's Director of Flight Crew Operations, to make the first piloted landing.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was having its own problems with Soyuz development. Engineers reported 200 design faults to party leaders, but their concerns "were overruled by political pressures for a series of space feats to mark the anniversary of Lenin's birthday."
On 24 April 1967, the USSR suffered the death of its first cosmonaut, Colonel Vladimir Komarov, the single pilot of Soyuz 1. This was planned to be a three-day mission to include the first Soviet docking with an unpiloted Soyuz 2, but his mission was plagued with problems. Early on his craft lacked sufficient electrical power because only one of two solar panels had deployed. Then the automatic attitude control system began malfunctioning and eventually failed completely, resulting in the craft spinning wildly. Komarov was able to stop the spin with the manual system, which was only partially effective. The flight controllers aborted his mission after only one day, and he made an emergency re-entry. During re-entry a fault in the landing parachute system caused the primary chutes to fail, and the reserve chutes tangled together; Komarov was killed on impact.
Fallen Astronaut plaque on Earth's moon
Fixing these, and other, spacecraft faults caused an eighteen-month delay before piloted Soyuz flights could resume, similar to the US experience with Apollo. This, combined with Korolev's death, led to the quick unraveling of the Soviet Moon-landing program.
Other astronauts died while training for space flight, including four Americans (Ted Freeman, Elliot See, Charlie Bassett, Clifton Williams), who all died in crashes of T-38 aircraft. Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, met a similar fate in 1968, when he crashed in a MiG-15 jet while training for a Soyuz mission. During the Apollo 15 mission in August 1971, the astronauts left behind a memorial in honor of all the people, both from the Soviet Union and the United States, who had perished during efforts to reach the moon. This included the Apollo 1 and Soyuz 1 crews, as well as astronauts and cosmonauts killed while in training.
In 1971, Soyuz 11 cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov asphyxiated during reentry.
Fallen Astronaut plaque on Earth's moon
To the Moon
The United States recovered from the Apollo 1 fire, fixing the fatal flaws in an improved version of the Block II command module. The US proceeded with unpiloted test launches of the Saturn V launch vehicle (Apollo 4 and Apollo 6) and the Lunar Module (Apollo 5) during the latter-half of 1967 and early 1968.Apollo 1's mission to check out the Apollo Command/Service Module in Earth orbit was accomplished by Grissom's backup crew commanded by Walter Schirra on Apollo 7, launched on 11 October 1968.The eleven-day mission was a total success, as the spacecraft performed a virtually flawless mission, paving the way for the United States to continue with its lunar mission schedule.
The Soviet Union also fixed the parachute and control problems with Soyuz, and the next piloted mission Soyuz 3 was launched on 26 October 1968. The goal was to complete Komarov's rendezvous and docking mission with the un-piloted Soyuz 2. Ground controllers brought the two craft to within 200 metres (660 ft) of each other, then cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy took control. He got within 40 metres (130 ft) of his target, but was unable to dock before expending 90 percent of his maneuvering fuel, due to a piloting error that put his spacecraft into the wrong orientation and forced Soyuz 2 to automatically turn away from his approaching craft.
The Soviet Zond spacecraft was almost ready for piloted circumlunar missions in 1968, although testing was not yet complete. At the time, the Soyuz 7K-L1/Zond spacecraft was not yet ready for piloted missions after five unsuccessful and partially successful automated test launches: Cosmos 146 on 10 March 1967; Cosmos 154 on 8 April 1967; Zond 1967A 27 September 1967; Zond 1967B on 22 November 1967. Zond 4 was launched on 2 March 1968, and successfully made a circumlunar flight. After its successful flight around the Moon, Zond 4 encountered problems with its Earth reentry on 9 March, and was ordered destroyed by an explosive charge 15,000 metres (49,000 ft) over the Gulf of Guinea. The Soviet official announcement said that Zond 4 was an automated test flight which ended with its intentional destruction, due to its recovery trajectory positioning it over the Atlantic Ocean instead of over the USSR.
During the summer of 1968, the Apollo program hit another snag: the first pilot-rated Lunar Module (LM) was not ready for orbital tests in time for a December 1968 launch. NASA planners overcame this challenge by changing the mission flight order, delaying the first LM flight until early 1969, and sending Apollo 8 into lunar orbit without the LM in December on a new 'C-prime' mission. This mission was in part motivated by intelligence rumors the Soviet Union might fly a piloted circumlunar Zond flight during late 1968. In September 1968, Zond 5, a Soyuz 7K-L1 spacecraft, with tortoises on board, made a circumlunar flight and returned to Earth, accomplishing the first successful splashdown of the Soviet space program, in the Indian Ocean.It also scared NASA planners, as it took them several days to figure out that it was only an automated flight, not a piloted flight with cosmonauts, because voice recordings were transmitted from the craft en route to the Moon. On 10 November 1968 another automated test flight of the 7K-L1 spacecraft – Zond 6 – was launched, but this time, it encountered difficulties in its Earth reentry, and depressurized and deployed its parachute too early, causing it to crash-land only 16 kilometres (10 mi) from where it had been launched six days earlier.
Apollo 8 launched on 21 December 1968, and became the first human-crewed spacecraft to leave low-Earth orbit and go to another celestial body, the Moon. On 24 December Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders became the first humans to enter into orbit around the Moon. They orbited ten times, and transmitted one of the most watched TV broadcasts in history, with their Christmas Eve program from lunar orbit, that concluded with a reading from the King James Bible's Book of Genesis. A few hours later, the crew performed the first-ever Trans-Earth injection (TEI) burn, to blast the Apollo 8 spacecraft out of lunar orbit and on to a trajectory back to the Earth. Just over two days later, on 27 December, Apollo 8 safely splashed down in the Pacific, completing another first: NASA's first dawn splashdown and recovery.
It turned out there was no chance of a piloted Soviet circumlunar flight during 1968, due to the unreliability of the Zonds. After the successive launch failures of the N1 rocket in 1969, Soviet plans for a piloted landing suffered first delay and ultimately cancellation.The launch pad explosion of the N-1 on 3 July 1969 was a significant setback.The rocket hit the pad after an engine shutdown, destroying itself and the launch facility.
Earthrise, as seen from Apollo 8, 24 December 1968 (NASA)
Apollo 11
1969 saw the final leg of the Moon Race, with the United States leading it after the flight of Apollo 8. Unbeknownst to the Americans, the Soviet moon program was in deep trouble. Without the N-1 rocket, the USSR had no way to land on the Moon. The next two Apollo missions proved that the Lunar Module worked well, both in low-Earth orbit and in lunar orbit. It was time to proceed to an actual landing mission. Under this backdrop, Apollo 11 was being prepared for a July encounter with the Moon.
The Apollo 11 crew consisted of commander (CDR) Neil Armstrong, command module pilot (CMP) Michael Collins, and lunar module pilot (LMP) Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. They were selected as the crew in January 1969, and they trained for the mission until just before the actual launch day. On 16 July 1969, at exactly 9:32 am EDT, the Saturn V rocket – serial number SA-506 – lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with Apollo 11 on board.
The lunar trip took just over three days. After achieving orbit, Armstrong and Aldrin transferred into the Lunar Module, named Eagle, and began their descent. After overcoming several computer malfunctions, Armstrong took over manual flight-control at about 180 metres (590 ft), and guided the Lunar Module to a landing on the Moon's Sea of Tranquility at 4:17 pm EDT, 20 July 1969. The first humans on the Moon would wait another six hours before they ventured out of their craft. At 10:56:15 pm EDT, Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon.
The first step was witnessed by at least 500 million TV viewers on Earth. His first words when he stepped off the LM's landing pad were, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Aldrin joined him on the surface almost 20 minutes later. Altogether, they spent just under two and one-quarter hours outside their craft. The next day, they performed the first launch from another celestial body, and rendezvoused with the Columbia Command Module.
Apollo 11 safely left lunar orbit and returned to Earth, landing in the Pacific Ocean on 24 July 1969. When the spacecraft splashed down, 2,982 days had passed since Kennedy committed the United States to landing a man on the Moon and bringing him back safely to the Earth before the end of the decade; the mission was completed with just 161 days to spare. With the safe completion of the Apollo 11 mission, the Americans won the race to the Moon.
This was followed by successful lunar landings on Apollo 12 (November 1969), Apollo 14 (February 1971), Apollo 15 (July 1971), Apollo 16 (April 1972), and Apollo 17 (December 1972). One lunar landing attempt, Apollo 13 (April 1970), was unsuccessful, but the crew returned safely.
American Buzz Aldrin during the first moonwalk in 1969.
The 1970s
The early 1970s were rounded out by several more U.S. manned Moon landings, which featured expanded tasks including more sample returns, experiments, and extended EVAs with a lunar rover. The USSR continued for time with their N1 rocket, as well as more Soyuz flights to their Salyut stations. Unmanned spacecraft were in the limelight as well, with the USSR launching unmanned lunar sample return missions and probes to Mars and Venus. The US launched probes to Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond, as well as launching Skylab, an orbital space station. Together, the US and Soviet conducted an orbital rendezvous by manned spacecraft in 1975. By the end of the 1970s, both were working on Space Shuttles and launching science missions at a fever pitch.
Apollo 17's Saturn V in 1972
Salyuts and Skylab
Having lost the race to the moon, the USSR decided to concentrate on orbital space stations. During 1969 and 1970, they launched six more Soyuz flights after Soyuz 3, then launched the first space station, the Salyut 1 laboratory designed by Kerim Kerimov, on 19 April 1971. Three days later, the Soyuz 10 crew attempted to dock with it, but failed to achieve a secure enough connection to safely enter the station. The Soyuz 11 crew of Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Dobrovolski and Viktor Patsayev successfully docked on 7 June and completed a record 22-day stay. The crew became the second in-flight space fatality during their reentry on 30 June. They were asphyxiated when their spacecraft's cabin lost all pressure, shortly after undocking. The disaster was blamed on a faulty cabin pressure valve, that allowed all the air to vent into space. The crew were not wearing pressure suits and had no chance of survival once the leak occurred.
Salyut 1's orbit was increased to prevent premature reentry, but further piloted flights were delayed while the Soyuz was redesigned to fix the new safety problem. The station re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on 11 October, after 175 days in orbit. The USSR attempted to launch a second Salyut-class station designated Durable Orbital Station-2 (DOS-2) on 29 July 1972, but a rocket failure caused it to fail to achieve orbit. After the DOS-2 failure, the USSR attempted to launch four more Salyut-class stations through 1975, with another failure due to an explosion of the final rocket stage, which punctured the station with shrapnel so that it wouldn't hold pressure. While all of the Salyuts were presented to the public as non-military scientific laboratories, some of them were actually covers for the military Almaz reconnaissance stations.
The United States also had plans to launch a piloted space laboratory as part of the Apollo Applications Program, using Apollo hardware. The original plans called for constructing the space laboratory using a spent Saturn S-IVB rocket stage (used to launch the Apollo craft into Earth orbit), however the space laboratory was ultimately pre-fabricated on Earth and launched by the modified first two stages of the Saturn V lunar launch vehicle, known as the Saturn INT-21. The orbital workstation Skylab, weighed 169,950 pounds (77,090 kg), was 58 feet (18 m) long by 21.7 feet (6.6 m) in diameter, with a habitable volume of 10,000 cubic feet (280 m3). Skylab 1, the mission to actually launch the space station, was launched on 14 May 1973, but was damaged during the flight, losing one of its solar panels and a meteoroid thermal shield. Subsequent human-crewed missions repaired the station, and the final mission's crew, Skylab 4, set the Space Race endurance record with 84 days in orbit, when the mission ended on 8 February 1974. Skylab stayed in orbit another five years before reentering the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia on 11 July 1979.
Moonwalk, 13 December 1972.
Apollo–Soyuz Test Mission
While the Sputnik 1 launch can be called the start of the Space Race, its end is harder to pinpoint. In May 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev negotiated an easing of relations known as detente, creating a temporary "thaw" in the Cold War. In the spirit of good sportsmanship, the time seemed right for cooperation rather than competition, and the notion of a continuing "race" began to subside.
The two nations planned a joint mission to dock the last US Apollo craft with a Soyuz, known as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). To prepare, the US designed a docking module for the Apollo that was compatible with the Soviet docking system, which allowed any of their craft to dock with any other (e.g. Soyuz/Soyuz as well as Soyuz/Salyut). The module was also necessary as an airlock to allow the men to visit each other's craft, which had incompatible cabin atmospheres. The USSR used the Soyuz 16 mission in December 1974 to prepare for ASTP.
The joint mission began when Soyuz 19 was first launched on 15 July 1975 at 12:20 UTC, and the Apollo craft was launched with the docking module six and a half hours later. The two craft rendezvoused and docked on 17 July at 16:19 UTC. The three astronauts conducted joint experiments with the two cosmonauts, and the crew shook hands, exchanged gifts, and visited each other's craft.
After Apollo
In the 1970s, the United States began developing a new generation of reusable orbital spacecraft known as the Space Shuttle, and launched a range of unmanned probes. The USSR continued to develop space station technology with the Salyut program and Mir ('Peace' or 'World', depending on the context) space station, supported by Soyuz spacecraft. They developed their own large space shuttle under the Buran program. However, the USSR dissolved in 1991 and the remains of its space program were distributed to various Eastern European countries. The United States and Russia would work together in space with the Shuttle–Mir Program, and again with the International Space Station.
Retrospectives.
The meaning and nature of the space race are subject to periodic retrospectives in American and other cultures. One such occurrence was in 2003 when Columbia was lost with crew during re-entry. Some more retrospectives took place with retirement of the U.S. Space Shuttle program in 2011 and the cancellation of Project Constellation in 2010.
Legacy.
Advances in technology and education:
American concerns that they had fallen behind the Soviet Union in the race to space led quickly to a push by legislators and educators for greater emphasis on mathematics and the physical sciences in American schools. The United States' National Defense Education Act of 1958 increased funding for these goals from childhood education through the post-graduate level. To this day over 1,200 American high schools retain their own planetarium installations, a situation unparalleled in any other country and a direct consequence of the Space Race.
The scientists educated through these efforts helped develop technologies that have been adapted for use in the kitchen, in transportation systems, in athletics, and in many other areas of modern life. Dried fruits and ready-to-eat foods (in particular food sterilization and package sealing techniques), stay-dry clothing, and even no-fog ski goggles have their roots in space science.
Today over a thousand artificial satellites orbit Earth, relaying communications data around the planet and facilitating remote sensing of data on weather, vegetation, and human movements for the nations who employ them. In addition, much of the micro-technology that fuels everyday activities, from time-keeping to enjoying music, derives from research initially driven by the Space Race.
Even with all the technological advances since the first Sputnik was launched, the original Soviet R-7 Semyorka rocket, which marked the beginning of the space race, is still in use today. It services the International Space Station (ISS) as the launcher for both the Soyuz and Progress spacecrafts. Most notably, during the post Space Race era it ferries both Russian and American crews to and from the station.
International Space Station in 2010
Environment.
An unintended consequence of the Space Race is that it facilitated the environmental movement, as this was the first time in history that humans could see their homeworld as it really appears-–the first color pictures from space showed a fragile blue planet bordered by the blackness of space. Pictures such as Apollo 8's Earthrise, which showed a crescent Earth peeking over the lunar surface, and Apollo 17's The Blue Marble, which for the first-time-ever showed a full circular Earth, became iconic to the environmental movement. The first Earth Day was partially triggered by the Apollo 8 photo. Astronauts returning from space missions also commented on how fragile the Earth looked from space, further fueling calls for better stewardship of the only home humans have—for now.
| i don't know |
Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Rock, and Jersey Giant are all types of what? | Hybrid For Sale | Chickens | Breed Information | Omlet
- Adam,
27 May 2014
I have owned four of these for about 2 years now and their egg production is great we get 3-4 eggs a day and they lay right through winter to. The ISA warren is the type of brown hen typically used in battery farming and have been bred not to go broody however this is not un heard off as there are exceptions. These hens are kind and affectionate and can be tamed easily and often enjoy cuddles. These chickens generally prefer free range and will get bored easily if kept in a small run. The only downside to this breed is they are very rough foragers and enjoy digging and will easily damage young plant shoots so if your a garden proud person maybe you will need to find a less damaging breed of chicken e.g pekins. In conclusion this breed is very rewarding and a great addition to any garden.
Skylines and bluebells
- Nic,
8 February 2014
I have two of each, have had them for around 3 months now. The bluebells might still be on the young side so no eggs yet from them but my lovely Skylines, Kiki and Rio have laid almost every day ...beautiful blue eggs too, my friends love it when I can spare the odd half dozen! Find the bluebells a little skittish and because they're the biggest birds in my flock and also grey coloured unlike the others (I also have 3 ex bats) they're at the bottom of the pecking order. Perhaps I should get some more to even the odds out.
- Brandon,
Excellent layer and I good breed to have :)
fantastic
| Chicken |
Best known for their Seal of Approval, the first issue of what women's magazine was introduced in May 1885? | Raising Chickens 101: Choosing Chicken Breeds Beginner's Guide | The Old Farmer's Almanac
See the first post: How to Get Started Raising Chickens
What Types of Chickens Should You Get?
When it comes to choosing your chickens, there are more breeds than you can shake an eggbeater at. One of the delights of this step is learning some of the types of chickens and their names: Silkie, Showgirl, Silver-Laced Wyandotte, Rosecomb, Redcap, and Russian Orloff, to name a few.
Some things that you’ll want to consider include the number and color of eggs produced, the breed’s temperament, its noise level, and its adaptability to confinement. If you can’t let your chickens range free, the confinement factor is important for a happy, healthy flock. Noise level really matters if you do not reside in the country. Some sources advise against mixing ages, but I’ve never had trouble with older birds picking on younger ones.
Most varieties thrive in all climates, although some have special needs: Phoenix and Minorcas chickens need heat, for example, and Brahmas and Chanteclers chickens prefer cool conditions. Every breed produces eggs, even the so-called ornamental breeds, but egg size and production vary. Medium-production layers are plenty for a family. Bantam chicken eggs are small; to complement their yolks, you’ll need more whites than most angel food cake recipes call for.
I kept Rhode Island Reds and Barred Plymouth Rocks, both of which are usually available from a local hatchery. These are docile, not particularly noisy, high-laying, dual-purpose chicken breeds that take confinement well. They gave me 75 percent egg production—that is, a dozen chickens produced nine eggs a day while they were laying.
Another favorite of mine is the Jersey Giant. It is black or white, and large. (My black Jersey Giant rooster was 16 inches at the saddle!) The hens are medium- rather than high-laying chickens, but the eggs are larger than those of the Plymouth Rock or Rhode Island Red. This breed is calm and docile but needs more room because of its size.
Araucanas are flighty (not docile), but they thrive in almost any climate, take confinement well, and are quiet. If you want to make them more calm and docile, try hypnotizing them (and no, we’re not kidding!) Plus, the green-shelled eggs are a novelty. (One of my Rhode Island Red hens mated with an Araucana cock and gave me a hen that laid olive eggs!)
My dream team would include Easter Eggers. (Yes, that’s really the breed name!) They’re similar in temperament to Araucanas and lay blue or green eggs. It may take me a while to track them down, but—hey!—the dream team is worth it.
Next, we’ll address the nuts and bolts of building a backyard chicken coop .
| i don't know |
The 2004 film “The Motorcycle Diaries” was a biopic about what asshat South American revolutionary, who was born on May 14, 1928? | Che Guevara - Military Leader - Biography.com
Military Leader
Che Guevara was a Marxist revolutionary allied with Fidel Castro during the Cuban Revolution.
IN THESE GROUPS
“Better to die standing than to live on your knees.”
“There are no borders in this struggle to the death.”
“The road is long and full of difficulties.”
“Peaceful coexistence cannot be limited to the powerful countries if we want to ensure world peace.”
“Cuba was developed as a sugar factory of the United States.”
“Guerrilla warfare is a people's warfare.”
“One has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness.”
“Revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.”
“I don't care if I fall, as long as someone picks up my gun and keeps shooting.”
“It's not just a simple game, it is a weapon of the revolution.”
Che Guevara
Che Guevara - Mini Biography (TV-PG; 3:53) Born in Argentina on in 1928, Che Guevara traveled to South America during his youth, a trip that spurred his Marxist beliefs. He aided Fidel Castro in overturning the Cuban government.
Synopsis
Born in Rosario, Argentina, in 1928, Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna studied medicine before traveling around South America, observing conditions that spurred his Marxist beliefs. He aided Fidel Castro in overturning the Batista government in the late 1950s, and then held key political offices during Castro's regime. Guevara later engaged in guerrilla action elsewhere, including in Bolivia, where he was captured and executed in 1967.
Doctor
Che Guevara was born into a middle-class family on June 14, 1928, in Rosario, Argentina. He was plagued by asthma in his youth but still managed to distinguish himself as an athlete. He also absorbed the left-leaning political views of his family and friends, and by his teens had become politically active, joining a group that opposed the government of Juan Perón .
After graduating from high school with honors, Guevara studied medicine at the University of Buenos Aires, but in 1951 he left the school to travel around South America with a friend. The poor living conditions he witnessed on their nine-month journey had a profound effect on Guevara, and he returned to medical school the following year, intent on providing care for the needy. He received his degree in 1953.
Guerrilla
However, as Guevara's interest in Marxism grew, he decided to abandon medicine, believing that only revolution could bring justice to the people of South America. In 1953 he traveled to Guatemala, where he witnessed the CIA-backed overthrow of its leftist government, which only served to deepen his convictions.
By 1955, Guevara was married and living in Mexico, where he met Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl , who were planning the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista 's government. When their small armed force landed in Cuba on December 2, 1956, Guevara was with them and among the few that survived the initial assault. Over the next few years, he would serve as a primary adviser to Castro and lead their growing guerrilla forces in attacks against the crumbling Batista regime.
Minister
In January 1959 Fidel Castro took control of Cuba and placed Guevara in charge of La Cabaña prison, where it is estimated that perhaps hundreds of people were executed on Guevara's extrajudicial orders. He was later appointed president of the national bank and minister of industry, and did much to assist in the country's transformation into a communist state.
In the early 1960s, Guevara also acted as an ambassador for Cuba, traveling the world to establish relations with other countries, most notably the Soviet Union, and was a key player during the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also authored a manual on guerrilla warfare, and in 1964 delivered a speech to the United Nations in which he condemned U.S. foreign policy and the apartheid in South Africa.
Martyr
By 1965, with the Cuban economy in shambles, Guevara left his post to export his revolutionary ideologies to other parts of the world. He traveled first to the Congo to train troops in guerrilla warfare in support of a revolution there, but left later that year when it failed.
After returning briefly to Cuba, in 1966 Guevara departed for Bolivia with a small force of rebels to incite a revolution there. He was captured by the Bolivian army and killed in La Higuera on October 9, 1967.
Legacy
Since his death, Guevara has become a legendary political figure. His name is often equated with rebellion, revolution and socialism. Others, however, remember that he could be ruthless and ordered prisoners executed without trial in Cuba. In any case, Guevara's life continues to be a subject of great public interest and has been explored and portrayed in numerous books and films, including The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), which starred Gael García Bernal as Guevara, and the two-part biopic Che (2008), in which Benicio Del Toro portrayed the revolutionary.
Videos
| ernesto che guevara |
Who used the advertising slogan "be all that you can be"? | Alphabetical listing here
SP 1: ALSINO AND THE CONDOR. Alsino and the Condor is the story of a boy's dream of flying above the madness of the world around him. It's about his fantasies and his courage; it's about the human spirit soaring for freedom. 1986. Color. 1 hr. 30 min. VHS.
SP 2: ERÁNDIRA. Based on a section of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. Eréndira is an erotic black comedy laden with sexual fantasy, surreal pranks and political allegory. Eréndira is a teenage girl exploited as a sexual slave by her grandmother. The incomparable Eréndira becomes a legend throughout the land, selling her body to a dozen of men nightly. But when this third world Cinderella finally meets her Prince Charming, their only escape is to murder grandma, whose lust for life makes her nearly indestructible. Irene Papas gives a hilarious performance as the evil witch, while luscious Claudia O'Hara makes a sensual magnetic Eréndira. 1983. Color. 1 hr. 43 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 3: FIRE FROM THE MOUNTAIN. Based on the Book of Omar Cabezas. The film narrates the Sandinista Movement in Nicaragua from its beginning. 1 hr. 5 min. English. VHS.
SP 4: LA MUERTE DEL CHÉ GUEVARA. En Noviembre de 1968, Ernesto Ché Guevara, fue de Cuba a Bolivia a comenzar un nuevo movimiento revolucionario. Pero su fallido intento tuvo un final trágico. Esta película investiga a fondo la captura y la muerte de este guerrillero, héroe de proletario. 1986. Color. 1 hr. 32 min. VHS.
SP 5: THE YOUNG AND THE DAMNED [LOS OLVIDADOS]. Written and directed by Luis Buñuel. Horrifying portrait of poverty, misery and degradation set in the wretched slums surrounding Mexico City. The film focuses on Pedro, a young boy whose mother has no use for him and who becomes involved with a malevolent gang of delinquents; and on Jaibo, an older more hardened youth, who leads Pedro deeper into the world of crime. Based in Buñuel's painstaking research into actual case histories the film appears to be in the realm of the neorealistic social documents of the era. The movie is absolutely overflowing with images that are disturbing for their eroticism, violence and pure irrationality. 1950. B&W. 1 hr. 19 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 6: LA ROSA BLANCA. La Cóndor Oil Company se encuentra con un obstáculo inmovible en Don Jacinto Yañez, dueño de la hacienda La Rosa Blanca: el rehusa vender su hacienda a ningún precio. Pero La Cóndor está dispuesta a llegar a cualquier extremo por conseguir estas tierras. Es así comienza la explotación petrolera en México. Basa en la controversia novela de B. Tavern. La Rosa Blanca expone el materialismo del capitalismo, contrastándolo con la sencillez y la espiritualidad del campesino. 1960. B&W. 1 hr. 40 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 7: ARGENTINISIMA I. Las canciones favoritas. Sinopsis. Inspirada en los versos Atahualpa Yupanqui se inicia un viaje imaginario, que va alternado ficción realidad para desentrañar el espíritu de diversas expresiones regionales de la música nacional. 1 hr. 55 min. VHS.
SP 8: LA CIUDAD Y LOS PERROS. De Mario Vargas Llosa. Cuatro cadetes forman un círculo interno para vencer el estricto sistema y el sofocante encierro de la academia militar e inician una reacción en cadena con un robo que los lleva finalmente al asesinato y al suicidio. 1987. Color. 2 hr. 15 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 9: SPANISH TV COMMERCIALS. (Two VHS tapes.)
I. This video offers a wonderful insight into the daily life of the Spanish people. An excellent program for making Spanish come alive and to explore the similarities and differences between cultures. Fun, exciting, challenging lively music. For beginners as well as advanced students over 70 commercials. 45 min. Spanish.
II. You'll see ads for Renault, Friskies, Kellogg's Frosts and so on. Ads for typical Spanish Products such as Moto (grape juice), Gior (laundry detergent), Panrico (bread), Frodern (sour cream) and many more. 45 min. Spanish.
SP 10: LINGUEX, ESPAÑOL. LANGUAGE TAPE OF SPANISH VERBS. The Liguex Language video covers all your vocabulary needs for every day conversation. That's approximately 60 verbs in all tenses and over 2,000 words of vocabulary. (With a booklet.) 1987. 57 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 11: DON QUIJOTE. Narración ilustrada con dibujos, que presenta la figura literaria de Don Quijote y Sacho Panza y narra sus primeras aventuras. La lucha contra los molinos de viento, la lucha contra los rebaños de ovejas y la adquisición del yelmo de Manbrino. 30 min. Spanish narration. VHS.
SP 12a: EL NORTE. Beginning in the remote jungles of Guatemala, a brother and a sister seeking better life where their father is killed by government soldiers and their mother taken away. They set out for the Promised Land of the north — El Norte. It is a perilous journey brought with dangers. El Norte is a deft blend of drama and dream imagery hailed as "An enormously special film, a work of great sophistication that has the truth, the magic of a piece of folk art." 1984. Color. 2 hr. 25 min. English subtitles. Copy 1 — VHS.
SP 12b: EL NORTE. Copy 2 — VHS.
SP 12c: EL NORTE. Criterion Collection Production. Copy 3 — DVD.
I. Feature film. New high-definition digital transfer; new audio commentary featuring Nava; theatrical trailer; and new and improved English subtitle transslation.
II. Special features: In the Service of the Shadows: The Making of "El Norte"; The Journal of Diego Rodriguez Silva, Nava's 1972 award-winning student film; gallery of Chiapas location-scouting photos; booklet featuring a new essay by novelist Héctor Tobar and critic Roger Ebert's 1983 review.
SP 13: A TOUR OF THE PRADO. A list of works and artist, in chronological order is enclosed. 1983. 1 hr. 20 min. English narration. VHS.
SP 14a: FRIDA NATURALEZA VIVA. Paul Ledic’s Frida Naturaleza Viva, has created a new form of artistic biography. A film that matches the famous description of Frida Kahlo and her art: "A bomb disguised as a butterfly." Fusing politics, painting and passion as daringly as Frida did in both art and life. Leduc mixes politic invention with revealing facts to provide dramatic and cinematic insights into his subject beyond the capacity of criticism or documentary. 1985. Color. 1 hr. 48 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Copy 1 — VHS.
SP 14b: FRIDA NATURALEZA VIVA. Special features include: Biografias y galleria. Copy 2 — DVD.
SP 15: PUBIS ANGELICAL. De Manuel Puig. In her hospital bed, a woman reflects in her life. Dreams and fantasies with the political events in Argentina, and little by little we elucidate the importance of men in her life. None of them helped her grow but rather stifled her efforts to become a whole human being. Pubis Angelical is yet another important novel by the author of The Kiss of the Spider Woman. 1982. Color. 1 hr. 57 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 16: THE UPRISING. Nicaragua. Made shortly after the Sandinista revolution. The Uprising is a shortly after the Sandinista Revolution. The uprising is a story of one soldier's conflict between his need to serve in the National Guard of the dictator Somoza and his father support of the sandinistas. The movie presents a rare and seldom seen look at the turbulence of life in Nicaragua and the social background of the Sandinistas' victory. 1979. Color. 1 hr. 36 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 17: MONUMENTOS DEL MEXICO ANTIGUO. From the first Meso-American civilization of the Olmecs, through the rise and decline of other civilizations such as the Mayas, Toltecs and Aztecs, the ancient people of Mexico have left an impressive stone record of their accomplishments. Color. 35 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 18: MEXICAN PRE-HISPANIC CULTURES. Mexico is a country with a profusion of cultural and historical wealth. In its past, several high cultures flourished the Talented Toltecs, the courageous Aztecs, and the erudite Mayas. Color. 35 min. English. VHS.
SP 19: CITIES OF THE ANCIENT MAYAS. Palenque, Chichen Itza, Tulum, Uxmal and other of the once-great cities of the Southern Mexico and Yucatan provide the setting for this look at the rise and fall of the Mayas. (With study questions.) Color. 23 min. English narration. VHS.
SP 20: MUSIC OF LATIN AMERICA. Latin American Folk Music is a blend of many traditions, but most importantly, those of Indian and Spanish cultures. With influences from these different types of music, Latin Americans have created a new music of their own which has had a lasting impact on the music of the world. Color. 20 min. English narration. VHS.
SP 21: DIEGO RIVERA. Spanish edition. This filmcontains an explanation of some of Rivera's paintings and a brief view in Diego Rivera's life. Color. 30 min. Spanish narration. DVD.
SP 22: GUAZAPA: THE FACE OF WAR IN EL SALVADOR. The film was made in Guazapa in 1984; and it portrays the way of living in this rebel's camp. It gives us a view of these people's efforts for a better life and a better future. Color. 27 min. English narration. VHS.
SP 23: This VHS tape has three different films on it. 4 hr. 43 min. total.
1) SHORT HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. A one-hour interview with Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska, aired in PBS and filmed in Mexico. Dramatization with experts in English translation of the works of writers such as Inca Garcilazo de la Vega, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Borges and Poniatowska. 1 hr. English narration.
2) EL MUERTO [THE DEAD MAN]. Based on a short story of the same name by Jorge Luis Borges. El Muerto traces the life of Benjamin Otalora, in Nineteenth Century South America. Otalora must flee Buenos Aires for killing a man. On his arrival in Montevideo he meets the leader of a smuggling ring who takes him under his wings. As the aging gang leader takes sick however, Otalora covertly attempts to claim power within the ring. In the treacherous final showdown, his destiny is forged. Written by Jorge Luis Borges. Directed by Héctor Olivera. Produced by Fernado Ayala. With Francisco Rabal, Thelma Biral, Juan José Camero. 1 hr. 43 min. Spanish with English subtitles.
3) REED MEXICO INSURGENTE [Reed Insurgent Mexico]. Reed Mexico Insurgent, based on the book written by young John Reed after visiting Mexico during the 1910 revolution and covering the war from Pancho Villa's camp for Harvard's Crimson. Directed by Paul Le Duc (Director of Frida). With Julio Alemán. The Hollywood film Reds was also based on a text by John Reed: Ten Days that shook the World. 2 hr. Spanish with English subtitles.
SP 24: GUATEMALA: THE HUMAN PRICE OF COFFEE (from the "What in the World?: The People of Developing Nations" series). This documentary analyzes the history of coffee farming and production in Guatemala. It documents the impact of the coffee trade on the citizens and their fears of organizing in the face of global purchasing practices. 2005. 26 min. English. DVD.
SP 25a: WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. The vibrant, offbeat comedy from Pedro Almodovar once again stars Carmen Maura, his perennial leading lady. She plays a popular Spanish actress driven to distraction when her lover leaves for another woman. She knows she can talk him out of leaving if only she can talk directly to him and not deal with the answering machine. A comedy of errors ensues that involve a drugged pitcher of gazpacho, Shiite terrorists and a mental patient who left the asylum too soon. 1988. Color. 1 hr. 38 min. Spanish, English, and French with English, French, and Spanish subtitles. Copy 1 — DVD.
SP 25b: WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. Copy 2 — DVD.
SP 26: CRONICA DE UNA MUERTE ANUNCIADA. Gabriel García Márquez. Color. Spanish only. 2 hr. VHS.
SP 27: MARIAN, MARIANA. Carlos, el protagonista principal nos narra su niñez y las ansiedades de su primer amor. La película empieza con una cita de L. P. Hartley (The Go Between)… "El pasado es un país extranjero. En él ocurren las cosas de una manera diferente." 2 hr. VHS.
SP 28: THE RAGGED REVOLUTION. A rare narration of the Mexican revolution from 1910 to 1917. B&W. English. 37 min. DVD.
SP 29: MARIANELA. La película esta basada en la novela de Benito Peraza Galdos. Marianela una jovencita de origen humilde sirve de lazarillo a un joven rico quien debido a un accidente se quedó ciego. Marianela cuando nació también tuvo un accidente que le desfigurá la cara. Marianela se enamora de este joven, pues lo acompaña a todas partes y le explica a él todo lo hay a su alrededor. El joven no puede verla y solo conoce la bondad y pureza de Marianela y cree que Marianela será una muchacha bonita. Cuando llega un médico tiene una hija muy hermosa, Después de la operación la primera persona a quien el joven rompe el corazón de la pobre "Nela." 1 hr. 53 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 30: THE BURIED MIRROR. English only. 5 hr. Narrated by Carlos Fuentes. (Five VHS tapes.)
I. "The Virgin and the Bull." Best-selling Mexican author Carlos Fuentes looks for his forebears in the mix of people that created Latin America: Spanish, Arab, Jewish, Indian, and African. He asks what is unique in their culture that is cause for celebration in the 500th anniversary year of Columbus. His quest takes him from the quayside at Vera Cruz “where the Mediterranean comes to an end in the Caribbean” back to Spain, to the dark caves of Altamira, the harsh sunlight of the bullring, and the stamping feet of the flamenco dancer. Color. 59 min.
II. "Conflicts of the Gods." In his lifetime, Carlos Fuentes has witnessed the rediscovery of the ancient Aztec temples beneath the central square of modern Mexico City. "So we found out that what we thought was dead was really alive." He retraces the Indian world through their magnificent pyramids and sculptures, a world of precise astronomy and human sacrifice, serenity and violence. The return of their blond, exiled god was forecast for the very year Cortes reached their shores. The savagery of the conquistador equaled that of the Indian, but he brought with him a new god, a god who sacrificed himself for men. Color. 59 min.
III. "The Age of Gold." The New World brought Spain (and ultimately Europe) enormous treasures: gold, silver, chocolate, tomatoes, the potato. Yet Spain’s most powerful ruler, Philip II, lived in austere solitude in a cell-like study. He sought to protect the Catholic faith, while the Spanish author Cervantes questioned all values in Don Quixote, the prototype of the modern novel. At the court, Valazquez painted masterpieces of psychological penetration, and the Baroque style vaulted the Atlantic and celebrated its transformation into a tool for Indian fantasy in the magnificent churches of Potosi and Ocotlan. Color. 59 min.
IV. "The Price of Freedom." Every year, a million Mexicans gather in the great central square of their capital to celebrate El Grito, the cry for independence. Following its progress, Carlos Fuentes crosses the Andes in the steps of Bolivar and San Martin. "Those w ho serve the revolution plow the seas," said the dying Bolivar. The liberators succeeded in throwing off the Spanish yoke, but they found it harder to establish a just society. For the gaucho there was the consolation of the open spaces, the mountains, and the plains. And for those crowding into the new cities like Buenos Aires, there was the tango, a sad thought that can be danced. Color. 59 min.
V. "Unfinished Business." Spain, Latin America, the Hispanic communities in the United States: all have undergone enormous changes in this century. Within the lifetime of those born now, half the population of the U.S. will be Spanish speaking. Every year, half a million brave the border patrols to enter the United States illegally. "They are looking for the Gringo gold, but also bringing the Latino gold," Carlos Fuentes observes. Hispanic immigrants contribute a wealth of traditions: diverse cultural creativity in art, music, and dance, respect for family ties-distinct hallmarks of the Spanish-speaking world. Color. 59 min.
SP 31a: THE MISSION. This powerful epic is about a man of the sword and a man of the cloth who unite to shield a South American Indian tribe from subjugation. Rodrigo Mendoza was a violent soldier-for-hire in 1750s South America. Now he is a man of peace serving the Rain Forest Indians he once enslaved. But armies of Spain and Portugal threaten the lifestyle and safety of the native peoples. Now Rodrigo may have to pick up his sword and musket once again. 1986. Color. 2 hr. 5 min. English. Copy 1 — VHS.
SP 31b: THE MISSION. English with English/French/Spanish subtitles, or dubbed in French. Copy 2 — DVD. (Two-disc set.)
I: Feature Film. Special features: Commentary by director Roland Joffeé, All-new digital soundtrack remastered in 5.1 Dolby.
II: Omnibus: The Making of The Mission: a one-hour documentary examines the film's on-location shoot and the Waunana Indians cast in the picture.
SP 32: ¡AH CARMELA! A trio of entertainers travels through Spain singing and dancing for the Republican Army. During one of their trips they are taken prisoners by the army of Franco. They are forced to sing and dance for their army; this ends in a tragedy. Color. 1 hr. 35 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 33: LA CASA DE BERNARDA ALBA. After the death of her husband Bernada Alba puts her daughters under a rigorous mourning that does not even allow them to leave the house. 1987. Color. 1 hr. 30 min. Spanish. DVD.
SP 34a: LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE [COMO AGUA PARA CHOCOLATE]. Tita and Pedro are passionately in love, but their love is forbidden by an ancient family tradition. To be near Tita, Pedro marries her sister. And Tita, as the family cook, expresses her passion for Pedro through preparing delectable dishes. 1992. Color. 1 hr. 45 min. Spanish or English with English subtitles. Copy 1 — DVD.
SP 34b: LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE. Copy 2 — DVD.
SP 35: EL CANTAR DE MIO CID. Meticulous attention to historical detail, spectacular cinematic production values, and the swashbuckling plot itself make this filmed medieval epic superb modern entertainment as well as fundamental education. Color. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 36: EL LIBRO DE BUEN AMOR. This tale is about the amorous adventures of one protagonist. He continually digress his style is elegant and clearly educated, yet his tone and language indicate his hope for a larger audience. His purpose-given, his clerical role is to moralize against vice, yet he takes undeniable pleasure in describing sin and seems occasionally to condone it. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 37: LA CELESTINA. An excellent realization of this mayor work, with a memorable portrait of Celestina — one of Spain's greatest literary characters. 1993. Color. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 38a: FUENTEOVEJUNA. Lope de Vega. A magnificent feature films that painstakingly and loving creates the medieval world of Lope's play. Color. 2 hr. 22 min. total. Spanish. (Two VHS tapes.)
I. Part 1 of 2.
II. Part 2 of 2.
SP 38b: FUENTEOVEJUNA. Lope de Vega. Color. 1 hr. 22 min. Spanish. DVD. (Two-disc set.)
I. Part 1 of 2.
II. Part 2 of 2.
SP 39: LA LEYENDA DEL ALCALDE DE ZALAMEA. Lope de Vega. Based on the plays of Lope and Caldron. This play demonstrates the traditional values of honor and loyalty and the potential conflict between them. Color. 2 hr. Spanish. (Two VHS tapes.)
I. Part 1 of 2.
II. Part 2 of 2.
SP 40: EL BURLADOR DE SEVILLA. Tirso de Molina. A superb production of Tirso's famous work, the play that introduced the theme of Don Juan into European literature. Color. 2 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 41: EL LICENCIADO VIDRIERA. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. This story — one of the finest of the Novelas Ejemplares — shows Cervantes at his best; his mastery of the language, sense of humor, concerns with the details of ordinary life, and sense of the human comedy. 51 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 42: DON QUIJOTE. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. A true and faithful interpretation of one of the bulwarks of world literature and grandly conceived and beautifully executed visual epic rooted in Cervantes's own words. 5 hr. 10 min. total. Spanish. VHS. (Five VHS tapes.)
I. Part 1 of 5.
II. Part 2 of 5.
III. Part 3 of 5.
IV. Part 4 of 5.
V. Part 5 of 5.
SP 43: ABEL SANCHEZ. The story of Cain and Abel set in Unamuno's Spain and seen through the eyes of the philosopher for whom good and evil are neither absolutes nor opposites. B&W. 3 hr. total Spanish. (Two VHS tapes.)
I. Part 1 of 2.
II. Part 2 of 2.
SP 44: NIEBLA. The most widely read work of modern fiction…is here presented in a brilliant production that makes the unraveling of its absurdist plot clear and transform its existentialist probing logical, everyday conversational language. Color. 50 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 45: LA FONTANA DE ORO. Benito Perez Galdós. The narrator Alfonso Vicente Zamora, provides an overview of the whole body of the author's work, explains the historical and political background and introduces the characters of La Fontana de Oro. 50 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 46: EL BALCON ABIERTO. Federico Garcia Lorca. This program presents a brilliant approach to the subject of Garcia Lorca — his works, his life, and particularly its end — and above all his role and influence in the Spain of today. 1 hr. 30 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 47: INTRODUCING SPAIN. (Two VHS tapes.)
I. Basic geography, historical roots. Emphasis is placed in the variety of Spain's landscape and culture. 26 min. English.
II. Southern, eastern and northern peripheries are presented as prime examples of the Spain's geographic and cultural diversity. 25 min. English.
SP 48: ROMERO. Romero is a compelling and deeply moving look at the life of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who made the ultimate sacrifice in a passionate stand against social injustice and oppression in his country. This film chronicles the transformation of Romero from an apolitical, complacent priest to a committed leader of the Salvadoran people. Color. 1 hr. 45 min. English. VHS.
SP 49: LA REGENTA [THE REGENT'S WIFE] by DeLeopoldo Alas “Clarin.” Ana Ozores es “La Regenta,” una pobre mujer insatisfecha por un matrimonio sin amor y que vive atomentada bajo el yugo castigador de la hipocresia y el prejuicio de una ciudad provinciana de la Espana del siglo pasado. Dos hombres acechan a la insatisfecha esposa. Uno de ellos es su confesor espiritual; su rival un desalmado don Juan. La pasion, la lujuria y la venganza que ella despierta en ambos llevaran a “La Regenta” a la condena y su destrucción total. 1974. Color. 1 hr. 4 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 50: LIVE FLESH [CARNE TREMULA]. Pedro Almodovar's most mature and restrained film is a superbly structured melodrama about five people whose lives in modern Madrid are inextricably linked by a bullet fired in a police scuffle. 1997. Color. 1 hr. 41 min. Spanish with English/French/Spanish subtitles. DVD.
SP 51: THESIS [TÉSIS]. (Pedro Almodavar.) An undergraduate writing her thesis on violence in the media discovers that snuff films are being made on campus and someone wants to make her a star. 1996. Color. 2 hr. 1 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 52: DON QUIXOTE, LEGACY OF A CLASSIC. This program weaves art, music, and literature with Western culture to explore the enormous impact of Cervantes’ classic on our world today. Artists, critics, and others, from novelist Carlos Fuentes to General Norman Schwarzkopf, reveal how the work — most translated in history — has affected their lives. Mixing discussions of the text with music, poems, other writings influenced by Don Quixote, and clips from the many film versions of the work, the program explores the conflict between imagination and reality, masculine and feminine attitudes toward love, and other themes. This is a rich resource for the study of Don Quixote and of the influence of art on life. Color. 58 min. VHS.
SP 53a: LA NIÑA DE TUS OJOS [THE GIRL OF YOUR DREAMS]. In 1938, in the midst of the Spanish Civil War, Germany invites a group of Spanish filmmakers to Berlin in order to make two film versions of the hit Andalusian musical production "The Girl of Your Dreams," one in German and one in Spanish. The German Minister of Propaganda under Hitler welcomes them with open arms, if only to get in the good graces of Spanish leading lady Macarena Granada (Penelope Cruz). Their situation becomes even more uncomfortable when the only Andalusian-looking extras they can find for their film are the prisoners in a neighboring concentration camp. When Macarena befriends a prisoner and attempt to help him escape, the filmmakers find that they may have trouble getting out of Germany alive. 2000. Color. 2 hr. 1 min. Spanish/Spanish with English subtitles. Special features include: Trailer and stories, deleted scenes, and visual effects stories. Copy 1 — DVD.
SP 53b: LA NIÑA DE TUS OJOS [THE GIRL OF YOUR DREAMS]. Copy 2 — DVD.
SP 54a: THE OFFICIAL STORY. The Official Story details the collapse of an affluent Argentinean family. Alicia, the wife of a successful businessman, faces the ultimate challenge when she begins to suspect that her adopted daughter may have been stolen from a family of "los desaparecidos" (the disappeared ones). Determined to find out the truth, Alicia risks everything, even at the cost of her own family. 1985. Color. 1 hr. 50 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Copy 1 — VHS.
SP 54b: THE OFFICIAL STORY. Copy 2 — VHS.
SP 54c: THE OFFICIAL STORY. Special features include: filmography and awards. Copy 3 — DVD.
SP 55: JOSÉ ZORRILLA: Don Juan Tenorio. (Two VHS tapes.)
I. Part 1 of 2. The first appearance of the Don Juan legend in literary form was in Tirso's El Burlador de Sevilla. Moliére's Don Juan, de Ponte's libretto for Mozart's Don Giovanni, and the "Don Juan in Hell" scene in George Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman" are the other most famous versions, with the notable addition of Zorrilla's play. It was the most successful play of the 19th century in Spain. The reason is made obvious by this stylish, lavish, and captivating production. 1994. Color. 1 hr. 15 min. Spanish.
II. Part 2 of 2. 1994. Color. 1 hr. 15 min. Spanish.
SP 56: PROFILE OF A WRITER: JORGE LUIS BORGES. A remarkable presentation weaves together dramatized sequences from Borges' stories with a rare interview of the author at his home. Borges, who died in June 1986, was totally blind for the last 30 years of his life. His writing, as illustrated here, reveals a mind, which has an extra measure of clarity and understanding. Color. 1 hr. 16 min. VHS.
SP 57: KNOCKS AT MY DOOR. Set in a small town in political turmoil, Knocks at my door puts a human face on the moral dilemma confronting many of the fledgling democracies of South and Central America. The film begins as a fugitive bursts into the house of two Catholic nuns, who, in attempt to save his life, hide him from the marauding military patrols despite the danger they face if they are caught harboring a political "enemy." Color. 1 hr. 45 min. VHS.
SP 58: ERNESTO CHÉ GUEVARA. The Bolivian Diary. Over 30 years ago, on October 9, 1967, Ché Guevara was executed by the Bolivian army, aided by the CIA. Guevara's diary, a detailed, personal account of his futile 11-month attempt to foment revolution in Bolivia, is the basis of this moving portrait. Color and B&W. 1 hr. 34 min. VHS.
SP 59a: EL ESPEJO ENTERRADO [THE BURIED MIRROR]. Color. (5 VHS tapes.)
I. LA VIRGEN Y EL TORO. El destacado autor mexicano Carlos Fuentes busca a sus antepasados en la mezcla de gentes que crearon latioamericana: wapanoles, arabes, judios, indios, y africanos. Pregunta que es lo distintivo en su cultura que deba provocar la celebracion del quinto centanario. Su busqueda le lleva del muelle en Vera Cruz "donde el Mediterraneo termina en el caribe" de vuelta a Espana, a las oscuras cuevas de Altamira, al brillante sol de la plaza de toros, y al zapateado del bailarin flamenco. 59 min.
II. LA BATALLA DE LOS DIOSES. A lo largo de su vida Carlos Fuentes ha sido testigo del redescubrimiento de los antiguos templos aztecas ocultos bajo la plaza mayor de la ciudad de Mexico. "Entonces supimos que lo que habiamos creido muerto en realidad estaba vivo." El vuelve a recorrer el mundo indigena con sus magnificas piramides y esculturas, un mundo de astronomia exacta y sacrificias humanos, de tranquilidad y violencia. La vuelta de su exiliado Dios rubio habia sido anticipada para el mismo ano que Hernan Cortes Ilego a los aztecas, pero este traia consigo un nuevo Dios, un Dios que se sacrificaba por los hombres. 59 min.
III. LA EDAD DE ORO. [MISSING]
IV. EL PRECIO DE LA LIBERTAD. Cada ano, un millon de mexicanos se reunen en la gran Plaza Mayor de su capital para celebrar El Grito, el grito por la Independencia. Observando su desarrollo, Carlos Fuentes atraviesa los Andes siguiendo los pasos de Bolivar y San Martin. "Los que sirven a una revolucion aran en el mar," dijo el moribundo Bolivar. Los libertadores pudieron sacudirse el yugo espanol, pero encontraron mucho mas dificil establecer una sociedad justa. Para el gaucho existia el consuelo de los espacios abiertos, las montanas, y la pampa. Y para los que se amontonaban en las nuevas ciudades como Bueno Aires, estaba el tango, un penamiento triste que se puede bailar. 59 min.
. LAS TRES HISPANIDADES. Espana, latinoamerica, los pueblos hispanicos en los Estados Unidos: todos han experimentado enormes cambios en este siglo. A partir de la generacion que esta naciendo ahora, la mitad de la poblacion de los EEUU sera hispanohablante. Cada ano medio millon evaden las patrullas de la frontera para entrar ilegalmente a los EEUU. "Buscan el oro gringo, pero tambien traen el oro latino," comenta Carlos Fuentes. Los inmigrantes hispanos contribuyen con la riqueza de sus tradiciones: una creatividad cultural diversa en el arte, la musica, y el baile, y el respeto que habla espanol. 59 min.
SP 59b: EL ESPEJO ENTERRADO [THE BURIED MIRROR]. Color. 5 DVDs.
I. LA VIRGEN Y EL TORO. El destacado autor mexicano Carlos Fuentes busca a sus antepasados en la mezcla de gentes que crearon latioamericana: wapanoles, arabes, judios, indios, y africanos. Pregunta que es lo distintivo en su cultura que deba provocar la celebracion del quinto centanario. Su busqueda le lleva del muelle en Vera Cruz "donde el Mediterraneo termina en el caribe" de vuelta a Espana, a las oscuras cuevas de Altamira, al brillante sol de la plaza de toros, y al zapateado del bailarin flamenco. 59 min.
II. LA BATALLA DE LOS DIOSES. A lo largo de su vida Carlos Fuentes ha sido testigo del redescubrimiento de los antiguos templos aztecas ocultos bajo la plaza mayor de la ciudad de Mexico. "Entonces supimos que lo que habiamos creido muerto en realidad estaba vivo." El vuelve a recorrer el mundo indigena con sus magnificas piramides y esculturas, un mundo de astronomia exacta y sacrificias humanos, de tranquilidad y violencia. La vuelta de su exiliado Dios rubio habia sido anticipada para el mismo ano que Hernan Cortes Ilego a los aztecas, pero este traia consigo un nuevo Dios, un Dios que se sacrificaba por los hombres. 59 min.
III. LA EDAD DE ORO. El Nuevo Mundo le proporciono a Espana (y eventualmente a Europa) enormes tesoros: oro, plata, chocolate, tomate, y la papa. Pero el rey mas poderoso de Espana, Felipe II, vivia en austera soledad en un salon del tamano de una celda. Queria proteger la fe catolica, mientras el autor espanol Cervantes cuestionaba los valores oficiales en su obra Don Quijote, el prototipo de la novela moderna. En la corte Velazquez pintaba obras maestras de penetracion psicologica, y el Barroco como estilo cruzo el Atlantico y celebro su transformacion en arma de la fantasia indigena en las magnificas iglesias de Potosi y Ocotlan. 59 min.
IV. EL PRECIO DE LA LIBERTAD. Cada ano, un millon de mexicanos se reunen en la gran Plaza Mayor de su capital para celebrar El Grito, el grito por la Independencia. Observando su desarrollo, Carlos Fuentes atraviesa los Andes siguiendo los pasos de Bolivar y San Martin. "Los que sirven a una revolucion aran en el mar," dijo el moribundo Bolivar. Los libertadores pudieron sacudirse el yugo espanol, pero encontraron mucho mas dificil establecer una sociedad justa. Para el gaucho existia el consuelo de los espacios abiertos, las montanas, y la pampa. Y para los que se amontonaban en las nuevas ciudades como Bueno Aires, estaba el tango, un penamiento triste que se puede bailar. 59 min.
V. LAS TRES HISPANIDADES. Espana, latinoamerica, los pueblos hispanicos en los Estados Unidos: todos han experimentado enormes cambios en este siglo. A partir de la generacion que esta naciendo ahora, la mitad de la poblacion de los EEUU sera hispanohablante. Cada ano medio millon evaden las patrullas de la frontera para entrar ilegalmente a los EEUU. "Buscan el oro gringo, pero tambien traen el oro latino," comenta Carlos Fuentes. Los inmigrantes hispanos contribuyen con la riqueza de sus tradiciones: una creatividad cultural diversa en el arte, la musica, y el baile, y el respeto que habla espanol. 59 min.
SP 60: THE SILENCE OF NETO. This film tells the politically charged story of a young boy, striving to follow his dreams while his country struggles to preserve democracy amidst CIA cold-war propaganda. 1994. Color. 1 hr. 46 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 61: EL MARIACHI. All he wants is to be a mariachi, like his father, his grandfather and his great grandfather before him. But the town he thinks will bring him luck brings only a curse of deadly mistaken identity. 1993. Color. 1 hr. 21 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 62: DEATH OF A BUREAUCRAT. The story of a young man's attempt to fight the system is an entertaining, hilarious account of galloping bureaucracy and the tyranny of red tape. 1966. B&W. 1 hr. 27 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 63a: CAMILA. Set in the mid-19th century Argentina, this true story of Camila O’Gorman, an aristocratic young woman who falls in love with Ladislao Gutierrez, a young Jesuit priest. 1984. Color. 1 hr. 45 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Copy 1 — VHS.
SP 63b: CAMILA. Copy 2 — VHS.
SP 63c: CAMILA. Special features include: Trailer, photo gallery, and cast and crew. Copy 3 — DVD.
SP 64a: ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER. Manuela is the perfect mother. A hard-working nurse, she's built a comfortable life for herself and her teenage son, an aspiring writer. 1999. Color. 1 hr. 42 min. Spanish with English/French subtitles. Special features include: Exclusive interview with Pedro Almodovar, isolated music score, director's notes, and talent files. Copy 1 — DVD.
SP 64b: ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER. Copy 2— DVD.
SP 65: LA DAMA DEL ALBA. Alejandro Casona. Una misteriosa peregrina, de paso para Santiage, aparce en una alda asturiana. Esta mujer es albergada por una familia, cuyo abuelo, que cree reconocerla, teme por los posibles riesgos que puedan correr sus nietos. El anciano cree recordar que la presencia de esta mujer coincidio con algunos acontecimientos luctuosos que ocurrieron en la aldea. Color. 1 hr. 30 min. VHS.
SP 66: KISS OF THE SPIDERWOMAN. A complex story of a friendship that develops between two men with radically different perspectives on life. 1985. Color. 1 hr. 59 min. VHS.
SP 67: LA MALQUERIDA. Jacinto Benavette. El joven Faustino es asesinado pocos dias antes de su boda con Acacia, hija de la senora Raimunda, y las sospechas recaen sobre norberto, antriguo conocido de la joven, y sobre Esteban, su padrastro. La acusacion que afecta al marido llega a conocimiento de Raimunda, cuando Norberto, que se declara inocente, le canta unas coplas que predicen la muerte de aquel que ame a Acacia, y aluden ademas a la pasion de Esteban por la joven. La revelacion es aclarada por la confesion de la hija, quien confirma el insano sentimiento de su padrastro y trastorna el animo de Raimunda. Pero al fin, vence el amore de esposa y madre. Color. 1 hr. 48 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 68: BODAS DE SANGRE. Federico Garcia Lorca. Un joven prepara su boda con la muchacha a la que ama. Este feliz acontecimiento se ve ensombrecido por el recuerdo en la madre del asesinato del padre y del hermano del novio. Leonardo, que pertencece a la familia de los Felix, los asesinos, estuvo enamorado de la novia mucho tiempo atras y no se resigna a que se case con otro. La boda se lleva a cabo, pero los vecinos del pueblo aseguran haber visto el caballo sudoroso de Leonardo junto a la ventana de la novia. Esa tragedia rural se basa en unos sucesos reales que tuvieron lugar en la localidad almeriense de Nijar en el ano 1928. Color. 1 hr. 45 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 69: TRES SOMBREROS DE COPA. Miguel Mihura. Dionisio pasa su ultima noche de soltero en la habitacion de un hotel de la ciudad, donde reside su novia. Coincide alli con una compania de artista de circo. Muy a su pesar se ve envuelto en el ambiente de juerga que se organiza durante toda la noche. Se enamora de Paula, una de las actrices, y decide marcharse con ella, abandonando asi la boda proyectada, por considerarla un acto demasiado prosaico. Es la misma Paula quien le convenve de que debe casarse con su novia. Color. 1 hr. 58 min. Spanish. VHS.
P 70: EL REY PASMADO. Madrid, Villa y Corte. Es el siglo XVII y el rey de Espana es un joven inexperto en politica y amores. Sin embargo, pronto descubre un mundo de sensaciones nuevas entre los brazos de Marfisa, una de las prostitutas mas bellas y caras de la Corte. La noticia correra de boca en boca, filtrandos por los muros de un palacio cuyas paredes parecen de cristal y en el que los regios inquilinos son mas que nada, sus prisioneros... Color. 1 hr. 45 min. VHS.
SP 71: BELTENEBROS. Una noche de invierno de 1962, el capitan Darman acompanado de Rebeca, recuerda en el tren que les lleva a Lisboa los acontecimientos recientes. Dias atras en Inglaterra, le habia sido encargada una mision secreta: volar a Madrid y ejecutar a un traidor infiltrado en el aparato clandestino del Partido. Darman recuerda una orden similar y el momento en que, dieciseis anos atras, ejecuto a Walter, pese a los gritos con que proclamaba su inocencia antes de morir... Color. 1 hr. 52 min. VHS.
SP 72: ESQUILACHE. Cuando el Marques de Esquilache llega al Palacio de las siete Chimeneas, su residencia habitual, todavia se oyen por las calles los gritos de Muerrra el mal gobierno gue lanzza la gente en pleno, motin. Mientras se mantean peleles al grito de Muera Esquilache, el marques trata de rememorar los acontecimientos que han desencadenado esa ola de violencia que pone en peligro su vida, su politica y el futuro de todo el pais. Tras un dramatico viaje por el recuerdo y por la violenta noche de un Madrid amotinado, Esquilache llega al Palacio Real. Pronto comprueba que esta siendo victima de una conspiracion movida por alguien mas cercano a el de lo que suponia. Color. 1 hr. 40 min. VHS.
SP 73: EL TRAGALUZ. Una familia compuesta por los padres y dos hijos viven en un sotano cuya unica comunicacion con el exterior es un tragaluz. El padre no esta en su sano juicio y los hijos discuten con frequencia a causa de sus distintos puntos de vista sobre la vida. Color. 2 hr. 20 min. VHS.
SP 74: COMO SER MUJER Y NO MORIR EN EL INTENTO. La vida de Carmen es bastante complicada. A sus 42 anos esta casada con Antonio, que es su tercer marido, y tiene dos hijos de anteriores matrimonios. Intenta llevar su carrera con profesionalidad, sin descuidar por ello su relacion con Antoniio, la organizacion de la casa, las amistades ni las necesidades emocionales de sus hijos. La vida diaria llega a ser tan complicada y contradictoria como una pelicula de aventuras. Lo imporante es no perder el sentido del humor. Color. 1 hr. 40 min. VHS.
SP 75a: STRAWBERRY AND CHOCOLATE. Meet David, a naive young college kid who's out on his own for the first time. With the help of two extraordinary new friends, David soon learns everything there is to know about the things that aren't taught in school. 1994. Color. 1 hr. 44 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 75b: STRAWBERRY AND CHOCOLATE. Copy 2 — DVD.
SP 76a: ¡GUANTANAMERA! Yoyita, a now world famous diva, returns to her home town of Guantanamo for an elegant reception in her honor and a surprising reunion with her once beloved, Candido. 1995. Color. 1 hr. 44 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Copy 1 — VHS.
SP 76b: ¡GUANTANAMERA! 1995. Color. Spanish with English subtitles. Special features include: Trailer and cast and director's filmographies. Copy 2 — DVD.
SP 76c: ¡GUANTANAMERA! Copy 3— DVD.
SP 77: ZOOT SUIT. Henry Reyna is the leader of a group of Mexican-Americans being sent to San Quentin without substantial evidence for the death of a man at Sleepy Lagoon. 1981. Color. 1 hr. 44 min. VHS.
SP 78: LONE STAR. The intriguing saga of clashing cultures and dirty dealings in a Texas border town. A moving look at parents and children at odds and the passions of forbidden love across generations. 1995. Color. 2 hr. 15 min. English/French language and subtitles. DVD.
SP 79a: DANZÓN. Julia, a Mexico City telephone operator, leads a tame, predictable life that is enlivened only by the ballroom dancing she enjoys each week. When her dance partner, Carmelo, suddenly disappears, Julia stuns her friends by impulsively following his trail to Veracruz. 1991. Color. 1 hr. 43 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Copy 1 — VHS.
SP 79b: DANZÓN. Copy 2 — DVD.
SP 80: ESPEJO DE ESCRITORES: Jorge Luis Borges. El celebrado y discutido autor de Ficciones dialoga con la escritor argentina Reina Roffe. Con deslumbrante elecuencia y sencillez, Jorge Luis Borges habla de su obra, de los fundamentos esteticos que estructuran sus cuentos y de las ideas filosoficas o metfisicas que le dan cuerpor a su poetica. Evoca a los grandes escritores de la literatura universal y revela su posicion etica, estetica e ideologica frente a la vida y las letras. Recuerda el Buenos Aires de principios del siglo y confiesa su desazon ante los ultimos acontecimientos politicos del pais. Y ademas da la primicia de narrar un cuento de cuchilleros que todavia no escribio. Dice cinco de sus mas famosas poemas. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 81: ESPEJO DE ESCRITORES: Mario Vargas Llosa. Interview with Mario Vargas Llosa. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 82: ESPEJO DE ESCRITORES: Octavio Paz. Interview with Octavio Paz. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 83: ESPEJO DE ESCRITORES: Juan Rulfo. En una entrevista excepcional con Silvia Fuentes, Juan Rulfo evoca su ninez y su familia en el contexto recvolucionarion de Mexico. De este modo, pone de manifiesto los raices mas profundas y la idiosincrasia del hombre mexicano. Cuenta como los diversos trabajos que desempeno durante su juventud lo llevaron de un lado a otro de su tierra, descubriendo los lugares y la gente que luego se convertirian en material de ficcion. Describe las ideas que direon forma a Pedro Paramo y nos revela la medida de su literatura. Lee de su gran novela y el cuento mas importante de El llano en llamas. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 84: ESPEJO DE ESCRITORES: Luis Rafael Sánchez. El autor de la guaracha del Macho Camacho y su traductor, Gregory Rabassa, hablan de la literatura puertorriquena, su influencia y los obstaculos a su dearollo. Del Puerto Rico de ayer y de hoy, de los problemas de esta comunidad en Estados Unidos, Luis Rafael Sanchez describe el conflicto entre la creacion artistica y la obligacion politica, y analiza los personajes y el lenguaje de La Guaracha, novela de la que lee varios fragmentos. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 85: ESPEJO DE ESCRITORES: Manuel Puig. En una conversacion amistosa con Reina Roffe, Manuel Puig recorre cada una de sus novelas, dando claves para entender el mundo de sus personajes. A traves de las experiencias personales que describe va haciendo la radiografia de todo un estrato social argentino. Habla sobre las voces que modulan su escritura en una constante busqueda estetica y de ciertas teorias de las que se bale para construir algunos de sus textos. Lee de la novelas La traicion de Rita Hayworth, The Buenos Aires Affair, Pubis angelicial y sangre de amor correspondido. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 86: VIRIDIANA. Viridiana is a novice nun, who despite being exposed to the evils of the outside world in the form of her lecherous uncle, decides to show true Christian charity by opening up her house to all the local cripples and beggars but they don't respond with the gratitude she expects. 1961. B&W. 1 hr 30 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 87: CARLOS FUENTES. One of Mexico's most celebrated writers has a rich and varied body of work, including criticism, short stories, plays and essays. 1989. 1 hr. 6 min. VHS.
SP 88: OCTAVIO PAZ. Born in Mexico in 1914, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990. He reads from The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz 1957-1987, in Spanish, with his translator, Eliot Weinberger, who reads the English versions of the poems. 1989. 1 hr. VHS.
SP 89: ERNESTO CARDENAL. An ordained Catholic priest, a revolutionary, and an acclaimed poet who champions the spiritual and intellectual values of the Nicaraguan people. 1991. 1 hr. VHS.
SP 90: EDUCARDO GALEANO. Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Eduardo is a journalist, historian, caricaturist, and a political activist who is best known for Memory of Fire, a fictive historical trilogy of the Americas from the first native myths to modern times. 1995. 1 hr. 30 min. VHS.
SP 91: MÁRQUEZ TALES BEYOND SOLITUDE. In this rare and exclusive interview, Nobel Prize-winner speaks about his best selling novels, his role in the Latin-American cinema, and his recent foray into — of all things — melodramatic soap opera. 1989. Color. 59 min. VHS.
SP 92: FLAMENCO. A magnificent panorama of Flamenco and its performer, for whom the rhythms and lyrics are inherited folklore and part of daily life — but the techniques are studied. 2001. Color. 56 min. No narration. VHS.
SP 93: CABEZA DE VACA. In 1528, a Spanish expedition founders off the coast of Flordia. The lone survivor, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, discovers an ancient Indian tribe. 1993. Color. 1 hr. 48 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Special features include: Trailer and cast biographies. DVD.
SP 94: TIERRA. Called in to fumigate the land after a plague of woodlice imparts a distinctive, earthy taste to the wine, Angel tries vainly to keep body and soul together even as he falls in love with demure, unhappily married Angela and in lust with the highly sexed Mari. 1995. Color. 2 hr. 2 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 95: MIDAQ ALLEY. Adapted from the novel by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, this film is set in the old downtown section of Mexico City. The events that take place have been divided into the stories of three neighbors whose lives are intertwined. 1995. Color. 2 hr. 20 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 96: BETWEEN PANCHO VILLA AND A NAKED WOMAN. A funny and thoughtful look at the changing nature of gender roles, follows a couple with amusingly different ideas about what makes for a healthy, intimate relationship. 1995. Color. 1 hr. 40 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 97: ¡CRIA! This film portrays the darker side of childhood in a fascinating parable about Spain's repressive Franco regime. Fantasy and reality become one as dead characters take their place beside the living. 1975. Color. 1 hr. 47 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 98: ESMERALDA COMES BY NIGHT. This film is a whimsical tale that depicts the life of a nurse who is happily married to five husbands! As she is about to marry husband number six, she is charged with bigamy. 1998. Color. 1 hr. 43 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 99: EVITA: THE WOMAN BEHIND THE MYTH. A&E Biography. To some, she was a hero; to others, she was a symbol of naked ambition. To the world, she remains a legend. 1996. Color. 50 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 100: PAINTED LIPS. A married woman with two children receives news that her childhood sweetheart has died. She gradually pieces together a complex mosaic of his life. What emerges is a brilliant, acid-sharp portrait of a man driven by fear into a life of self-deception. 1974. 2 hr. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 101: THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE. A poignant exploration of the fragile innocence of childhood, or a thoughtful commentary on the tragedy of Spain's Civil War. 1973. 1 hr. 33 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 102: THE CITY. A moving tribute to the struggles and hopes of a group of New Latin American immigrants facing the harsh realities of urban America. 1999. B&W. 1 hr. 28 min. Spanish/English with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 103a: SKYLINE. A Spanish photographer moves to New York with the idea of conquering the international art scene. Instead, he finds himself coping with the vagaries of the English language and the hardships of bachelor life in Manhattan. 1984. Color. 1 hr. 24 min. Spanish and English. Copy 1 — VHS.
SP 103b: SKYLINE. Copy 2 — VHS.
SP 104: NUEBA YOL. Nueba Yol documents a hapless immigrant's daily struggles in a strange country, devoid of the comforts of his native customs, language and culture. 1995. Color. 2 hr. Spanish/English with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 105: HIGH HEELS. When a TV anchorwoman is reunited with her long-estranged mother, a famous and flamboyant singer-actress, their reconciliation is cause for great celebration. 1991. Color. 1 hr. 43 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 106: THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL. The invited guests at an elegant dinner party find they are unable to leave at the end of the evening a mysterious force compels them to stay...and stay...and stay. 1962. B&W. 1 hr. 33 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 107: TOPAZE. Mr. Topaze is a timid, persecuted but scrupulously honest schoolteacher. When he refuses to change the failing grade of a student of a prominent family, Topaze, himself, is expelled from the school! 1951. B&W. 2 hr. 18 min. French with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 108a: TANGO, OUR DANCE. The sensuality and stylized adored by the inhabitants of Buenos Aires are captures in the complex art form of the Tango. 1994. Color. 1 hr. 10 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP108b: TANGO, OUR DANCE. Copy 2 — DVD.
SP 109: FLAMENCO. Exploring the sensuous delights and dark miseries of life by uniting music, song, and dance, Flamenco is one of the purest and most stunning performance films ever made. 1992. Color. 1 hr. 40 min. Spanish with some English subtitles. VHS.
SP 110: DEPRISA, DEPRISA. For the fast-paced look at juvenile delinquency in Madrid, a sensation was caused when two of the films stars were arrested for separate criminal offences. 1981. Color. 1 hr. 39 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 111: OLD GRINGO. Starring Jane Fonda, Gregory Peck, and Jimmy Smits. The old gringo is a retired journalist and adventurer who wanders through the hostile desert seeking some meaning to the last years of his life. 1989. Color. 2 hr. English. VHS.
SP 112: THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET. Leo writes romance novels — but with a loveless marriage, she finds herself fresh out of inspiration. A film by Almodóvar. 1996. Color. 1 hr. 41 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 113: WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?! You're not likely to find this part of Spain in a guidebook for tourist. Gloria, a very resourceful working class housewife, is a true feminist heroine who's on the go 18 hours a day. A film by Almodóvar. 1984. Color. 1 hr. 40 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 114: UP TO A CERTAIN POINT. A clever, self-reflexive satire about the battle of the sexes in contemporary Cuba. 1985. Color. 1 hr. 10 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 115: EXTRAMUROS. A fascinating, dark story of love and ambition behind a convent's walls in Spain during the time of the Inquisition. 1985. Color. 2 hr. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 116: I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. A sophisticated world traveler who has retired to a small town and is immediately drawn to a much younger woman. 1994. Color. 1 hr. 42 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 117: MARY MY DEAREST [MARIA DE MI CORAZON]. A petty thief returns from his nocturnal rounds to find a former flame who jilted him waiting in his apartment, wearing a wedding dress. 1983. Color. 1 hr. 40 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 118: ELISA VIDA MIA. An estranged daughter who returns home to her ailing father who is writing his biography from her point of view. A Carlos Sauras film. 1977. Color. 2 hr. 5 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 119: TRISTANA. Don Lope is a liberated but hypocritical aristocrat who seduces his beautiful young ward, Tristana. Given the opportunity, she flees with her lover but illness forces her to return and, later, marry Don Lope. 1970. Color. 1 hr. 38 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 120: MARTÍN FIERRO. A spectacular yet sensitive film set in the Argentine interior about a man who abandons his family to fight the Indians. Yet he fails his test of courage and becomes a deserter, kills a man in self-defense, and retreats to live in an Indian village. 1968. 2 hr. 14 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 121: ILLUSION TRAVELS BY STREETCAR. When their old streetcar is condemned to scrap, two laid-off transit workers decide to take it for one last drunken spree. 1953. B&W. 1 hr. 30 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 122: FUNNY DIRTY LITTLE WAR. This is a savage black comedy about the eruption of a civil war in a quiet Argentine village when a local Peronist politician claims a municipal clerk is a Communist. 1983. Color. 1 hr. 20 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 123: PEPPERMINT FRAPPE. The eerie story of a bachelor obsessed with his friend's wife, explores the fierce conflict between repressive religious upbringing and sexual desire. A film by Carlos Saura. 1967. Color. 1 hr. 32 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 124a: I, THE WORST OF ALL. Assumpta Serna stars as the brilliant and beautiful poet Sister Juana Ines de la Cruz in this magnificent portrayal of 17th Century Mexico. 1990. Color. 1 hr. 47 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS. Copy 1 — VHS.
SP 124b: I, THE WORST OF ALL. Copy 2 — VHS.
SP 125: THE BRUTE. The great Mexican star Pedro Armendariz plays a powerfully strong but slow-witted slaughterhouse worker who is hired by a slumlord to break a tenant strike. 1952. B&W. 1 hr. 21 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 126: NAZARÍN. A simple priest tries to live by Christian precepts and becomes an outcast and an outlaw. Stripped of his duties he wanders the road begging for food. 1958. B&W. 1 hr. 32 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 127: EL CHÉ. Ché Guevara, the man in the beret with the star, embodies one of the strongest myths of the 20th century. 1997. B&W. 1 hr. 30 min. English. VHS.
SP 128: SIMON OF THE DESERT. A monk, inspired by the 4th-century stoic saint, St. Simeon Stylites, spends years perched atop a pillar in the Mexican desert, in this surreal fable told in Bunuel's inimitable style, replete with dwarf goatherds, the Devil and other incongruities. 1965. B&W. 45 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 129: THE LAST SUPPER. The film is a dazzling moral tale of a pious slaveholder who decides to improve his soul and instruct his slaves in the glories of Christianity by inviting twelve of them to participate in a reenactment of The Last Supper. Special features include: Optional English subtitles, Scene Selections, Booklet Interview with Director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. 1976. Color. 1 hr. 50 min. DVD.
SP 130: EL (THIS STRANGE PASSION). The psychological study of a man obsessed. Seemingly the perfect specimen of gentility, Francisco is suddenly and "intuitively" drawn to a young woman he sees fleetingly in church. 1952. B&W. 1 hr. 28 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 131: SIMÓN BOLÍVAR. The time had come for Simón Bolívar's monumental idea of a united, liberated South America to become a distinct reality. 1995. Color. 30 min. English. VHS.
SP 132: APPROACH OF DAWN. Portraits of Maya woman forging peace in Guatemala. (Includes Discussion and Study Guide.) Color. 52 min. English. VHS.
SP 133: THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR. One of Europe's greatest social and political upheavals is brilliantly captured in this complete history of The Spanish Civil War. 1983. Color and B&W. 6 hours total. English. (Two VHS tapes.)
I. Part 1 of 2.
II. Part 2 of 2.
SP 134: PICTURES FROM A REVOLUTION. A memoir of the Nicaraguan conflict. A provocative study of the Revolution and its aftermath, a deeply moving account of individuals who brought about a true people's revolution, now living out their lives in obscurity. 1991. Color. 1 hr. 33 min. English. VHS.
SP 135: TANGO. Set against the backdrop of a director's passionate love affair with his art and the beautiful young woman who captures his heart. 1998. Color. 1 hr. 55 min. Spanish with English, Spanish, or French subtitles. Special features include: Production notes, producer and lead actress commentary, trailers, and making of featurette. DVD.
SP 136: BUTTERFLY. A heartwarming tale about a young boy growing up in a small Spanish town. Moncho is timid and fearful as he starts school for the first time. But with the nurturing guidance of his kind and devoted teacher, Don, a world of possibilities begins to open up for young Moncho. Color. 1 hr. 34 min. Spanish/French with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 137: PEDRO ALMODAVAR. Filmmaker Pedro Almodovar's ability to shock and provoke is legendary. In this program, the director traces his colorful career from obscure independent filmmaker to his 1988 Oscar nomination. 1997. Color. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 138: A PLACE CALLED CHIAPAS. On January 1st, 1994, the indigenous Zapatista National Liberation Army took over five towns and five hundred ranches in Southern Mexico. 1998. Color. 1 hr. 32 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 139: TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN! A recently released mental patient who is longing to settle down with a loving wife and family, kidnaps and holds prisoner a B-movie queen. 1990. Color. 1 hr. 41 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 140: PLACE WITHOUT LIMITS. La Manuela is a transvestite who lives in a seedy village brothel run by his daughter, La Japonesita, possibly conceived in a brief union with La Japonesa. 1977. Color. 1 hr. 50 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Special features include: Original lobby cards, filmographies and awards. DVD.
SP 141: BELLE EPOQUE [THE AGE OF BEAUTY]. Fernando, a handsome young Spanish Civil War deserter who befriends a free-thinking artist, finds himself in a romantic dilemma when the artist's four beautiful daughters return to their country home. 1992. Color. 1 hr. 49 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 142: DID THEY BUY IT? A documentary on the 1990 Nicaurgua elections. Color. 45 min. English. VHS.
SP 143: EL COMPADRE MENDOZA. En plena revolucion mexicana, el terrateniente Rosalio Mendoza sobrevive haciendo y pidiendo favores en ambos bandos de la contienda (las fuerzas gubernamentales y el ejercito de Zapata). En su haciendo todo mundo es bienvenido y Mendoza es muy estimado, especialmente por el general Felipe Nieto. El tiempo pasa y la situacion comienza a hacerse insostenible. Mendoza tendra que tomar partido, aunque ello signifique la traicion a sus amigos. 1933. VHS.
SP 144: ESPEJO DE ESCRITORES. Julio Cortázar. El autor de Rayuela habla con el profesor Saul Sosonowski sobre la presencia del lector en su obra, y la trayectoria desde el individualismo literario havia una vision mas colectiva. Julio Cortazar define lo que represento para el, como experiencia personal, la Revolucion cubana, a partir de lo cual pudo sentirse verdaramente latinoamericano. Alude a sus vinculos con los movimiento de liberacion y a las tareas que como intelectual se propone ante la historia. Comenta las lecturas que se registran en su obra y explica como su funcion de traductor le sirvio para encontrar la dimension de una literatura. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 145: ESPEJO DE ESCRITORES. Isabel Allende. Interview with Isabel Allende. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 146: ESPEJO DE ESCRITORES. Severo Sarduy. El novelista y critico exploran el juego de las puertas falsas, el "trompe-l'oiel" y los difrances, abriendo un espacio desde Camaguey hasta el Paris post-estructuralista, tocando las claves de De donde son los cantantes, Gestos, Colibri, y otras obras que nos deleitan al retar nuestra inteligencia. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 147: ESPEJO DE ESCRITORES. Luisa Valenzuela. Interview with Luisa Valenzuela. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 148a: DARK HABITS. Yolanda, a nightclub singer who goes on the lam after her lover dies of a drug overdose, takes refuge in the convent of the Humble Redeemers. 1984. Color. 1 hr. 56 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Copy 1 — VHS.
SP 148b: DARK HABITS. 1984. Color. 1 hr. 56 min. Special features include: Weblinks. Copy 2 — DVD.
SP 149: MAYAS, AZTECS AND INCAS. The three leading American civilizations at the time of the Spanish conquest were the Mayas and Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of South America. Explore their cultures and learn about their achievements. 1996. Color. 27 min. English. VHS.
SP 150: TEOTIHUACAN: CITY OF THE GODS. When the Aztecs arrived in the Valley of Mexico 600 years ago, they found a mysterious city of great pyramids. 1987. Color. 19 min. English. VHS.
SP 151: LA SEMANA SANTA EN ESPANA. This simple Spanish program will help students with their language skills while it assists in increasing cultural awareness. Students will witness how the deeply religious people of Spain observe Easter. 1992. Color. 24 min. English. VHS.
SP 152: ¡FIESTAS MEXICANAS! [MEXICAN HOLIDAYS]. Experience the fiestas of Mexico: Cinco de Mayo, Day of the Dead, Flag Day, and many more are presented. Get a taste of the richest expressions of Mexico's popular culture and gain an appreciation for the sense of tradition and community that are so important to our neighbors to the south. 1997. Color. 30 min. English. VHS.
SP 153: THE PIÑATA. In Mexico, the breaking of the piñata is not only a simple and merry pastime, but also a traditional part of Christmas and other joyful occasions. Join in the fun. 1989. Color. 9 min. English. VHS.
SP 154: CELEBRATING THE DAY OF THE DEAD. The Day of the Dead is a serious affair in Mexico where relatives take the time to remember and honor deceased loved ones. 1992. Color. 20 min. Spanish and English with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 155: NADIE CONOCE A NADIE. Mateo Gil, screenwriter for Open Your Eyes, steps behind the camera to direct this bizarre psychological thriller set during Seville's Holy Week festivities. A fledging novelist (Eduardo Noriega) who works as a crossword puzzle writer receives an ominous message to include a particular word in an upcoming puzzle. The day after the word appears, a prominent local figure is killed. Thus begins a nightmarish descent into a world where the holy and sacrilegious become one. Features music by director Alejandro Amenabar (Open Your Eyes, The Others). 1999. Color. 1 hr. 44 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 156: BARRIO. Three teenagers trapped in the summer heat of a Madrid working-class neighborhood must face their inevitable futures in this moody and humorous drama from director Fernando Leon de Aranona. Barrio is a powerful coming-of-age story. 1999. Color. 1 hr. 38 min. Features: Spanish Dolby Digital Audio; English subtitles. DVD.
SP 157: LA ARDILLA ROJA. Una noche de verano, en San Sebastian, Jota, lider de un grupo musical, piensa en suicidarse. Pero, de repente, una moto choca contra la barandilla del malecon desde donde pensaba tirarse. El conductor resulta ser una chica que, a causa del golpe, pierde la memoria. 1993. Color. 1 hr. 40 min. VHS.
SP 158: ESPEJO DE ESCRITORES. Carlos Fuentes. En esta reveladora entrevista hecha por su esposa Silvia, Carlos Fuentes habla de la preocupacion hispanica sobre la originalidad y de la funcion del tiempo en la literatura. Recuerda su juventud en Estados Unidos, la afirmacion de su identidad, su formacion politica y literaria. Nos lleva por las calles de Mexico; descubre sus antiguas obsesiones. Habla de su evolucion artistica y sus relaciones con el teatro. Lee de La region mas transparente. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 159: ANUNCIOS, SENALES Y CARTELES. Test your reading comprehension skills and have fun looking at a wide variety of signs found in the Spanish-speaking world. 1998. Color. 17 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 160: 20TH CENTURY: HISPANICS IN AMERICA. By the year 2050, Hispanic-Americans will make up on quarter of the U.S. population. This program examines the history of Hispanic immigration to America and the contributions of Hispanics to American society. Color. 1 hr. English. VHS.
SP 161: MEXICO: A STORY OF COURAGE AND CONQUEST. 1999. Color. English. (Four VHS tapes.)
I. Paret 1 of 4. Before Cortes arrived in 1519, the land that would become Mexico had already seen some of the greatest leaders and warriors in human history. 50 min.
II. Part 2 of 4. For 300 years after the conquistadors' triumph over the Aztec, Mexico was the crown jewel of the Spanish colonial empire. 50 min.
III. Part 3 of 4. As hard as the struggle for freedom from Spain was, the first decades of autonomy were perhaps even more difficult for Mexico. 50 min.
IV. Part 4 of 4. By the end of the 19th century, Mexico was exhausted from years of fighting. 50 min.
SP 162: PANAMA CANAL. Part of Teddy Roosevelt's dream of making America a global power was realized through the construction of the Panama Canal. 1994. Color. 50 min. English. VHS.
SP 163a: COSTA RICA. Discover dazzling Costa Rica, the jewel at the heart of Central America, where mist-shrouded peaks loom over fertile valleys and lush tropical forests touch unspoiled seashores. Color. 56 min. English. Copy 1 - VHS.
SP 163b: COSTA RICA. Copy 2 - VHS.
SP 164: CARMEN. Carlos Saura's Film about an audition for dancers for a flamenco ballet version of Carmen, a charismatic choreographer discovers a fiery new leading lady. 1984. Color. 1 hr. 39 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 165: THE DAY YOU LOVE ME. The myths of romance and politics clash, exposing the lies, hopes, and false dreams of an era in the eve of change, as the small city meets for the first time the King of the Tango. 1986. 1 hr. 20 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 166: AGAINST ALL ODDS. Dark passions explode in this steamy, sinister love story of a cynical ex-football star who is hired to find a runaway mistress of a ruthless L.A. nightclub owner. 1984. Color. 2 hr. 2 min. English with English/Spanish/Portuguese/Chinese/Korean/Thai subtitles. Special features include: Director's and screenwriter commentary, trailer, two music videos and deleted scenes. DVD.
SP 167: THE HISPANIC AMERICANS. Hispanic Entrepreneurs: Against all odds. Hosted by Hector Elizondo. Interviews and discusses many issues of racial and financial discrimination. Color. 44 min. English. VHS.
SP 168: AMORES PERROS. Three lives become inextricably linked in the wake of a terrible car crash: a young punk stumbles into the sinister underground world of dog fighting. 2000. Color. 2 hr. 33 min. Spanish/French with English/French subtitles. Special features include: Story boards, photos, commentary, deleted scenes, 2 featurettes, 3 music videos, and trailer. DVD.
SP 169: CONQUISTADORS. TLC series. Three VHS tapes on three different conquistadors. Color. Each approx. 47 min. English.
I. BATTLE OF THE GODS.
II. EMPIRE OF THE SUN.
III. INCA REBELLION.
SP 170: THE GENERATION OF '27. At the heart of the generation if '27 lies experimentation with a host of popular artistic as well as political "isms" including neo-Gongorism, Ultraism, Creationism, Surrealism, socialism and communism. 2002. Color. 49 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 171: FANDO & LIS. Premiered at the 1968 Acapulco Film Festival, inciting a riot that forced the director to flee for his life. In the ensuing scandal, the film was banned. Considered lost for over 30 years. 1968. B&W. 1 hr. 36 min. Spanish with English/French subtitles. Also includes feature length documentary La Constellation Jodorowsky. 1995. Color. 1 hr. 27 min. In French and English with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 172: THE GARDEN OF EDEN. In Tijuana, the border is a 15-mile-long steel wall that separates Mexico from the United States. Serena, Jane and Elizabeth are three women in this hot dusty border town each looking for meaning in their lives. 1994. Color. 1 hr. 44 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 173: NINE QUEENS. Welcome to a world of suspicion, betrayal and intrigue, where two small-time grifters team up to pull off a big-time score involving a set of valuable counterfeit stamps known as the Nine Queens. 2000. Color. 1 hr. 55 min. Spanish with English/French subtitles. DVD.
SP 174: EL HOMBRE DE LA ESQUINA ROSADA. This is one of Borges' finest short stories; its subject is the world of the Gaucho; passion murder, and the ceaseless rhythm of café dancing are diffracted through the author's surrealistic lens. 1995. Color. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 175: This VHS tape contains two different features.
1) UN CHIEN ANDALOU was written over the course of a three-day exchange of fantasies and dreams with Salvador Dali. 1928. B&W. 16 min.
2) LAND WITHOUT BREAD portrays the everyday life a indigent peasants in one of Spain's most desolate regions. 1932. B&W. 27 min.
SP 176: DEMISIADO AMOR. Beatriz and her sister Laura have a dream: go to another country, set up a boarding house and live off their income. They have been planning it for years and, finally, overburdened by the crisis and routine, one day they decide that one of them must leave and get the project started. 2001. Color. 1 hr. 40 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 177: BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB. Guitarist Ry Cooder’s celebrated album featuring the recently rediscovered talents of Cuba’s foremost folk musicians sold millions of copies and earned a Grammy Award. Cooder teams up with acclaimed director Wim Wenders to reveal the astonishing life stories, vibrant personalities and unforgettable music of the brilliantly talented but long-overlooked performers who collaborated on this now-legendary recording. 1999. Color and B&W. 1 hr. 45 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Special features include: "Me La Debes" a short film by Carlos Cuaron, deleted scenes, making of the featurette, audio commentary with the cast, TV spot and original trailer. DVD.
SP 178: EL GALLO DE ORO. A poor man nurses a near-dead fighting rooster, or cockerel, back to life. The cockerel regains its glory in the ring, bringing the owner fame, wealth, and romance. Seduced by the glamour of the cock-fighting arenas, this beginner gamesmen is tempted into a partnership. 1964. Color. 1 hr. 45 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Special features include: Trailer and cast and crew. DVD.
SP 179: Y TU, MAMÁ TAMBIÉN. Julio and Tenoch are two teens ruled by raging hormones and a mission to consume exotic substances. But one summer, the boys learn more about life than they bargain for when they set off on a wild cross-country trip with seductive, 28-year-old Luisa. 2002. Color. 1 hr. 45 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Special features include: Audio commentary featuring the director, trailer, crew information, musician information, production notes and additional scenes. DVD.
SP 180: TAXI PARA 3. A black comedy telling the story of Ulises, a taxi driver who thinks that joining the gang that holds him up may just be the way out. The lure of easy money throws him off the straight and narrow road to the rich neighborhoods wherein lies the cash that will help him pay off his beat-up taxicab. 2001. Color. 1 hr. 29 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 181: CENIZAS DEL PARAISO. Judge Costa Makantasis dies when falling mysteriously from the terrace of the Court’s house Buildings and Ana Muro, a 22-year-old girl is found dead that same night with 15 stab wounds. The three sons of the Judge will plead guilty to the girl’s death. 1997. Color. 2 hr. 10 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 182a: TALK TO HER. Two men almost meet while watching a dance performance, but their lives are irrevocably entwined by fate. They meet later at a private clinic where Benigno is the caregiver for Alicia, a beautiful dance student who lies in a coma. 2002. Color. 1 hr. 54 min. Spanish/French with English/French subtitles. Special features include: Commentary by Pedro Almodovar and Geraldine Chaplin, weblinks to director and movie site and trailer. Copy 1 — DVD.
SP 182b: TALK TO HER. Copy 2 — DVD.
SP 183: INTACTO. Considered “lucky” after he survives a plane crash, a bank thief is recruited into an underground gambling ring where death and luck intermingle. This critically acclaimed thriller ventures into the world of those blessed with fortune and the gamblers who bet high stakes just to feel the rush of fate’s hand. 2001. Color. 1 hr. 49 min. Spanish/English. Special features include: Director's commentary, behind the scenes footage, artwork and promo spots. DVD.
SP 184a: THE CRIME OF PADRE AMARO. Father Amaro, a new priest assigned to the small rural town of Los Reyes, Mexico. Upon arrival, he discovers that a conspiracy of corruption, sex and lies has overtaken the local Catholic Church. As he tries to separate himself from the other priests' actions, he finds the temptation too great and is eventually drawn in. 2002. Color. 1 hr. 59 min. Spanish/English with English/Spanish/French subtitles. Special features include: Director and actor commentary, making of featurette, photo gallery, poster explorations, and trailers. Copy 1 — DVD.
SP 184b: THE CRIME OF PADRE AMARO. Copy 2 — DVD.
SP 185: HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS. This beautiful epic follows a tempestuous family driven by the conflict between tradition and passion. Ryder is in love but her desires are not fundamental to the family's interest. Only a series of small miracles can solve this impasse. 1993. Color. 2 hr. 13 min. English. Special features include: Cast and crew information and production notes. DVD.
SP 186: DOÑA BARBARA. Based on the 1929 novel by Romulo Gallegos, Dona Barbara tells of a dramatic confrontation over land and civil rights, notable for its passionate characterizations.1943. B&W. 2 hr. 18 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 187: CORTAZAR: CARTAS DE MAMA. An example of Cortázar’s portrayals of guilt and passion, this story is set in Paris, where the Spanish protagonists live and are dominated by fears and doubts reawakened by letters from the hero's mother. 1996. Color. 1 hr. Spanish. VHS.
SP 188: THE GENERATION OF '98. This is the story of a Spanish literary and cultural movement in the first two decades of the 20th century. It was so named by Azorín in 1913 to designate a group of young writers who, in the face of defeat (1898) in the Spanish-American War, proclaimed a moral and cultural rebirth for Spain. The group was concerned with defining the essential quality of Spain, studying its history and culture. 2001. Color. 49 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 189: RUNNING OUT OF TIME. A terrorist is distracted from his mission of destruction when he falls in love with a beautiful but troubled young woman, and soon he is immersed in her world of drugs, crime and chaos. 1994. Color. 1 hr. 33 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 190: THE COMET [EL COMETA]. The Mexican revolution in 1910 provides the backdrop for a young girl's journey from Mexico City to San Antonio. After witnessing the arrest of her father by the Porfirio Diaz regime for subversive acts, Valentia must take a parcel of gold coins to Francisco Madero's rebel faction in San Antonio. She is taken in by a traveling circus and finds love with the cinema-loving Victor the circus owner's son. 2002. 1 hr. 33 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 191: MARIA CANDELARIA. A poignant story starring Dolores del Rio as a young girl mercilessly persecuted by her townspeople because of her mother's immoral behavior. 1945. Color. 1 hr. 39 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 192: SURVIVAL SPANISH. This ten-lesson conversational course is designed to teach how to "think" in Spanish, offering humor, enthusiasm and real-life situations for business, money, information, restaurants, family, telephone usage and travel. (With study guide.) 1984. Color. 58 min. English with Spanish subtitles. VHS.
SP 193: ALL OF THEM WITCHES. When her friend is murdered in the apartment across the hall, a young woman begins to investigate the strange events that led to the tragedy. Sinister occurrences follow Dolores as she searches for clues, finally uncovering a witchcraft cult and darker secrets than she had ever feared. Going against the advice of her husband and her disbelieving psychiatrist, Dolores continues to delve into the black magic and occult powers that threaten her at every turn. 1995. Color. 1 hr. 40 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 194: DELACALLE Streeters. It is a story about a teenager and his girlfriend struggling to survive in an environment determined to destroy them. He gets money by doing odd jobs and participating in the drug deals. One day he steals money from El Ochoa, a judicial policeman without scruples who controls the neighborhood in which they live. 2001. Color. 1 hr. 26 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Special features include: The Making of De La Calle. DVD.
SP 195: CRONOS. An ingenious alchemist creates a device that grants him eternal live. 400 years later an elderly antique dealer discovers the properties of this unique invention. Though he grows younger every time he uses this device, there is a terrible price to pay. Life after death becomes a bloody promise without end. 1992. Color. 1 hr. 32 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 196: EL CORONEL NO TIENE QUIEN LE ESCRIBA. Fernando Lujan stars as a loyal family man affectionately known in a small town as the Colonel. Down on his luck, the aging Colonel awaits a promised and very needed pension plan. Every Friday, he dresses in his finest suit and walks down to the docks in anticipation of that fateful letter announcing the arrival of his pension. All the townspeople know that the Colonel waits in vain. He also knows what they think and say about him, but still he goes because his dream is all he has left. One other serious problem is that his family hungers and his wife is not healthy. 2002. Color. 1 hr. 58 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 197: 3 NOCHES. When the corpse of a reputed mobster appears unexpectedly, all signs point to a crime of passion. But the grim and bitter detective Ferran suspects that there is more to the crime than meets the eye and sets out on a journey through the strange universe of Latin American nightclubs in order to solve the murder. 2001. Color. 1 hr. 45 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 198: GESTURE VIDEO. A fresh, fun way to teach culture and language! Works great with all levels. 34 lively authentic Spanish gestures that were filmed in Madrid, Spain. 1996. Color. 1 hr. 15 min. Spanish/English. VHS.
SP 199: This VHS tape includes two segments on one tape.
1) LA CELESTINA (by Fernando de Rojas): Calixto, while chasing a falcon, arrives at Melibea's orchard. He sees her, falls in love and is rejected. Sempronio and Parmenio request Celestina to arrange a meeting with Melibea. Celestina manages to get into Melibea's house and convinces her to receive Calixto. As payment, Calixto gives Celestina a gold chain, which she refuses to share with the servants, and which will cause a tragedy. When Calixto dies, Melibea throws herself from a tower, killing herself. 1994. Color. 52 min. Spanish.
2) EL CASAMIENTO ENGAÑOSO [THE DECEPTIVE MARRIAGE] by Miguel de Cervantes is an exemplary novel. It narrates the trap in which the lieutenant Campuzano falls when he marries Estefanía, a light woman whom he believes he has redeemed. The script writer proposes to use the dramatic peripeteia invented by Cervantes, but moving to our times, thus investigating the motives which are credible nowadays. 1994. B&W. 39 min. Spanish.
SP 200: LA VIDA ES SUEÑO [LIFE IS A DREAM]. In Poland, King Basilio has decided to lock up his son Segismundo, in obedience to the dictates of the stars, which predict that his son will commit all kinds of cruelties. Faithful Clotaldo guards the young man, who grows up in isolation, like a wild animal. Only a young woman will come near his prison, Rosaura. The King decides to put to trial his son's character and he makes him wake up in the court, with full powers. When Segismundo wakes up and sees himself as King, he orders that his father be imprisoned. The trial fails and Segismundo is locked up again, in the belief that all that passed has been a dream. The King appoints his nephews as heirs, but the people, who have known Segismundo, set him free and organize an army to fight against the King, who is defeated. But Segismundo has learnt to control his emotions; he submits himself to the King and, in spite of loving Rosaura, he orders that she be married to Astolfo. He himself gets married with Estrella. At that moment, Segismundo feels he desires Rosaura, but he decides that, among so many illusions, the only truth will be that of his own word. 1994. B&W. 1 hr. 14 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 201: This VHS tape includes two different movies on one tape.
1) POEMA DEL MÍO CID. Epic poem of the XI century. Manuscript compiled by Pere Abad. It narrates the exit towards exile of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, Cid Campeador, from his native Burgos, accompanied by a few followers, his adventures in the lands of Muslim Spain and his triumphant return to Castilla. 1996. Color. 57 min. Spanish.
2) EL MARQUÉS DE SANTILLANA (Biography). Historic evocation of Iñigo López de Mendoza, Marquis of Santillana, a great expert of the troubadour lyric at the service of the kings of Aragón. He intervened in Castillian politics and took part in several feats of arms. Presentation by Antonio Gala and dramatisation in Santillana del Mar (Santander), whose dominion had been granted by Juan II to Santillana who, already old, decides to retire to Guadalajara. He travels on horseback through the urban group, lands and escarpments, remembering poetic, political and family facts in his life. 1996. Color. 33 min. Spanish.
SP 202: CITY OF M. "M" has used the hard realities of life to create for himself a lifestyle without worry. His inability to find employment, for example, allows him plenty of time to play soccer, spend nights at parties, and freeloading off his girlfriend. Aware that his relaxation period is only temporary he accepts with trepidation a job as a drug mule, or a narcotics carrier to cover for dealers. Bringing contraband into Miami, M realizes that he now has an opportunity to escape his leisurely lifestyle with a position of criminal responsibility. 2000. Color. 1 hr. 42 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 203: FRIDA. Salma Hayek fought for the right to produce and star in this biopic on Mexico's premier female artist, Frida Kahlo. Directed by Julie Taymor, this visually striking picture captures Kahlo's passion and creativity by fusing the events in her life with the imagery of her art with electric results. 2002. Color. English/French dubbed with optional English/Spanish subtitles. DVD. (Two-disc set.)
I. Feature Presentation. 2 hr. 3 min.
II. Special Features.
SP 204: EL ESPIRITU DE MI MAMA [SPIRIT OF MY MOTHER]. Sonia longs to escape her troubled life in Los Angeles. One night, she receives a message from her dead mother in a dream, a message that leads her on a journey of self-discovery and spiritual rebirth back to her native Honduras. 1999. Color. 1 hr. Spanish/Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 205: WITHOUT A TRACE [SIN DEJAR HUELLA]. Mexico's beautiful, rustic landscape provides the perfect backdrop for this tale of two women who cross paths in their search for freedom and friendship. A Spanish antiquities dealer stranded in Mexico after a bad encounter with a border agent runs into a woman fleeing from an abusive boyfriend. The two form a bond regardless of their different backgrounds, which is put to the test when the difficult men in their lives reappear. 2000. Color. 1 hr. 50 min. Spanish with Spanish/Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 206: FRIDA KAHLO: THE RIBBON THAT TIES THE BOMB. The surreal art and life of Mexico's groundbreaking female artist is explored in this biopic. This feature includes footage of her work, her home and interviews with author Hayden Herrera and members of Kahlo's family. The documentary explores her turbulent relationship with Diego Rivera, her scandalous lesbian affairs, and her mastering of art that depicted her anguished life. 1999. Spanish/Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 207: ECUADOR: DIVIDED OVER OIL (from the "What in the World?: The People of Developing Nations" series). This edition of the series on globalization focuses on the conflict between Burlington Resources, an American oil company prospecting in Ecaudor, and the Achuar people of that country. The film underscores the cooperation between Ecuador's government and U.S. oil interests, and uses this particular case as an example of the impact this has on the people of Ecuador. 2005. 26 min. English. DVD.
SP 208: LA CAZA [THE HUNT]. Three men who fought with the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War and have since prospered reunite to go rabbit hunting on the hot, arid land owned by José (Ismael Merlo). José, Paco (Alfredo Mayo), and Luis (José Maria Prada) are joined by the much younger Enrique (Emilio Guitierrez Caba), who was born after the Civil War. To impress the others, José buys an expensive radio and camera but refuses to purchase medicine for the sick mother of Juan (Fernando Sanchez Polack), a crippled peasant who lives on his land. In addition, the men shamelessly lust after Juan's impoverished young niece. As the heat of the day builds, tensions between the men boil to the surface, reaching a violent climax when Juan asks Paco for a significant loan. 1965. Color. 1 hr. 27min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 209: THE TIGRESS [LA TIGRA]. Based on the novella by Jose de La Cuadra, this Ecuadorian feature looks at female identity through the eyes of Latin American machismo culture. The Tigress is the myth of woman: beautiful, sexual, powerful and revered. This film may be the best visual equivalent of literary "magical realism" ever filmed, and was awarded the Best Film Prize at the 1990 Cartagena Film Festival. 1990. Color. 1 hr 20 min. Spanish with English subtitles. VHS.
SP 210: SCHOOL OF ASSASSINS. This Academy Award-nominated documentary sheds light on the U.S.-funded "Army School of the Americas." This military school has been training some of the most brutal Latin-American and Caribbean assassins and dictators since 1946. Along with using rarely seen footage to expose this institution, the film also highlights the U.S. activist movement to shut the school down. 1995. 18 min. English. VHS.
SP 211: NOVIA QUE TE VEA [LIKE A BRIDE]. Two young women experience conflicts between their traditional Mexican-Jewish community and modern Mexican society in the 1960s in this award-winning coming-of-age drama. As each attempts to follow their dreams and loves, they must face the conservative attitudes that inhibit their families. Stars Claudette Maille and Angelica Aragon. Color. 1 hr. 55 min. Spanish/Spanish with English subtitles. Special features include: Biographies. DVD.
SP 212: A SUS ORDENES MI SENADOR. Within hours of the Stara of the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende — the world's first democratically chosen Marxist president — Allende was dead and the junta was in control of Chile. This program thoroughly examines the rise of Allende's Political Unity party and the trip-hammer response of General Augusto Pinochet, the man who seized the reins of power and then held them in his iron grip for almost two decades. Interviews with members of the Allende family, writer Antonio Skármeta, and mothers of "the disappeared" shine light into the darkness of the Pinochet regime. Color. 29 min. Spanish. DVD.
SP 213: CHILE: "DEFEAT OF A DICTATOR." General Augusto Pinochet seized power in a 1973 military coup. He banned political parties, closed newspapers, and spread fear throughout the country; political assassinations, disappearances, torture, and imprisonment became common. In 1983, an economic crisis pushed many Chileans to dare oppose the dictatorship for the first time. Copper miners called for a nonviolent national protest day against Pinochet, unleashing pent-up opposition in a wave of monthly protests. Mainstream opposition parties re-emerged after ten years underground, and supported by the church, staged frequent nonviolent demonstrations. By 1987, the democratic opposition realized that the constitution Pinochet wrote in 1980 called for a plebiscite — a chance for people to vote yes or no on another eight years of military rule. Isolated and overconfident, Pinochet had always assumed he would win if people were given a choice. But after years of organizing, the opposition was prepared, and ran a bold, future-oriented "NO" campaign. On October 5, 1988, Pinochet was voted out. Color. 34 min. English. DVD.
SP 214: JOSÉ MARTÍ: CUBA'S PATRIOT-POET. A tireless proponent of freedom from Spanish rule, José Martí is know as "The Apostle of Cuban Independence." Combining documentary material with dramatizations, this program celebrates the selfless life of the freedom fighter, which was marked by imprisonment, exile, and, ironically, death in his first appearance on the battlefield. Color. 1 hr. 3 min. Spanish. DVD.
SP 215: PABLO NERUDA: LET ME SING FOR YOU. Nicknamed "The Emperor of the Stage," Franklin Caicedo has applied his remarkable talents to create a one-man show that movingly evokes the spirit of Chile's greatest poet, Pablo Neruda. In this classic program, Caicedo is filmed onstage, with students in a park, and at a variety of other venues as he dramatically recites "The Words," "Not Only Fire," "I Like You When You Are Silent," "Self-Portrait," "The Question," The Dead Woman," "Farewell," "Saddest Poem," "Letter on My Travels," and other selections from Neruda's oeuvre. Color. 41 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 216: LOS CUENTOS DE BORGES "EL SUR." A descendant of famous ancestors dreams of more heroic times until a serious accident takes him to the doors of death, where the past and the present mingle — and where he meets his final destiny. 2004. Color. 58 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 217: LOS CUENTOS DE BORGES "LA MUERTE Y LA BRUJULA." This mystery revolves around a series of three identical assassinations, each committed on the third day of the month, for three consecutive months, in three different locations. Following the clues, a clever detective stumbles into the perfect trap. 2004. Color. 58 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 218a: THE CLOUD. A dark cloud has descended on Buenos Aires, where it has been raining for 1600 days. In a modernized world where time hastens forward, traffic and the city masses move backwards, unaware they are regressing within a corrupted system that is the cause of their social woes. Amidst this frenzy, an eclectic group of actors struggles to save their theatre from being torn down and replaced with a shopping mall. Caught between passion and helplessness, this group resists, refusing to sell out. They demonstrate the irrevocable link of culture to society, art and life. 1998. Color. 1 hr. 58 min. Spanish with Chinese/English subtitles. Copy 1 — VCD. (Two VCDs.)
I. Part 1 of 2.
II. Part 2 of 2.
SP 218b: THE CLOUD. Copy 2 — VCD.
I. Part 1 of 2.
II. Part 2 of 2.
SP 219: EL MÉXICO DE ROLANDO GUILLERMOPRIETO. Artist Rolando Guillermoprieto presents his anthropologically influenced work, a reflection of the importance of time and space in traditional Mexican culture. Includes visits to a local market, a famous regional spa, and the ceremonial centers of Monte Alban and Mitla in Oaxaca. 2003. Color. 18 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 220: ¿SABE UD...? Eight programs. Emphasis on practical Spanish: social interaction, asking for directions, using the telephone, getting hotel and student rooms, money exchange, the post office, the metro, a travel agency, purchases of various types, the doctor's office and the pharmacy. Tour of a typical Hispanic city. 2003. Color. 48 min. Spanish and English. VHS.
SP 221: LA COMIDA. Seven programs. Shopping at the outdoor market and the bakery. Coffee and ice cream refreshments. Lunch at the student union . An arepa and a Cuban sandwich. Fast food in Colombia and restaurant dining in Mexico. Tapas and paella in Spain. Prepare ajiaco and mole at home. 2003. Color. 38 min. Spanish and English. VHS.
SP 222: EL TIEMPO LIBRE. Seven programs. Making plans with family and friends. Public and private fiestas, and a visit to the zoo in Madrid. Hear from baseball, tennis, and soccer practitioners, as well as body building, gym, martial arts, and health food enthusiasts. Me gusta mucho: a motorcycle, a computer, a doll house, but not los frenos! 2003. Color. 45 min. Spanish and English. VHS.
SP 223a: BUENOS AIRES: CIUDAD PORTEÑA. Visit Buenos Aires as we stroll up the famous Calle Florida and see the Casa Rosada, the Capitol, and Avenida 9 de Julio, the world's widest thoroughfare. We visit the old section of La Boca, where the tango was made popular and see a street singer and famous tangos. Includes CD with scripts and audio files in Spanish and English. 2003. Color. 12 min. Spanish. VHS.
SP 223b: BUENOS AIRES: CIUDAD PORTEÑA. Copy 2 — DVD.
SP 224: ES ESPANOL 3. These tapes constitute an audio-visual novel for learning Spanish. The lessons are shown in the format of television shows about four individuals who are studying in a school for theater. 2001. Color. 1 hr. 45 min. Spanish with subtitles for the dialogs. Includes a didactic guide for the videos in Spanish. (Two VHS tapes.)
I. Part 1 of 2. 1 hr. 45 min.
II. Part 2 of 2. 1 hr. 30 min.
SP 225: ARGENTINA: MIDDLE CLASS REVOLT. This documentary takes us to Argentina to investigate the middle class revolt against the politicians who Argentinians claim are responsible for the economic ruin of their nation. Here we see that chaos has hit the streets of Buenos Aires. Streets are filled with noisy protests, while once-fashionable stores are empty. Outside the center of the city, illegal bartering flourishes and is ignored by the government because it is fulfilling the daily needs of millions of Argentians; however, that certainly is not a long-term solution to the countryïs economic problems. 2002. Color. 24 min. English. DVD.
SP 226: CHILE: FIGHTING THE PAST (POLARIZED POLITICS). The arrest of General Pinochet exposed the frightening hatreds between the political left and right in Chile. While the left remind the world of Pinochetïs horrific crimes, the right demand that the horrors be put in their proper context. These were not atrocities, the argument runs, but excesses. The kind of things people do to restore order and attain economic success in a harsh environment. This powerful and comprehensive report reveals the divides that still affect Chilean society. 2002. Color. 30 min. English. DVD
SP 227: THE RENAISSANCE: FROM COURTLY TRADITION TO LOCO AMOR. Despite the dampening effects of the Inquisition and the Counter-Reformation, the Renaissance gave a powerful impetus to learning and experimentation - and in the process ensconced Castilian as the language of choice for both poetry and prose. I(n this program, renowned experts place the masters of the Renaissance within the context of their times. Dramatic readings include excerpts from Fernando de Rojas’s La Celestina, Juan Alfonso de Baena’s Cancionero de Baena, the Marqués de Santillana’s Diálogo de Bias Contra Fortuna, Jorge Manrique’s Coplas a la Muerte del Maestre Don Rodrigo and selected romanceros. 2004. Color. 50 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 228: APOGEE OF THE GOLDEN AGE. During the 17th century, Spain witnessed a flowering of letters that was nourished by religious zeal, epic adventures, and a new sense of realism. In this program, leading scholars provide insights into the writings and personalities of Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and other giants of Spanish Literature. Dramatic readings include excerpts from Cervantes' Don Quijote and Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, Vega’s Fuenteovejuna, Tirso de Molina's El Burlador de Sevilla, Calderón de la Barca's La Vida Es Sueño, and Francisco de Quevedo's "Poderoso Caballero Es Don Dinero." 2004. Color. 50 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 229: THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES. Based on a true life story, The Motorcycle Diaries is an inspiring and thrilling adventure that traces the youthful origins of a revolutionary spirit. The film follows two daring friends, Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Alberto Granado, who hop on the back of a beat-up motorcycle for a breathtaking and exciting road trip across Latin America. 2004. Color. 2 hr. 2 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Special features include: Deleted scenes, a moment with Alberto Granado, the making of The Motorcycle Diaries, a moment with Gael García Bernal, "Toma Uno" ("Take One") with Gael García Bernal, and Music of the Road: an interview with composer Gustavo Santaolalla. DVD.
SP 230: EVA PERÓN. No woman, before or since, has possessed as much magnetism and influence as Eva "Evita" Perón. During the 1950s, she was the most powerful woman in the Americas — capturing the heart and soul of the poor, whose causes she championed until her tragic death at age 33. 1996. Color. 1 hr. 54 min. Spanish/Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 231: DIVA. When Jules, an 18-year-old postal worker, secretly tapes the concert of a superstar diva who refuses to be recorded, he finds himself with more than he bargained for. In addition to the concert, Jules accidentally winds up with another tape that identifies a top mobster involved in an international sex and drug ring. Suddenly, he finds himself chased through the streets of Paris by blackmailers, hitmen and the police. 1981. Color. 2 hr. 3 min. French/French with English subtitles. Special features include: Production notes. DVD.
SP 232: BAD EDUCATION. Filmmaker Enrique gets a visit from an aspiring actor claiming to be his old school friend Ignacio, who has written a story about their traumatic childhood spent at Catholic school. In the story, a drag performer known as Zahara attempts to blackmail a predatory priest by exposing their scandalous past. The tale provides inspiration for Enrique's next film. But when the villainous priest from their school days arrives to tell his own version of the events, the truth is wilder than anything anyone could have imagined. 2005. Color. 1 hr. 45 min. Spanish/Spanish with English subtitles. Special features include: Audio commentary with director Pedro Almodóvar, deleted scenes, red carpet footage from AFI Film Festival, making of Bad Education, photo gallery, original Spanish theatrical trailer and bonus previews. DVD.
SP 233: THE GRANDFATHER. Academy Award Nominee for best foreign language film. The story of an old Count who returns home to Spain after his son's death, and meets his two charming granddaughters who are to be the heir to his throne. But when a family secret surfaces, the Count finds out that one of ladies is not the daughter of his son and thus not the heir to his throne. Features the Oscar-winning cast from acclaimed film All About My Mother. 1998. Color. 2 hr. 26 min. Spanish with English Subtitles. DVD.
SP 234: EL LAZARILLO DE TORMES. The award-winning adaptation of the anonymous literary masterpiece tells the story of the young ever-hungry protagonist, Lazaro, who receives a worldly education by way of a series of masters. It presents a comical critique of 16th century Spain. 2004. B&W. 1 hr. 17 min. Spanish. DVD.
SP 235: FRAY LUIS DE LEÓN: UN INTELLECTUAL COMPROMETIDO. Produced by Spain's RTVE, this program chronicles the life of Luis de Léon, the monastic scholar, theologian, and poet. Using dramatizations, dozens of original manuscripts, documents, and first-editions, along with readings of Léon's own written work and biblical commentaries, the program features several salient locations around Spain to spin the tale of this inquisition-era scholar. 2004. Color. 54 min. Spanish. DVD.
SP 236: LA ESPAÑA DE FELIPE II: UN IMPERIO SIN EMPERADOR. This progam, presented by RTVE, depicts the life of Philip II, using dramatizations, artwork, and maps. It tackles high profile topics of his reign, including the Inquisition, the Armada, and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as controversies like the imprisonment of the King's heir, Don Carlos. Cultural elements such as the Ommegang Pageant, the works of El Greco, and architectural landmarks are also highlighted. 2005. Color. 54 min. Spanish with English Subtitles. DVD.
SP 237: LA DECADENCIA POLITICA EN EL SIGLO DE ORO. This RTVE program takes a look at the "Siglo De Oro", an age which saw Spain in political ruins, but with a cultural and artistic blossoming. The program contrasts the ineffectiveness of Kings Philip III and IV with the flowering of cultural stars like Cervantes, Francisco de Quevedo, Diego Velásquez, and many others. 2005. Color. 46 min. Spanish. DVD.
SP 238: THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA. Based on the famous play, this production tells the story of a group of women in a power struggle after the death of the paterfamilias. This production casts Glenda Jasckson as the widow Bernarda — the widow vying for control, as well as Joan Plowright as the housekeeper, and Patricia Hayes as a struggling matriarch struggling from dementia. 1991. Color. 1 hr. 40 min. English. DVD.
SP 239: LAS BICICLETAS SON PARA EL VERANO. In Madrid, the family of Don Luis, his wife Dolores and their children, Manolita and Luisito, share the daily life of the Civil War with their maid and neighbours. Despite having failed his exams, Luisito wants his father to buy him a bicycle. However, the situation forces them to delay the purchase and the delay, like the war itself, is to last much longer than expected. 1978. Color. 1 hr. 13 min. VHS.
SP 240: EL LOBO. Based on a true story. In the 70s, during the last stages of Franco's dictatorship, Txema, a Basque construction worker, is arrested because of his connection to some terrorists who have just committed a murder. The secret service see in him an ideal candidate to infiltrate the terrorist band ETA and become a mole, so they try to offer him a deal if he will do so. After being coerced into accepting their mission, he adopts the undercover name of "Lobo" (Wolf) and joins the ETA band, making all the right connections until he reaches the top and acquires the trust of its leaders. In the process, he discovers that the group has deep internal divisions between those who want to abandon the armed fight and become just a political party, and those who want to keep the terrorist activity until they can proclaim the independence of the Basque country. After the band carries out their most daring and shocking crime yet, killing the prime minister, the heads of the military in Madrid become impatient and wish to launch an immediate attack on ETA and the Basque country. The chief of the secret service, convinces them to wait until Lobo can complete his mission and enable them to dismantle the band. But when the Barcelona police manage to catch the leader of the band, the generals decide they can't wait any more and begin capturing ETA members, dead or alive. And that includes Lobo, who is now left to his own devices to escape from both sides. 2004. Color. 2 hr. Spanish. DVD.
SP 241: MACHUCA. Santiago, Chile; 1973 – Salvador Allende stands as the first democratically elected Socialist president in Latin America. Father McEnroe (Ernesto Malbran)—the principal of the Saint Patrick School — attempts an integration between students of the upper and lower classes. The bourgeois Gonzalo Infante (Matías Quer) and the boy from the slum, Pedro Machuca (Ariel Mateluna), become great friends, while the conflict on the street leads Chile in a bloody and dangerous direction. The backdrop ends in the bloody and repressive military coup of General Augusto Pinochet on 11 September 1973, forever changing their lives, their relationships and their country. 2004. 2 hr. Spanish Audio without subtitles. Color. DVD.
SP 242: MARIA FULL OF GRACE. Maria Alvarez, a bright, spirited 17-year-old, lives with three generations of her family in a cramped house in rural Colombia. Desperate to leave her job stripping thorns from flowers in a rose plantation, Maria accepts a lucrative offer to transport packets of heroin—which she must swallow—to the United States. The ruthless world of international drug-trafficking proves to be more than the young girl bargained for as she becomes ultimately entangled with both the drug cartels and immigration officials. The dramatic thriller builds toward a conclusion so powerful and revealing that it could only be based on a thousand true stories. Winner of awards at both Cannes and Berlin film festivals. 2004. 1 hr. 41 min. Spanish with Spanish, English or French subtitles. DVD.
SP 243: VOLVER. Spanish Film legend Pedro Almodóvar wrote and directed this comedic and compassionate tribute to women and their resilience in the face of some of life’s most outrageous trials and tribulations. Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) and her sister Sole lost their parents in a tragic fire years ago…or did they? Superstitious villagers claim that the girls’ departed mother, Irene, has been seen wandering around the home of their dying Aunt Paula. When Paula dies, Irene appears to Sole, following her home. Meanwhile, Raimunda is forced to take care of her teenaged daughter alone after her daughter “takes care” of her abusive father in self-defense. Now, with a body to hide, Raimunda rents out the restaurant of a friend, whose freezer provides a discreet place for her husband, until a film crew shows up wanting catering. Sole is forced to hide her visiting dead mother from Raimunda, while running a hair salon out of her house, and all the while, a secret that connects all 4 women, and the man in the freezer is laying beneath the surface. 2007. 2 hr. Spanish with English subtitles. Color. DVD. Special Features include: Commentary by director Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz; “The Making of Volver”; Director and cast interviews and more.
SP 244: PAN’S LABYRINTH. Spain, 1944. Officially, the Civil War has been over for five years, but a small group of rebels fights on unbroken in the northern mountains of Navarra. Dreamy 10-year-old Ofelia moves to Navarra with her delicate, pregnant mother Carmen, to become acquainted with her new stepfather, Captain Vidal, a Fascist officer under orders to rid the territory of rebels. Ofelia, who is fascinated by fairy tales, discovers an overgrown, tumbledown labyrinth behind the mill. In the heart of the labyrinth she meets an ancient faun who claims to know her true identity and her secret destiny. But first, she must complete three tasks before the moon grows full. And no one must know: not her ailing mother, or her new friend, Mercedes. Time is running out, for Ofelia and for the rebels. Both will have to battle hardship and cruelty in order to gain their freedom. But, who can be trusted in a time of lies and danger? Is Pan telling the truth...? And if not, who is? 2006. 2 hr. Spanish with Spanish or English Subtitles. Color. DVD.
I. Feature film. Also includes: video prologue by writer/director Guillermo del Toro; audio commentary featuring del Toro.
II. Special features: “The Power of Myth”: A discourse on the use of fairy tale mythology in the film; “Pan and the Fairies” featurette — a comprehensive look at the prosthetic an visual effects crafted for the film; “The Color and the Shape” featurette — Del Toro unravels the intricate color and texture coding present in all his work; The Charlie Rose Show featuring Del Toro and filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárriu; DVD comics — animated plates present prequel stories for The Giant Toad, The Fairies, Pan and the Pale Man; Director’s Notebook – featuring interactive menu pages which access video pods that feature exclusive interviews with Del Toro, a lost character: El Hombre de la Madera, Torture of the Marquis, The Phases of the Moon, Iconography: Echo…Echo…, The Underground Kingdom – Miniature Construction, and the Mill set design plus more.
SP 245: A DAY WITHOUT A MEXICAN. The California Dream becomes a hilarious nightmare when one day the entire Latin American population of the Golden State inexplicably vanishes. Needless to say, chaos and humor ensue as the people of the state attempt to live their lives as normal. This comedic mocumentary-style satire presents a modern fable with a very current and potent message as well as thought-provoking looks at America’s attitude toward immigrants and American culture in general. 2004. Color. 1 hr. 38 min. English with optional Spanish menus and subtitles. Special Features include: Behind the scenes featurette; outtakes; the original short upon which the film is based. DVD.
SP 246: UNDER THE SAME MOON [LA MISMA LUNA]: Even across thousands of miles, the special bond between a mother and son can never be broken. It gives hope to Carlitos, a scrappy 9-year-old boy whose mother, Rosario, has gone to America to build a better life for both of them. While Rosario struggles for a brighter future, fate forces Carlitos’ hand and he embarks on an extraordinary journey to find her. Critics and audiences, alike have praised this inspirational and heartwarming tale of a mother’s devotion, a son’s courage and a love that knows no borders. 2007. Color. 1 hr. 50 min. Spanish with English subtitles. Special features include: The making of La Misma Luna featurette, the Murals of La Misma Luna featurette. DVD.
SP 247: THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE AND THE SPANISH COURT. The architecture of Spain during the resurgence of Christianity captures in stone the history of that fascinating transitional period. Using extensive walk-through footage of the Alhambra, the Alcazar, the palace of Charles V, the Escorial, and their environs as well as images of paintings and other treasures, this program demonstrates the successful transplantation of Italian Renaissance idiom to Spanish soil. Key historical events and cultural aspects of life during the final century of Moorish rule and the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles V and Philip II are also described. 2003. Color. 51 min. English. DVD.
SP 248: EL BOLERO DE RAQUEL. As Ravel's Bolero plays, the sultry, but virtually unknown dancer Elaine Bruce provocatively takes the stage in this 1956 Mexican comedy. She soon loses center stage when actor-comedian Mario Moreno Reyes ("Cantinflas") joins in turning the dance into a “total disaster.” Cantinflas is often referred to as the "Charlie Chaplin of Mexico," and El Bolero… was a natural role for him, since his career actually began as a dancer. 1957. Color. 1 hr. 31 min. Spanish with Spanish and English subtitles. DVD.
SP 249: EL ANALFABETO [The Illiterate]. Inocencio Prieto y Calvo (Cantinflas) receives a letter telling him that he is the heir to his uncle's fortune of two million pesos, which he has only to claim by producing his baptismal certificate as proof of identity. However, as an illiterate, Inocencio has no idea of the contents of the letter. While waiting for the local druggist to wait on him so he can have the letter read to him, Inocencio is embarrassed to see that a customer's young daughter is already able to read while he, a grown man, cannot. He leaves without telling the druggist his problem, resolved to go to school and to wait to learn the letter's contents until he can read them for himself, so that never again will he have to share private matters with others because of his own ignorance. 1961. Color. 1 hr. 50 min. Spanish with Spanish and English subtitles. DVD.
SP 250: EL PADRECITO. Cantinflas explores a new profession, this time as a priest. Miguel Delgado, his usual director, has put him in a rural environment with all the necessary ingredients for a familiar and nice comedy: the mean tyrant who opposes any local progress in town and Cantinflas as the new priest who confronts him. The young priest Father Sebastián (played by Cantinflas) is assigned to a parish in San Jeronimo el Alto, where he is not welcomed by the community, particularly the resident priest Father Damián (played by Ángel Garasa). The newcomer gradually earns the trust of the people through humor, but firmly captures their hearts by saving the town fiesta by fighting a bull when the hired torero failed to show. 1964. Color. 2 hr. 10 min. Spanish with Spanish and English subtitles. DVD.
SP 251: SU EXCELENCIA. This Cold War comedy stars Mario Moreno, "Cantinflas," as Lopez, better known as "Lopitos" by the Ambassador's secretary, a bureaucrat from the Latin American "Republica De Los Cocos," who is stationed in the embassy of the Communist bloc country "Pepeslavia" (a play on the title of Moreno's second American film, Pepe). The horribly inefficient but quick-witted Lopitos is invited as an extra (because of the current ambassador’s superstition about 13 attendees) to a banquet attended by the ambassadors of both superpowers. After a series of coup d'états in Los Cocos, Lopitos becomes the official ambassador. At a summit of world leaders, the representatives of the two world superpowers court the allegiances of Third-World diplomats to tilt the balance of global power in their favor. The last diplomat to remain unaligned, Lopitos instead harangues the superpowers for infringing on the rights of developing countries to self determination, talking to them with his point of view as a citizen not as ambassador. 1967. Color. 2. hr. 13 min. Spanish with Spanish and English subtitles. DVD.
SP 252: THE AURA [EL AURA]. Espinoza is a taxidermist marked with strange qualities — a photographic memory and random fits of epilepsy. To escape his lonely everyday life, he spends his time lost in fantasies about pulling off the perfect heist. When a fatal hunting accident presents a golden opportunity, he takes the chance to put his plot into action. But living in a world of real violence might bring a lethal dose of reality to Espinoza and the young woman he has brought into his plan. 2007. Color. 2 hr. 18 min. Spanish with English and Spanish subtitles. Special features include: “The Making of The Aura,” Behind-the-scenes musical montage and theatrical trailer. DVD.
SP 253: BURNT MONEY [PLATA QUEMADA]. When two gay thugs Angel (Eduardo Noriega) and El Nene (Leonardo Sbaraglia) join a plan to hold up an armored truck with a group of seasoned gangsters, their love and loyalty to each other is tested. Angel is wounded by police gunfire during the robbery, forcing El Nene to kill them all in a fit of range. Things become complicated when they escape to Uruguay and the police threaten to torture the driver’s moll if she doesn’t tell them where they are. With their pictures plastered on the cover of every paper, drowning in drugs and alcohol, the gang begins to bicker. Against his boss’s wishes El Nene leaves the apartment and roams the streets where he meets a prostitute named Giselle (Leticia Bredice) in whom he begins to trust. Director Marcelo Piñeyro whose films have been both critically acclaimed and commercially successful is one of the most important figures in contemporary cinema in Argentina. His fourth film is a delicate balance of a gripping bloodbath and a moving, tender love story. Burnt Money is based on a book by Ricardo Piglia and was inspired by a true story of a famous bank robbery in Buenos Aires in the 1960s . Color. 2 hr. 5 min. Spanish. DVD.
SP 254: THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES. Recently retired criminal court investigator Benjamín (Ricardo Darín) decides to write a novel based on a twenty-five-year-old unresolved rape and murder case which still haunts him. Sharing his plans with Irene (Soledad Villanil), the beautiful judge and former colleague he has secretly been in love with for years, Benjamín’s initial involvement with the case is shown through flashbacks, as he sets out to identify the murderer. But Benjamín’s search for the truth will put him in at the center of a judicial nightmare, as the mystery of the heinous crime continues to unfold in the present, testing the limits of a man seeking justice and personal fulfillment. 2009. Color. 2 hr. 9 min. Spanish & French with English, French subtitles. DVD.
SP 255: THE SPANISH RECONQUISTA. Beginning with the 8th-century defeat of Islamic forces in the Asturian Mountains, this program traces the gradual return of Christian rule to Spain. Breathtaking depictions of World Heritage sites guide viewers along the Route of Santiago de Compostela – a Christian pilgrimage that catalyzed the struggle against Islamic control – as well as strategically important cities, including Toledo, Avila and the last Muslim stronghold to fall, Granada. The historical narrative explains how smaller kingdoms merged to form more powerful unions, leading to the alliance of Castille y Leon and Aragon and, ultimately, the creation of a single Christian nation. 2005. Color. 53 min. DVD.
SP 256: DIVINAS PALABRAS [DIVINE WORDS]. This film is set in Galicia province in the impoverished village of San Clemente in the 1920s. Since the Village has no priest, ecclesiastic authority falls to Pedro Gailo, functioning as a sacristan, who has a young beautiful wife Mari Gaila. Greedy for any money that comes her way and eager to leave San Clemente and her husband, Mari cares for a sick child suffering from hydrocephalus, and uses him to beg for alms. 1987. 1 hr. 47 min. Spanish only (no subtitles). Extra features: Photo gallery; biographies. DVD.
SP 257: SOUTH OF THE BORDER. There’s a revolution underway in South America, but most of the world doesn’t know it. Oliver Stone sets out on a road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media’s misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents. In casual conversations with Presidents Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and ex-President Nėstor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Raúl Castro (Cuba), Stone gains unprecedented access and sheds new light upon the exciting transformations in the region. 2010. Color. 1 hr. 18 min. English & Spanish with Spanish subtitles. Special features include: Oliver Stone’s additional questions for Hugo Chavez (2010); Behind the Scenes of the South American Promo Tour; Deleted Scenes; “Changes in Venezuela” Featurette; Two South American TV interviews with Oliver Stone. DVD.
SP 258: COCALERO. Born out of the U.S. war on drugs, an Aymara Indian named Evo Morales – backed by a troop of coca leaf farmers – travels through the Andes and Amazon in jeans and sneakers, leading a historic bid to become Bolivia’s first indigenous president. The filmmakers, granted astonishing up close and personal access to Evo, capture the intimate moments of this controversial figure and his triumphant rise to power. A story of geopolitics, people’s movements, indigenous culture, and one man’s impressive determination, Cocalero is a “luminous portrait of working people in a rare triumph against U.S. imperialism” (Prairie Miller, WBAI Radio). 2006. Color. 1 hr. 34 min. Spanish & Quechua with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 259: UN CUENTO CHINO [Chinese Take-Away] is an Argentinian comedy written and directed by Sebastián Borensztein. The film was the highest grossing non-US film in Argentina in 2011. Roberto is a neat freak. He runs his own hardware store accordingly. If a supplier sells him boxes with 100 screws each, he counts all the screws and files a complaint if just a single one is missing. While Roberto believes he has his life under control and is safe from surprises, he is confronted by an appalling incident. A Chinese man, Jun, is thrown out of a moving car in front of Roberto's eyes. Roberto helps him and tries to put things right again. Because neither person speaks the other’s language, and Roberto is not in the habit of asking anybody for help, they find an interpreter who enables them to converse. 2011. Color. 1 hr. 33 min. Spanish with optional English subtitles. Extras. DVD.
SP 260: CAUTIVA.
Cristina's life is thrown into turmoil when she is suddenly escorted from her strict Catholic school in Buenos Aires and told that she is really Sofía Lombardi, the daughter of activists who disappeared in the 1970s. Questioning everything she once thought true, Cristina embarks on a journey to find her true identity. 2007. Color. 1 hr. 49 min. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD.
SP 261: FLORES DE OTRO MUNDO [FLOWERS FROM ANOTHER WORLD]. A group of vibrant young women travel by bus to a remote Spanish village overwhelmingly populated by men. With souls of practicality, the women dream of better lives while the men ache with more romantic yearnings. 2005. Color. 1 hr. 40 min. Spanish with English subtitle. DVD.
SP 262: NO. In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote YES or NO to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders of the NO vote persuade a brash young advertising executive, Rene Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free. 2012. Color. 1 hr. 58 min. Spanish with English and French subtitles. DVD.
SP 263: EVEN THE RAIN. Idealistic filmmaker Sebastian and his cynical producer Costa arrive in Bolivia to make a revisionist film about Christopher Columbus’ conquest of the Americas. But as filming commences, the local citizens begin to riot in protest against a multi-national corporation that is taking control of their water supply. 2010. Color. 1 hr. 43 min. Spanish with English, French and Spanish subtitles. DVD.
SP 264: WILD TALES. This film is a fresco of rage, fury, deception and revenge. Made up of six stories, it is an entertaining and jaw-dropping film about people crossing the line into madness when faced with perceived injustice. A lover's betrayal, a return to the repressed past and the violence woven into everyday encounters drive the characters to lose control and cross the line that divides civilization and barbarism. 2015. Color. 2 hr. Spanish with English and French subtitles. DVD.
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What entertainer, who was commonly known as Ol' Blue Eyes, or The Chairman of the Board, died on May 14, 1998? | Frank Sinatra - Biography - IMDb
Frank Sinatra
Biography
Showing all 190 items
Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (4) | Trade Mark (7) | Trivia (127) | Personal Quotes (35) | Salary (11)
Overview (5)
14 May 1998 , Los Angeles, California, USA (bladder cancer, and heart and kidney disease)
Birth Name
5' 7" (1.7 m)
Mini Bio (1)
Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. Starting out as a saloon singer in musty little dives (he carried his own P.A. system), he eventually got work as a band singer, first with The Hoboken Four, then with Harry James and then Tommy Dorsey . With the help of George Evans (Sinatra's genius press agent), his image was shaped into that of a street thug and punk who was saved by his first wife, Nancy Barbato . In 1942 he started his solo career, instantly finding fame as the king of the bobbysoxers--the young women and girls who were his fans--and becoming the most popular singer of the era among teenage music fans. About that time his film career was also starting in earnest, and after appearances in a few small films, he struck box-office gold with a lead role in Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Gene Kelly , a Best Picture nominee at the 1946 Academy Awards. Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his part in a short film that spoke out against intolerance, The House I Live In (1945). His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength to strength on record, stage and screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the MGM musical On the Town (1949) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). A controversial public affair with screen siren Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato and did his career little good, and his record sales dwindled. He continued to act, although in lesser films such as Meet Danny Wilson (1951), and a vocal cord hemorrhage all but ended his career. He fought back, though, finally securing a role he desperately wanted--Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953). He won an Oscar for best supporting actor and followed this with a scintillating performance as a cold-blooded assassin hired to kill the US President in Suddenly (1954). Arguably a career-best performance--garnering him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor--was his role as a pathetic heroin addict in the powerful drama The Man with the Golden Arm (1955).
Known as "One-Take Charlie" for his approach to acting that strove for spontaneity and energy, rather than perfection, Sinatra was an instinctive actor who was best at playing parts that mirrored his own personality. He continued to give strong and memorable performances in such films as Guys and Dolls (1955), The Joker Is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958). In the late 1950s and 1960s Sinatra became somewhat prolific as a producer, turning out such films as A Hole in the Head (1959), Sergeants 3 (1962) and the very successful Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). Lighter roles alongside "Rat Pack" buddies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were lucrative, especially the famed Ocean's 11 (1960). On the other hand, he alternated such projects with much more serious offerings, such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), regarded by many critics as Sinatra's finest picture. He made his directorial debut with the World War II picture None But the Brave (1965), which was the first Japanese/American co-production. That same year Von Ryan's Express (1965) was a box office sensation. In 1967 Sinatra returned to familiar territory in Sidney J. Furie 's The Naked Runner (1967), once again playing as assassin in his only film to be shot in the U.K. and Germany. That same year he starred as a private investigator in Tony Rome (1967), a role he reprised in the sequel, Lady in Cement (1968). He also starred with Lee Remick in The Detective (1968), a film daring for its time with its theme of murders involving rich and powerful homosexual men, and it was a major box-office success.
After appearing in the poorly received comic western Dirty Dingus Magee (1970), Sinatra didn't act again for seven years, returning with a made-for-TV cops-and-mob-guys thriller Contract on Cherry Street (1977), which he also produced. Based on the novel by William Rosenberg , this fable of fed-up cops turning vigilante against the mob boasted a stellar cast and was a ratings success. Sinatra returned to the big screen in The First Deadly Sin (1980), once again playing a New York detective, in a moving and understated performance that was a fitting coda to his career as a leading man. He made one more appearance on the big screen with a cameo in Cannonball Run II (1984) and a final acting performance in Magnum, P.I. (1980) in 1987 as a retired detective seeking vengeance on the killers of his granddaughter in an episode entitled "Laura".
Always wore a three piece suit or tuxedo
Use of 1950's slang
Frequently worked with fellow Rat Pack members Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford
Trivia (127)
Some three decades late, the Hungarian-born actress Eva Bartok claimed that her daughter, Deana, born in 1957 during Bartok's marriage to the actor Curd Jürgens , was actually fathered by Sinatra, during a brief affair that he and Bartok had had following his breakup in 1956 with the sultry Ava Gardner . Sinatra never acknowledged paternity.
The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and Albums stated he was "regarded by many as the greatest song stylist of the 20th century" as well as being the "first teen idol". He achieved 34 US gold albums. By 2005 he had achieved more US top ten LPs than any other soloist and was still the 12th most successful artist in the history of the UK singles and albums charts.
Inspired the Johnny Fontaine character in The Godfather (1972).
Member (leader) of the "Rat Pack" - Dean Martin , Frank Sinatra , Sammy Davis Jr. , Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop . All appeared in Ocean's 11 (1960) and Sergeants 3 (1962).
Interred at Desert Memorial Park, Cathedral City, California, USA. Specific Interment Location: B-8, #151.
According to Mia Farrow 's biography, "What Falls Away", he offered to have Woody Allen 's legs broken when it was discovered that he was having an affair with Farrow's adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn (whom Allen later married).
Reportedly kept a picture of Ava Gardner on his mirror long after their break-up.
Former father-in-law of Tommy Sands . His daughter Nancy Sinatra and Sands were married in 1960 and divorced in 1965.
Brother-in-law of John Charles Farrow , Prudence Farrow , Stephanie Farrow and Tisa Farrow . He was also a son-in-law of Maureen O'Sullivan.
A provision in his will is that if anyone contests it, they are automatically disinherited.
The epitaph on his headstone reads "The best is yet to come."
At his funeral, friends and family members placed items in his coffin that had personal references. These are reported to include ten dimes, several Tootsie Roll candies, a pack of Black Jack chewing gum, a roll of wild cherry Life Savers candy, a ring engraved with the word "Dream", a mini bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey, a pack of Camel cigarettes and a Zippo cigarette lighter.
Godfather of singer Nikka Costa .
Permanently injured one of his fingers while shooting a fight scene with Henry Silva in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). In the scene, Sinatra threw a karate chop and his hand went through a solid wooden table, breaking several bones in his little finger. The footage was left in the final cut.
Was, at one time, part owner of the Sands hotel/casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Cal-Neva Lodge in Lake Tahoe. As the name implies, the latter was bisected by the California-Nevada borderline.
Named Humanitarian of the Year by the Variety Clubs of America in 1983.
A forcep delivery at his birth left permanent scars on his cheek and ruptured an eardrum. The latter is the reason most often given for his being exempted from service during World War II.
He became estranged from Dean Martin during the final years of their lives after Martin quit "The Together Again Tour".
An accomplished amateur painter, he not only recorded the Grammy-winning album "Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely" (Capitol: 1958), but designed the cover art, as well.
Had numerous #1 albums, and seven #1 singles (or more, depending on whether you include the songs he sang fronting a big-band): "Five Minutes More", "Leanin' the Blues", "Mam'selle", "Oh! What It Seemed To Be" "Strangers in the Night", "All Or Nothing At All" with the Harry James Band, and "Somethin' Stupid", shared with his daughter Nancy Sinatra . He also has four #1 hits singing as the front singer of the Tommy Dorsey Band, although he was not directly credited as the artist. These include "I'll Never Smile Again", "Dolores", "There Are Such Things", "In The Blue Of Evening".
Received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 1971 Academy Awards for his many contributions to charity over the years. Bob Hope , who hosted the Oscars that year, remarked, "It's interesting how Sinatra announced his retirement, and they gave him a humanitarian award". Sinatra himself hosted or co-hosted the Academy Awards four different times, in 1963, 1969, 1975 and 1985.
While filming a kidnapping scene for the film Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), he learned that his son, singer Frank Sinatra Jr. , had been kidnapped from his hotel room in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. For obvious reasons, the scene was never used in the completed film.
His album "Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color" (Capitol: 1955) not only was rare in the sense that he conducted an orchestra as opposed to singing, but was also the first album to be recorded at the Capitol [Records] Tower, today a prominent landmark at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles.
In 1960, when he was in the process of forming his own label, Reprise Records, he pointed out the Capitol Tower to a friend, saying, "See that? I helped build that. Now, it's time to build one of my own." A few years later, referring to his label's success, he stated, "We may not be a Cadillac yet, but we ain't no Bug [Volkswagen], neither."
While filming a funeral scene in Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), he learned that his close friend and benefactor, President John F. Kennedy , had been killed in Dallas earlier that day.
Named Entertainer of the Century in 2000.
Served as a mentor to performer Harry Connick Jr. , whom he referred to as "The Kid".
Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1980.
Was originally signed on to play Billy Bigelow in Carousel (1956), but he walked off the set on the first day of filming after he found out that they were going to shoot each scene twice, using two different lens sizes, and was quoted as saying "I was paid to make one movie, not two".
Second cousin of composer/arranger/conductor Raymond Sinatra . Ray Sinatra's father was a cousin of his father.
He is mentioned in the lyrics of several songs, including "On and On" by Stephen Bishop , "Sugar Mice" by Marillion , "Hey Manhattan!" by Prefab Sprout and "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi . His death is referred to in the Badly Drawn Boy song "You Were Right". In 2016, The Avalanches released the song "Frankie Sinatra".
Was best friends with Dean Martin . Of all the members of the Rat Pack, he considered Dean his closest confidant and best friend.
On 14 May 1998, his last day of life, his family drove him to the hospital, frantically running stop signs and red lights. However, traffic was unusually light at that time, since many Americans were at home watching the final episode of the TV show Seinfeld (1989).
Writer of several songs including "This Love of Mine" and "I'm a Fool to Want You.".
Divorced his third wife Mia Farrow after she refused to quit filming the classic thriller Rosemary's Baby (1968) in order to co-star with him in Rat Pack crime drama The Detective (1968). He had the divorce papers delivered to her on set.
In On the Town (1949), he co-sang "New York, New York". Years later he used the song "Theme From New York, New York" (first performed by friend Liza Minnelli , and commonly referred to as simply "New York, New York") as a showstopper in his live performances. In his "Concert For The Americas"(1982) he combined the two songs, using the first verse of the earlier song.
Played the Stage Manager in a musical version of "Our Town" on a TV special in 1955, with Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint playing George and Emily. In that production, he introduced what would become another of his well-known signature songs: "Love and Marriage."
Turned down the lead role in The Pajama Game (1957), which would have paired him up with Janis Paige , who played the role on Broadway. As a result, Paige lost out on playing the part to Doris Day , who was considered a bigger box- office draw.
Godfather to Quinn Gonzalez
Was the first choice to play the title role in Dirty Harry (1971), but broke his finger before shooting started and had to bow out of the production.
When Bela Lugosi died virtually penniless, Sinatra quietly paid for his funeral.
Grandfather of singer A.J. Lambert .
He was voted the 59th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
He was known for his mercurial personality, as all those who were close to him knew, he could be as sweet as a person could be one minute and equally as nasty and violent in the next moment. Some theorized that he was bipolar.
Turned down the role of Paul Kersey in Death Wish (1974). It was eventually given to Charles Bronson , and was the role that made him an international superstar.
He was classified 4F--rejected for military service--during World War II because of a damaged eardrum. When he was born, a complicated delivery required the use of forceps, which punctured his eardrum.
He and the other members of the Rat Pack were banned from Marilyn Monroe 's funeral by Joe DiMaggio
While on a tour in 1974 which included Australia, Sinatra became enraged by his treatment by members of the Australian press. After a brief scuffle at the airport, he appeared on stage and delivered a hateful tirade against the press, calling them "bums and parasites," and calling the female reporters "buck-and-a-half hookers." In retaliation, the aviation union refused to refuel or otherwise maintain his private jet until he apologized. He never did. He was spirited away in the night after intervention by a high-level union leader.
Though he had many affairs during his marriage to his first wife Nancy Barbato , it was his relationship with Ava Gardner that finally led to their divorce.
Was broke by 1951. Ava Gardner had to pay for his plane ticket so he could accompany her to Africa, where she shot Mogambo (1953).
His heritage was entirely Italian.
Owned an extensive collection of electric toy trains. He had coveted electric trains as a boy and set up a track that wove through the path of his career. The train started at a replica of the Hoboken train station.
Was offered the role of "Don Altobello" in The Godfather: Part III (1990). Even though he had been a vocal critic of the first "Godfather" film, which featured a character based on him, he was intrigued by the offer, reportedly because the first two "Godfather" films had been so successful. Ultimately he declined the offer and the part was played by Eli Wallach , with whom Sinatra had competed for the role of Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953).
He was known to admire several rock artists. He called "Something", written by George Harrison and performed by The Beatles , one of his favorite songs. He was such a big fan of Chicago 's song "Color My World" that he offered to write a second stanza to it. He also enthusiastically embraced the Irish rock band U2 when they visited the United States.
In 1963 his son Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped. The kidnappers told Frank Sr. to call them from pay phones. During one call he ran out of coins, and briefly feared that it had cost him his son (the kidnappers gave him another chance). He paid the $250,000 ransom, Frank Jr. was returned, and the kidnappers were eventually caught. However, as a result of the payphone scare, Sinatra swore never to be caught without dimes again, and carried a roll of dimes with him constantly until his death.
Was in line to star in Dirty Harry (1971) as was noted in several trade papers at the time. Irvin Kershner was slated to direct, but Sinatra had to back out of the project because of some trouble with a broken bone in his hand, although it has been suggested that he wanted to act in something lighter after the recent death of his father.
Sinatra saw Steve McQueen in his western TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958) and requested him to take Sammy Davis Jr. 's role in Never So Few (1959). Davis had said in an interview he thought he was bigger than Sinatra in the entertainment world at that time. Since Davis' role in the film was originally written as a sidekick, it had to be re-written somewhat for McQueen. During filming they got along so well that Sinatra wanted McQueen to appear in Ocean's 11 (1960) as the cowboy Louis Jackson. McQueen was all for it but was convinced otherwise by critic Hedda Hopper , who told him it would not be a wise career move to be known as a Sinatra flunky. McQueen passed on the film, and although there were no hard feelings his brief friendship with Sinatra came to an end.
Godfather of Lorna Luft .
Was considered for the role of Nicky Arnstein in Funny Girl (1968). This was vetoed by Barbra Streisand , as she didn't like him. The role was eventually played by Omar Sharif .
Lee J. Cobb credited Sinatra with saving his life after his career was nearly ruined by his defiance of the House Un-American Activities Committee investigating Communist "subversion" in the film industry. Cobb had defied HUAC for two years, after being named as a supposed Communist by Larry Parks in 1951. During those two years, Cobb's once flourishing career floundered and his wife had to be institutionalized after having a mental breakdown. Finally he agreed to testify as a "friendly" witness, appearing before HUAC in 1953. At the conclusion of his testimony, he praised the committee. Soon after his appearance there he had a massive heart attack. Sinatra--who barely knew Cobb--got him a part in his film The Miracle of the Bells (1948) when no other studio would hire Cobb. In addition, knowing that Cobb was broke, Sinatra paid his hospital bills, then had Cobb stay with him before renting him a luxurious apartment. Cobb believes that Sinatra identified with him as a troubled artist down on his luck, as Sinatra's own career had been in a severe tailspin before he resurrected himself by winning an Oscar for From Here to Eternity (1953). Cobb later said that if it wasn't for Sinatra, he didn't think he would have come through that period alive. Sinatra told Cobb he thought that Cobb was "robbed" when he failed to win the Oscar for his performance as Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront (1954) (ironically, Sinatra originally had been scheduled to star in the picture, which was filmed in his hometown of Hoboken, NJ, but producer Sam Spiegel gave the role to Marlon Brando when he realized he could raise $1 million in financing for the picture by using Brando versus $500,000 if Sinatra was the star).
Is one of only five actors/actresses to have both a #1 single and an Oscar for acting. The others are Cher , Barbra Streisand , Jamie Foxx , and Bing Crosby .
Made no further public appearances after suffering a heart attack in January 1997.
Campaigned for Ronald Reagan in the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections.
Was active in Democratic Party politics from the 1944 presidential election until the late 1960s. In 1970 he supported Ronald Reagan 's re-election campaign for Governor of California, and in 1972 he attended the Republican National Convention for the first time.
Underwent major surgery for intestinal cancer in 1986.
He was instrumental in reuniting Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin after their decades of estrangement. During an appearance on Lewis' annual telethon for Muscular Dystrophy, Sinatra said that he had a friend who wanted to say hello; then, he escorted Martin onto the stage to a flabbergasted Lewis. The two remained reunited until Martin's death.
On 20 May 1998, his funeral service was held at the Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, California. Stars in attendance included Kirk Douglas , Gregory Peck , Robert Wagner , Jack Lemmon , Sidney Poitier , Jack Nicholson , Nancy Reagan , Jerry Lewis , Wayne Newton , Johnny Carson , Milton Berle , Bruce Springsteen , Debbie Reynolds , Liza Minnelli , Bob Dylan , Tom Selleck , Tony Bennett , Mickey Rooney , Shirley MacLaine , Robert Stack , Mia Farrow , Bob Newhart , Don Rickles , Sophia Loren , Diahann Carroll , Steve Lawrence , Eydie Gormé , Joey Bishop , Tony Danza , Quincy Jones , Dom DeLuise , Tim Conway , Cuba Gooding Jr. , Anthony Quinn , Tony Curtis , Jack Paar , Angie Dickinson , Paul Anka , Ben Vereen , Ed McMahon , Johnny Mathis , Red Buttons , Marlo Thomas , Phil Donahue , Suzanne Pleshette , Lorna Luft , Ann Miller , Dionne Warwick , Mamie Van Doren , Suzanne Somers , James Darren and of course, his children, Frank Sinatra Jr. , Tina Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra . Over 1000 Sinatra fans lined the streets outside the church during the funeral and gave him one final round of applause as his flower-draped coffin was carried out of the church. Overhead, a skywriting plane created a giant heart in the sky. Ironically, Sinatra had attended Gary Cooper 's funeral at the same church, almost 37 years to the day before his own.
Suffered from dementia in his final years.
He asked to sing at Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey 's 1978 funeral in St. Paul, MN. The officiating minister refused. The job went to Metropolitan Opera baritone Robert Merrill .
Has sold over 250 million records worldwide.
Was in talks to appear in The Verdict (1982).
Was the godfather of Linda Thorson 's son Trevor.
Although Sinatra is most associated with the song "My Way", he didn't originally want to record it because he thought it was "self-serving and indulgent". Although he disliked the song, his persona became so associated with it that he ended every concert with it. It was famously parodied for a 1978 single by the British punk rock band The Sex Pistols .
Got the role of Pvt. Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953) after Eli Wallach passed on it to do a Tennessee Williams play on stage, according to Wallach on a June 20th broadcast of "Morning Sedition" on "Air America Radio.".
He weighed over 13 pounds at birth, and he had to be delivered by forceps. As a result, one of his ears was nearly severed. Showing no signs of life, he was held by his grandmother under cold, running water. He began to breathe, and cry. His mother - a practical nurse - and his father - a tavern operator - had been hoping for a girl, and had already chosen the name Frances. So they gave him the masculine form of the name: Francis.
Was a great admirer of John F. Kennedy , campaigning for him in the 1960 presidential election and organizing his inauguration ball on January 20, 1961. In August 1962 Kennedy decided not to stay with Sinatra in Palm Springs, CA, due to recent revelations of Sinatra's longtime ties to various Mafia crime bosses, instead stayed with Bing Crosby --Sinatra's original rival and an active Republican.
Briefly lost the ability to sing after his vocal cords hemorrhaged in 1953. When his voice returned it had an extra dimension which many fans believed made his singing better than before.
Elected to the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2007 for his services to the entertainment industry (inaugural election). Official induction ceremonies held in May 2008.
Pictured on a 42¢ USA commemorative postage stamp issued 13 May 2008, one day before the 10th anniversary of his death.
In 1981 he was heavily criticized for performing a ten-day gig in South Africa. Jesse Jackson and the United Nations Special Committee on Apartheid publicly condemned him for "collaborating with the apartheid regime". Ironically, he had been a staunch supporter of civil rights and racial equality in the United States throughout his career. During his time with the Rat Pack, Sinatra and the other members refused to play anywhere that wouldn't allow Sammy Davis Jr. to perform with them, stating the group was a package deal, and would often boycott or otherwise refuse to do business with venues or promoters who wouldn't book black or other minority performers.
He had a longstanding dislike of Marlon Brando from the time they starred in Guys and Dolls (1955). Sinatra always felt he should have played Brando's part, with Gene Kelly in the other role. Sinatra nicknamed Brando "Mr. Mumbles" while Brando called him "Mr. Baldy".
Was the favorite singer of and a big influence to The Doors front man, Jim Morrison .
Once appeared as a head-and-shoulders shot on MasterCard credit card.
When Sinatra first met Mia Farrow in 1964, he was 48 and she was 19, a fact that prompted Dean Martin to quip that he owned a bottle of Scotch older than Farrow.
Von Ryan's Express (1965), was his most successful film of the 1960s, grossing over $17 million (US) in 1965.
All the films he produced made a profit.
His sole film as director was the anti-war drama None But the Brave (1965), which was the first Japanese (Toho Studios) and American (Warner Bros. Pictures) co-production.
Has a 62-year span of top-ten albums on Billboard, from "The Voice of Frank Sinatra" which reached #1 in 1946 to "Nothing But the Best", which reached #2 in 2008.
His father's name was Martin Anthony Sinatra. His mother's name was Natalie 'Dolly' Garavente, a midwife.
He is credited as co-writer of seven songs, including "This Love Of Mine" (1941) and "Mr. Success" (1958).
All of his single recordings in 1943 which included "Oh What A Beautiful Morning"/ "People Will Say We're In Love" were recorded a cappella with The Bobby Tucker Singers because of a musician's strike.
He was awarded 3 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 1600 Vine Street, for Recording at 1737 Vine Street, and for Television at 6538 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
Frank Capra claimed that Sinatra had the potential to be the best actor there ever was. He once told Frank to quit his musical career and concentrate solely on acting and that if he did he would go down as the greatest actor who ever lived.
He and Paul Newman are the only people to win an Honorary Oscar, a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and a competitive Oscar.
Died the same month as Phil Hartman , who often impersonated him on Saturday Night Live (1975).
While recording the gold "Sinatra Christmas Album" at Cherokee Recording Studios in 1975, he met and shared studio space with glam rocker David Bowie . Sinatra's recording of "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" appears on "David Bowie's Heroes", a Mojo magazine compilation of 15 tracks by performers who influenced the young David Bowie.
On May 10, 1964, Brad Dexter ( The Magnificent Seven (1960), among others) saved both Sinatra's life and that of Ruth Koch (wife of producer Howard W. Koch ) during production of the World War II film None But the Brave (1965) in Kaui, Hawaii. They were swimming at a beach when they were swept out to sea by the outgoing tide and nearly drowned in high, billowing waves. Dexter swam out and rescued them together, but they were not able to reach shore for nearly 45 minutes. In the waves, Sinatra reportedly became separated and murmured, "It's all over . . . please take care of my kids . . . I'm going to die . . . " Both Sinatra and Koch then fell unconscious for several minutes before two surfers arrived to help Dexter take them to shore. Dexter was later awarded a Red Cross medal for his bravery. Sinatra never forgot it and the two stayed close friends for the rest of their lives.
Like most members of The Rat Pack, Sinatra was known to much prefer the labels "The Clan" and "The Summit".
His version of "New York, New York" is played at Yankee Stadium after every Yankee home win. Liza Minnelli 's version is played after every Yankee home loss.
Throughout his life Sinatra was a strong supporter of Jewish causes. He stepped forward in the early 1940s, when big names were needed to rouse America into saving Europe's remaining Jews, and he sang at an "Action for Palestine" rally (1947). He sat on the board of trustees of the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and he donated over $1 million to Jerusalem 's Hebrew University, which honored him by dedicating the Frank Sinatra International Student Center. As a result of his support for the Jewish State, his movies and records were banned in some Arab countries.
While visiting Capitol Records in 1960, he refused to pay the 50-cent entry fee at the parking garage. The attendant had his car towed.
Hated giving autographs.
In his memoir, "Mr. S.: My Life With Frank Sinatra", the legend's valet, George Jacobs , said that Sinatra cried when he heard that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King had been assassinated, one of the few times he had seen his employer in tears.
Sinatra's valet George Jacobs said that his employer had derogatory nicknames for many of his friends, including "Sheeny" for Cary Grant , "Shanty" for Gene Kelly , "Jew" for Jerry Lewis , "The African Queen" for Johnny Mathis and "Wop" for Dean Martin . His private plane was called "El Dago".
Became a friend of Laurence Harvey , with whom he co-starred in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). According to Sinatra's valet, George Jacobs , Sinatra called him "Ladyboy" in recognition of Harvey's bisexuality. In an interview about the film that was included in the video recording, Sinatra expressed his sorrow that "Larry" was no longer alive.
Was friends with fellow singer Rosemary Clooney . Two members of her family went on to appear in remakes of Sinatra films. Her nephew George Clooney appeared in Ocean's Eleven (2001) and its sequels, in Sinatra's role, while her son Miguel Ferrer appeared in a supporting role in The Manchurian Candidate (2004). Ferrer also voiced Danny Ocean in a Robot Chicken (2005) parody.
In his 1947 film It Happened in Brooklyn (1947), Frank introduced the now-standard, "Time After Time", which charted at #17 in 1947. It was later re-recorded, by Frank, in 1959 as the B-side to "French Foreign Legion". In 1960, Frankie Ford 's rendition of the song charted at #75 US. Interestingly, that version fared much better than all, in Brooklyn, reaching NYC's Top 10. In 1966. Chris Montez 's version peaked at #36 US.
Long before Bobby Troup (the future husband of Sinatra's best friend Julie London ) would have a successful solo singing career, he had been a member of Sinatra's Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra .
In 1966 he was given a song to record, and after reading it over once, he despised it. The song was "Strangers in the Night", which turned out to be one of his biggest hits. Even after its success, he still hated the song and took every opportunity to deride it.
Was a fan of the TV show Magnum, P.I. (1980) and wanted to appear as a guest star. Through Larry Manetti a message was delivered to producer/star Tom Selleck for Tom to give Frank a call. When Tom called, Frank told him that he wanted to appear on Magnum, but that Tom should not worry, because he did not want to be paid, he just wanted his expenses paid. Tom agreed, and asked Frank what kind of story line he wanted for his character. Frank said that he did not care, as long as his character was a tough guy, and that there be a fight scene where Frank knocks someone out. Tom agreed to Frank's terms and concept for the character Frank would play, and Frank did appear on Magnum in 1986, in what would be Frank's last, full acting, non-cameo role. Frank's "expenses" turned out to be a problem for the producers of Magnum and CBS (the network which aired Magnum during its original broadcast run), because Frank's expenses included the costs for his personal jet and his full entourage. The final expenses tally? $300,000 (in 1986 dollars!) This story has been related by Tom Selleck on several talk shows through the years, including on the October 4, 2013 airing of Late Show with David Letterman (1993).
Became a father for the third time at age 32 when his first ex-wife Nancy Barbato gave birth to their daughter Christina Sinatra (aka Tina Sinatra ) on June 20, 1948.
Became a father for the second time at age 28 when his first ex-wife Nancy Barbato gave birth to their son Francis Wayne Sinatra (aka Frank Sinatra Jr. ) on January 10, 1944.
Became a father for the first time at age 24 when his first ex-wife Nancy Barbato gave birth to their daughter Nancy Sandra Sinatra (aka Nancy Sinatra ) on June 8, 1940.
Was known to be very popular with studio musicians. Accounts by people who worked with him agree that he was an absolutely focused professional who knew exactly what he wanted and was quick to express his satisfaction when he got it. There are also stories of him being generous with money to musicians who were in trouble.
Paparazzi were very aware of his legendary temper. One memorable account by Tina Sinatra has a paparazzi snooping around her dad's house, then suddenly finding himself nose-to-nose with Frank himself. Terrified, the photographer leaped into a pool (despite being unable to swim), requiring Frank to fish him out.
Due to complications and the fact that he had a high birth weight (13-1/2 pounds), at his birth he was thought to have been stillborn until his grandmother revived him with cold tap water.
Was known to be very generous with drivers and often tipped in excess of $100, usually much more than they were making for driving him.
Sinatra was classified 4-F during World War II due to a perforated eardrum.
He appeared in two Best Picture Academy Award winners: From Here to Eternity (1953) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1956).
Sinatra has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: One for music (1637 Vine Street), one for film (1600 Vine Street), and one for television (6538 Hollywood Blvd).
Had a park named after him in New Jersey; he was the town's most famous resident.
In the 1950's, when Sinatra visited the UK, an exclusive interview for the BBC with the respected broadcaster 'David Jacobs ((I)' was arranged. At the time the press was full of stories about Sinatra's relationship with Ava Gardner . Shortly before the interview began, Sinatra told Jacobs that he could ask any questions he liked, but if he asked anything about Gardner he would "shove the microphone down his throat!" The gentlemanly Jacobs knew he meant it but said he never had any intention of asking about his private life and just wanted to talk about his music and career.
He was a major supporter of the state of Israel. He funded terrorist paramilitary groups in Palestine before the creation of Israel in 1948. He publicly supported Israel in the Six Day War in 1967. His music and films were banned in Lebanon as a result of his Zionism.
Sinatra appeared as a guest on the very first episode of The Dean Martin Show (1965).
He would never agree to appear on the BBC's top talk show of the 1970s, Parkinson (1971). Host Michael Parkinson was a huge fan of his music and said never securing an interview with Sinatra was his biggest regret about the series. He said he would have "broken any rule" to get him.
His very vocal support for the state of Israel was a major reason for Sinatra becoming a Republican in the early 1970s.
Personal Quotes (35)
I'm trying to figure out, Chairman of what Board? People come up to me and seriously say: "Well, what are you Chairman of?" And I can't answer them.
I'm for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels. But to me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle.
A friend is never an imposition.
[his last words] I'm losing it.
[Talking about Burt Reynolds ] He is the one the ladies like to dance with and their husbands like to drink with. He is the larger-than-life actor of our times. He is gifted, talented, naughty and nice.
A fella came up to me the other day with a nice story. He was in a bar somewhere and it was the quiet time of the night. Everybody's staring down at the sauce and one of my saloon songs comes on the jukebox, "One for My Baby", or something like that. After a while, a drunk at the end of the bar looks up and says, jerking his thumb toward the jukebox, "I wonder who he listens to?"
[when Dean Martin walked out on The Together Again Tour] You can't put a gun to his head. He just didn't want to do it.
Nothing anybody's said or written about me ever bothers me, except when it does.
[after the deaths of Sammy Davis Jr. , Ava Gardner , Jilly Rizzo and Dean Martin ] I'm next. I ain't scared, either. Everybody I ever knew is already over there.
[on Elvis Presley in 1957] Sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons; and by means of its almost imbecilic reiterations and sly, lewd - in plain fact, dirty - lyrics it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the Earth. This rancid-smelling aphrodisiac I deplore. His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac . . . it fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people.
[on Ava Gardner ] I love her, and God damn me for it.
You better get busy living, because dying's a pain in the ass.
[on Elvis Presley 's death in 1977] There have been many accolades uttered about his talent and performances through the years, all of which I agree to wholeheartedly, I shall miss him dearly as a friend.
There are moments when it's too quiet. Particularly late at night or early in the mornings. That's when you know there's something lacking in your life. You just know.
Recording with Billy May is like having a bucket of cold water thrown into your face. Nelson Riddle will come to a session with all the arrangements carefully and neatly worked out beforehand. With Billy you sometimes don't get copies of the next number until you've finished the one before. Billy and Nelson both work best under pressure. Billy May is always driving while Nelson has more depth, and with Gordon Jenkins , it's just plain beautiful and simple.
[on Marlon Brando ] He is the most overrated actor in the world.
No man's lifetime of work has better expressed the land of the free and the home of the brave. No man's lifetime of work has given proof to the world that our flag is still there. John Wayne is in truth a star-spangled man whom so proudly we hail.
For over half a century, Mr. Wayne [ John Wayne ] has served honorably as America's symbol to the world of the highest morals and prudent standards of our society.
[on Don Rickles ] I like him. But that's because I have no taste.
In Hoboken, when I was a kid, I lived in a plenty tough neighborhood. When somebody called me a "dirty little pig," there was only one thing to do: break his head. When I got older, I realized you shouldn't do it [get even] that way. I realized you've got to do it through education . . . maybe with a few exceptions.
[1965] For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business. He excites me when I watch him. He moves me. He's the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more.
I detest bad manners. If people are polite, I am. They shouldn't try to get away with not being polite to me.
I'm a performer. I'm better in the first take.
Don't tell me. Suggest. But don't tell me.
[on the resignation of US President Richard Nixon , Aug. 9, 1974] Any man can make a mistake.
[on friend Peggy Lee ] Her wonderful talent should be studied by all vocalists; her regal presence is pure elegance and charm.
A well balanced girl is the one who has an empty head and a full sweater.
That guy Heston has to watch it. If he's not careful, he'll get actors a good name. - On Charlton Heston
[1978, in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas] I hate this song ['My Way']--you sing it for eight years, you would hate it too!
[on Rat Pack buddy Sammy Davis Jr. ] He goes to the refrigerator for a snack, opens the door, and when that light hits him, he does 45 minutes of his act!
Rock 'n roll smells phony and false. It is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiteration and sly, lewd, in plain fact, dirty lyrics .. manages to be the martial music of every side-burned delinquent on the face of the earth.
[to Hubert H. Humphrey , who had greeted him by tugging at his sleeve] Hands off the threads, creep.
(On The Manchurian Candidate (1962)) I've never had to speak on screen before...long, wild speeches.
May you all live to be 100 years old, and may the last voice you hear be mine!
I would like to be remembered as a man who had a wonderful time living life, a man who had good friends, fine family - and I don't think I could ask for anything more than that, actually.
Salary (11)
| Frank Sinatra |
What company was operating the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform that recently began spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico following an explosion? | Frank Sinatra dies at 82 - Las Vegas Sun News
Frank Sinatra dies at 82
By
Ed Koch
Friday, May 15, 1998 | 12:39 p.m.
Frank Sinatra, the Chairman of the Board who did everything his way during a multifaceted entertainment career, died of a heart attack late Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 82.
Sinatra was pronounced dead at 10:50 p.m. Thursday in the emergency room of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his publicist, Susan Reynolds, said early today.
Barbara Sinatra reportedly was with him when he died, and the rest of his family arrived a short time later.
His entertainment career took him from singing idol of swooning bobby-soxers to Oscar-winning actor to superstardom on the glittering Las Vegas Strip.
During his Las Vegas years, which encompassed a large portion of his career, Sinatra was the head of the famed "Rat Pack" that included performers Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop -- all regulars at the old Sands hotel-casino.
They made movies together, sang together, toured together and partied together en route to becoming show-business legends.
A private funeral is planned.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and the Las Vegas News Bureau are asking Strip and downtown hotel-casinos to darken their lights for one minute at 8:30 tonight in memory of Sinatra's contribution to the Las Vegas gaming and entertainment industry.
Sun Publisher Barbara Greenspun, a longtime friend of Frank and Barbara Sinatra, remembered him more for his humanitarian work than for his great accomplishments as an entertainer.
"He went on world tours where he raised millions of dollars for humanitarian causes," Greenspun said, noting that Sinatra was a Sun stockholder in the 1960s.
"(Late Sun Publisher) Hank (Greenspun) and I went on tours with him to Japan and Israel, and he and Hank were very close. That was unusual because Frank didn't always get along with reporters.
"I want to extend my deepest sympathy to his family, and I want them to know we share this great loss."
Other Las Vegans remembered Sinatra for his passion for life.
"He was such a legend and -- if you knew him -- a real good man, but he was a hard man to get to know," Joseph Pignatello, Sinatra's longtime Las Vegas chef, said today.
"He was a wonderful person who loved life and loved to eat."
Six months ago, to lift Sinatra's sagging spirits, Pignatello, who owned the old Villa d' Este restaurant and currently owns the Vesuvio restaurant in Las Vegas, prepared Sinatra's favorite meal -- homemade cheese ravioli and calamari salad -- for him.
"He called me and told me it was the best meal he had had in four or five years," Pignatello said, noting that Sinatra also enjoyed "real thin" veal cutlets.
"Frank never gave orders when he came into Villa 'd Este -- he always left it up to me. And he always had a bottle of Chateau Lafitte with his meals."
Sinatra would consume three or four desserts at a sitting, Pignatello said. His favorites were biscotti, a hard Italian cookie; St. Joseph pastry, a cruller filled with Italian custard; and Boston cream pie.
Pignatello met Sinatra in 1952 and prepared food for him and the Rat Pack on the sets of films shot in and around Las Vegas, including "Oceans Eleven."
Former federal judge Harry Claiborne was Sinatra's personal attorney in the early 1950s.
"It was a down period in his life," Claiborne said. "He was having trouble getting bookings and his career was on a rapid decline. I suppose that is why he came to me, a trial lawyer, to do his business law work for him.
"He had charisma. It was not so much what he sang but rather the personality he projected when he sang those songs. And there was no more loyal a human being than Frank Sinatra."
Claiborne last talked with Sinatra last summer, when his health and spirits were at a low point.
"It was not an enjoyable conversation, but Frank said he was doing OK," Claiborne said. "To the end, he was a warm, friendly gentle man. But, he also was a strong man."
Don Pack, Sinatra's photographer from 1960-80, said the world "has lost one of its most powerful" individuals.
"When this man walked into a room it was total excitement -- everyone, including prominent people, froze," Pack said. "People were in absolute awe of him.
"Every time I hear the song 'That's Life' from now on, I will get a chill when Frank sings the line 'flying high in April, shot down in May.'"
The Riviera hotel-casino, one of the last places in town where Sinatra performed, said today its management and staff are "deeply saddened" by Sinatra's death and that the resort would dedicate one of its suites to his memory.
An engraved plaque will be placed on the door of Suite 2902 in the Monaco Tower penthouse where Sinatra stayed when he performed there in 1990 and '92.
Sinatra was known by three affectionate nicknames: Ol' Blue Eyes, for his bright azure peepers; Chairman of the Board, for his lofty status in the entertainment world; and The Voice, a term shortened by a reporter from a talent agent's proposed The Voice That Thrilled Millions.
Born Francis Albert Sinatra on Dec. 12, 1915, in Hoboken, N.J., Sinatra was the only child of a firefighter who also ran a saloon.
Anthony Sinatra and his wife, Natalie (nee Garaventa), had hoped their son would become a civil engineer. But, Frank, a student-athlete at Demarest High School in Hoboken, detested math.
Instead, his early interests were in the newspaper business. As a teen, he dropped off newspapers for vendors and later was a copy boy for the Jersey Observer.
Reports also were that he covered sports for the paper, but it is not clear whether that actually happened or was part of his great myth created by clever publicity agents.
At age 20, after listening to a song by his idol, Bing Crosby, Sinatra told his girlfriend -- Nancy Barbato, who would become his first wife -- that he wanted to be a singer. He had never taken a singing lesson.
Sinatra began singing in a neighborhood theater with a group called The Hoboken Four. They won a contest on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour radio show in 1935.
That earned Sinatra, then a skinny 20-year-old, his first professional singing job at the Rustic Cabin in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., in 1937. He also had to wait tables as part of the gig, which paid $25 a week.
But in 1939 -- the year Sinatra married Nancy -- bandleader Harry James watched him perform and signed him to a two-year contract that lasted only six months. Still, he cut his first records -- "From the Bottom of My Heart" and "Melancholy Mood" -- with the Harry James Orchestra.
Later that year, band leader Tommy Dorsey signed Sinatra to a three-year pact as a vocalist with the Pied Pipers. Among their hit songs were "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" and "I'll Never Smile Again."
It was during his stint with the group that Sinatra developed his unique white blues sound and started to attract the screaming bobby-soxers who helped launch his solo career in 1942 with successful concerts at New York's Paramount.
He would go on to record the hits "Witchcraft," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "The Lady is a Tramp," "Chicago," "It Was a Very Good Year," "Strangers in the Night," "My Way" and "New York, New York."
His recording of "New York, New York" replaced the 1890s-era "Sidewalks of New York" as the city's anthem.
Amazingly, Sinatra never learned to read music.
A two-fisted drinker and brawler who loved Jack Daniels whiskey, Sinatra engaged in bar fights and feuded with reporters.
Although he was criticized for performing at Sun City in South Africa during the era of apartheid, Sinatra by many other accounts was a crusader for racial equality.
In the mid-1940s, he won a special Oscar for "The House I Live In," a short film about religious and racial intolerance. It was reported that he once punched a waiter who refused to serve a black person.
Time magazine once reported that Sinatra walked out on the christening of his son when the priest refused to allow a Jewish friend to be the godfather. His support of Israel got his movies and records banned in some Arab countries.
By 1946, officials at Columbia Records estimated that Sinatra was averaging 24 songs a year -- a record per month -- and that his platters were selling at a rate of 10 million per year.
Sinatra's first of more than 50 movie roles was in "Las Vegas Nights," a 1941 Paramount Pictures production that began his everlasting link with Las Vegas.
During the 1940s, Frank and Nancy Sinatra had three children -- Nancy in 1940 and Frank Jr., in 1944, both in Jersey City; and Tina in 1948, in Los Angeles. All of them survive him.
In 1949 the bottom fell out of Sinatra's career. He lost his radio job, his New York concerts flopped and he and Nancy split up over his scandalous affair with actress Ava Gardner, who would become Frank's second wife in 1951. He and Gardner later divorced.
Broke and without many offers for work, Sinatra read for a part in the 1953 film "From Here to Eternity." So down was Sinatra on his luck, he took the part for $8,000 -- a fraction of the $150,000 he had earned for prior films. It turned out to be a pivotal decision.
The role of Maggio, a tough Italian soldier, turned Sinatra's career around. He won the Academy Award for best supporting actor and never looked back.
Sinatra followed up with strong film performances in "Guys and Dolls," "The Tender Trap" and "The Man With the Golden Arm."
His songs "The Tender Trap" and "Young at Heart" also were million-sellers at the time.
By the late 1960s, Sinatra, a one-time promising thespian who starred in acclaimed films such as "Pal Joey" and "The Manchurian Candidate," was content to play often silly tough-guy detective roles in films such as "Tony Rome," "The Detective" and "Lady in Cement."
In the 1960s, during the heart of the Beatles era, Sinatra still managed to crack the pop charts with hits such as "Something Stupid," which he recorded with daughter Nancy, "Strangers in the Night," "That's Life" and "Summer Wind."
In 1984, Sinatra played himself -- more accurately, a stereotyped spoof of himself -- in "Cannonball Run II" with fellow Rat Packers Martin and Davis, both of whom preceded Sinatra in death.
Sinatra was the voice of the Singing Sword in the 1988 animated hit, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" His last film role was in 1991 in "Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones."
He also won Emmys for his television specials.
As a recording artist, Sinatra's songs were popular on pop, oldies and adult contemporary radio stations from the mid-1950s to the present.
He appeared on four labels -- Columbia ("That Old Feeling"), Capitol ("The Lady is a Tramp" and "Witchcraft"), his own Reprise Records ("My Way") and Qwest ("LA is My Lady").
In all, Sinatra had 21 gold albums and won six Grammys -- two in 1959, one in 1965, two in 1966 and the Legend Award in 1994. He won the award for Best Male Performer twice.
He is enshrined in the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
In December 1963, Sinatra's son, then 19, was abducted by two armed men from a motel in Stateline, where he was performing. Sinatra, then filming the Rat Pack movie "Robin and the Seven Hoods," flew to Nevada to assist in the investigation.
He paid a $240,000 ransom, and Frank Jr. was set free two days later.
Sinatra was married for a third time in 1966 to actress Mia Farrow -- nearly 30 years his junior -- but they separated in November 1967. In 1976, he was married, for a final time, to Barbara Marx.
Sinatra gave his "farewell concert" after announcing his retirement from show business on March 23, 1971. Twenty-five months later, he ended that retirement by going into the studio to record his comeback album, "Ol' Blue Eyes is Back."
As the years passed, Sinatra's hairline receded, he put on extra pounds and he practically read song lyrics instead of singing them with his rich baritone voice. Still, Sinatra remained in demand as a performer worldwide well into his late 70s.
In 1980, his "Trilogy" album was released. It included the hit "Theme From New York, New York."
In 1994, Sinatra won his first multi-platinum record for "Duet" and platinum records for "Strangers In the Night" (1966) and "Greatest Hits."
In 1996, Sinatra won a Grammy for best traditional pop vocal performance for "Duets II." It was his first competitive Grammy in 29 years.
In the last quarter-century of his life, Sinatra toured the world, regularly played in Las Vegas -- at Caesars Palace and the Golden Nugget hotel-casinos, among others -- and Atlantic City and generally held court over the entertainment industry from his Palm Springs, Calif., home.
He returned to Hoboken in May 1985 to accept an honorary engineering degree from the Stevens Institute of Technology. That same year, Sinatra was awarded the Medal of Freedom by his friend, President Reagan.
He had received the Kennedy Center honor in 1983.
In his later years, Sinatra collected works of art and watched over his vast real estate holdings.
He had not been seen in public since a heart attack in January 1997.
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What is the southern most point of land in South America? | Chile: Maps, History, Geography, Government, Culture, Facts, Guide & Travel/Holidays/Cities
Bachelet Regains the Presidency
Geography
Situated south of Peru and west of Bolivia and Argentina, Chile fills a narrow 2,880-mi (4,506 km) strip between the Andes and the Pacific. One-third of Chile is covered by the towering ranges of the Andes. In the north is the driest place on Earth, the Atacama Desert, and in the center is a 700-mile-long (1,127 km) thickly populated valley with most of Chile's arable land. At the southern tip of Chile's mainland is Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in the world, and beyond that lies the Strait of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego, an island divided between Chile and Argentina. The southernmost point of South America is Cape Horn, a 1,390-foot (424 m) rock on Horn Island in the Wollaston group, which belongs to Chile. Chile also claims sovereignty over 482,628 sq mi (1,250,000 sq km) of Antarctic territory; the Juan Fernández Islands, about 400 mi (644 km) west of the mainland; and Easter Island, about 2,000 mi (3,219 km) west.
Government
Republic.
History
Chile was originally under the control of the Incas in the north and the nomadic Araucanos in the south. In 1541, a Spaniard, Pedro de Valdivia, founded Santiago. Chile won its independence from Spain in 1818 under Bernardo O'Higgins and an Argentinian, José de San Martin. O'Higgins, dictator until 1823, laid the foundations of the modern state with a two-party system and a centralized government.
The dictator from 1830 to 1837, Diego Portales, fought a war with Peru from 1836—1839 that expanded Chilean territory. Chile fought the War of the Pacific with Peru and Bolivia from 1879 to 1883, winning Antofagasta, Bolivia's only outlet to the sea, and extensive areas from Peru. Pedro Montt led a revolt that overthrew José Balmaceda in 1891 and established a parliamentary dictatorship lasting until a new constitution was adopted in 1925. Industrialization began before World War I and led to the formation of Marxist groups. Juan Antonio Ríos, president during World War II, was originally pro-Nazi but in 1944 led his country into the war on the side of the Allies.
In 1970, Salvador Allende became the first president in a non-Communist country freely elected on a Marxist program. Allende quickly established relations with Cuba and the People's Republic of China, introduced Marxist economic and social reforms, and nationalized many private companies, including U.S.-owned ones. In Sept. 1973, Allende was overthrown and killed in a military coup covertly sponsored by the CIA, ending a 46-year era of constitutional government in Chile.
| Cape Horn |
On May 14, 1804, what group broke their winter camp, at Camp DuBois, before heading up the Missouri river to start their 2 1/2 year journey? | Chile: Maps, History, Geography, Government, Culture, Facts, Guide & Travel/Holidays/Cities
Bachelet Regains the Presidency
Geography
Situated south of Peru and west of Bolivia and Argentina, Chile fills a narrow 2,880-mi (4,506 km) strip between the Andes and the Pacific. One-third of Chile is covered by the towering ranges of the Andes. In the north is the driest place on Earth, the Atacama Desert, and in the center is a 700-mile-long (1,127 km) thickly populated valley with most of Chile's arable land. At the southern tip of Chile's mainland is Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in the world, and beyond that lies the Strait of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego, an island divided between Chile and Argentina. The southernmost point of South America is Cape Horn, a 1,390-foot (424 m) rock on Horn Island in the Wollaston group, which belongs to Chile. Chile also claims sovereignty over 482,628 sq mi (1,250,000 sq km) of Antarctic territory; the Juan Fernández Islands, about 400 mi (644 km) west of the mainland; and Easter Island, about 2,000 mi (3,219 km) west.
Government
Republic.
History
Chile was originally under the control of the Incas in the north and the nomadic Araucanos in the south. In 1541, a Spaniard, Pedro de Valdivia, founded Santiago. Chile won its independence from Spain in 1818 under Bernardo O'Higgins and an Argentinian, José de San Martin. O'Higgins, dictator until 1823, laid the foundations of the modern state with a two-party system and a centralized government.
The dictator from 1830 to 1837, Diego Portales, fought a war with Peru from 1836—1839 that expanded Chilean territory. Chile fought the War of the Pacific with Peru and Bolivia from 1879 to 1883, winning Antofagasta, Bolivia's only outlet to the sea, and extensive areas from Peru. Pedro Montt led a revolt that overthrew José Balmaceda in 1891 and established a parliamentary dictatorship lasting until a new constitution was adopted in 1925. Industrialization began before World War I and led to the formation of Marxist groups. Juan Antonio Ríos, president during World War II, was originally pro-Nazi but in 1944 led his country into the war on the side of the Allies.
In 1970, Salvador Allende became the first president in a non-Communist country freely elected on a Marxist program. Allende quickly established relations with Cuba and the People's Republic of China, introduced Marxist economic and social reforms, and nationalized many private companies, including U.S.-owned ones. In Sept. 1973, Allende was overthrown and killed in a military coup covertly sponsored by the CIA, ending a 46-year era of constitutional government in Chile.
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Cruella DeVil was a villainess in which animated Disney film? | Disney Preps Live-Action Cruella de Vil Film (Exclusive) | Hollywood Reporter
1:16pm PT by Borys Kit
Disney Preps Live-Action Cruella de Vil Film (Exclusive)
Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection; Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
Cruella de Vil (Inset: Aline Brosh McKenna)
UPDATED: The writer for the studio's live-action "Cinderella" has been hired to pen the script for what is being titled "Cruella."
After making a movie centered on Maleficent, the villainess from Sleeping Beauty, Disney is setting its sights on another bad lady: Cruella de Vil.
Aline Brosh McKenna has been hired to pen Cruella, which will bring the dog-fur-loving fashionista from 101 Dalmatians into a live-action feature to be produced by Andrew Gunn, who produced Sky High and Bedtime Stories for the studio. McKenna will also produce.
De Vil first appeared in Dodie Smith's 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians but became a Disney icon with the 1961 animated movie. And it's not the character's first incarnation in a live-action feature. Glenn Close memorably played the character in 1996's 101 Dalmatians and the 2000 sequel, 102 Dalmatians.
In fact, Close is in involved with Cruella, acting as an executive producer.
| 101 Dalmatians |
What comic strip, created by Gary Trudeau in 1970, features characters such as Zonker Harris, B.D., Boopsie, and Mark Slackmeyer? | Cruella De Vil (Character)
Cruella De Vil (Character)
from 101 Dalmatians (1961)
The content of this page was created by users. It has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff.
There may be more photos available for this character. To select more photos to be displayed in this character's gallery, click the Edit Photos link.
Overview
Biography:
Cruella De Vil is a character from the Disney animated movie "One Hundred and One Dalmatians"... See more »
Alternate Names:
Cruela De Vil / Cruela de Vil / Cruella / Cruella DeVille / Cruella Devil / Cruella Devile / Cruella Deville / Cruella de Vil / Curella de Vil / Young Cruella
Filmography
(as Cruella)
... aka "101 Dalmatians 2: Patch's London Adventure" - International (English title) (imdb display title), UK (imdb display title)
... aka "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" - USA (original title)
... aka "Walt Disney's 101 Dalmatians" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "Disneyland" - USA (original title)
... aka "Disney's Wonderful World" - USA (new title)
... aka "The Disney Sunday Movie" - USA (new title)
... aka "The Magical World of Disney" - USA (new title)
... aka "The Wonderful World of Disney" - USA (new title)
... aka "Walt Disney" - USA (new title)
... aka "Walt Disney Presents" - USA (new title)
| i don't know |
May 15, 1928 saw what iconic film character introduced in the animated cartoon Plane Crazy? | Film History Milestones - 1928
Event and Significance
1928
RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) Pictures, evolving originally from the Mutual Film Corporation (1912), was created in the merger of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), the Film Booking Office (FBO) and Keith-Albee-Orpheum, a major Vaudeville corporation. It was established as a subsidiary of RCA and joined the ranks of the major Hollywood studios.
1928
Director Roy William Neill's The Viking (1928) was the first feature-length Technicolor film that featured a soundtrack, and the first film made in Technicolor's Process 3.
1928
By 1928, Hollywood's major film studios had signed an agreement with AT&T/Western Electric's licensing division (ERPI, or Electrical Research Products, Inc.) to use their audio technologies to produce films with sound. They proceeded with the conversion of production facilities and theaters for sound film. This led to an explosion in the popularity of sound in cinema.
1928
The first 'Mickey Mouse' short animated film, Plane Crazy (1928), was debuted on May 15, 1928. The character of an animated mouse (future Mickey Mouse) was modified from Disney's earlier character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which was introduced in 1927.
1928
The first all-talking cartoon short, Paul Terry's Dinner Time (1928) with synchronized sound was premiered, preceding Disney's Steamboat Willie (1928) by about a month. It was made after Warner Bros.' success with The Jazz Singer (1927) .
1928
Walt Disney also introduced the first popular animated cartoons with synchronized sound later in this year: Steamboat Willie (on July 29, 1928, in limited release) and Galloping Gaucho (on August 2, 1928). Steamboat Willie - Mickey's first sound cartoon, was then re-released on November 18, 1928 with sound and premiered at the 79th Street Colony Theatre in New York - it was Disney's first cartoon with a post-produced synchronized soundtrack (of music, dialogue, and sound effects) and was considered Mickey Mouse's (and Minnie's) screen debut performance and birthdate. It was the first sound cartoon that was a major hit. Walt Disney provided the voice for Mickey until his death.
1928
The Best Picture-nominated western film In Old Arizona (1928), made by directors Raoul Walsh and Irving Cummings, was released. It was the first full-length talkie film to be shot outdoors (on location) and not in a studio, as well as the first sound western film.
1928
The gangster melodrama The Lights of New York (1928) was released by Warner Brothers as the first 100% all-talking feature film, as a result of the phenomenal success of The Jazz Singer (1927) with just a few minutes of sound. This first Warner Bros. gangster film was unexpectedly successful, grossing over $2 million.
1928
Warner Brothers' second 'all-talking' picture was The Terror (1928) - director Roy Del Ruth's adaptation of Edgar Wallace's play regarding a haunted house terrorized by a homicidal asylum escapee. The film's many ads capitalized on the new feature of sound (creaking doors, howling winds, organ music), heard with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process: "It will thrill you! Grip you! Set you into tremors of awe. HEAR this creepy tale of mystery - the baffling story of a detective's great triumph. With voices and shadows that will rack your nerves and make you like it. Come, hear them talk in this Vitaphone production of the play that has gripped London for over 3 years."
1928
Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer's startling and influential The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) used minimal sets, extremely oblique and other unusual camera angles, and excruciatingly huge close-ups to create a virtually new visual language soulfully expressive of the martyr's (Maria Falconetti) suffering psychology.
1928
Future star John Wayne (a former prop man) has often been credited as making his debut feature film appearance as an unbilled extra in director John Ford's melodrama Mother Machree (1928). But Wayne had already appeared as uncredited extras or bit players in films dating back to 1926, including Brown of Harvard (1926), Bardelys the Magnificent (1926), The Great K & A Train Robbery (1926), Annie Laurie (1927), and The Drop Kick (1927).
1928
Paramount became the first studio to announce that it would only produce "talkies."
1928
Ernst Lubitsch's and Paramount's dramatic silent film The Patriot (1928), a "lost film," was the only silent film nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award in 1928. It was the last silent movie to receive a Best Picture nomination (unless one counted the mostly-silent The Artist (2011) which won in 2012). Only minor excerpts or portions of the film exist - thereby making it the only Best Picture Oscar-nominee to exist in incomplete form. From its five Academy Award nominations (including Best Actor, Best Art Direction, Best Director, and Best Picture), it won only Best Writing Achievement. Its budget was enormous, estimated to be $1 million. It featured a sychronized music score with orchestral accompaniment - added during post-production. German actor Emil Jannings starred in the semi-biopic as mad despot Czar Paul I.
1928
Warners' follow-up film and melodramatic musical, The Singing Fool (1928), was released in both sound and silent versions. It contained the first hit song from a talking movie soundtrack - Al Jolson's performance of Sonny Boy.
1928
MGM's first sound film (although it was part silent and part talkie) was director W.S. Van Dyke's epic adventure/romantic drama White Shadows in the South Seas (1928) - and it was also the first instance in which audiences heard MGM's logo/mascot Leo the Lion roar during the opening credits.
1928
Director Germaine Dulac released the classic The Seashell and the Clergyman) (1928, Fr.) (aka La Coquille et Le Clergyman), the first surrealist film, although many have claimed Un Chien Andalou (1929) by Luis Bunuel (and Salvador Dali) a year later was the first. The latter film, filled with irrational and shocking images, opened with the infamous scene of the slashing of a woman's eyeball with a razor blade.
1928
Broadway stage actor Humphrey Bogart had his film debut - and his first leading film role, opposite Helen Hayes, in the two-reel short The Dancing Town (1928). His success soon led to a film contract with the Fox Film Corporation.
| Mickey Mouse |
How many gold stars are there on the blue background of the European Union flag? | Today in History (1928): Mickey Mouse Makes His First · Lomography
The world’s most iconic and well-loved animated mouse celebrates his 85th birthday today!
Mickey Mouse on “Steamboat Willie.” Photo via Blogspot
Mickey Mouse, which was said to have been created to replace the Disney Studio-created, Universal Studios-owned cartoon character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit following a dispute between the two entities, was the product of a collaborative work between legendary animator Walt Disney and his head animator Ub Iwerks . The character was fashioned after a tamed mouse that Walt would find at his desk in the Laugh-O-Gram Studio. The then-newly revamped Disney Studio included Walt, Iwerks, apprentice artist Les Clark, and Wilfred Jackson.
Animals such as a female cow, a male horse, and a male frog were first pitched by Iwerks before Walt finally gave his approval on Mickey Mouse. Mortimer was supposedly the original name for the mouse and was only changed after Walt’s wife Lillian persuaded him to do so.
“Steamboat Willie” video via Disney Animation on YouTube
Mickey Mouse made his debut on “Steamboat Willie” on this day in 1928. It’s a black-and-white short which was among the first to feature sound. However, just months earlier, Mickey actually made his first appearance on the test screening of the cartoon short “Plane Crazy” , which initially turned out to be a flop. Fortunately, following the success of “Steamboat Willie,” the cartoon eventually saw the light of day and became the fourth Mickey short to be released on March 17, 1929.
“Steamboat Willie” was directed by Walt and Iwerks, who also served as its head animator. It was said to be parody of Buster Keaton and Charles Reisner’s silent comedy feature, “Steamboat Bill Jr.” .
“The Karnival Kid” video via YouTube
However, it should be noted that Mickey did not talk until his ninth film, “The Karnival Kid,” having only expressed himself through laughing, whistling, and making other sounds. “The Karnival Kid” was released on May 23, 1929.
Two of the most-associated characters to Mickey are his perennial love interest Minerva “Minnie” Mouse and his pet dog Pluto. Minnie made her debut at the same time as Mickey, while Pluto made its first appearance on “The Moose Hunt” in 1931.
Mickey’s popularity continued to surge upwards and by 1932, he received his first Academy Award nomination for “Mickey’s Orphans” which was released the year before. Meanwhile, “The Band Concert” (1935) marks Mickey’s first official appearance in color.
✘ Youtube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=mHTnJNGvQcA <figcaption>"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" from "Fantasia." Video via "YouTube":http://www.youtube.com/user/blatisnugas?feature=watch</figcaption>
The year 1940 saw Mickey appearing in his first feature-length film, “Fantasia” . In 1943, Mickey won his first and so far only Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film via “Lend a Paw” (1931). All in all, he has received nine nominations from this prestigious award-giving body under the same category.
“The Simple Things” , released in 1953, was the last regular installment of the Mickey Mouse film series. The following decades would see Mickey appearing more often on television and direct-to-video features. In these years, some of Mickey’s most notable appearances in theatrical animation were “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (1988) alongside rival Bugs Bunny and “Runaway Brain” (1995). However, fans would be happy to know that their favorite mouse is set to star in two films in the future!
Other voice actors who have lend their voices to Mickey were Jimmy MacDonald (1947-1977) and Wayne Allwine (1977-2009). Since 2009, Bret Iwan has been voicing Mickey.
Photo via Wikipedia
Aside from film and television, Mickey has also been appearing on comic strips, video games, other merchandise, and of course, in the Disneyland theme parks. On his 50th anniversary, Mickey received the distinction of becoming the first cartoon character to have received a star on the world-renowned Hollywood Walk of Fame.
By 1994, four of Mickey Mouse’s films have been included in the book, “The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals” . These were the “Clock Cleaners” (1937, #27), “Brave Little Tailor” (1938, #26), “Steamboat Willie” (#13), and “The Band Concert” (#3).
Mickey Mouse through the years. Photo via Flickr
Mickey Mouse’s physical appearance may have changed a lot since his creation, but he remains a beloved cartoon character for generations now. His influence has been so great that his name had actually become part of pop culture as a slang expression (good or bad, depending on which part of the globe you’re in), and has become a symbol not only of the company he represents but also its originating country.
All information in this article were sourced from Wikipedia .
Like this article? Check out more stories from our Today in History series in the Lomography magazine!
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What country was formerly known as Siam until June 23, 1939, and again from 1945 to May 11, 1949? | Thailand - Travellers Forum
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Thailand - Travellers Forum
Thailand is a very interesting place to visit - and many people have been there. What are their experiences and adventures? You can read it here - on the page Thailand: discussion forum, experiences, adventures, tips, opinions, problems, challenges... Add your opinions and experiences if you can. Help other people.
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Phuket, not only beaches
Phuket it is not only beaches. We have visited Khao Phra Taew wildlife and forest reserve and it was great. Not exactly wild jungle, but nice paths, a lot of trees and flowers and sometimes some animal (especially birds, but not only). So you don't need to spend one week on Phuket only on sunbathing.
author: Waaa | inserted: 22. 06. 2008, 16:21:44 | reply
>> Do not insert html tags please. They will not work. <<
Transcribe 4 numbers from the picture please:
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Insert only entries which may be useful for other readers. You are welcome to write your own experiences from Thailand, your evaluation of different places and your tips, where to go. It will be good if you mention any problems and their solutions. And tell us, if your holidays here were good or bad. Please be polite to other people in this forum. And do not spam this forum, please. We delete this kind of entries.
Thailand on the Internet
Are you looking for more information? On the Internet there are a lot of information. Here are some advices: Thailand may have different names in different languages. For example Thajsko, Thailand, La Thaïlande, Tailandia. Use these names in search engines. It is good idea to precisely specify what are you looking for. If you need information about a place, use the name in a search engine. You may use other names of the place as well. If you need - for example - an information about history of the place, add the word history to the search engine.
What Others say
The Kingdom of Thailand (Thai: ราชอาณาจักรไทย) is a country in Southeast Asia. To its east lie Laos and Cambodia; to its south, the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia; and to its west, the Andaman Sea and Burma. Its capital and largest city is Bangkok. The country's official name was Siam (Thai: สยาม, RTGS: Sayam origin unknown) until 23 June 1939, when it was changed to Thailand; it was renamed Siam between 1945 and 11 May 1949, after which the name Thailand was once again adopted. The word Thai (ไทย) is not, as commonly believed to be, derived from the word Tai (ไท) meaning "free" in the Thai language; it is, however, the name of an ethnic group from the central plains (the Thai people).[citation needed] A famous Thai scholar argued that Tai (ไท) simply means "people" or "human being" since his investigation shows that in some rural areas the word "Tai" was used instead of the usual Thai word "khon" (คน) for people. With that in mind the locals seemed to have also accepted the alternative meaning and will verbally state that it means "Land of the free". Ratcha Anachak Thai means "Kingdom of Thailand" or "Kingdom of Thai". Etymologically, its components are: -Ratcha- (from Sanskrit raja, meaning "king, royal, realm", from Sanskrit) ; -ana- (from Pāli, "authority, command, power", itself from Sanskrit ājñā, same meaning) -chak (from Sanskrit chakra, meaning "wheel", a symbol of power and rule). The region known today as Thailand has been inhabited by humans since the paleolithic period (about 10,000 years ago). Prior to the fall of the Khmer Empire in the 13th century, various states thrived there, such as the various Tai, Mon, Khmer and Malay kingdoms, as seen through the numerous archaeological sites and artifacts that are scattered throughout the Siamese landscape. Prior to the 12th century however, the first Thai or Siamese state is traditionally considered to be the Buddhist kingdom of Sukhothai, which was founded in 1238.
| Thailand |
May 14, 1973 saw the US launch what first ever space station, which orbited the earth for 6 years, even though it was only visited 3 times? | Smoodeye
Smoodeye
Flood in Thailand
Zipper bag prevent water flooded the car.
Because This flooding is a problem in Thailand. Very well played out across the country suffer because of life and property damage to my car, Zipper bag prevent water flooded the car. You can cover your car and zip-unzip to not allow water to enter the car.
Objective facts :
Ex : Thailand.
Thailand Ratcha Anachak Thai, or Prathet Thai officially the Kingdom of Thailand and formerly known as Siam is a country located at the center of Southeast Asia . It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos , to the east by Laos and Cambodia , to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia , and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Burma. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast and Indonesia and India in the Andaman Sea to the southwest.
The country is a kingdom, with most recorded reigns in the world; a constitutional monarchy with King Rama IX , the ninth king of the House of Chakri , who has reigned since 1946, making him the world's longest-serving current head of state and the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history . The king is officially titled Head of State, the Head of the Armed Forces, an Upholder of the Buddhist religion, and the Defender of all Faiths.
Thailand is the world's 50th largest country in terms of total area (slightly smaller than Yemen and slightly larger than Spain ), with a surface area of approximately 513,000 km2 (198,000 sq mi), and the 21st most-populous country , with approximately 64 million people. The largest city is Bangkok , the capital, which is also the country's center of political, commercial, industrial and cultural activities. About 75% of the population is ethnically Thai , 14% is of Chinese origin, and 3% is ethnically Malay the rest belong to minority groups including Mons , Khmers and various hill tribes . The country's official language is Thai . The primary religion is Buddhism , which is practiced by around 95% of all Thais.
Thailand experienced rapid economic growth between 1985 and 1995 and is a newly industrialized country with tourism , due to well-known tourist destinations such as Ayutthaya , Pattaya , Bangkok , Phuket , Krabi , Chiang Mai , and Ko Samui , and exports contributing significantly to the economy. There are approximately 2.2 million legal and illegal migrants in Thailand. Thailand has also attracted a number of expatriates from developed countries.
Etymology The country's official name was Siam until June 23, 1939 when it was changed to Thailand. It was then renamed Siam from 1945 to May 11, 1949, after which it was again renamed Thailand. Also spelled Siem, Syâm or Syâma, it has been identified with the Sanskrit Śyâma ( श्याम , meaning "dark" or "brown"). The names Shan and A-hom seem to be variants of the same word, and Śyâma is possibly not its origin but a learned and artificial distortion.
The word Thai is not, as commonly believed derived from the word Tai meaning "freedom" in the Thai language ; it is, however, the name of an ethnic group from the central plains (the Thai people ).A famous Thai scholar argued that Tai simply means "people" or "human being" since his investigation shows that in some rural areas the word "Tai" was used instead of the usual Thai word "khon" for people. The Thai use the phrase "land of the free" to express pride in the fact that Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia never colonized by a European power. While the Thai people will often refer to their country using the polite form Prathet Thai they most commonly use the more colloquial word Mueang Thai or simply Thai ; the word mueang meaning nation but most commonly used to refer to a city or town. Ratcha Anachak Thai means "Kingdom of Thailand" or "Kingdom of Thai".
Etymologically, its components are: -Ratcha- (from Sanskrit raja , meaning "king, royal, realm") ; -ana- (from Pāli āṇā, "authority, command, power", itself from Sanskrit ājñā, same meaning) -chak (from Sanskrit cakra or cakraṃ meaning "wheel", a symbol of power and rule). The Thai National Anthem ( Thai : เพลงชาติ), composed and written by Peter Feit during the extremely "patriotic" 1930s, refers to the Thai nation as: prathet-thai The first line of the national anthem is: prathet thai ruam lueat nuea chat chuea thai and was translated in 1939 by Colonel Luang Saranuprabhandi as: "Thailand is the unity of Thai blood and body."
Subjective opinions :
Ex : Thailand
Thailand is a civil law jurisdiction that also has elements of the common law system. Accordingly, the principle law sources are acts, statutes and regulations. However, published Supreme Court decisions are an important part of the legal development of Thailand and are frequently used as secondary authority.
Thailand Supreme Court Opinions are published in numbered issues according to the year in which the opinion was issued. Our English language translations of selected opinion summaries, provided by Chaninat & Leeds, are arranged in numbered issues corresponding to the Thai language publications.
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An open air ballpark build in 2004, what National League baseball team plays at Petco Park? | Petco Park - San Diego Padres
Petco Park
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Baseball Pilgrimages
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For 35 years the Padres were banished to the outskirts of San Diego, playing in a stadium built for football. In fact, of all the multipurpose stadiums that hosted Major League Baseball and the NFL, only the Padres played second fiddle to a football team when it came to scheduling priority.
That all changed in 2004, when San Diego opened a downtown ballpark.
Petco Park was built at a cost of $456.8 million on 18 acres of land in the heart of downtown San Diego. Very few ballparks in the Major Leagues can boast of such a prime location, as Petco Park was beautifully woven into the fabric of the city and is surrounded by the skyscrapers of the San Diego skyline.
Constructed of materials designed to reflect the local landscape, Petco Park has a sandstone and stucco exterior that was patterned after the sandy colored San Diego cliffs and beaches. Certain parts of the exterior, such as the staircases between the lower and upper decks, look like bunkers, befitting the large contingent of military stationed in the area. All exposed steel is painted white (think sailboats and ocean whitecaps) and all seats are painted blue (like the ocean).
The San Diego friendly design shows off the best the city has to offer and some local icons can be seen from various points in the ballpark.
The Coronado Bridge runs parallel to Petco and is easily seen from the upper deck concourse, as is the San Diego Bay. The hilltop of Balboa Park, home to the San Diego Zoo, peeks through the skyscrapers beyond center field.
San Diego is renowned for its leisurely lifestyle and one of Petco Park�s signature features, the Park at the Park, is a year-round destination for baseball fans and local citizens.
The Park at the Park is literally a 2.7-acre park within the confines of the ballpark in the outfield. When no games are being played, the Park at the Park serves as a free local park for area residents, but during the game it�s a hot spot for Padres fans and families, as a line of specialty concession stands and a mini wiffle ball field complement the large elevated grass berm.
A Park Pass, as the Padres refer to them, is just $5 and many fans bring beach towels to plop down in the grass. Most of the �seating� is obstructed view, as the batter�s eye blocks much of the playing field. The Padres recognized this and added a large screen TV to the back of the batter�s backdrop so fans in the park can follow the action. The park isn�t of much use to hardcore baseball fans, but a perfect place for casual fans and families to spend an afternoon.
The lawn seating in the Park can accommodate approximately 2,000 fans, so the ballpark�s actual capacity is greater than the listed 42,445 fixed seats.
The Padres have some innovative standing room options, highlighted by the �beach� in center field. The beach is a sand-covered section in front of the amphitheater style bleachers where fans can watch the game directly behind the glass paneled outfield fence.
One of the most unique vantage points in baseball, fans sit on the sand floor during the game so they won�t block the view of the fans sitting in the bleachers directly behind them. From a distance (and on TV) it looks like fans are standing in the two sections of bleachers, which actually have booster style seats that are first come, first served.
The only brick found inside the ballpark is a dandy. The century-old Western Metal Supply Company building, originally scheduled for demolition to make way for Petco Park, was preserved and incorporated into left field. The four-story brick building is the ballpark�s most striking architectural feature and its focal point.
The Western Metal Supply Co. building serves many uses at Petco. The left-field foul pole is attached to it. The Padres Team Store is in its first floor and has an entrance to the Knothole Gang-type standing room area in left field. Suites are on the second and third floors and a restaurant is on the fourth floor. Private parties are held on the building�s roof, which has small sections of bleacher seats.
The other noticeable private party area at Petco Park is directly behind the Padres bullpen, where a multi-leveled picnic terrace prevents regular fans from getting close to the bullpen, as has become the custom at most new ballparks.
The bullpen set-up is actually quite unique at Petco, as the home team definitely has an advantage. The Padres bullpen is large and elevated in left-center field, but the visitor�s bullpen is not behind the outfield fence. Instead, it�s in foul territory down the right field line, which is reminiscent of where bullpens were located in the cookie-cutter donuts of yesteryear.
The Padres have retired four numbers in their four-decade history, and those numbers join Jackie Robinson�s #42 atop the batter�s backdrop in center field. Plaques of those players - Steve Garvey (#6), Tony Gwynn (#19), Dave Winfield (#31), Randy Jones (#35) � are on a garden level concourse behind the center field fence, which looks like a small-scale version of Yankee Stadium�s Monument Park.
To keep with up the game just look to left field, where a 30 by 53 foot LED video board, dubbed FriarVision, towers above the seats. A 34 by 80 foot matrix scoreboard above FriarVision displays all the necessary game information. The matrix out-of-town scoreboard is attached to the right field wall.
The main grandstand of the ballpark is split into the standard three levels (lower, club, upper), but moving about them is not normal. Tunnels connect certain lower level sections - whether they were designed to mimic San Diego�s sea caves I�m not sure. Elevators with attendants provide one option to reach the upper deck. Staircases are another. Petco�s staircases do have windows, unlike the stairs you must climb in Houston .
The seating in the upper deck is split between infield and outfield sections thanks to a pair of multi-purpose sandstone colored light towers. The 200-foot towers each house three levels of luxury suite lofts and one vertical bank of lights.
The lower level concourse is open and fans visiting concession stands throughout the ballpark are able to easily keep up with the game thanks to 744 televisions (244 high-definition monitors plus 500 standard TVs). More than 500 computer-controlled speakers deliver sound wherever fans are at.
The actual playing field is best described as cavernous and Petco Park is the best pitcher's park in Major League Baseball due to its dimensions. At 396 feet, center field is actually closer than the power alleys (401 in left, 400 in right), a rarity that makes home runs scarce and low scoring games the norm.
As the Padres state on their website, Petco Park is �a relaxed yet dynamic atmosphere that reflects the San Diego lifestyle.� That�s a fitting description, as it really is an innovative ballpark with plenty of local flair, and as much a part of the vibrant downtown atmosphere as any in baseball -- so much so that the skyscrapers beyond right field have bleachers on top of them!
The home of the Padres is open and inviting with pockets of exclusivity, just like the city itself. San Diego may be a town that�s never won a major professional championship, but with Petco Park its citizens have a world class sporting venue they can be proud of.
Western Metal Supply Co. Building
"This building is the magnet for Petco Park. People are just drawn to it," Steve Violetta, the Padres' vice president of business operations told The San Diego Union-Tribune when the ballpark opened. "It's always held that promise to become for San Diego what the warehouse is to Camden Yards , what the bleacher seats are to Wrigley Field or the Green Monster is to Fenway Park . It's a credit to the people who recognized early on just how much of a focal point this building could become to the ballpark."
The Western Metal Supply Company building was a historic San Diego landmark long before Petco Park opened. The four story building - the only brick in the ballpark - was designed by Henry Lord Gay, founder of the American Institute of Architects, and opened in 1909. The building served as the warehouse and headquarters of the Western Metal Supply Company, which began supplying metal goods in 1898. They filed for bankruptcy in 1975 and vacated the building, which eventually was registered as a historical site.
By 2001 the 51,400 square foot building was used primarily for storage and a tuxedo shop occupied the ground floor. Since it was made of unreinforced brick and heavy timber, the building was going to be destroyed to make way for the ballpark until the Padres' architectural team decided to renovate and incorporate it into Petco Park.
In order to be saved, the Western Metal Supply Co. building underwent major structural renovation, with concrete being added to reinforce the brick walls and floors. It was also seismically strengthened to meet modern building codes.
Today the Western Metal Supply Co. is not just the main eye candy of the Padres' ballpark, it also serves many useful purposes. It's home to the Padres team store, party suites and a restaurant and bar. The roof, 80 feet above the field, is a private party area, complete with retractable bleachers that can hold 180 fans. Standing just 336 feet from home plate, fans in or atop the building are close to the action. The left field foul pole is even attached to its southeastern corner, from which the building juts away at about a 45 degree angle.
Padres Salute to the Military
The Padres host graduating classes from the local Marine Corps Recruit Depot every Sunday at Petco Park. About 200 Mariners and their drill instructors attend the game, sitting in donated seats in the upper reserved section of right field.
During the middle of the 4th inning, the Padres salute the Corps by playing the Marines' Hymn. The crowd joins the recruits in standing at attention. Dressed in their fatigues, the Marines stay until around the 8th inning.
Ballpark Construction
Riding the euphoria of the Padres 1998 World Series appearance, the voters of San Diego approved funding for a new ballpark less than two weeks after their hometown team was swept by the Yankees.
Approved by 59.5% of San Diego voters, Proposition C, as the the ballot measure was known, provided financing for 26-blocks of downtown redevelopment that would be anchored by a new ballpark. Construction began on May 22, 2000.
The ballpark was originally scheduled to open in 2002, but construction was halted on September 29, 2000 because the city had not been able to sell the bonds San Diego voters had approved. Instead, the city was busy defending itself against 17 anti-ballpark lawsuits brought by tax protesters.
More than a year after construction was halted, the city of San Diego approved a $169 million bond in November 2001 that finally allowed construction to resume, which it did on February 19, 2002.
Petco Park was finished two years later and the first game ever played at the ballpark occurred on March 11, 2004 when San Diego State, managed by Padres legend Tony Gwynn, beat the University of Houston 4-0 before an NCAA-record crowd of 40,106.
Location and Parking
As planned, Petco Park is part of a downtown ballpark district that is now surrounded by skyscraper hotels and condos, office buildings, parking decks, shops and restaurants. The ballpark is located across from the San Diego Convention Center and borders the popular Gaslamp Quarter. It has become the heart of downtown San Diego and has successfully revitalized the previously run down East Village district.
About the only thing Petco Park is lacking when compared to its predecessor is parking. Qualcomm Stadium was surrounded by a massive parking lot and tailgating became a popular pre-and post-game ritual for Padres fans.
Although Petco has two designated areas called Tailgate Park, the days of mass tailgating are over. Fans who want to party can do so at the numerous restaurants and bars nearby.
Despite the minimal number of official parking, there are 16,500 spaces within a 10-20 minute walk of the ballpark, which means there is plenty of available parking for weeknight and weekend games. For the rare mid-week afternoon game you'll need to get to the ballpark early or take the public trolley system, which has two stops located within one block of the ballpark.
Free Parking:
A limited amount of surface street parking is available under the I-5 overpass, which is a short distance from Petco Park. Since this is unbeknown to most, parking is available there even when the game is sold out.
Game Atmosphere
Petco Park has become a destination and thanks to the Park in the Park and nearby bars and restaurants, game days are festive. This is a good ballpark to walk around during the game and there are plenty of places to stand. The Padres even provide railings for food and drink on their lower level concourse, which has views of the playing field. San Diego may be a laid back town but the crowd gets into the game, especially when their fiercest rival, the Dodgers, are in town.
Tickets
The ballpark wasn't built on the cheap and neither are the tickets. But there are plenty of choices, with 16 categories of tickets available at 11 different price points.
The Padres charge a few dollars more per ticket if you don't buy them in advance. Tickets are also more expensive for a handful of games that are designated as premium, such as Opening Day and weekend visits from the Dodgers.
The tickets themselves aren't your typical run-of-the-mill size or design. Even tickets bought at the box office have full color images printed on them and are large enough to make it feel like you're going to a special event.
- Written by Graham Knight on August 5, 2007
Petco Park Footnotes - Facts & Figures
Construction cost: $456.8 million
Of the construction cost, $285 million went to ballpark construction and $171.8 million was needed for land acquisition and infrastructure.
Two-thirds of the ballpark ($303.8 million) was publicly financed: $225 million from municipal bonds to be paid back with hotel-tax revenues, $57.8 million in funds generated by downtown redevelopment and $21 million from the San Diego Unified Port District.
The Padres contributed $153 million to the cost of the ballpark and signed a 30-year lease.
Jointly owned by the city of San Diego (70%) and the Padres (30%).
Naming rights: PETCO paid $60 million over 22 years ($2.7 million/year through 2026).
Construction began on May 22, 2000 and the first game was on April 8, 2004.
Since their sponsor spells its name in all capital letters, the ballpark is technically supposed to appear as PETCO Park in print.
Petco Park is the first Major League stadium to contain a public park since Pittsburgh's Forbes Field. The entrance to San Diego's Park at the Park is located on J Street between 7th and 10th Avenues.
Has 58 suites, seven restaurants and lounges, six tower lofts and five party suites.
A military ship exhibit is located on the right field concourse.
The height of the first row of the upper deck is 66 feet above the playing field.
The Friar Shack, located behind left-center field, offers kids favorites such as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and corn dogs for $1.75 or less.
A selection of 35 different types of beer can be found inside the ballpark.
Hosted its first concert on November 11, 2005 when The Rolling Stones came to town.
Hosted the inaugurial World Baseball Classic championship on March 20, 2006.
Starting in February 2007, it became the host of the USA Sevens, a rugby union event.
More Petco Park Resources
City Population: 1,256,509 (2007 California Department of Finance estimates)
County: San Diego
| San Diego Padres |
Rennet, an enzyme obtained from the lining of the 4th stomach of young, unweaned calves, is a key ingredient in the production of what? | Petco Park Information - A-to-Z Guide | San Diego Padres
In Person: Petco Park Box Office
100 Park Boulevard
San Diego, CA 92101
At Petco Park, guests can purchase tickets at the Petco Park Main Box Office located next to the Home Plate Gate, open Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., and Saturdays, from 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. On home game dates, select ticket windows remain open throughout the game and open at 10:00 a.m. on Sundays. (Game-in-progress sales continue until the conclusion of the sixth inning.)
The Padres Ticket Lobby is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
AISLE POLICY
As a courtesy to others, guests are asked to refrain from walking in select aisles during player at-bats from the top of the second inning until the conclusion of the game. Select Guest Services Representatives are provided with handheld signs to remind guests to observe this policy.
ALCOHOL
Guests who consume alcohol are expected to do so in a responsible manner and abide by these guidelines.
California liquor regulations prohibit guests from bringing alcoholic beverages into Petco Park. Security officers at every gate will inspect packages, bags and purses to prevent guests from bringing bottles, cans or any other type of liquid containers into Petco Park (with the exception of factory-sealed water bottles that are twenty (20) ounces or less).
No person may enter Petco Park who is obviously intoxicated.
Guests cannot exit the premises with alcoholic beverages of any kind.
ANIMALS/PETS
Service animals are welcomed at Petco Park. In keeping with U.S. ADA regulations, disabled guests may use either a dog or miniature horse that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the guest. The work or tasks performed by the service animal must be directly related to the guest's disability. As such, animals that solely provide emotional support or companionship to a guest will not be permitted inside the ballpark.
On select promotional dates (such as Dog Days of Summer), a limited number of pets are permitted into certain areas of the ballpark. Exceptions will be made at the discretion and authorization of the San Diego Padres.
When the Park at the Park is open to the public, the City of San Diego enforces the "leash law" as stated in San Diego Municipal Code §63.0102 Use of Public Parks and Beaches Regulated (b)(2).
ATMS
Six (6) San Diego County Credit Union ATMs are located at Petco Park. Outside the ballpark near the Home Plate and Gaslamp Gates, as well as inside the facility near sections 109, 112, 131, and 301.
B
Baby changing tables are available in all men's and women's restrooms throughout Petco Park.
BAGS/BACKPACKS
All soft-sided containers and bags that measure sixteen (16) inches by sixteen (16) inches by eight (8) inches or smaller are permitted into Petco Park. All bags and containers are subject to search by security prior to entering the ballpark. Hard-sided coolers, bags, backpacks with metal frames, or items that exceed 16" X16"x 8" limitations are not permitted into Petco Park.
BALLPARK EVENTS (PETCO PARK EVENTS)
The ballpark is an ideal location for a variety of special events. To host an event at the ballpark, please call the Petco Park Events Department at (619) 795-5025 or email [email protected]. Interested parties may also visit the Petco Park Events website at petcoparkevents.com for additional information.
BALLPARK SECURITY COMMAND CENTER (24/7 SECURITY)
The Ballpark Security Command Center is located on the Service Level near the loading docks and monitors Petco Park on a 24-hour, 365 day basis.
BANNERS AND SIGNS
The San Diego Padres welcome and encourage fan support including homemade signs and banners. To ensure that these articles do not distract others, we ask that guests adhere to the following guidelines:
The San Diego Padres request that banners not be placed in the direct sight line of the batter and/or hung in any area of the playing field or over seat backs, protective railings, infringe on the sight lines of other guests, obstruct any advertising signage or video ribbon boards, be larger than four (4) feet by eight (8) feet in size, or be commercial, political, or obscene in nature.
The Padres have sole discretion to permit or remove any sign or banner from the ballpark at any time.
BATTING PRACTICE TIMES*
12:40 p.m. Game Time
10:05 a.m. - 11:05 a.m...............Padres Batting Practice 11:05 a.m. - 11:50 a.m...............Visiting Team Batting Practice 11:50 a.m. - 12:00 p.m...............Padres Infield Practice 12:00 p.m. - 12:10 p.m...............Visiting Team Infield Practice 12:10 p.m............................Grounds Crew Field Preparation
1:40 p.m. Game Time
11:05 a.m. - 12:05 p.m...............Padres Batting Practice 12:05 a.m. - 12:50 p.m...............Visiting Team Batting Practice 12:50 p.m. - 1:00 p.m................Padres Infield Practice 1:00 p.m. - 1:10 p.m.................Visiting Team Infield Practice 1:10 p.m.............................Grounds Crew Field Preparation
4:05 p.m. Game Time
1:15 p.m. - 2:20 p.m................ Padres Batting Practice 2:25 p.m. - 3:10 p.m................ Visiting Team Batting Practice 3:10 p.m. - 3:20 p.m.................Padres Infield Practice 3:20 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.................Visiting Team Infield Practice 3:30 p.m.............................Grounds Crew Field Preparation
5:40 p.m. Game Time
1:05 p.m. - 2:05 p.m.................Visitors Early Batting Practice 2:05 p.m. - 3:05 p.m.................Padres Early Batting Practice 3:05 p.m. - 4:05 p.m.................Padres Batting Practice 4:05 p.m. - 4:50 p.m.................Visiting Team Batting Practice 4:50 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.................Padres Infield Practice 5:00 p.m. - 5:10 p.m.................Visiting Team Infield Practice 5:10 p.m.............................Grounds Crew Field Preparation
6:10 p.m. Game Time
1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.................Visitors Early Batting Practice 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.................Padres Early Batting Practice 3:30 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.................Padres Batting Practice 4:30 p.m. - 5:15 p.m.................Visiting Team Batting Practice 5:15 p.m. - 5:25 p.m.................Padres Infield Practice 5:25 p.m. - 5:35 p.m.................Visiting Team Infield Practice 5:35 p.m.............................Grounds Crew Field Preparation
7:10 p.m. Game Time
2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.................Visitors Early Batting Practice 3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.................Padres Early Batting Practice 4:30 p.m. - 5:15 p.m.................Padres Batting Practice 5:30 p.m. - 6:15 p.m.................Visiting Team Batting Practice 6:15 p.m. - 6:25 p.m.................Padres Infield Practice 6:25 p.m. - 6:35 p.m.................Visiting Team Infield Practice 6:35 p.m.............................Grounds Crew Field Preparation
7:40 p.m. Game Time
2:45 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.................Visitors Early Batting Practice 3:45 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.................Padres Early Batting Practice 4:45 p.m. - 5:45 p.m.................Padres Batting Practice 6:00 p.m. - 6:45 p.m.................Visiting Team Batting Practice 6:45 p.m. - 6:55 p.m.................Padres Infield Practice 6:55 p.m. - 7:05 p.m.................Visiting Team Infield Practice 7:05 p.m.............................Grounds Crew Field Preparation
* Please note: Batting practice is typically not held on Sundays. All batting practice times are subject to change without prior notice.
BEACH BALLS
Inflatable items (such as baseballs, bats, beach balls, dolls, etc.), Frisbees, and other similar objects are prohibited inside Petco Park. Please refer to Prohibited Items for a complete listing of items not allowed in the ballpark.
BIKE PARKING
Bicycle stands are available for use during all ballpark events by guests and Team Members outside the Home Plate, Park Boulevard, Gaslamp, Downtown and Balboa Gates.
BOTTLES/CANS/OUTSIDE BEVERAGES
Factory-sealed, bottled water that is twenty (20) ounces or less and soft-sided single juice or milk containers are the only outside beverages permitted in to Petco Park. Guests with disabilities may bring factory-sealed plastic or paper containers that contain liquids required for medical reasons into the ballpark.
BUS SERVICE
The drop-off location for private charter buses is located at the west side of 14th Street, between K Street and Imperial Avenue, immediately east of Tailgate Lot. The south side of K Street between 13th and 14th Streets is used for overflow bus parking. Reservations are not required and there is no cost for bus parking in this location.
Regularly Scheduled Bus Service
Many convenient bus routes serve Petco Park, including Routes 11, 901, & 929 which stop right at the ballpark's front door at Park Boulevard and 10th Avenue. Routes 4, 11, 901, & 929 also stop at the 12th and Imperial Transit Center, just two blocks away. Routes 3 and 5 stop along Market Street, just a short walk to the ballpark. Visit www.sdmts.com or call (619) 233-3004 for schedules and details.
C
CAMERAS AND CAMCORDERS (ELECTRONIC RECORDING DEVICES)
Guests are welcome to bring still cameras, video cameras and other electronic recording devices in Petco Park for their personal use. Guests must avoid obstructing the views of others when using video recording or photography equipment. The San Diego Padres reserve the right to request that guests discontinue filming or taking photographs on ballpark property.
CELLULAR & SMARTPHONES
Guests are welcome to use cellular or smartphones in Petco Park provided their use does not disturb other guests.
CHEWING TOBACCO
The use of chewing tobacco or smokeless tobacco by guests is prohibited in Petco Park.
CHILDREN
Petco Park offers complimentary admission to children under thirty-six (36) inches in height, provided they are accompanied by an adult with a valid ticket. These children must sit in the lap of the accompanying adult and not occupy an additional seat.
COMPADRES REWARDS
Compadres is a revamped customer loyalty program that rewards members for their engagement with the Padres. Members receive points for certain behaviors (digital tickets, e-cash, social media activity) that can be redeemed unique experiences and special merchandise. Points are viewed, managed, and redeemed through their online Membership portal.
CONCESSIONS
Petco Park offers a unique assortment of concession and dining opportunities. Concession guides are available for guests at the Guest Service Centers located on the Street Level, as well as Sections 108, 204, and 313.
CREDIT CARD POLICIES
MasterCard, Visa, and American Express are accepted at most ticketing, food and retail locations throughout Petco Park.
Credit cards are also accepted for in-seat service.
Credit cards are the only accepted form of payment in private and group suites. Payment is due upon conclusion of the event.
D
DESIGNATED DRIVER PROGRAM
The San Diego Padres, Sportservice, Budweiser and TEAM Coalition want guests to enjoy the ballgame and then experience a safe trip home. We encourage guests to sign up for our Designated Driver Program at any Guest Services Center, the Designated Driver kiosks inside the Gaslamp or East Village Gates, or the Toyota Terrace Concierge Desk. Guests who are able to produce a valid driver's license, are at least twenty-one (21) years of age and willing to sign a Designated Driver Pledge will receive a voucher for a complimentary non-alcoholic beverages. Sign-ups conclude at the end of the 5th inning.
E
ELECTRIC OUTLETS (ADA POWER STATIONS)
Electrical outlets for recharging wheelchairs and other necessary equipment are located in many seating areas designated for guests with disabilities. Guests can call (619) 795-5181 to request this option when purchasing tickets.
EMPLOYMENT
Employment information with the San Diego Padres and Petco Park is available on the Padres website at padres.com.
Should an individual wish to obtain information regarding employment opportunities with a Petco Park contracted service partner, please direct to the appropriate telephone number below:
Ace Parking - (619) 231-9501
Guests can purchase tickets to upcoming San Diego Padres home games in a number of ways:
By telephone: 619-795-5555
In Person: Petco Park Box Office
100 Park Boulevard
San Diego, CA 92101
At Petco Park, guests can purchase tickets at the Petco Park Main Box Office located next to the Home Plate Gate, open Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., and Saturdays, from 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. On home game dates, select ticket windows remain open throughout the game and open at 10:00 a.m. on Sundays. (Game-in-progress sales continue until the conclusion of the sixth inning.)
TICKET WINDOW LOCATIONS
Ticket windows are located in the following areas, both outside and inside Petco Park:
External Ticket Windows
Main Box Office: Outside Home Plate Gate on Park Boulevard
East Village Box Office: Outside East Village Gate on 10th Ave.
Western Metal Building Box Office: Outside Gaslamp Gate on 7th Ave.
Internal Ticket Windows
| i don't know |
What does the DSM-IV define as: A pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following: (1) avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact, because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection (2) is unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked (3) shows restraint within intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed (4) is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations (5) is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy (6) views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others (7) is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing | abnormal lecture on antisocial
Dale L. Johnson
����������� In the view of many people, the personality disorders are at the heart of abnormal psychology.� In that judgment they are thinking of antisocial personality disorder and the strange, unnecessary cruel, violent behavior that is part of this disorder. There is more to the personality disorders, and some aspects of the disorders are virtually unknown to the general public.
����������� There have always been conceptual problems with the personality disorders. They were first defined in terms of psychoanalytic theory, and remnants of that theory remain. However, with the revolution in thinking that resulted in the DSM-III the old theory had to go as it was not based on scientific evidence. The new personality disorders are based on scientific evidence, but for some of the disorders this evidence is scant. In addition, it has been difficult to sort out the key elements of the disorders. For example, Avoidant Personality Disorder is characterized by an avoidance of interpersonal relations. There is a fear of rejection and much anxiety. Perhaps this disorder should be placed with the anxiety disorders instead of the personality disorders.
����������� Another problem is related to the basic form of these disorders. They are assumed to be abnormal extensions of normal behavior. Thus, it is normal to be socially reticent or introverted, but it is schizoid and abnormal to find relations with other people unnecessary at all. The disorders exist on a continuum, a matter of degree of severity, but in the DSM-IV they are treated as though they are categorical entities. One either has a personality disorder or one does not.
����������� There may be a conceptual problem in the Personality Disorders scheme in that people so often are diagnosed as having more than one disorder. This was apparent in the diagnosis of John Hinkley, the man who shot President Reagan. At his trial he was given the following diagnoses by various experts: schizoid, narcissistic, borderline, passive-aggressive (other experts said he had schizophrenia, and the jury believed them).
����������� The continuum idea holds that personality disorders are like traits. That is, they are relatively enduring aspects of personality that are not influenced much by immediate circumstances. The depression that occurs after the loss of a loved one is thought of as a emotional state; something that is linked to a particular circumstance and may occur even in people who are ordinarily happy. Traits persist. They are a feature of a person without regard to the circumstances.
����������� If the dimensional view of personality disorders is taken seriously then one begins with a set of scientifically derived personality characteristics. These characteristics have been identified using a statistical technigue called factor analysis. In this a large number of questionnaire items are presented to a large group of subjects. The responses to these items are then factor analyzed to see which items are similar to each other. These similarities are called factors. Thousands of factor analytic studies have resulted in five factors (See figure below). Each factor is a dimensional structure with one form of the factor at one end, and the opposite at the other end. These factors comprise the main elements of human personality. The factors emerge in studies of human personality everywhere in the world.
����������� If these are basic personality factors, then personality disorders should be based on these, but they are not in the DSM-IV. Perhaps they will be in some future DSM. If you examine the Big Five Factors and compare them with some of the DSM-IV disorders you can see that Antisocial Personality might be negatively linked to the Agreeableness Factor. Schizoid Personality might be negativelyassociated with the Extraversion Factor, and so on. It may be, however, that the Big Five Factors are not the only basic personality characteristics. Perhaps there are more. One candidate is "sensitivity to rejection." Even this raises many problems: rejection by whom? parents? boss? co-workers? children? And rejection about what? quality of work? interpersonal attentiveness?�
����������� ������������������������������������� _______________
�BIG FIVE PERSONALITY FACTORS
Extraversion������������ Talkative, Assertive, Active
���������������������������������������������� vs
�������������������������������� Silent, Passive, Reserved
Agreeableness���������� Kind, Trusting, Warm
���������������������������������������������� vs
� �������������������������������Hostile, Selfish, Mistrustful
Conscientiousness��� Organized, Thorough, Reliable
��������������������������������������������� vs
������������������������������� Careless, Negligent, Unreliable
Neuroticism������������ Even-Tempered
��������������������������������������������� vs
������������������������������� Nervous, Moody, Temperamental
Openness to������������ Imaginative, Curious, Creative
experience���������������������������� vs
������������������������������ Shallow, Imperceptive
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����� �Personality disorders were once called, "character disorders," and the term had negative connotations as though the people with these disorders were not really ill or disabled and were manipulators. This bias seems to have been set aside for now.
����������� Apparently not all personality disorders are equal. Searches of the literature using PsycInfo from 1988 to the present revealed the following pattern of numbers of publications:
����������� Paranoid����������������������������� 34
����������� Schizoid����������������������������� 53
����������� Schizotypal����������������������� 212
����������� Antisocial�������������������������� 681
����������� Borderline����������������������� 1437����������������
����������� Histrionic������������������������ ��103
����������� Narcissistic������������������������ 142
����������� Avoidant��������������������������� 128
����������� Dependent�������������������������� 58
����������� Obsessive Comulsive���������� 82
����������� Passive Aggressive������������� 21
����������� These differences in numbers of publications reflect differences in interest by researchers and practitioners, but also may indicate the number of people afflicted and the severity of the various disorders. In terms of disability, many other psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and major depression, are more disabling, but the personality disorders are often accompanied by checkered work and marital histories.
Personality Disorder Clusters
����������� The various personality disorders have been arranged into three clusters.
Cluster A: Odd or Eccentric Disorders
Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD)
����������� People with this disorder are distrustful and suspicious, but not out of contact with reality. This disorder clearly exists on a continuum. It is normal to look into the motives of others and to wonder what they are up to. At the other end of the continuum is the person with paranoid schizophrenia who develops delusions about the motives of others that defy reality. About 0.5% to 2.5% of the population have this disorder. There is substantial co-morbidity with schizotypal personality disorder. People with PPD are not at high risk for psychotic disorders.
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DSM-IV Criteria
A. A pervasive distrust and suspiciousness about othrs such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following.
����������� 1. Suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him or her.
����������� 2. Is preoccupied with unjustified doubts about loyalty or untrustworthiness of friends and associates.
����������� 3. Is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against him or her.
����������� 4. Reads hidden demeaning or threatening meanings into benign remarks or events.
����������� 5. Persistently bears grudges; i.e., is unforgiving of insults, injuries or slights.
����������� 6. Perceives attacks on his or her character or reputation that are not apparent to others and is quick to react angrily or to counterattack.
����������� 7. Has recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding fidelity of spouse or sexual partner.
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����������� Cause
����������� The disorder is believed to have a strong genetic basis.
����������� They are often marginalized, that is, they live in society, but do not interact with many people and do not feel that they are really a part of the society.
����������� Treatment
����������� They rarely seek treatment: "It is not me, it is the world that is out to get me."
����������� Cognitive behavior therapy is a likely candidate, but there has been little research.
Schizoid Personality Disorder (SPP)
����������� These are social isolates, and they prefer it that way. They seem not to need people. They do not seek out the company of others. The man called "The Unabomber," Theodore Kaczynski, almost certainly had Schizoid Personality Disorder. This disorder is found in fewer than 1% of the population.
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DSM-IV Criteria
A. A pervasive pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of expression of emotions in interpersonal settings, beginning in early childhood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four of the following.
����������� 1. Neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family.
����������� 2. Almost always chooses solitary activities.
����������� 3. Has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person.
����������� 4. Takes pleasure in few, if any, activities.
����������� 5. Lacks close friends or confidants otehr than first degree relatives.
����������� 6. Appears indifferent to praise or criticism from others.
����������� 7. Shows emotional coldness, detachment or flattened affectivity.
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����������� Cause
����������� People are born with this disorder, it does not result from inadequate parenting, abusive experiences, or stress.
�
����������� Treatment
����������� Training in social skills development is emphasized,� but there is little evidence of treatment effectiveness. People with this disorder typically do not see a need for treatment.
Schizotypal Personality Disorder (SztPD)
����������� This disorder is characterized by odd beliefs, magical thinking, and social isolation. Many of these people have reported sighting flying saucers. Recent research makes it quite clear that this disorder is related to schizophrenia, with some people with the disorder going on to develop schizophrenia. However, most do not. About 3% to 5% of the population have this disorder.
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DSM-IV Criteria
A. A pervasive pattern of social and interpersonal deficits marked by acute discomfort with and reduced capacity for, close relationships as well as by cogntive or perceptual eccentricities of behavior beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following.
����������� 1. Ideas of referenece.
����������� 2. Odd beliefs or magical thinking that influences behavior and is inconsistent with cultural norms (e.g., superstitiousness, belief in clairvoyance, telephathy, or "sixth sense."
����������� 3. Unusual perceptual experiences, including body illusions.
����������� 4. Odd thinking and speech (e.g, vague, circumstantial, metaphorical, overelaborate, or stereotyped).
����������� 5. Suspiciousness or paranoid ideation.
����������� 6. Inappropriate or constricted affect.
����������� 7. Behavior or appearance that is odd, eccentric or peculiar.
����������� 8. Lack of close friends or confidants, other than first degree relatives.
����������� 9. Excessive social anxiety that does not diminish with familiarity and tends to be associated with paranoid fears other than negative judgments about self.
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����������� Cause
����������� Genetics is almost certainly involved. In addition, to the extent that this disorder is related to schizophrenia there may be similar causes; i.e., birth injury, maternal exposure to flu or other viruses during pregnancy. In one study of cognitive functioning schizotypal disorder patients fell between normals and people with schizophrenia (Cadenhead, 1999, Schizophrenia Research, 37, 123-132. There is some agreement today that SZTPD) is part of a spectrum of schizophrnia disorders.
����������� Treatment
����������� Social skills training is used. Anti-psychotic drugs are sometimes used, typically in small doses. Cognitive behavior therapy should be used.
����������� In general, there has been little research.
����������� New Developments
����������� Schizoptypal personality disorder is being given a closer look because research has shown that some people with this disorder, or this trait, later develop schizophrenia. Attempts to prevent the onset of schizophrenia have led to interventions with people who have schizotypal personality disorder. To date, these attempts have not been very successful, but this is a new research area and more is expected.
Cluster B: Dramatic, Emotional or Erratic Disorders
Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)
����������� People with this disoder are without doubt the stars of abnormal psychology. We spend a great deal of time thinking about them and the media thrives because of their behavior. Many of convicted criminals have ASPD, but it is important to know that not all do.
�������������������������________________________________________________________________________
DSM-IV Criteria: Antisocial Personality Disorder
A.� There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:
����������� 1. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behavior as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.
����������� 2. Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or� pleasure.
����������� 3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead.
����������� 4. Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by frequent fights or assaults.
����������� 5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others.
����������� 6. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations.
����������� 7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated or stolen from another.
B. The individual is at least 18 years.
C. There is evidence of Conduct Disorder with onset before age 15 years.
D. The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or manic episode.
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DSM-IV Criteria: Conduct Disorder
A. A repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated, as manifested by the presence of three (or more) of the following criteria (in the past 12 months) with at least one criterion present in the past 6 months.
Aggression to people and animals
����������� 1. Often bullies, threatens or intimidates others.
����������� 2. Often initiation physical fights.
����������� 3. Has used a weapon that can cause serious physical harm to others (e.g., a bat, brick, broken bottle, knife, gun)
����������� 4. Has been physically cruel to people.
����������� 5. Has been physically cruel to animals.
����������� 6. Has stolen while confronting a victim (e.g., mugging, purse snatching, extortion, robbery).
����������� 7. Has forced someone into sexual activity.
Destruction of property
����������� 8. Has deliberately engaged in fire setting with the intention of causing serious damage.
����������� 9. Has deliberately destroyed others' property (other than by fire setting).
Deceitfulness or theft
����������� 10. Has broken into someone's house, building or car.
����������� 11. Often lies to obtain goods or favors, or to avoid obligations (i.e., cons others).
����������� 12. Has stolen items of nontrivial value without confronting a victim (e.g., shoplifting, but without breaking and entering; forgery).
Serious violations of rules
����������� 13. Often stays out at night despite parental� prohibitions, beginning before age 13.
����������� 14. Has run away from home overnight at least twice while living in parental or parental surrogate home (or once without returning for a lengthy period).
����������� 15. Is often truant from school, beginning before age 13 years.
B. The disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic or occupational functioning.
C. If the individual is 18 years or older, criteria are not met for Antisocial Personality Disorder.
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Famous People
����������� Yes, some famous people could have been diagnosed as antisocial personality disorder. These include
����������� Herman Goering, one of Hitler's confidants.
����������� Charles Manson. He was an illegitimate child and spent 17 of his first 32 years in prison. He hated the rich and African Americans. He used the Book of Revelation to justify his actions. He was a seducer and hypnotist.
����������� Richard Speck. Killed many people. Wrote a note: "Stop me before I kill more."
����������� Son of Sam Berkowitz. Killed 6 people on a spree. He was a mild-mannered postal worker. He said his dog ordered him to kill. He killed the dog, and the people. He appeared paranoid, but psychiatric examination confirmed a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder.
Prevalence
����������� A study done by the National Institute of Mental Health, the ECA study (Archives of General Psychiatry, 1984) showed the following:
Lifetime Prevalence
��������� ���������������Total ��Males�� Females
New Haven������� 2.1����� 3.9� �����0.5
Baltimore���������� 2.6����� 4.9��� ���0.7
St Louis������������ 3.3����� 4.9���� ��1.2
Thus, data, now nearly twenty years old, suggest a sex ratio of about 4:1. However, Kessler's more recent research found prevalences of 5.8 for males and 1.2 for females indicating a ratio more like 5:1. This is a male disorder, but it is worth noting that the female prevalence is not low;� it is about 1% of the adult population.
Terms
����������� This disorder has had a troubled terminological history and the following terms have all been used:
antisocial personality = sociopath = psychopath = character disorder. As may be seen, all are pejorative, but not without cause. People with Antisocial Personality Disorder are often involved in criminal activities. I have known people with APD who were charming, full of tales of adventure, and socially skilled. One such man made a living flying guns into central American and drugs into the USA. He was wanted by police in several countries, but apparently did little to hide his notoriety. He received his basic training as a pilot with the air force in Viet Nam.
Etiology
����������� Role of the Family
����������� McCord, McCord, Zola, & Gudeman (1959) followed-up participants in the Cambridge Somerville studies of the 1930s. They also looked at other research. They concluded:
����������� "Psychopaths have suffered from emotional deprivation, punishment, neglect, ostracism, or some other form of early socialization that severely cripples their ability to identify with other people, empathize with them or learn social values." (p. 165)
����������� The following family features were found:
����������������������� Maternal neglect or extreme dominance
����������������������� Severe, inconsistent discipline by fathers
����������������������� Aggressive fathers
����������������������� All especially important in the first 5 years
����������� In the Somerville follow-up, counselors predicted that 16 boys would become violent. 15 did.
����������� Parental rejection never has positive effects on children. A common reaction to parental rejection is aggression and guiltless behavior. I have seen men who reported having had miserable, rejecting childhoods and they said they had made a decision to hurt others in retaliation and to be emotionally hard. These accounts were, of course, retrospective.
����������� It should be noted that some rejected children withdrawn and become self-sufficient. It is though they have given up on social relations.
����������� The next study is the Robins (1966) longitudinal study. This was a prospective study of 584 cases, children seen in child guidance clinics. The Houston Child Guidance Clinic was included. 90% of the children were located 30 years later. The conclusions were:
����������� 1) No child without frequent or serious antisocial behavior became an antisocial adult.
����������� 2) 32% of children with frequent or serious antisocial behavior became sociopathic adults.
����������� 3) Later sociopaths showed clear antisocial behaviors by age 10.
����������� 4) Psychopathic fathers were common.
����������� Zuckerman (Psychological Bulletin, 1980,88, 187-214.)points to a psychological characteristic, a trait, which he calls "sensation seeking." He developed a test that identifies this feature and finds that people with antisocial personality disorder score high on sensation seeking. Sensation seeking is associated with strength of intitial orienting reflex, augmenting versus reducing the average evoked potential, the enzyme monoamine oxidase, and gonadal hormones (both androgen and estrogens).
Genetic
����������� There have been several twin studies of antisocial disorder.
�������������������������������������� Identical���� Fraternal������ Fraternal,Opposite����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� �������Sex
����������������������������������� ������ MZ��������� ���DZ���������������������� DZ
Kranz, 1936���������������������� 66�������������� 54����������������������� 14
Eysenck, 1978������������������ 58�������������� 13
Christensen, 1977������������� 69�������������� 33
����������� As may be seen, the eveidence is strong for a genetic factor, but the results of the three studies vary greatly. They are in agreement on the identical twins, but not on the fraternal twins. The textbook discusses more recent studies of gene-environment interactions and they seem to come through strongly as having a causal role.
����������� Some men with violent antisocial behavior have a genetic condition that affects monoamine oxidase-a, an enzyme critical for communication between brain cells.
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Central Nervous System Activity and Sociopathy
����������� Although the evidence for an environmental cause is strong, there is also strong evidence for brain function involvement, and this may be genetic.
����������� There are two related hypotheses, underarousal and fearlessness. The circus performer, high wire walker, Walender, once replied when asked why he walked the high wire, "Life is on the high wire; the rest is just waiting." His level of fearlessness was extraordinarily high.
����������� Not all fearless people, such as those who jump with parachutes from airplanes, or climb high cliffs, or do bungee jumping off bridges are antisocial personalities. Indeed, very few are. Most are simply normal, but quite a few are depressed, and willing to take unusual risks because they do not care if they live or die.
����������� Underarousal. It is clear from a large number of studies that people with APD have unusually low levels of arousal. To feel "normal" they need stimulation. The Yerke-Dodson Law included a U-curve of arousal. We tend to need a certain optimal level of arousal and do not feel right with too much or too little.
����������� People with ASPD have
����������������������� --lower skin conductance levels and lower heart rates. This suggests a greater need for stimulation.
����������������������� --slow pulse rates of children taking an exam at age 11 predicted delinquent acts by age 21 (Wadsworth).
����������������������� --more low level brain wave activity. They have excessive Theta waves when awake, suggesting impulsivity and immaturity.
����������������������� --On Lykken's Activity Preference Questionnaire they chose the more frightening option more often.
����������������������� --results on conditioning experiments that suggest they learn more slowly.
����������������������� --more difficulty learning to avoid punishment.
����������� Electroencephalogram (EEG) results suggest that there is some kind of abnormality. Slow waves are common and these are associated with dysfunctionof the inhibitory mechanisms. This, in turn, may be related to the APSD person's inability to learn to avoid or escape from punishment.
����������� Schacter found they were less likely to show learning improvement when shocked.� They did better when their adrenaline levels were high.
����������� Hare found they "tune out" negative information.
����������� People with ASPD tend to "pass" lie detectors even when known to be lying.
����������� Treatment
����������� Treatment is very difficult and psychotherapy has not demonstrated effectiveness. People with this disorder are not honest clients and they do not seek therapy.
����������� There is some evidence that preventive programs are effective. My Houston Parent-Child Development Program reduced rates of conduct disorder. The same result has been obtained with somewhat different prevention programs by David Weikart in Michigan and David Olds in New York [Term paper topic?].
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����������� Reform schools and prisons are poor places for the rehabilitation of the person with ASPD. They are training schools for crime.�
����������� Some years ago a sociologist, Cressey, offered principles for the effective treatment of criminals:
����������� 1) If criminals are to be changed, they must be assimilated into groups which emphasize values conducive to law-abiding behavior and, concurrently, alienated from groups emphasizing values conducive to criminality. Special groups must be created.
����������� 2) The more relevant the common purpose of the group to the reformation of criminals, the greater will beits influence on the criminal members' attitudes and values.
����������� 3) The more cohesive the group, the greater the members' readiness to influence otehrs and the more relevant the problem of conformity to group norms. There must be a strong "we feeling."
����������� 4) Both reformers and those to be reformed must achieve status within the group by exhibition of "pre-reform" or anti-criminal values and behavior patterns.
����������� 5) The most effective mechanism for exerting group pressure on members will be found in groups so organized that criminals will be induced to join with non-criminals for the purpose of changing other criminals.
����������� These principles were applied with success in the Provo, Utah, juvenile delinquency center, but they have been ignored by most state prison/reformation officials. These administrators have been guided more by the belief that the public is more interested in punishing criminals than in their rehabilitation. Thus, prisons and juvenile institutions are allowed to be brutal and dehumanizing, and the result is that we have an enormous number of people in penal institutions. Many who commit violent or drug-related crimes are imprisoned for excessively long periods and others use the revolving door of admission, release and readmission. Rehabilitation would be less expensive.
����������� Perhaps the most effective program for ex-convicts, a group that includes many people with APD, is the Delancey Street Experience. This residential program was begun by psychologist Mimi Silbert, and her friend, John Maher, a recovering addict.
����������� The program has no professionals, or expert advisors. It is run for and by the residents. On guiding principle is that the resident must take responsibility for his or her actions. Each person is supervised by another person, and, in turn, is the supervisor of someone else. Delancey runs businesses--moving vans, furniture refinishing and sales, etc. The organization functions with two groups: Wall Street, which handles business issues, and The Vatican, which handles interpersonal issues. No one leaves Delancey until they have three marketable skills. There are no losers. All work and no one gets a salary. They share all proceeds and get housing, food, clothing and entertainment. There is an emphasis on self-improvement. They work to increase their vocabularies, they read Emerson on self-reliance, they learn how to manage money, and they study anthropology and ecology. Human relation trainng methods are used throughout. They learn to be good citizens and help others.
����������� Although there have been no formal evaluations of the program they have expanded to many places after the first one in San Francisco, and their businesses are thriving. Delancey Street probably works because the cons have no one to con. They judge and are judged by their peers, not by outsiders.
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Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
����������� People with this disorder lead stormy, emotional lives with inconsistent interpersonal relations and erratic educational and work histories. They are at high risk for suicide. The term "borderline" was chosen because it was once believed that these people were at the borderline between neurosis and psychosis. In terms of severity of mental disorders it is not such a bad idea.����
����������� Two early ideas about BPD have been revised. It was once thought that everyone with BPD had been abused as a young child. We know this is not true. It was also believed that BPD was a disorder of women. Again, not true although more women than men have the disorder. As for abuse, there is a linear relation between severity of abuse as a child and severity of symptoms as an adult.
����������� There is a strong genetic component in the development of BPD and this may be especially important for such aspects as emotional regulation, impulse/action patterns, cognitive organization including planning ability and anxiety. Serotonergic and cholinergic stystems are involved. There is evidence that some children who have received a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder later develop BPD.
����������� An interesting part of the theory of cause is that when women with BPD and their parents are examined about family experiences the daughters report much higher levels of dysfunction than do their parents. It may be that the disorder results in negative distortions of their early experiences. This was the case in a careful study by Lewinsohn with depressed women and their parents. When the women were depressed they reported negative early experiences, but when they were not depressed they said their experiences were good.
DSM-IV Criteria:: Borderline Personality Disorder
�
A. A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following.
����������� 1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
����������� 2. Patterns of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
����������� 3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
����������� 4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging; e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating.
����������� 5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures or threats, or self-mutilating behavior.
����������� 6. Affective instability due to marked reactivity to mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety, usually lasting a few hours, and rarely, a few days.
����������� 7. Chronic feelings of emptiness.
����������� 8. Inappropriate intense anger or difficulty controlling anger.
����������� 9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.
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Treatment
����������� Treatment is difficult because they have so much difficulty in forming relationships with people, including therapists. They begin by finding the therapist marvelous, and in a week, the therapist is seen as betraying them, dishonest and incompetent. The textbook describes Linehan's dialectial behavior therapy method. It seems to have been the most accepted form of treatment, but effectiveness has not been established.
Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD)
����������� Drama is everything: the sweeping entrance, the emotional outpouring over what other people see as trivial, the threats of death if rejected. These are people who need people, if only for an audience. They love applause and praise. To other people they seem shallow. This disorder is found in 2% of the population. Women and men are equally affected. This is the only disorder in the DSM that includes physical attractiveness as a diagnostic element. Actually, women with HPD have been rated as better looking than women in general. Men with HPD are not more attractive. People with HPD seem preoccupied with sex, but report little sexual satisfaction.
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DSM-IV Criteria
A. A pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, begining by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following.
����������� 1. Is uncomfortable in situations in which he or she is not the center of attention.
����������� 2. Interaction with others is often characterized by� inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior.
����������� 3. Displays rapidly shifting and shallow expressions of emotions.
����������� 4. Consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to self.
����������� 5. Has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail.
����������� 6. Shows self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of concern.
����������� 7. Suggestible; i.e., easily influenced by others or by circumstances.
����������� 8. Considers relationships to be more intimate than they acually are.
����������� Causes
����������� Is this the classic "hysteric personality?" If so, then perhaps Freud's formulations about them are appropriate.
����������� There is some evidence that they are similar to antisocial personality disorder, but this may be limited to the interpersonal shallowness and dishonesty that characterizes each.
����������� Treatment
����������� First off, what is the problem? There is little evidence of disability? People with this disorder do not seek help. They are a minor pain for most other people, but some find them charming--in the short run. Clinical trials with this disorder are small and not very impressive. Psychodynamic therapy has been regarded as the treatment of choice, and there was some evidence of success in Luborsky's Menninger Institute study, but the study was not scientifically acceptable.(Note how we fall back on Freud if we don't know.)����������
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)
����������� Everyone places self first in most interactions or endeavors, and it is natural to do so. We know ourselves best, what we can do, what we look like, and what we are interested in. We have to take care of Number One.
����������� Some people take this to an extreme and are regarded by others as a real pain. They nearly always put themselves first, without even trying to think of the other. They are hard to live with. Some find them impossible to live with. Of course, there degrees of narcissism. Note that the criteria below are repetitious, as though the definers of the criteria were not clear about the disorder and how they wanted to define it. Also note the overlap with Antisocial Personality Disorder. Fewer than 1% of adults have the disorder. They tend to have a variable mood and self-esteem. Many have a sense of self-entitlement that is pervasive. They expect to be treated well by others because they deserve it.
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DSM-IV Criteria: Narcissistic Personality Disorder
A. A persvasive pattern of grandiosity in fantasy or behavior, need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following.
����������� 1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).
����������� 2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love.
����������� 3. Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understoood by, or should associated with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).
����������� 4. Requires excessive admiration.
����������� 5. Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations.
����������� 6. Is interpersonally exploitive; i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends.
����������� 7. Lacks empathy, is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings an needs of others.
����������� 8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.
����������� 9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.
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����������� Cause
����������� The absence of empathy for the other, or the ability to see oneself as others see one, suggests that something biological is involved. It is as though the person lacks something important for being a normal, sociable human.
����������� The psychosocial studies have all been retrospective, and thus do not produce solid scientific evidence.
����������� Treatment
����������� Behvioral methods have had modest success when they have focused on social skills and the aleviation of social anxiety.
Cluster C: Anxious or Fearful Disorders
Avoidant Personality Disorder (APD)
����������� People with this disorder are similar to those with schizoid in that they avoid people, but the person with avoidant disorder acts as though people are important and does not like being a social isolate. They fear rejection and to avoid being rejected avoid becoming socially involved. Note the overlap with Schizoid Personality Disorder and Social Phobia. Fewer than 1% of the population have this disorder.
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DSM-IV Criteria: Avoidant Personality Disorder
A. A persvasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following.
����������� 1. Avoids occupational activities that� involve significant interpersonal contact because of fears of criticism, disapproval or rejection.
����������� 2. Is unwilling to be involved with people unless certain of being liked.
����������� 3. Shows restraint with intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed.
����������� 4. Is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations.
����������� 5. Is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy.
����������� 6. Views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others.
����������� 7. Is usually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they might prove embarrassing.
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����������� Cause
����������� The main theory of cause is that the person has experienced considerable social rejection by parents or other poople important in their lives. Research on this matter is very weak. All of it has been based on retrospective reports; none on longitudinal data.
����������� Treatment
����������� Behavioral training has shown some success. Methods used to treat the anxiety associated with the disorder are also successful. It seems likely that Interpersonal Therapy would be natural treatment, but I have seen no reports of its use.
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Dependent Personality Disorder (DPD)
����������� The person clings to others. If a decision must be made this person looks to see what others are doing, and follows along. They tend to distrust their own views or abilities. About 2% of the population meet criteria.
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DSM-IV Criteria: Dependent Personality Disorder
A. A persvasive and excesswive need to be taken care of that leads to submissive and clinging behavior and fears of separation, beginning by early childhood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following.
����������� 1. Has difficulty making everyday decisions without an excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others.
����������� 2. Needs others to assume responsibility for most major decisions of his or her life.
����������� 3. Has difficulty expressing disagreement with others because of fear of loss of support or approval.
����������� 4. Has difficulty initiating projects or doing things on his or her own because of lack of self-confidence in judgment or abilities rather than lack of motivation or energy.
����������� 5. Goes to excessive lengths to obtain nurturance and support from others to the point of volunteering to do things that are unpleasant.
����������� 6. Feels uncomfortable or helpless when alone because of exaggerated fears of being unable to care for self.
����������� 7. Urgently seeks another relationship as a source of care when a close relationship ends.
����������� 8. Is unrealistically preoccupied with fears of being left to take care of self.
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����������� Causes
����������� Although it seems research is sparse, it is quite possible that there is a genetic component. It is also possible that the disorder is a product of social training.
����������� Treatment
����������� There is very little research on treatment. Some people grow out of being hyper dependent, as circumstances change.� For example, a woman who is very dependent on her mother may become less dependent as the mother ages and needs the help of her daughter.
Obsessive-Compusive Personality Disorder (OPCPD)
����������� The person with this disorder is very concerned with doing things the right way and is preoccupied with this concern. About 4% of people have this disorder. There is a diagnostic question as to whether the person has obsessive-compulsive personality disorder or the more severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. People with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder tend not to be very obsessive, but are rigid, and perfectionistic. If diagnosticians used a dimensional system instead of a categorical system it is unlikely that this disorder would be separate from Axis I Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
����������� The role of people with this disorder in the workplace is problematic. On the one hand they tend to do excellent work. On the other, they do not get things in on time. Consider a person who is in a managerial position in a research project. She has high aspirations and has a thorough knowledge of the subject of the research. In preparing reports for research conferences she has every detail at hand and has the research crew working with their assigned tasks. However, the deadline for the reports approaches and she is not finished. She stays up all night working on the report and sleeps through the research meeting.� I once worked with such a person and found it extremely difficult. I do not like last-minute preparations and think it is counter-productive to be sleepy during key research conferences. The woman had been in dynamic psychotherapy for years with no perceptible effect on her behavior.
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DSM-IV Criteria: Obsessive-Compusive Personality Disorder
A. A persvasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, athe expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following.
����������� 1. Is preoccupied with details, rules, lists, order, organization, or schedules to the extent that the major point of the activity is lost.
����������� 2. Shows perfectionism that interferes with task completion; e.g., is unable to complete a project because his or her overly strict standards are not met.
����������� 3. Is excessively devoted to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friendships.
����������� 4. Is overconscientious, scrupulous, and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values.
����������� 5. Is unable to discard worn-out and worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value.
����������� 6. Is reluctant to delegate tasks or to work with others unless they submit to exactly his or her way of doing things.
����������� 7. Adopts a miserly spending style toward both self and others; money is� viewed as something to be hoarded for future catastrophes.
����������� 8. Shows rigidity and stubbornness.
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����������� Causes
����������� There probably is a genetic component, but it does not seem to be strong. Family training almost certainly has a part in this. Personal discovery and rewards also play a role. The person discovers through practice that doing things carefully and getting them right brings rewards.
����������� Treatment
����������� Little is known, in part because this is not a very disabling condition and people do not seek help. There is often co-morbidity with depression, and treatment for depression is appropriate.
Other Types of Personality Disorders
����������� These have been suggested, but have not passed committe scrutiny for inclusion in the DSM.
����������� Sadistic
����������� Self-Defeating
����������� Depressive
����������� Negativistic
����������� Passive-Aggressive
����������� Road Rage
General Treatment
����������� Prozac (fluoxetine) has been used with a wide variety of personality disorders. All showed improvement� Improvement was sufficient to move people from a personality diagnosis to normal (Fara, 2002, Psychological Medicine, 32, 1049-1057).
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| Avoidant personality disorder |
According to the proverb, a fool and his money are soon what? | abnormalpsych - personality
abnormalpsych
Introduction to the Personality Disorders
Table of Contents
References
Basic Concept of a Personality Disorder
Personality disorders (PDs) tend to be pervasive, life long disorders. People with PDs carry with them destructive patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving as their way of being and interacting with the world and others. In order to be classified as a personality disorder the personality traits must be inflexible, be maladaptive and cause functional impairment or subjective distress. Onset begins in adolescence or early adulthood and is generally stable over time. They tend to be incredibly difficult to treat, in no small part because people with personality disorders often do not view themselves as actually having a problem, and they tend to frame reality in terms of their needs and perceptions, and are unable to understand the perspectives of others. For instance, most people with Narcissistic personality disorder are actually convinced they are as wonderful as they profess themselves to be. Similarly, people who suffer from schizophrenia see no problem with the fact that they do not like people, this to them is not a disorder, only a character trait. A person with antisocial personality disorder might resist treatment because they see the psychologist as trying to gain dominance over them, viewing it as if the psychologist is trying to change them to be submissive, weak and pathetic like the way they view the psychologist has. On the other hand they may even think that the psychologist really is trying to help, but is simply confused about the harsh and cruel nature of reality. Another reason for why they are difficult to treat include their limited ability to receive, accept, or benefit from corrective feedback. Another difficulty during treatment is the strong counter-transference clinicians have while working with them.
People with PDs are also often fully mentally functional. Though their views of reality may be distorted or odd, this is not due to impairment in mental function. Many people at the top of corporations, for example the CEOs of Enron, could easily be diagnosed with antisocial PD. In this way, the PDs tend to be seen somewhat differently than the other 'mental disorders' instead is seen as a deficit. Those with PDs, it is quite literally a change in the nature of the cognition, rather than a reduction in the potency thereof, and due to this, treatment can be difficult. It is also different from those with mood disorders where the person is usually not as resistant to treatment. People with PD often have strong wills and ideas, and the intelligence to back up what they experience and rationalize it.
Also due to these traits, people do not often bring themselves in for treatment for personality disorders. People with personality disorders tend to be either court-ordered to attend therapy, as is often the case with antisocial personality disorder or borderline personality disorder. Those who are treated may be pushed into it by family and friends, which is the case more often in paranoid personality disorder or dependent personality disorder. This is very different from the anxiety or mood disorders, where the person quite often attends therapy in order to see an increase in the quality of their life. There are also very few, if any PDs that seem to respond well to pharmaceutical treatment in fact, there does not seem to be many treatments at all that seem to work well for this spectrum of disorders and each person suffering from them is not the same as the next. Prevalence rates for PD is about 10-15% of the general population, along with 50% in clinical settings and 50% in the inmate population meet the criteria for ASPD, Antisocial Personality Disorder.
The presence of other mental disorders, such as mood, anxiety, and psychotic disorders can worsen the course and severity of Personality Disorders. People with any one of the 10 Personality Disorders are at an increased likelihood of being diagnosed with another Personality Disorder. In clinical practice, clients will often have more than one PD and might have features of many (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 2009).
Finally, the PDs are broken up into 3 clusters, named simply Cluster A, B and C. Cluster A focuses on the odd or eccentric disorders, cluster B focuses on the dramatic, emotional and erratic disorders and Cluster C focuses on the anxious and fearful disorders. The clusters are defined as follows:
Cluster A
Paranoid, Schizotypal, and Schiziod Personality Disorders
This cluster includes the "odd" or eccentric" disorders. Those who suffer from the Cluster A disorders may act socially detached, suspicious, and distrustful. These disorders are the closest PDs to the stereotypical psychiatric disorders: the psychotic disorders. With cluster A we see very odd behaviors, and a distinct separation from reality. However, this is not occurring on a sensory level as can be seen in the psychotic disorders. The schism (meaning break or gap, from which schizophrenia, schizotypal and schizoid got their name) from reality occurs on a cognitive level. In each of the Cluster A disorders, the nature of the separation is different. In Paranoia, where the person experiences delusions and is a generalized separation, the nature of the world itself (the fact that it is incredibly unlikely anyone cares enough to do anything to the paranoid person) is at a distance from the sufferer.
In Schizoid PD, the person is isolated from both enjoyment, and sociability. In Schizophrenia, the chasm, or breach, that must be crossed is to reality itself. Understanding of the rules of nature, or of social rules seems to be very difficult, but unlike in Schizoid PD, the desire to interact is there, and unlike Paranoid PD, people suffering from Schizophrenia do not have the anxieties or fears of the world or people in it.
Schizoid vs Schizotypal Personality Disorders
The major reason for the distinction is the relationship between schizotypal personality and schizophrenia.
There is a much higher prevalence of schizophrenia among first degree relatives of patients with schizotypal personality than among relatives of people with any other personality disorder.
Thinking is more distorted and closer to psychosis in schizotypal personality than in schizoid personality
Patients with schizoid personality disorder are more likely to seek therapy
Patients with schizotypal personality disorder are less likely to seek therapy, but are more likely to find a group of eccentrics who have similar beliefs.
Cluster B
Histrionic, Narcissistic, Antisocial, and Borderline Personality Disorder.
This cluster includes disorders where the individual is viewed as being overly emotional or erratic in his or her behavior. The individual's behavior tends to be impulsive, may be dramatic, and may have antisocial features. People who suffer from Narcissism for example tend to have excessive amounts of vanity, fascination with themselves, above and beyond egocentrism. Antisocial personality disorder sufferers have an unusual disregard for others, including others rights and feelings. They may show no remorse for their actions, such as, hurting others and stealing. Unfortunately it is difficult to diagnose due to substance abuse is some situations. Borderline Personality Disorder is called such because it is close to being considered a psychiatric disorder. This disorder is characterized by extreme mood swings, impulsiveness and aggression.
Characteristics of People with Antisocial and Borderline Personality Disorders (SAMHSA, 2009)
Characteristic
If you don't do what I want, you'll be sorry
I deserve it all
They're the ones with the problem
I've got to get you before you get me
I don't deserve to exist
Help me, help me, but you can't
Presenting Problem
Cluster C
Avoidant, Dependent, and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder.
This cluster includes the disorders where the individual appears anxious or fearful. In this specific instance, these disorders resemble Anxiety Disorders, which make it harder to differentially diagnose. These disorders are pretty much self explanatory in there title. Avoidant is just that, a tendency to avoid intimacy or interaction with others. Dependent is dependent on others and Obsessive-compulsive disorder, where the person repeats the same everyday activities repeatedly, has lack of openness and flexibility in their everyday functions and relationships. Fortunately this is highly treatable but not easily done, these people tend to dislike describing the events and situations that occur in their lives.
Some Statistics Regarding Personality Disorders
Personality disorders affect about 15 million adults in the United States. Approximately 10 to 13 percent of the U.S. population meets the diagnostic criteria for a personality disorder at some point in his or her life. These disorders, however, have the highest rate of misdiagnosis than any other categories. Personality disorders present themselves as being a maladaptive presence, meaning they develop highly unsuitably adaptive symptoms in the lives of those affected. Most people can live relatively normal lives with mild personality disorders, however in times of extreme stress, symptoms can increase and become disruptive in everyday activities.
The DSM-IV-TR defines a personality disorder as "...an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment... The clinician should assess the stability of personality traits over time and across different situations."
Personality disorders are usually only diagnosed for person's over the age 18. There is the exception that if the individual shows symptoms for at least, or above, 1 year then they can be diagnosed. As noted below, however, minors cannot be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.
35% of admissions to a methadone maintenance program have a Personality Disorder (SAMHSA, 2009).
General diagnostic criteria for a Personality Disorder according to the DSM-IV-TR
An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture. This pattern is manifested in two (or more) of the following areas:
cognition (the ways of perceiving and interpreting self, other people, and events)
affectivity (the range, intensity, ability, and appropriateness of emotional response)
interpersonal functioning
impulse control
The enduring pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations.
The enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
The pattern is stable and continues for long durations, and its onset can be traced back to as far as adolescence or early adulthood.
The enduring pattern is not better accounted for as a manifestation or consequence of another mental disorder.
The enduring pattern is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., drug abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., head trauma).
DSM-V Changes
The work group recommends a major re-conceptualization of personality psychopathology with core impairments in personality functioning, pathological personality traits, and prominent pathological personality types. Personality disorders are diagnosed when core impairments and pathological traits are severe and other criteria are met. The criteria are as follows:
5 identified severity levels of personality functioning
5 personality disorder types, each defined by core PD components and a subset of:
6 broad, higher order personality trait domains, with 4-10 lower order, more specific trait facets comprising each, for a total of 37 specific trait facets
a new general definition of personality disorder based on severe or extreme deficits in core components of personality functioning and elevated pathological traits
New general definition
Adaptive failure is manifested in one or both of the following area
Impaired sense of self-identity as evidence by one or more of the following:
Identity integration. Poorly integrated sense of self or identity (e.g., limited sense of personal unity and continuity; experiences shifting self-states; believes that the self presented to the world is a false appearance)
Integrity of self-concept. Impoverished and poorly differentiated sense of self or identity (e.g., difficulty identifying and describing self attributes; sense of inner emptiness; poorly defined interpersonal boundaries; definition of the self changes with social context)
Self-directedness. Low self-directedness (e.g., unable to set and attain satisfying and rewarding personal goals; lacks direction, meaning, and purpose in life)
Failure to develop effective interpersonal functioning as manifested by one or more of the following:
Empathy. Impaired empathic and reflective capacity (e.g., finds it difficult to understand the mental states of others)
Intimacy. Impaired capacity for close relationships (e.g., unable to establish or maintain closeness and intimacy; inability to function as an effective attachment figure; inability to establish and maintain relationships)
Cooperativeness. Failure to develop the capacity for pro-social behavior (e.g., failure to develop the capacity for socially typical moral behavior; absence of altruism, the sense of unselfish concern).
Complexity and integration of representations of others. Poorly integrated representations of others (e.g., forms separate and poorly related images of significant others)
Adaptive failure:
is associated with extreme levels of one or more personality traits.
is relatively stable across time and consistent across situations with an onset that can be traced back to adolescence.
is not solely explained as a manifestation or consequence of another mental disorder
is not solely due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., drug abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head trauma)
(American Psychiatric Association (APA), 2010)
Links
A YouTube video: Personality Disorders .
A short PowerPoint:
301.0 Paranoid Personality Disorder
Definition and Associated Features
Paranoid personality disorder (PPD) is characterized by an extreme level of distrust and suspicion of others; unjustified feelings of suspicion and mistrust of others, hyper sensitivity, expectation - without justification -that will be damaged and exploited by others and a tendency to find hidden meanings messages and comments that are in reality harmless behaviors as degrading or threatening. People with PPD often interpret even friendly gestures as manipulative or malevolent. They are often difficult to get along with, as they can be confrontational and aggressive; therefore, they generally lack close relationships with other people because they are constantly waiting for negative outcomes such as betrayal. As a result of others reacting negatively to their hostility, their negative expectations are often confirmed; for example, they may suspect that their neighbor takes the garbage out early in the morning just to bother them.
People who suffer with PPD do not only suspect strangers, but people they know as well, they believe those they know are planning to harm or exploit them without evidence to support their suspicions. If a person with PPD does form a close relationship, the relationship is often accompanied by jealousy and controlling tendencies. These individuals typically do not have psychotic features, that is, they are in clear contact with reality and usually do not experience hallucinations. They may also have less cognitive disorganization, therefore they are able to function socially in the work environment, although somewhat effectively as the rest of society.
When people with PPD suspect exploitation, harm, or deceit, it is almost always associated with friends or close partners because these are the people they are near the most. For example: They may suspect their spouse or partner is involved in an affair. This is where loyalty and trust issues come in, They are reluctant to give out any information that will hurt them or be used to put them down in any way, so they tend to keep secrets from those who are close to them because of a paranoid idea they will be harmed in the process.
Since they have trouble with trusting others, people with PPD have an excessive sense of self-sufficiency and autonomy. They are often rigid, unable to collaborate, and often have difficulty accepting criticism and instead blame others for their shortcomings. They may frequently be involved in legal disputes because of their tendency to counterattack in response to perceived threats. Sometimes PPD may appear antecedent of Delusional Disorder or Schizophrenia. Those with PPD may develop Major Depressive Disorder, and Substance Abuse or Dependence is frequent.
Individuals who have PPD typically do not have psychotic features, that is, they are clearly in contact with reality, and they usually do not have hallucinations. However, they may experience brief psychotic episodes in response to stress. The important thing to remember is that these individuals do not have Schizophrenia, Paranoid Type because they do not have hallucinations, and their cognitive disorganization, typical of the Schizophrenias, is not present. In addition, they are able to function socially and in the workplace, although their functioning is affected by this disorder. These individuals are always guarded and alert for attacks from other people in areas of employment, social areas and home life.
DSM-IV-TR Criteria
Defined as stated above. This can begin by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the items listed below.
Suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him or her.
Preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends, family or associates.
Reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against him or her.
Reads hidden demeaning or threatening meanings into benign remarks or events.
Persistently bears grudges, because they are unforgiving of insults, injuries, or practical jokes.
Perceives attacks on his or her character or reputation that are not apparent to others and is quick to react angrily or to counterattack.
Has recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding fidelity of spouse or partner.
Does not occur exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia, a Mood Disorder with Psychotic Features, or another Psychotic Disorder and is not due to the direct physiological effect of a general medical condition.
NOTE: If criteria are met prior to the onset of Schizophrenia, add "Pre-morbid," e.g., "Paranoid Personality Disorder (Pre-morbid)".
Child vs. Adult Presentation
According to the DSM-IV-TR, there are a few exceptions noting personality disorders are not generally diagnosed in individuals under the age 18. If the symptoms or behaviors, sometimes called features, have been present for at least 1 year, then the individual can be diagnosed with a personality disorder if he or she is less than 18 years of age.
Signs of Paranoid personality disorder can be seen in childhood, seen as having poor relationships, not doing well in school, odd thoughts, social anxiety, solitariness, hypersensitivity, and they may seen as "odd" or "eccentric" by others and as a result may attract teasing by other children.
Gender Differences in Presentation of Disorders
Paranoid Personality Disorder affects more males than females and contains a few co-morbid disorders. Co-morbidity often occurs with Schizophrenia, Avoidant, and Borderline Personality Disorders.
Females are generally more associated with the disorders of Borderline, Histrionic, and Dependent.
Males are generally more associated with the disorders of Paranoid, Schizophrenia, and Antisocial.
Diagnosis for males and females are also different even if both present the same symptoms.
Females are also more apt to seek help than males because they are more willing to acknowledge the symptoms, acknowledge the need for help, and are more influenced by their social group to seek help.
Cultural Differences in Presentation
Most of the disorders listed and reviewed are Caucasian based. However for different cultural groups, symptoms and treatment may not be the same.
Some behaviors influenced by culture or life circumstances may be mistaken for Paranoia. Members of minority groups, immigrants, refugees, or those of different ethnic backgrounds may be guarded or defensive because of unfamiliarity or perceived as neglect by the majority society. These behaviors may produce anger in those who deal with these individuals, thus setting up a mutual mistrust, which would not be Paranoid Personality Disorder.
Epidemiology
The lifetime prevalence of Paranoid Personality Disorder is 0.5% to 2.5% of the general population. An increased prevalence of Paranoid Personality Disorder has a biological connection to relatives of chronic sufferers of schizophrenia and patients with persecutory delusional disorders, which is the presence of persistent delusions.
The prevalence rate for inpatient psychiatric hospitals is 10%-30%. Anywhere from 2% to 10% of patients in an outpatient treatment facility are also affected.
One study has found that 44% of those in treatment for alcoholism have Paranoid Personality Disorder, while other studies have only found it to be around 13.2% (SAMHSA, 2009).
Etiology
The cause of Paranoid Personality Disorder is unknown, although there are some theories that it may be due to negative childhood experiences in a threatening domestic atmosphere or caretakers having PPD
In their childhood there was no way of predicting or escaping their environment; therefore, they develop paranoid ways of thinking in order to cope with the stressful situations.
In addition, the incidence of PPD appears to be increased in families with a member who suffer from Schizophrenia.
Having a familial factor means that they are more likely to get the disorder because it was in the family genetics, thus having a higher chance of developing the disorder rather than someone whose family has a no known genetic disorders.
The developmental path of PPD predominantly involves environmental responses of criticism, blame, and hostility. Studies have linked this diagnosis to caregivers who treated the individual with PPD in a sadistic, degrading, or humiliating manner, imposing the belief that he or she was fundamentally bad. A process that restricts the individual's ability to trust, leads to an anxious withdraw from interactions that are later compensated for with rage and peremptory behaviors seeking to protect the individual from impending harm.
Promotes belief that hateful criticism or abuse may result from interpersonal interactions. Leads to withdrawal from such interactions that may later be compensated for with rage.
According to the Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders, other possible interpersonal causes have been proposed. For example, some therapists believe that the behavior that characterizes PPD might be learned and might be traced back to childhood experiences. According to this view, children who are exposed to adult anger and rage with no way to predict the outbursts and no way to escape or control them develop paranoid ways of thinking in an effort to cope with the stress. PPD would emerge when this type of thinking becomes part of the individual's personality as adulthood approaches.
Studies of identical (or monozygotic) and fraternal (or dizygotic) twins suggest that genetic factors may also play an important role in causing the disorder. Twin studies indicate that genes contribute to the development of childhood personality disorders, including PPD. Furthermore, estimates of the degree of genetic contribution to the development of childhood personality disorders are similar to estimates of the genetic contribution to adult versions of the disorders.
Medications:
While individual supportive psychotherapy is the treatment of choice for PPD, medications are sometimes used on a limited basis to treat related symptoms. If, for example, the patient is very anxious, anti-anxiety drugs may be prescribed. In addition, during periods of extreme agitation and high stress that produce delusional states, the patient may be given low doses of antipsychotic medications.
Some clinicians have suggested that low doses of neuroleptics should be used in this group of patients; however, medications are not normally part of long-term treatment for PPD. One reason is that no medication has been proven to relieve effectively the long-term symptoms of the disorder, although the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as fluoxetine (Prozac) have been reported to make patients less angry, irritable and suspicious. Antidepressants may even make symptoms worse.
A second reason is that people with PPD are suspicious of medications.They fear that others might try to control them through the use of drugs. It can therefore be very difficult to persuade them to take medications unless the potential for relief from another threat, such as extreme anxiety, makes the medications seem relatively appealing. The best use of medication may be for specific complaints, when the patient trusts the therapist enough to ask for relief from particular symptoms.
Prognosis
Paranoid personality disorder is often a chronic, lifelong condition; the long-term prognosis is usually not encouraging. Feelings of paranoia, however, can be controlled to a degree with successful therapy. Unfortunately, many patients suffer the major symptoms of the disorder throughout their lives.
Prevention
With little or no understanding of the cause of PPD, it is not possible to prevent the disorder.
Empirically Supported Treatments
Because those with PPD are very suspicious and untrustworthy of others, they are generally not likely to seek therapy on their own. Often, the legal system or the family of the person suffering from this disorder gets involved and encourages the person to seek treatment. However, it is extremely difficult to begin treatment with the person, as the therapist has to gain the trust of the patient.
The most successful form of treatment for this disorder is psychotherapy, which can be used to help the patient control his paranoid thoughts. Medications are sometimes used to treat related symptoms, such as anxiety or delusional states that some people with PPD suffer when under stress.
Some clinicians suggest that low doses of neuroleptics should be used for short-term treatment of PPD. Antidepressants such as Prozac have been reported to make symptoms of PPD worse and people with PPD are often suspicious of medication and believe that others might try to control them through drugs. Although psychotherapy and medication can temporarily control symptoms of PPD, most patients experience the symptoms of PPD for their entire life and require consistent therapy in order to manage their paranoia.
Psychotherapy
According to the Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders, the primary approach to treatment for such personality disorders as PPD is psychotherapy . The problem is that patients with PPD do not readily offer therapists the trust that is needed for successful treatment. As a result, it has been difficult to gather data that would indicate what kind of psychotherapy would work best. Therapists face the challenge of developing rapport with someone who is, by the nature of his personality disorder, distrustful and suspicious; someone who often sees malicious intent in the innocuous actions and statements of others. The patient may actively resist or refuse to cooperate with others who are trying to help.
Mental health workers treating patients with PPD must guard against any show of hostility on their part in response to hostility from the patient, which is a common occurrence in people with this disorder. Instead, clinicians are advised to develop trust by persistently demonstrating a nonjudgmental attitude and a professional desire to assist the patient.
It is usually up to the therapist alone to overcome a patient's resistance. Group therapy that includes family members or other psychiatric patients, not surprisingly, isn't useful in the treatment of PPD due to the mistrust people with PPD feel towards others. This characteristic also explains why there are no significant self-help groups dedicated to recovery from this disorder. It has been suggested, however, that some people with PPD might join cults or extremist groups whose members might share their suspicions.
To gain the trust of PPD patients, therapists must be careful to hide as little as possible from their patients. This transparency should include note taking; details of administrative tasks concerning the patient; correspondence; and medications. Any indication of what the patient would consider "deception" or covert operation can, and often does, lead the patient to drop out of treatment. Patients with paranoid tendencies often don't have a well-developed sense of humor; those who must interact with people with PPD probably should not make jokes in their presence. Attempts at humor may seem like ridicule to people who feel so easily threatened.
With some patients, the most attainable goal may be to help them to learn to analyze their problems in dealing with other people. This approach amounts to supportive therapy and is preferable to psychotherapeutic approaches that attempt to analyze the patient's motivations and possible sources of paranoid traits. Asking about a patient's past can undermine the treatment of PPD patients. Concentrating on the specific issues that are troubling the patient with PPD is usually the wisest course.
With time and a skilled therapist, the patient with PPD who remains in therapy may develop a measure of trust. But as the patient reveals more of his paranoid thoughts, the clinician will continue to face the difficult task of balancing the need for objectivity about the paranoid ideas and the maintenance of a good rapport with the patient. The therapist thus walks a tightrope with this type of patient. If the therapist is not straightforward enough, the patient may feel deceived. If the therapist challenges paranoid thoughts too directly, the patient will be threatened and probably drop out of treatment.
Portrayed in Popular Culture
He is characterized by irrational suspicions and mistrust of others
Cornelius Fudge from Harry Potter
He irrationally fears that Albus Dumbledore, and just about anybody, is trying to overthrow him as the Minister of Magic
DSM-V Changes
Paranoid Personality Disorder will be represented and diagnosed by a combination of core impairment in personality functioning and specific pathological personality traits, rather than as a specific type.
301.20 Schizoid Personality Disorder
DSM-IV-TR criteria
A pervasive pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of expression of emotions in interpersonal settings, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:
neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family
almost always chooses solitary activities
has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person
takes pleasures in few, if any, activities
lacks close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives
appears indifferent to the praise or criticism of others
shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity
Does not occur exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia, a Mood Disorder with Psychotic Features, another Psychotic Disorder, or a Pervasive Developmental Disorder and is not due to the direct physiological effects of a general medical condition.
NOTE: If criteria are met prior to the onset of Schizophrenia, add "Pre-morbid," e.g., "Schizoid Personality Disorder (Pre-morbid)."
Associated Features
Individuals with Schizoid Personality Disorder (SPD) have little to no contact with the outside world. They have no desire to have social relationships, and when they do have them they do not enjoy them. This is a reason that they have few to no friends and to others these individuals seem to be cold and distant, often displaying a stoic expression. They are rarely able to express their emotion and often fail to have warm feelings for anyone. They have little to no interest in sexual activity and have very few things in their lives that give them pleasure. They tend to be loners and pursue activities and occupations where they do not have to interact with people.
There is highest Co-morbidity for Schizotypal, Avoidant, and Paranoid Personality Disorders. Thus, is it most likely that another Cluster A disorder will occur with SPD. Anhedonia is often expressed, that is a an inability to experience pleasure and joy in activities and life. People that suffer from SPD tend to show long-standing patterns of behaviors that are abnormal to their environmental norms. They may experience brief psychotic episodes resulting from stress. SPD may appear as a precursor to Delusional Disorder or Schizophrenia, and those with SPD may develop Major Depressive Disorder.
The person may have a stoic look most of the day and not respond to any comments or jokes; they just keep to their self and do what they want to do alone. They are somewhat shy of others, not knowing what is going to happen next.
Child vs. Adult Presentation
Typically, the onset of SPD is in early adulthood or late adolescence were the symptoms can be seen. These would include performing badly in school, self-isolation, and bad relationships with their peers.
The symptoms that are needed for diagnosing SPD need to be shown by early adulthood. The earlier this is found, the better, because it will be more difficult to treat once the person gets older.
One issue that is known is the similarity between SPD, autism and Asperger's disorder. It is important to know that the personality traits of SPD are inflexible and cause impairment in functioning
Gender and Cultural Differences in Presentation
More males are affected by Schizoid PD than females. The disorder is uncommon in clinical settings because individuals with SPD do not perceive themselves as distressed and, therefore, are not inclined to seek out treatment. They see themselves as normal, but not when they interact with others; they do not know what to expect from other people they have not met because they are socially inclined to be quiet and conserved of mysterious people.
SPD may be more prevalent in individuals with schizophrenic or schizotypal relatives.
Those from a variety of cultural backgrounds may sometimes exhibit defensive behavior and styles which may be mistaken as schizoid.
Immigrants are sometimes mistaken as cold, hostile, or indifferent.
Epidemiology
Schizoid Personality disorder has a prevalence rates in the general population between 1% and 3% and prevalence in an outpatient psychiatric setting around 1%. There is some familial patterns but none that are very significant in general settings.
This is the least diagnosed personality disorder in the general population, and is uncommon in clinical settings.
The diagnosis is based on a clinical interview to assess symptomatic behavior. Other assessment tools that are helpful in diagnosing Schizoid Personality Disorder include:
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2)
Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-II)
Rorschach Psychodiagnostic Test
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Etiology
SPD shares many commonalities of depression, Avoidant Personality Disorder and Asperger’s syndrome and can be difficult to distinguish from the others because of some of the same symptoms and behaviors that are displayed in the other disorders.
Family life seems to be the underlying cause of Schizoid PD. These families are reserved emotionally, have impersonal communication, and are very formal. The parents often did not give very much attention to the person while they were growing up. This occurring in the first year of their lives, seems to have an impact on their lack of wanting to form close relationships because these children did not learn the necessary skills needed to form and maintain close relationships.
Schizoid Personality Disorder may have increased prevalence in the relatives of those with Schizophrenia and Schizotypal Personality Disorder.
Empirically Supported Treatments
Individuals with Schizoid PD do not usually seek out treatment because they generally do not feel as if they are in need of help, like some of the other disorders; they think they are pretty normal individuals with normal lives but need an intervention by a friend to reveal that the behavior is problematic. When they realize, for the few who do seek treatment, there are medications that treat only the negative symptoms, similar to those persons with schizophrenia.
Psychodynamically oriented therapies:
A psychodynamic approach would typically not be the first choice of treatment due to the patient's poor ability to explore his or her thoughts, emotions, and behavior. When this treatment is used, it usually centers around building a therapeutic relationship with the patient that can act as a model for use in other relationships.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy:
Attempting to cognitively restructure the patient's thoughts can enhance self-insight. Constructive ways of accomplishing this would include concrete assignments such as keeping daily records of problematic behaviors or thoughts. Another helpful method can be teaching social skills through role-playing. This might enable individuals to become more conscious of communication cues given by others and sensitize them to others' needs.
Group therapy:
may provide the patient with a socializing experience that exposes them to feedback from others in a safe, controlled environment. It can also provide a means of learning and practicing social skills in which they are deficient. Since the patient usually avoids social contact, timing of group therapy is of particular importance. It is best to develop first a therapeutic relationship between therapist and patient before starting a group therapy treatment.
Family and marital therapy:
It is unlikely that a person with schizoid personality disorder will seek family therapy or marital therapy. If pursued, it is usually on the initiative of the spouse or other family member. Many people with this disorder do not marry and end up living with and are dependent upon first-degree family members. In this case, therapy may be recommended for family members to educate them on aspects of change or ways to facilitate communication. Marital therapy (also called couples therapy ) may focus on helping the couple to become more involved in each other's lives or improve communication patterns (minddisorders.com).
Medications
Some patients with this disorder show signs of anxiety and depression which may prompt the use of medication to counteract these symptoms. In general, there is to date no definitive medication that is used to treat schizoid symptoms.
Prognosis
Since a person with schizoid personality disorder seeks to be isolated from others, which includes those who might provide treatment, there is only a slight chance that most patients will seek help on their own initiative. Those who do may stop treatment prematurely because of their difficulty maintaining a relationship with the professional or their lack of motivation for change.
If the degree of social impairment is mild, treatment might succeed if its focus is on maintenance of relationships related to the patient's employment. The patient's need to support him- or herself financially can act as a higher incentive for pursuit of treatment outcomes.
Once treatment ends, it is highly likely the patient will relapse into a lifestyle of social isolation similar to that before treatment.
Prevention
Since schizoid personality disorder originates in the patient's family of origin, the only known preventative measure is a nurturing, emotionally stimulating and expressive care-taking environment
Portrayed in Popular Culture
Mr. Freeze from Batman
Due to a long-time search for a cure for his wife's malady, he is an emotionless machine.
Severus Snape from Harry Potter
He rarely expresses emotions and usually stays in his office or in the Potions chamber away from the company of others
DSM-V Changes
Schizoid Personality Disorder will be represented and diagnosed by a combination of core impairment in personality functioning and specific pathological personality traits, rather than as a specific type
301.22 Schizotypal Personality Disorder
DSM-IV-TR criteria
A pervasive pattern of social and interpersonal deficits marked by acute discomfort with, and reduced capacity for, close relationships as well as by cognitive or perceptual distortions and eccentricities of behavior, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
ideas of reference (excluding delusions of reference)
odd beliefs or magical thinking that influences behavior and is inconsistent with subcultural norms (e.g., superstition, belief in clairvoyance, telepathy, or "sixth sense"; in children and adolescents, bizarre fantasies or preoccupations)
unusual perceptual experiences, including bodily illusions
odd thinking and speech (e.g., vague, circumstantial, metaphorical, over elaborate, or stereotyped)
suspicious or paranoid idealization
behavior or appearance that is odd, eccentric, or peculiar
lack of close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives
excessive social anxiety that does not diminish with familiarity and tends to be associated with paranoid fears rather than negative judgments about self
Does not occur exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia, a Mood Disorder with Psychotic Features, another Psychotic Disorder, or a Pervasive Developmental Disorder.
NOTE: If criteria are met prior to the onset of Schizophrenia, add "Pre-morbid," e.g., "Schizotypal Personality Disorder (Pre-morbid)."
Associated Features
The speech of individuals with this disorder is affected in such a manner that it may be distinguished by unclear and unusual usages. Language is impaired by different contexts and syntax, or the arrangement of words and how they are used, in other words the grammer. Schizotypal behavior is often linked to individuals with Schizophrenia. They tend to appear emotionless, showing flat or constricted affect in interpersonal situations.
Schizotypal PD is difficult to accurately diagnose because it is highly co-morbid with several personality disorders, such as: Narcissistic, Borderline, Avoidant, Paranoid, and Schizoid PD. Individuals with this disorder may experience brief psychotic episodes in response to stress. They often seek treatment for anxiety, depression, or other dysphoric symptoms rather than for the actual disorder.
The schizotypal individual has unusual thought patterns that end up disrupting their ability to communicate clearly with others. In addition, his or her ties to reality are impacted but not completely severed as in Schizophrenia. Because of this, many of these individuals are not able to realize their potential and are unable to lead truly productive lives.
Symptoms pointing to Brief Psychotic Disorder, Schizophreniform Disorder, Delusional Disorder, or Schizophrenia may develop in clinical settings. Over half may have a Major Depressive Episode.
Child vs. Adult Presentation
Schizotypal Personality Disorder may be first apparent in childhood and adolescence with solitude-seeking behavior, poor peer relationships, social anxiety, underachievement in academics, hypersensitivity, odd thoughts and speech, and bizarre fantasies.
As adults, presentation is similar but probably less severe such as less solitary activities because of boredom onset, and peer relationships are essential to advance in a life, such as with careers, friends and family.
Gender and Cultural Differences in Presentation
Generally more males are affected by Schizotypal Personality Disorder than females. Presentation in different cultural aspects do favor males as more Schizotypal affected than females probably because of a tendency for females to relate or talk to others enabling them to make relationships easier.
Females are more social and emotional than males in general, and they have the tendency to communicate more information to other people and to be more open about their feelings and emotions. Males tend to be more closed off and only share private information to those they trust the most.
Some distortions must be evaluated within the individuals cultural context, as some cultural characteristics may be mistaken as schizotypal.
Epidemiology
The prevalence of Schizotypal Personality Disorder is approximately 3% of the general population and is believed to occur slightly more often in males.
Approximately less than 1% in an outpatient clinical sample.
The course is rather stable, and only a small portion go on to develop Schizophrenia or another Psychotic Disorder.
Schizotypal Personality Disorder is generally stable across an individual's life.
Schizotypal Personality Disorder appears to occur more frequently in individuals who have an immediate family member with schizophrenia .
Etiology
There is a chance that genetic factors contribute to the cause of Schizotypal Personality Disorder. Familial patterns are not major here but can be more likely to contract the disorder if it is prevelant in the family genetics.
Environmental factors are less likely to contribute to this disorder than interpersonal factors because of interactions with people are social activities and may involve suspicion of others, odd beliefs and weird thinking, unusual perceptions or distortions of reality.
Oddities in children with STPD are reinforced when they are shunned and rejected by others, thus increasing their social anxiety and suspicion.
An alternative pathogenic hypothesis suggests that the child was severely abused, limited in autonomy development and peer interactions while caregivers modeled illogical formulations of reality, leading the adult with STPD to claim an unusual ability of knowing or controlling events combined with paranoid withdrawal from others.
Other hypotheses suggest that the infant's needs were met, but without sufficient emotional intimacy or warmth. Which hindered subsequent childhood development by punitive criticism, fragmented communications, and humiliation by peers.
The diagnosis of schizotypal personality disorder is based on a clinical interview to assess symptomatic behavior. Other assessment tools helpful in confirming the diagnosis of schizotypal personality disorder include:
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2)
Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-II)
Rorschach Psychodiagnostic Test
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Empirically Supported Treatments
Individuals with Schizotypal Personality Disorder are generally difficult to treat, as they are not comfortable with forming new relationships and interacting with others (ie. psychologists). They want to keep to themselves and not develop new close friends, or even have communication on a regular basis with family members. They would rather stay inside all day and be alone.
For individuals that have a little bit of higher functioning compared to other Schizotypal individuals, there are various treatment options. Provided these individuals see that they have a problem and seek treatment. One option is psychodynamic oriented therapies. This helps the individual build trusting relationships. Therapies include:
Psychodynamically oriented therapies
A psychodynamic approach would typically seek to build a therapeutically trusting relationship that attempts to counter the mistrust most people with this disorder intrinsically hold. The hope is that some degree of attachment in a therapeutic relationship could be generalized to other relationships. Offering interpretations about the patient's behavior will not typically be helpful. More highly functioning schizotypals who have some capacity for empathy and emotional warmth tend to have better outcomes in psychodynamic approaches to treatment.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy:
Cognitive approaches will most likely focus on attempting to identify and alter the content of the schizotypal's thoughts. Distortions that occur in both perception and thought processes would be addressed. An important foundation for this work would be the establishment of a trusting therapeutic relationship. This would relax some of the social anxiety felt in most interpersonal relationships and allow for some exploration of the thought processes. Constructive ways of accomplishing this might include communication skills training, the use of videotape feedback to help the affected person perceive his or her behavior and appearance objectively, and practical suggestions about personal hygiene, employment, among others.
Interpersonal therapy:
Treatment using an interpersonal approach would allow the individual with schizotypal personality disorder to remain relationally distant while he or she "warms up" to the therapist. Gradually the therapist would hope to engage the patient after becoming "safe" through lack of coercion. The goal would be to develop trust in order to help the patient gain insight into the distorted and magical thinking that dominates. New self-talk can be introduced to help orient the individual to reality-based experience. The therapist can mirror this objectivity to the patient.
Group therapy:
may provide the patient with a socializing experience that exposes them to feedback from others in a safe, controlled environment. It is typically recommended only for schizotypals who do not display severe eccentric or paranoid behavior. Most group members would be uncomfortable with these behavioral displays and it would likely prove destructive to the group dynamic.
Family and marital therapy:
It is unlikely that a person with schizoid personality disorder will seek family or marital therapy. Many schizoid types do not marry and end up living with and being dependent upon first-degree family members. If they do marry they often have problems centered on insensitivity to their partner's feelings or behavior. Marital therapy ( couples therapy ) may focus on helping the couple to become more involved in each other's lives or improve communication patterns.
Medications
According to the Encyclopedia of MD, there is considerable research on the use of medications for the treatment of schizotypal personality disorder due to its close symptomatic relationship with schizophrenia. Among the most helpful medications are the antipsychotics that have been shown to control symptoms such as illusions and phobic anxiety, among others. Amoxapine (trade name Asendin), is a tricyclic antidepressant with antipsychotic properties, and has been effective in improving schizophrenic-like and depressive symptoms in schizotypal patients. Other antidepressants such as fluoxetine (Prozac) have also been used successfully to reduce symptoms of anxiety, paranoid thinking, and depression.
Prognosis
The prognosis for the individual with schizotypal personality disorder is poor due to the ingrained nature of the coping mechanisms already in place. Schizotypals who depend heavily on family members or others are likely to regress into a state of apathy and further isolation. While some measurable gains can be made with mildly affected individuals, most are not able to alter their ingrained ways of perceiving or interpreting reality. When combined with poor social support structure, most will not enter any type of treatment.
Prevention
Since schizotypal personality disorder originates in the patient's family of origin, the only known preventative measure is a nurturing, emotionally stimulating and expressive caretaking environment.
Portrayed in Popular Culture
He is characterized by odd behavior and thinking
Luna Lovegood and Sybill Trelawny from Harry Potter
They are both very eccentric with odd appearances and awkward in social settings
DSM-V Changes
Be reformulated as the Schizotypal Type
Individuals who match this personality disorder type have social deficits, marked by discomfort with and reduced capacity for interpersonal relationships; eccentricities of appearance and behavior, and cognitive and perceptual distortions.
They have few close friends or relationships.
They are anxious in social situations (even when they have the time to become familiar with the situation), feel like outcasts or outsiders, find it difficult to feel connected to others, and are suspicious of others’ motivations, including their spouse, colleagues, and friends.
Individuals with this type are eccentric, odd, or peculiar in appearance or manner (e.g., grooming, hygiene, posture, and/or eye contact are strange or unusual).
Their speech may be vague, circumstantial, metaphorical, over-elaborate, impoverished, overly concrete, or stereotyped. Individuals with this type experience a limited or constricted range of emotions, and are inhibited in their expression of emotions.
They may appear detached and indifferent to other’s reactions, despite internal distress at being “set apart.”
Odd beliefs influence their behavior, such as beliefs in superstition, clairvoyance, or telepathy.
Their perception of reality can become further impaired, often under stress, when reasoning and perceptual processes become odd and idiosyncratic (e.g., they may make seemingly arbitrary inferences, or see hidden messages or special meanings in ordinary events) or quasi-psychotic, with symptoms such as pseudo-hallucinations, sensory illusions, over-valued ideas, mild paranoid ideation, or transient psychotic episodes.
Individuals with this personality disorder type are, however, able to “reality test” psychotic-like symptoms and can intellectually acknowledge that they are products of their own minds.
301.7 Antisocial Personality Disorder
DSM-IV-TR criteria
There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:
failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are groups for arrest
deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
impulsive behavior or failure to plan ahead
irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
reckless disregard for safety of self or others
consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another
The individual is at least age 18 years.
There is evidence of Conduct Disorder with onset before age 15 years.
The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia or a Manic Episode.
Associated Features
Most essential diagnostic feature of ASPD is the pervasive disregard for and violation of the rights of others (SAMHSA, 2009).
They appear deficient in their ability to experience shared or reciprocal emotions such as guilt or love (SAMHSA, 2009).
They have a disdain for society's rules. They know right from wrong, but they simply do not care (SAMHSA, 2009).
Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) is considered to be a chronic illness in which an individual's manner of thinking, perceiving situations, and empathizing with others is deemed morally wrong in his or her society.
Antisocial Personality disorder is also sometimes called psychopathy or sociopathic personality disorder. Normally, an individual suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorder will display a pattern of lying, stealing, running away from home, and having difficulty upholding the law. They also tend to have problems with the abuse of illicit drugs and alcohol.
The fearlessness hypothesis states they psychopaths have a higher fear threshold, or the frightening things for most people, like a burning building, or gunshots, have little effect on these individuals. It is possible there is no association with certain stimuli or cues with punishment or danger, such as an alarm going off.
Psychopaths do not show normal anxiety reactions when anticipating a punishment response and they were slow at learning how to stop responding when punishment was inevitable.
They were unable to avoid punishment because they have problems learning how to properly respond to anxiety-producing situations. Impulsive behaviors are unrestrained because the individuals do not successfully avoid punishment.
These inhibited responses that can be learned in the face of cues that signal upcoming punishment or also known as passive avoidance earning, and appears to be deficient in psychopaths and in individuals with ASPD.
A behavioral activation stem may, at the least, be normal, and at the most, be overactive in avoiding the punishment by any means necessary. Psychopaths are persistent in situations where failure is likely, so they set sites on a goal and very little if anything will stop him or her from attaining their goal.
The majority of people who have a substance use disorder in conjuncture with ASPD are not sociopathic except as a result of their addiction.
Most people that are diagnosed with ASPD are not true psychopaths.
Individuals with ASPD violate the rights of others through deceit or aggression.
They will lie repeatedly or will con other people for profit or pleasure.
They are impulsive and lack the ability to plan ahead.
Their behavior will generally be irresponsible, they will often be irritable, and they will often get into physical fights.
An important criterion is that they will be indifferent to having hurt or mistreated another person, or they will rationalize this behavior.
They are also unable to hold down a steady job and will often renege on financial commitments or steal from others.
Substance Use Among People with ASPD
They use substances in a polydrug pattern, meaning more than one drug at a time, involving alcohol, marijuana, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine.
The illicit drug culture can correspond with their view of the world as fast-paced and dramatic, which helps to support their need for a heightened self-image.
(SAMHSA, 2009)
Child vs. Adult Presentation
The disorder cannot be diagnosed until the age of 18, but symptoms must be present before the age of fifteen and diagnosed as Conduct Disorder. Studies show that 60% of all children who suffer from Conduct Disorder will later develop ASPD. It is when Conduct Disorder is left undiagnosed and untreated that it is most likely to develop into ASPD.
The rates of ASPD are much higher for young adults than for older adults.
A well known notion about ASPD is that these disorders begin early on in a child's life. The greater the number of antisocial behaviors the child demonstrates, the more likely that child will develop ASPD later on in life. This is the single best predictor of developing ASPD or psychopathy. Conduct disorder is closely related in behaviors, such as theft, truancy, and school discipline problems.
Gender and Cultural Differences in Presentation
Men are more likely than women to be diagnosed with ASPD. Studies show that about 3% of males and about 1% of females receive this diagnosis.
Women are more likely to be misdiagnosed as Borderline Personality Disorder (SAMHSA, 2009).
Determining the type and extent of antisocial symptoms for women is not easy, but it is important due to the high prevalence of neglectful parenting in women with substance use disorders and ASPD (SAMHSA, 2009).
Studies also show that in clinical settings, the prevalence rate of ASPD ranges anywhere from 3 to 30 percent of the clinical population, with an increased prevalence with substance abuse facilities and prisons.
ASPD rates are much higher among young adults than older adults.
Culture seems to play a large role in the prevalence rates of Antisocial Personality Disorder.
For example, in Taiwan the prevalence rate is 0.14% while in Canada it is 3.7%. The only reasonable explanation for the lower rate in Taiwan is that the Taiwanese report antisocial behaviors more often than other countries.
In contrast, Taiwan has a lower prevalence rate than the countries surrounding it. Studies show that rates in Hong Kong and South Korea are similar to those in the U.S. and Europe; studies also show that the countries with high rates in ASPD also have high rates in other disorders with which there is typically co-morbidity. This disorder is more common among individuals with a relatively low socioeconomic status within their culture.
Epidemiology
3% of males and about 1% of females in community samples show Antisocial Personality Disorder. Clinical settings can have between a 3% to 30% prevalence rate depending on the characteristics of the populations being sampled.
Higher rates are seen with substance abuse treatment settings and forensic or prison setting. In the male prison populations, 20% or more have Antisocial PD (SAMHSA, 2009).
Most recent epidemiology studies put prevalence rates in the general population between 1% and 4%, and prevalence in an outpatient psychiatric setting at around 3% to 4%.
The course is chronic, but the disorder may become less evident or remit with age, especially about age 40. This remission tends to be particularly evident regarding criminal behavior, though there is likely a decrease in the full spectrum of behavior.
10 to 20% of homeless women, and 20 to 25% of homeless men receive diagnosis of Antisocial PD (SAMHSA, 2009).
34.7% of alcoholics, 27% of heroin addicts, 30.4% of cocaine addicts have Antisocial Personality Disorder
The percentage is in the mid 40s for those addicted to 2 of the 3 drugs listed above.
59.8% of those addicted to all 3 of the drugs have Antisocial Personality Disorder
(SAMHSA, 2009)
Etiology
Little is known about the causes of Antisocial Personality Disorder. There are several factors which complicate detecting the cause.
First, most individuals with this disorder do not perceive any fault within themselves and, therefore, will not seek out clinical assistance.
Another reason is because many of the disorders dealing with personality are similar to one another, making it difficult to differentiate one disorder from another.
There seems to be a strong genetic link to ASPD development and criminality.
Although researchers aren’t entirely sure, they do believe that genetics have something to do with the development of Antisocial Personality Disorder.
Even though some researchers believe that genetics has some to do with a person developing ASPD, they mainly believe that a person’s environment is the main cause.
One perspective looks at the parents for answers. Studies have shown that parents who passively give in to their children's whims and do not take disciplinary action can aid in the development of antisocial personalities. Their children may perceive their parents behavior as uncaring and will continue to behave poorly because they have not been conditioned to behave otherwise.
They often exhibit signs of antisocial behavior from 15 to 18 years of age, such as unlawful behavior, deceitfulness, consistent irresponsibility, and lack of remorse.
Evidence of similar behaviors even before the age of 15.
When antisocial behavior occurs without any signs of it during adolescence, the DSM-IV diagnosis is Adult Antisocial Behavior.
A history of childhood abuse, including harsh and neglectful care giving, is believed to result in the adult individual with ASPD neglecting others' needs and feelings.
Some suggest that individuals with ASPD exhibited difficult temperaments in childhood, eliciting hostile reactions in caregivers and reinforcing withdrawal from others.
Developmental examinations of ASPD suggest that children who are repeatedly rejected by their normative peer group and who are more involved in deviant peer groups are more likely to develop ASPD.
Also, the under-arousal hypothesis is given credit in that it states that individuals with personality disorders, in general, including ASPD have low levels of arousal in their brain's cortex and is one reason why these individuals exhibit antisocial behaviors.
More research has been conducted on ASPD than any other Personality Disorder.
Environmental factors help to influence the development of psychopathy, criminal behavior and other conditions.
The fearlessness hypothesis states they psychopaths have a higher fear threshold, or the frightening things for most people, like a burning building, or gunshots, have little effect on these individuals. It is possible there is no association with certain stimuli or cues with punishment or danger, such as an alarm going off.
Psychopaths do not show normal anxiety reactions when anticipating a punishment response and they were slow at learning how to stop responding when punishment was inevitable.
Inability to avoid punishment because of problems learning how to properly respond to anxiety-producing situations.
Impulsive behaviors are unrestrained because the individuals do not successfully avoid punishment.
These inhibited responses that can be learned in the face of cues that signal upcoming punishment or also known as passive avoidance learning, and appears to be deficient in psychopaths and in individuals with ASPD.
Empirically supported treatments
There is currently no permanent treatment for Antisocial Personality Disorder.
As stated above, individuals with ASPD rarely see themselves as having a problem and are not motivated to enter treatment willingly.
Many therapists do not see significant improvement throughout the course of counseling, as the patients tend to be manipulative and uncooperative.
The patients have also been known to fake improvement in order to end their treatment.
Even if treatment is successful for a patient, relapse is very likely to occur shortly after treatment sessions have ceased.
ASPD is still not completely understood, so the use of medications is not yet a safe treatment option.
Also, since ASPD is resistant to treatment; suicide, alcoholism, vagrancy, and social isolation are very common among these patients.
Antisocial personality disorder is highly unresponsive to any form of treatment, in part because persons with APD rarely seek treatment voluntarily. If they do seek help, it is usually in an attempt to find relief from depression or other forms of emotional distress. Although there are medications that are effective in treating some of the symptoms of the disorder, noncompliance with medication regimens or abuse of the drugs prevents the widespread use of these medications.
The most successful treatment programs for APD are long-term structured residential settings in which the patient systematically earns privileges as he or she modifies behavior. In other words, if a person diagnosed with APD is placed in an environment in which they cannot victimize others, their behavior may improve. It is unlikely, however, that they would maintain good behavior if they left the disciplined environment.
If some form of individual psychotherapy is provided along with behavior modification techniques, the therapist's primary task is to establish a relationship with the patient, who has usually had very few healthy relationships in his or her life and is unable to trust others. The patient should be given the opportunity to establish positive relationships with as many people as possible and be encouraged to join self-help groups or prosocial reform organizations.
Unfortunately, these approaches are rarely if ever effective. Many persons with APD use therapy sessions to learn how to turn "the system" to their advantage. Their pervasive pattern of manipulation and deceit extends to all aspects of their life, including therapy. Generally, their behavior must be controlled in a setting where they know they have no chance of getting around the rules.
Counseling Tips for Clients with Antisocial Personality Disorders (SAMHSA, 2009)
Corral:
Allow clients to experience consequences of their behavior
Designate positive consequences for pro-social behavior
Prognosis
APD usually follows a chronic and unremitting course from childhood or early adolescence into adult life. The impulsiveness that characterizes the disorder often leads to a jail sentence or an early death through accident, homicide or suicide . There is some evidence that the worst behaviors that define APD diminish by midlife; the more overtly aggressive symptoms of the disorder occur less frequently in older patients. This improvement is especially true of criminal behavior but may apply to other antisocial acts as well.
Prevention
Measures intended to prevent antisocial personality disorder must begin with interventions in early childhood, before youths are at risk for developing conduct disorder. Preventive strategies include education for parenthood and other programs intended to lower the incidence of child abuse; Big Brother/Big Sister and similar mentoring programs to provide children at risk with adult role models of responsible and prosocial behavior; and further research into the genetic factors involved in APD.
ASPD and Brain Structures
There is a subtle structural deficit in the prefrontal cortex of uninstitutionalized antisocial, violent persons with psychopathic-like behavior who live in community settings
There is a much less observable volume reductions specific to the prefrontal gray matter that is associated with APD
APD had a 11% reduction in prefrontal gray matter when compared to a control group, a 13.9% reduction when compared to a substance-dependent group, and a 14% reduction when compared to a psychiatric control group
APD also have reduced autonomic activity during social stressors
Those with APD who also had reduced prefrontal gray matter volume also had lower skin conductance activity during social stressors
Prefrontal cortex is part of a neural circuit that plays a central role in fear conditioning and stress responsivity
Poor conditioning is theorized to be associated with poor development of the conscience, and those who are less autonomically responsive to aversive stimuli such as social criticism during childhood would be less susceptible to socializing punishments, and hence become predisposed to antisocial behavior
Antisocial groups show poor fear conditioning
Prefrontal cortex is involved in the regulation of arousal, and deficits in autonomic and central nervous system arousal in antisocial persons have been viewed as facilitating a stimulation-seeking, antisocial behavioral response to compensate for such under arousal
Patients with prefrontal damage fail to give anticipatory autonomic response to choice options that are risky, and make bad choices even when they are aware of the more advantageous response option
Inability to reason and decide advantageously in risky situations is likely to contribute to the impulsivity, rule breaking, and reckless, irresponsible behavior that make up 4 of the 7 traits of APD
Previous research has shown that patients with major damage to the prefrontal cortex show dysregulation of cognition, emotion, and behavior, which predisposes to antisociality
Those who are antisocial have visually imperceptible but meaningful and significant reductions in prefrontal gray matter volume in addition to psycho-physiological deficits in emotion reacitivity
It is unlikely that only one brain mechanism is compromised in APD
Functional imaging has indicated multiple cortical and subcortical deficits in violent offenders
Limitations
It is possible that it is only those substance abusers who also have APD who show the prefrontal deficit since substance abusers have been shown to have lower than normal prefrontal gray matter volumes
No study of gray matter volume loss in schizophrenia has controlled for crime and violence
Only men were assessed, so cannot be generalized to women
Only an association has been shown, not any causality
Does not delineate which subregion of the prefrontal cortex is particularly reduced in volume
It is predicted that the orbitofrontal region would be the most impaired and the dorsolateral region relatively spared
(Raine, Lencz, Bihrle, LaCasse, & Colletti, 2000)
Portrayed in Popular Culture
Anarchy is his guiding philosophy
Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter
He is a classic model of a conduct disorder case developing into Antisocial Personality Disorder
DSM-V Changes
Reformulated as the Antisocial/Psychopathic Type
Individuals who match this personality disorder type are arrogant and self-centered, and feel privileged and entitled. They have a grandiose, exaggerated sense of self-importance and they are primarily motivated by self-serving goals.
They seek power over others and will manipulate, exploit, deceive, con, or otherwise take advantage of others, in order to inflict harm or to achieve their goals.
They are callous and have little empathy for others’ needs or feelings unless they coincide with their own. They show disregard for the rights, property, or safety of others and experience little or no remorse or guilt if they cause any harm or injury to others.
They may act aggressively or sadistically toward others in pursuit of their personal agendas and appear to derive pleasure or satisfaction from humiliating, demeaning dominating, or hurting others.
They also have the capacity for superficial charm and ingratiation when it suits their purposes.
They profess and demonstrate minimal investment in conventional moral principles and they tend to disavow responsibility for their actions and to blame others for their own failures and shortcomings.
Individuals with this personality type are temperamentally aggressive and have a high threshold for pleasurable excitement. They engage in reckless sensation-seeking behaviors, tend to act impulsively without fear or regard for consequences, and feel immune or invulnerable to adverse outcomes of their actions.
Their emotional expression is mostly limited to irritability, anger, and hostility; acknowledgment and articulation of other emotions, such as love or anxiety, are rare.
They have little insight into their motivations and are unable to consider alternative interpretations of their experiences.
Individuals with this disorder often engage in unlawful and criminal behavior and may abuse alcohol and drugs. Extremely pathological types may also commit acts of physical violence in order to intimidate, dominate, and control others.
They may be generally unreliable or irresponsible about work obligations or financial commitments and often have problems with authority figures.
(APA, 2010)
For More Information, Please Read:
Luntz, B.K., & Widom, C.S. (1994). Antisocial personality disorder in abused and neglected children grown up. American Journal of Psychiatry, 151(5), 670-675.
Links
Becky describes what it feels like to live with BPD
DSM-IV-TR criteria
A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts. This is indicated by having 5 or more of the following characteristics:
Being frantic to avoid abandonment, either real or imagined
NOTE: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
A pattern of intense, unstable interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extreme variances of idealization and devaluation
Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self
Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating).
NOTE: Do not include suicidal or self mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats, or self-mutilating behavior
Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)
Chronic feelings of emptiness
Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms
Associated features
One of the most prominent features is instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects.
Severe instability can be seen in their fluctuating views and feelings about him or herself. They often feel really good about themselves, their progress, and their futures to only have a seemingly minor experience turn their world upside-down with concomitant plunging self-esteem and depressing hopelessness (SAMHSA, 2009).
Another prominent feature is marked impulsivity that begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts.
Individuals with BPD will often give up on something just before the goal is attained.
It is often difficult to maintain relationships, a job, or educational goals since their basic instability extends to work and school.
Psychotic-like symptoms may occur when an individual is under stress. These symptoms include hallucinations, body-image distortions, ideas of reference, and hypnagogic phenomena.
They typically don't do well with personal relationships and may feel more comfortable with pets or inanimate objects. If they do have relationships, they are unstable, with reports of how wonderful an individual is one day and then the next expressions of intense anger, disapproval, condemnation, and even hate towards the same person (SAMHSA, 2009).
The risk of suicidal, self-mutilating, and/or brief psychotic states increases when they are experiencing an emotional state that they cannot handle (SAMHSA, 2009).
The risk for suicide increases when the individual also has a co-occurring Mood or Substance Related Disorder.
10 percent of adults with BPD commit suicide
A person with BPD has a suicide rate 400 times greater than the general public
33 percent of youth who commit suicide have features of BPD
(Kreger, 2008)
Patients suspected of BPD also exhibit symptoms of Depressive mood disorders, addictions to various things from drugs to binge eating, and Anti-Social Behaviors. Other co-morbid disorders include Mood, Substance Related, Eating, Post-Traumatic Stress, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity, and other Personality Disorders.
To the sufferer, BPD is about deep feelings, such as:
If others really get to know me, they will find me rejectable and will not be able to love me and will leave me
I need to have complete control of my feelings otherwise things go completely wrong
I have to adapt my needs to other people's wishes, otherwise they will leave me or attack me
I am an evil person and I need to be punished for it
Other people are evil and abuse you
If someone fails to keep a promise, that person can no longer be trusted
If I trust someone, I run a great risk of getting hurt or disappointed
If you comply with someones request, you run the risk of losing yourself
If you refuse someones request, you run the risk of losing that person
I will always be alone
I can't manage by myself, I need someone I can fall back on
There is no one who really cares about me, who will be available to help me, and whom I can fall back on
I don't really know what I want
I will never get what I want
I'm powerless and vulnerable and I can't protect myself
I have no control of myself
I can't discipline myself
They make fruitless efforts to persuade
their BP to get professional help
Major issues include high-conflict divorce
and custody cases
Substance Use Among People with BPD
They are often skilled in seeking multiple sources of medication that they favor, such as benzodiazepines.
They associate drugs with social interactions and use the same drugs of choice, method of administration, and frequency as the individuals that they interact with.
They often use substances in a chaotic and unpredictable pattern.
Polydrug use is common and may involve alcohol and other sedative-hypnotics taken for self-medication.
A the beginning of a crisis episode, they will often take a drink or use a different drug in order to subside the growing sense of tension or loss of control.
They usually have big appetites, and they often experience powerful, emotion-driven needs for something outside of themselves, such as drugs.
When they stop using drugs, they are extraordinarily vulnerable to meeting their needs through other compulsive behaviors.
Some of these behaviors include:
compulsive sexual behavior
other out of control behaviors that result in negative or even dangerous consequences
(SAMHSA, 2009)
Hitler as an example:
The DSM-IV-TR describes Borderline Personality Disorder as a “pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five or more symptoms.
The first symptom is frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
The second is a pattern of unstable and intense, interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. When we look at most of the relationships in Hitler’s life, Gustl, Geli, Eva, they go back and forth between stable and rocky. He somewhat cares, he does not care at all, he is happy with them, he is angry with them, he loves them, he hates them. This back and forth happens quite often throughout all of those relationship.
The third symptom is identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self. At times Hitler thought he was the greatest most prominent person in the world but others he thought of himself as a worthless failure. We can look at the period of trying to be an artist as an example, or the episode with the German film star. These switches between security were often.
The fourth is impulsivity in at least two area that are potentially self-damaging.
Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats, or self-mutilating behaviors is the fifth symptom.
The sixth symptom is the affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood such as an intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety. Hitler had affective instability quite often. At any given moment Hitler could ‘fly off the handle’ so to speak in fits of rage.
The seventh symptom is chronic feelings of emptiness.
The eighth is inappropriate intense anger or difficulty controlling anger. Like previously stated, Hitler had anger problem which he could not control. There are accounts in which Hitler has been reported not just yelling but throwing objects in his fits of rage.
The ninth and last symptom is transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or sever dissociative symptoms. Hitler was paranoid about a number of things. He was paranoid that people were out to get him. He was paranoid that the Jewish people were responsible for the evil, negative ambiance, and downfall of Germany. He was a hypochondriac who was paranoid that he was sick and had cancer any time something felt wrong or he was around a person he thought to be sick.
Hitler displayed five of the nine symptoms. If there were knowledge about psychology in Hitler’s time like there is knowledge now, Hitler may have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.
(Kershaw, 2008)
Child vs. Adult Presentation
It should be noted that the DSM is not currently modified to diagnose patients under 18 with BPD. The generally accepted modifications to diagnosing underage patients are exhibitions of disruptive behavioral problems, and mood and anxiety symptoms. Adolescents and young adults with identity problems may display behaviors that could be mistaken as Borderline Personality Disorder. Such situations are characterized by emotional instability, anxiety-provoking choices, uncertainty, and dilemmas.
Gender and Cultural Differences in Presentation
BPD is diagnosed most often in females (about 75%).
There have been some studies which suggest that women with BPD are more likely to have eating disorders, as well as histories involving sexual or physical abuse that qualify them for PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).
These studies also suggest that men are more likely to abuse substances, and have more defined antisocial personalities.
1 out of every 4 people with BPD are male (Kreger, 2008)
We know very little about how BPD expresses itself in men or if treatment programs designed for women are as effective for men (Kreger, 2008)
Men won't seek treatment
They see it as "unmanly" to acknowledge feelings, especially the vulnerability and abandonment fears associated with BPD
(Kreger, 2008)
Borderline Personality Disorder affects about 1 to 2 percent of the population
Recent research is showing that this number is much higher (Kreger, 2008)
It is much more highly represented in the clinical population
About 10 percent of outpatients and about 20 percent of inpatients in psychiatric settings are diagnosed with this disorder.
About 75 percent of those diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder are females.
Five times more common in first degree relatives of affected persons
The course is decidedly variable. The most common pattern is of chronic instability in early adulthood, with episodes of affective and impulsive dyscontrol and high levels of the use of health resources. Impairment and the risk of suicide are greatest in young adults and decrease with age. the tendency toward intense emotions, impulsivity, and intensity in relationships is often lifelong, though these areas improve with intervention within the first year. Greater stability is often attained during the 30s and 40s.
Etiology
The actual cause or root of the disorder is not known.
It is commonly believed that because the symptoms are long-lasting, that the symptoms primarily manifest in early adolescence, and may not show negative consequences until early adulthood.
People with symptoms may have a history of unstable relationships and sexual/physical abuse or neglect.
It also appears that a serotonin deficiency may be involved in the development of Borderline Personality Disorder.
This could possibly explain why these individuals engage in self-mutilation and why these individuals are impulsive, especially when it comes to aggressive behavior.
Other research has implicated an irregularity of non adrenaline.
Research also indicates that dopamine has been implicated in the etiology of Borderline Personality Disorder, which can be related to the fact that some borderline individuals demonstrate psychotic symptoms that are temporary.
Research indicates that a complex interaction of environmental and genetic factors likely contributes to the presence of BPD. One environmental factor hypothesized to contribute to BPD has been pathological child experiences leading to trauma as indicated by a co-occurring diagnosis of PTSD.
Another suggestion is that BPD is a dysfunction in the emotional regulations system that results from a combination of biological predisposition and environmental factors.
There is also considerable research indicating that early childhood abuse such as emotional and verbal abuse maybe implicated in individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder, which account for 90% of individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder.
Older people with BPD
Experts differ on whether people with BPD "grow out of BPD" when they get into their fifties and above
Popular thinking is that they do
More research needs to be done on this
(Kreger, 2008)
She is a woman of many moods and traumas
Her alter-ego, Selina Kyle, is typical of the impulsivity characterized by Borderline Personalities
Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter
Has expressed feelings of loneliness and abandonment mixed with the occasionally warm approach
Has very dramatic mood swings
Diagnostic Tests
Diagnostic Interview for Borderline Patients (DIB-R)
The Diagnostic Interview for Borderline Patients (DIB-R) is the best-known "test" for diagnosing BPD. The DIB is a semi structured clinical interview that takes about 50-90 minutes to administer. The test, developed to be administered by skilled clinicians, consist of 132 questions and observation using 329 summary statements. The test looks at areas of functioning that are associated with borderline personality disorder. The four areas of functioning include Affect (chronic/major depression, helplessness, hopelessness, worthlessness, guilt, anger, anxiety, loneliness, boredom, emptiness), Cognition (odd thinking, unusual perceptions, nondelusional paranoia, quasipsychosis), Impulse action patterns (substance abuse/dependence, sexual deviance, manipulative suicide gestures, other impulsive behaviors), and Interpersonal relationships (intolerance of aloneness, abandonment, engulfment, annihilation fears, counterdependency, stormy relationships, manipulativeness, dependency, devaluation, masochism/sadism, demandingness, entitlement). The test is available at no charge by contacting John Gunderson M.D. McLean Hospital in Belmont Massachusetts (617-855-2293).
Structured Clinical Interview (SCID-II)
The Structured Clinical Interview (now SCID-II) was formulated in 1997 by First, Gibbon, Spitzer, Williams, and Benjamin. It closely follows the language of the DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders criteria. There are 12 groups of questions corresponding to the 12 personality disorders. The scoring is either the trait is absent, subthreshold, true, or there is "inadequate information to code". SCID-II can be self administered or administered by third parties (a spouse, an informant, a colleague) and yield decent indications of the disorder. The questionnaire is available from the American Psychiatric Publishing for $60.00.
Personality Disorder Beliefs Questionnaire (PDBQ)
The Personality Disorder Beliefs Questionnaire (PDBQ) is a brief self administered test for Personality Disorder tendencies.
Other
Other commonly used assessment tests are rating tests such as the Zanarini Rating Scale for Borderline Personality Disorder (ZAN-BPD), and the McLean Screening Instrument for Borderline Personality Disorder (MSI-BPD). In addition there are some free, informal tests available.
(Facing the Facts, 2010)
Empirically Supported Treatments
Borderline individuals remain some of the most difficult to treat effectively in therapeutic situations, whether they are outpatient or inpatient. Personality traits are not left at entrance, so they are quite visible during treatment.
DSM-V Changes
Reformulated as Borderline Type
Individuals who match this personality disorder type have an extremely fragile self-concept that is easily disrupted and fragmented under stress and results in the experience of a lack of identity or chronic feelings of emptiness. As a result, they have an impoverished and/or unstable self structure and difficulty maintaining enduring intimate relationships.
Self-appraisal is often associated with self-loathing, rage, and despondency.
Individuals with this disorder experience rapidly changing, intense, unpredictable, and reactive emotions and can become extremely anxious or depressed. They may also become angry or hostile, and feel misunderstood, mistreated, or victimized.
They may engage in verbal or physical acts of aggression when angry.
Emotional reactions are typically in response to negative interpersonal events involving loss or disappointment.
Relationships are based on the fantasy of the need for others for survival, excessive dependency, and a fear of rejection and/or abandonment.
Dependency involves both insecure attachment, expressed as difficulty tolerating aloneness; intense fear of loss, abandonment, or rejection by significant others; and urgent need for contact with significant others when stressed or distressed, accompanied sometimes by highly submissive, subservient behavior.
At the same time, intense, intimate involvement with another person often leads to a fear of loss of an identity as an individual. Thus, interpersonal relationships are highly unstable and alternate between excessive dependency and flight from involvement.
Empathy for others is severely impaired.
Core emotional traits and interpersonal behaviors may be associated with cognitive dysregulation, i.e., cognitive functions may become impaired at times of interpersonal stress leading to information processing in a concrete, black-and white, all-or-nothing manner.
Quasi-psychotic reactions, including paranoia and dissociation, may progress to transient psychosis. Individuals with this type are characteristically impulsive, acting on the spur of the moment, and frequently engage in activities with potentially negative consequences.
Deliberate acts of self-harm (e.g., cutting, burning), suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts typically occur in the context of intense distress and dysphoria, particularly in the context of feelings of abandonment when an important relationship is disrupted.
Intense distress may also lead to other risky behaviors, including substance misuse, reckless driving, binge eating, or promiscuous sex.
Prognosis
The disorder usually peaks in young adulthood and frequently stabilizes after age 30.
Approximately 75–80% of borderline patients attempt or threaten suicide , and between 8–10% are successful.
If the borderline patient suffers from depressive disorder, the risk of suicide is much higher. For this reason, swift diagnosis and appropriate interventions are critical.
Remitted borderline patients were significantly less likely than non-remitted borderline patients to meet criteria for a number of other personality disorders, mostly anxious cluster disorders
BPD decreases significantly over time, especially for remitted borderline patients
(Zanarini, Frankenburg, Vujanovic, Hennen, Reich, & Silk, 2004)
The most co-occurring personality disorders declined significantly over time
Three exceptions were avoidant, dependent, and self-defeating PDs
Anxious cluster of disorders are the Axis II disorders that are most strongly associated with BPD failing to remit
(Zanarini et al., 2004)
There may be subtypes of BPD patients and some of these subtypes are most likely to remit in the short- to mid-term, making them less temperamentally impaired than those whose borderline pathology remains relatively constant
Treatment aimed at these subtypes needs to be developed
(Zanarini et al., 2004)
Prevention
Prevention recommendations are scarce. The disorder may be genetic and not preventable. The only known prevention would be to ensure a safe and nurturing environment during childhood
Medications
Medication is not considered a first-line treatment choice, but may be useful in treating some symptoms of the disorder and/or the mood disorders that have been diagnosed in conjunction with BPD. Recent clinical studies indicate that naltrexone may be helpful in relieving physical discomfort related to dissociative episodes
No FDA-approved medication exists for BPD (although many medications are used to treat the symptoms (Kreger, 2008)
Medications Studied and Used in the Treatment of Borderline Disorder (Kreger, 2008)
ANTIPSYCHOTICS
unstable mood, anxiety, depression, anger, irritability, impulsivity,
aggression, suicidality, poor general functioning
Economic Impact
Up to 40 percent of high users of mental health services have BPD
More than 50% of individuals with BPD are severely impaired in emplyability, with a resulting burden on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), and Medicaid and Medicare
12 percent of men and 28 percent of women in prison have BPD
(Kreger, 2008)
Information for the Family
Facing the Facts when a loved one has Borderline Personality Disorder
To the family members, BPD behavior is frustrating, and can feel unfair. Some common thoughts are:
You have been viewed as overly good and then overly bad
You have been the focus of unprovoked anger or hurtful actions, alternating with periods when the family member acts perfectly normal and very loving
Things that you have said or done have been twisted and used against you
You are accused of things you never did or said
You often find yourself defending and justifying your intentions
you find yourself concealing what you think or feel because you are not heard
You feel manipulated, controlled, and sometimes lied to
(Facing the Facts, 2010)
For More Information, Please Read:
Linehan, M.M. (1993). Skills training manual for treating borderline personality disorder. New York: Guilford Press.
Kreger, R. (2008). The essential family guide to borderline personality disorder: New tools and techniques to stop walking on eggshells. Center City, Minnesota: Hazeldon Publishing.
Links
301.50 Histrionic Personality Disorder
What is a person with Histrionic Personality Disorder like?
The majority of cases of Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD) are female. They may initially seem like average girls or young women, as their excessive focus on physicality can be seen in more reasonable quantities in most young ladies. At first this person may seem simply a little scattered, a little shallow, and a tad self-centered. However, a person with HPD exhibits far more than the normal amounts of all of these traits. Use of phrases that are ambiguous is frequent. "It was just like, you know, weird" would be a normative statement, or even "it was just like . . . you know?" This vague speech encompasses most of life, especially in regards to emotions and any cognitions. For example, one may see they have a distaste for something, and when inquiring as to why, simply get the response, "because it's bad/yucky" or "I just don't like it!" In this way, a person with HPD can often seem almost childlike in their speech patterns, as though they cannot introspect well enough to discern a more accurate description, or are too distracted or disinterested to even attempt to do so.
However, this vagueness does not mean they are unsure. People with HPD tend to be very sure of everything they think and do, even if what they think and feel changes moment to moment. This confidence can be seen in many of their actions, though they are often more than happy to act meek if it will acquire them attention. This confidence in the truth of their opinions seems to lead to them expressing emotions as if they are incredibly severe. Though it is often debated whether the person with HPD experiences emotions more intensely, or simply reports them as more intense; we normally see expression of incredibly powerful emotions, but short lived, and very shallow. Though the term shallow may sound odd when referring to an emotion, when one converses with a person with HPD it usually becomes abundantly clear rather quickly. There is very little subtlety or shades of grey to the emotional spectrum of a person with HPD. If they are sad, they are distraught and the entire world is in peril; when they are happy, they are ecstatic, and euphoria barely expresses the joy they feel. In this way, such things as 'bittersweet' or simply doing pleasantly seems to be outside of the person with HPD's realm of experience. Even emotions like envy, which are distinct to most people, seem to get subsumed into a broader emotion, such as anger. And where an average person may be irritable with someone, a person with HPD often skips straight to blind rage, and will start a fight or throw a tantrum in response.
This extremity of expression is seen also in their conceptions, or at least their reports on their conceptions, of interpersonal relationships. A person is an enemy, or they are thick as thieves. A person with HPD may refer to you as their BFF (best friend forever) after only a couple of meetings. After four meetings, they may express that not only are they in love with you, you are in love with them! This confidence may seem to overlap with narcissistic personality disorder in many ways, and in this single aspect, the two do have similarities, but expression in other symptoms is much more specific in HPD.
But, like the better known Narcissistic PD, people with HPD also crave the spotlight. They love, almost need to be the focal point of at least one person's attention at any given time, but the more, the better. Where the two disorders differ, is that HPD sufferers almost exclusively use physical attractiveness and sexuality to gain this attention. Though sometimes they resort to emotionality, often in the form of temper tantrums, more often than not they take on the role of seductress. A young lady with HPD may think nothing of taking off her shirt in a room full of people if she felt that focus was shifting somewhere else. Once again, though many people enjoy being the center of attention, and many normal young women may use their bodies or sensuality to become the center of attention (see the average spring break videos), these behaviors are exaggerated, more frequent, and occur in less appropriate situations in a person with HPD.
DSM-IV-TR criteria
A pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five or more of the following:
Uncomfortable in situations where he or she is not the center of attention.
Interactions with others are often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior.
Displays rapid shifting and shallow expressions of emotions.
Consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to self.
Has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail
shows self dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion
is suggestible, i.e., easily influenced by others or circumstances
Consider relationships more intimate than they actually are.
Associated features
Individuals have many emotional ups and downs. When not the center of attention in a social setting, individuals will find obvious ways to gain that attention back. They often, although unaware of it, act out a certain role, such as "victim" or "princess." They often have trouble with their relationships with same-sex friends because of their sexually provocative style, and they may alienate friends because of their constant need for attention. They often easily become bored with routine and are frustrated by situations that involve delayed gratification. They use flirtatious or sexually provocative behavior to get what they want, usually attention from others. The cognitive style of individuals with HPD is superficial and lacks detail. In their inter-personal relationships, individuals with HPD use dramatization with a goal of impressing others. The enduring pattern of their insincere and stormy relationships leads to impairment in social and occupational areas (Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders).
Treatment for patients is difficult ultimately because most who suffer from HPD don’t seek treatment because symptoms don’t usually interfere with daily life.
Child vs. adult presentation
HPD doesn’t show development until the teenage years, approximately 15 years of age. Treatment for sufferers is usually amongst the more mature age groups, generally in the early 40’s.
Gender and cultural differences in presentation
Women are more likely to have HPD than men. Registered cases show that 65% are women and 35% are men that suffer from Histrionic Personality Disorder. Women tend to be over diagnosed with this disorder. This is largely due to our culture. If a man brags about his accomplishment it is seen as being macho, If a woman seeks the same kind of attention, she is diagnosed with Histrionic Personality Disorder.
According to the Encyclopedia of Mental Disordersm HPD appears primarily in men and women with above-average physical appearances. Some research has suggested that the connection between HPD and physical appearance holds for women rather than for men. Both women and men with HPD express a strong need to be the center of attention.
HPD may be diagnosed more frequently in Hispanic and Latin-American cultures and less frequently in Asian cultures. Further research is needed on the effects of culture upon the symptoms of HPD.
Epidemiology
HPD affects an estimated 1-2% of the general population, whereas only 1% are involved in outpatient programs.
Prevalence rates are 10 to 15% in mental health settings (SAMHSA, 2009).
The lower prevalence rate is psychiatric settings may be understood in the context of the culturally adaptive qualities associated with the sex role stereotypes found in individuals with HPD.
No evidence of significant familial patterns. (Not necessarily a genetic link).
10 to 15% of those in substance abuse treatment settings have HPD (SAMHSA, 2009).
Dual diagnoses
HPD has been associated with alcoholism and with higher rates of somatization disorder , conversion disorder , and major depressive disorder . Personality disorders such as borderline, narcissistic, antisocial, and dependent can occur with HPD.
Etiology
The development of HPD illustrates a complicated interaction of biological predispositions and environmental responses. The temperament of extroversion and emotional expressiveness that underlie the character of an individual with HPD are recognized as having biological components. These factors interact with a lack of caregiver attention during formative years that led the child to develop strategies of attention grabbing presentation and shallow interaction that would elicit attention and connection
Neurochemical/Physiological Causes:
Studies show that patients with HPD have highly responsive noradrenergic systems, the mechanisms surrounding the release of a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that communicate impulses from one nerve cell to another in the brain , and these impulses dictate behavior. The tendency towards an excessively emotional reaction to rejection, common among patients with HPD, may be attributed to a malfunction in a group of neurotransmitters called catecholamines. (Norepinephrine belongs to this group of neurotransmitters.)
Deveolpmental Causes:
Psychoanalytic theory, developed by Freud, outlines a series of psychosexual stages of development through which each individual passes. These stages determine an individual's later psychological development as an adult. Early psychoanalysts proposed that the genital phase, Freud's fifth or last stage of psychosexual development, is a determinant of HPD. Later psychoanalysts considered the oral phase, Freud's first stage of psychosexual development, to be a more important determinant of HPD. Most psychoanalysts agree that a traumatic childhood contributes towards the development of HPD. Some theorists suggest that the more severe forms of HPD derive from disapproval in the early mother-child relationship.
Defense Mechanisms:
Another component of Freud's theory, defense mechanisms are sets of systematic, unconscious methods that people develop to cope with conflict and to reduce anxiety. According to Freud's theory, all people use defense mechanisms, but different people use different types of defense mechanisms. Individuals with HPD differ in the severity of the maladaptive defense mechanisms they use. Patients with more severe cases of HPD may utilize the defense mechanisms of repression, denial , and dissociation.
Repression.
Repression is the most basic defense mechanism. When patients' thoughts produce anxiety or are unacceptable to them, they use repression to bar the unacceptable thoughts or impulses from consciousness.
Denial.
Patients who use denial may say that a prior problem no longer exists, suggesting that their competence has increased; however, others may note that there is no change in the patients' behaviors.
Dissociation.
When patients with HPD use the defense mechanism of dissociation, they may display two or more personalities. These two or more personalities exist in one individual without integration. Patients with less severe cases of HPD tend to employ displacement and rationalization as defenses.
Displacement
occurs when a patient shifts an affect from one idea to another. For example, a man with HPD may feel angry at work because the boss did not consider him to be the center of attention. The patient may displace his anger onto his wife rather than become angry at his boss.
Rationalization
occurs when individuals explain their behaviors so that they appear to be acceptable to others.
Biosocial Learning Causes:
A biosocial model in psychology asserts that social and biological factors contribute to the development of personality. Biosocial learning models of HPD suggest that individuals may acquire HPD from inconsistent interpersonal reinforcement offered by parents. Proponents of biosocial learning models indicate that individuals with HPD have learned to get what they want from others by drawing attention to themselves.
Sociocultural Causes:
Studies of specific cultures with high rates of HPD suggest social and cultural causes of HPD. For example, some researchers would expect to find this disorder more often among cultures that tend to value uninhibited displays of emotion.
Personal Variables:
Researchers have found some connections between the age of individuals with HPD and the behavior displayed by these individuals. The symptoms of HPD are long-lasting; however, histrionic character traits that are exhibited may change with age. For example, research suggests that seductiveness may be employed more often by a young adult than by an older one. To impress others, older adults with HPD may shift their strategy from sexual seductiveness to a paternal or maternal seductiveness. Some histrionic symptoms such as attention-seeking, however, may become more apparent as an individual with HPD ages.
Prevention
Early diagnosis can assist patients and family members to recognize the pervasive pattern of reactive emotion among individuals with HPD. Educating people, particularly mental health professionals, about the enduring character traits of individuals with HPD may prevent some cases of mild histrionic behavior from developing into full-blown cases of maladaptive HPD. Further research in prevention needs to investigate the relationship between variables such as age, gender, culture, and ethnicity and HPD.
Empirically supported treatments
There are no known treatments for HPD, most patients use psychotherapy, but complications are commonly caused. Medication is not a wise decision due to the risk of the patient involving the medication in a self destructive way. There are no currently no self help groups for people with HPD. The exaggerated emotional activity of HPD patients tends them to develop relationships with their therapist, severely limiting a psychologist's ability to help a HPD patient.
Psychodynamic therapy:
HPD, like other personality disorders, may require several years of therapy and may affect individuals throughout their lives. Some professionals believe that psychoanalytic therapy is a treatment of choice for HPD because it assists patients to become aware of their own feelings. Long-term psychodynamic therapy needs to target the underlying conflicts of individuals with HPD and to assist patients in decreasing their emotional reactivity. Therapists work with thematic dream material related to intimacy and recall. Individuals with HPD may have difficulty recalling because of their tendency to repress material.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy:
Cognitive therapy is a treatment directed at reducing the dysfunctional thoughts of individuals with HPD. Such thoughts include themes about not being able to take care of oneself. Cognitive therapy for HPD focuses on a shift from global, suggestible thinking to a more methodical, systematic, and structured focus on problems. Cognitive-behavioral training in relaxation for an individual with HPD emphasizes challenging automatic thoughts about inferiority and not being able to handle one's life. Cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches individuals with HPD to identify automatic thoughts, to work on impulsive behavior, and to develop better problem-solving skills. Behavioral therapists employ assertiveness training to assist individuals with HPD to learn to cope using their own resources. Behavioral therapists use response cost to decrease the excessively dramatic behaviors of these individuals. Response cost is a behavioral technique that involves removing a stimulus from an individual's environment so that the response that directly precedes the removal is weakened. Behavioral therapy for HPD includes techniques such as modeling and behavioral rehearsal to teach patients about the effect of their theatrical behavior on others in a work setting.
Group therapy:
is suggested to assist individuals with HPD to work on interpersonal relationships. Psychodrama techniques or group role play can assist individuals with HPD to practice problems at work and to learn to decrease the display of excessively dramatic behaviors. Using role-playing, individuals with HPD can explore interpersonal relationships and outcomes to understand better the process associated with different scenarios. Group therapists need to monitor the group because individuals with HPD tend to take over and dominate others.
Family therapy:
To teach assertion rather than avoidance of conflict, family therapists need to direct individuals with HPD to speak directly to other family members. Family therapy can support family members to meet their own needs without supporting the histrionic behavior of the individual with HPD who uses dramatic crises to keep the family closely connected. Family therapists employ behavioral contracts to support assertive behaviors rather than temper tantrums.
Medications
Pharmacotherapy is not a treatment of choice for individuals with HPD unless HPD occurs with another disorder. For example, if HPD occurs with depression, antidepressants may be prescribed. Medication needs to be monitored for abuse.
Portrayed in Popular Culture
Individual diagnosed with Narcissistic PD discusses his disorder.
DSM-IV-TR criteria
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love (perfect marriage to the perfect spouse)
believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
requires excessive admiration
has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations ("You owe me because I'm that good")
is inter-personally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
Other Symptoms:
history of intense but short-term relationships with others; inability to make or sustain genuinely intimate relationships
a tendency to be attracted to leadership or high-profile positions or occupations
a pattern of alternating between unrealistic idealization of others and equally unrealistic devaluation of them
assessment of others in terms of usefulness
a need to be the center of attention or admiration in a working group or social situation
hypersensitivity to criticism, however mild, or rejection from others
an unstable view of the self that fluctuates between extremes of self-praise and self-contempt
preoccupation with outward appearance, "image," or public opinion rather than inner reality
painful emotions based on shame (dislike of who one is) rather than guilt (regret for what one has done)
Associated features
Individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder are greatly lacking in empathy and are unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others. They see themselves as above others and feel a strong sense of entitlement and need for admiration. Narcissistic individuals do not perceive themselves as flawed and are not likely to seek treatment. Therefore, these individuals represent less than one percent of the clinical population.
Some people who suffer from NPD also have mood disorders. Narcissistic patients only pursue relationships that will benefit them in some way. Their inflated sense of self results in a devaluation of others and their accomplishments. Patients with narcissistic personality disorder exaggerate their achievements and talents and are surprised when they do not receive the recognition they expect. These patients are prone to be more envious of other people who possess knowledge, a specific skill, or some kind of belonging that they do not possess. Patients are very self-absorbed and have a hard time responding to the needs of others. Narcissistic individuals often exhibit a history of intense but short-term relationships with others, an inability to make or sustain genuinely intimate relationships, and an unstable view of self that fluctuates between extremes of self-praise and self-contempt. Criticism may haunt them and leave them feeling humiliated, degraded, hollow, and empty, although they don't show it. Because of the problems from entitlement and the need for admiration and their disregard for others, they have difficulty with interpersonal relationships. They may be unwilling to take part in situations in which there is risk and a possibility of defeat. NPD is also associated with anorexia nervosa, substance-related disorders, and other personality disorders.
If parents are neglectful, and they show no empathy toward the child, or if they devalue the child, then the child will always be seeking out this ideal sense of self, a narcissistic viewpoint. The reverse of this treatment by parents has also received some support. Narcissistic Personality Disorder could arise from parental overindulgence that is relatively painless but research is a little scarce for that proposition.
Hitler as an Example:
The first criterion for this disorder is the individual must have a lavish sense of self-importance, they over-estimate their abilities, and embellish their accomplishments. Hitler considered himself to be a very special person. He believed that he was an astounding artist and had no doubt that he was going to get into the art school in Vienna and when he didn’t he was astounded. He let the people around him believe that he had been accepted to the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts when in fact he was rejected twice.
The second criterion of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is the individual must be preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success and power. In Hitler’s earlier years he had fantasies about becoming a great and powerful artist. Later he developed the fantasy of becoming the world’s greatest and most powerful leader by exterminating Jews.
The third criterion is that the individual believes that they are superior, special, or unique. Hitler believed that his opinions were more advanced than those around him. He insisted that everyone listen to him and he often quarreled with those who opposed him.
Hitler met the fourth criterion as well by needing excessive admiration. He was admired by many he came in contact with. He was able to string his friend Gustl around for so long because of the admiration Gustl had for Hitler.
The fifth criterion is the sense of entitlement. Hitler expected others to cater to his every need, especially his mother, sister, and aunt. Later in his life, he expected his servants and military men to serve and give him everything he wanted.
The sixth criterion and one of the ones Hitler showed most prominently is the exploitation of others. In his business deals, he did whatever he needed to, in order to benefit himself, even if that meant hanging others out to dry or throwing them under the bus so to speak.
The seventh criterion is the lack of empathy. Hitler had absolutely no empathy for what he was doing during World War II. Killing Jews and anyone who aided their survival was something easy and painless for Hitler. However, he did have empathy for his mother.
Envy is the eighth criteria. Individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder envy others and believe that others envy them as well. Hitler was very envious of Gustl’s acceptance into the Vienna Conservatoire to practice his Grand Piano.
The final criterion is an arrogant, snobbish, or patronizing attitude towards others. Adolf Hitler was to say the least arrogant, snobbish, and patronizing. He believed that he was the greatest artist, the smartest man, better than women, and anyone different from him was inferior.
It is evident that Hitler possessed characteristics that fall under all nine of the criteria so it could be possible that Hitler had Narcissistic Personality Disorder
(Kershaw, 2008)
Subtypes of NPD
Age Group Subtype:
According to the Encyclopedia of mental disorders, ever since the 1950s, when psychiatrists began to notice an increase in the number of their patients that had narcissistic disorders, they have made attempts to define these disorders more precisely. NPD was introduced as a new diagnostic category in DSM-III , which was published in 1980. Prior to DSM-III , narcissism was a recognized phenomenon but not an official diagnosis. At that time, NPD was considered virtually untreatable because people who suffer from it rarely enter or remain in treatment; typically, they regard themselves as superior to their therapist, and they see their problems as caused by other people's "stupidity" or "lack of appreciation."
psychiatrists have proposed dividing narcissistic patients into two subcategories based roughly on age: those who suffer from the stable form of NPD described by DSM-IVTR , and younger adults whose narcissism is often corrected by life experiences.
This age group distinction represents an ongoing controversy about the nature of NPD—whether it is fundamentally a character disorder, or whether it is a matter of learned behavior that can be unlearned. Therapists who incline toward the first viewpoint are usually pessimistic about the results of treatment for patients with NPD.
Personality Subtype
Other psychiatrists have noted that patients who meet the DSM-IV-TR criteria for NPD reflect different clusters of traits within the DSM-IV-TR list. One expert in the field of NPD has suggested the following subcategories of narcissistic personalities:
Craving narcissists. These are people who feel emotionally needy and undernourished, and may well appear clingy or demanding to those around them.
Paranoid narcissists. This type of narcissist feels intense contempt for him- or herself, but projects it outward onto others. Paranoid narcissists frequently drive other people away from them by hypercritical and jealous comments and behaviors.
Manipulative narcissists. These people enjoy "putting something over" on others, obtaining their feelings of superiority by lying to and manipulating them.
Phallic narcissists. Almost all narcissists in this subgroup are male. They tend to be aggressive, athletic, and exhibitionistic; they enjoy showing off their bodies, clothes, and overall "manliness."
Child vs. Adult Presentation
NPD has been seen in children, adolescents, and adulthood. There have been no further studies to determine the differences in age of this disorder. The presentation of the disorder in children and adolescents are similar the the adult presentation.
Gender and Cultural Differences in Presentation
NPD is seen more in men than in women (7.7% for men and 4.8% for women) based on 34,653 face-to-face structured interviews that included DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. Black men and Hispanic women had higher rates compared with Hispanic men and Caucasians of either gender. 50%-75% of all patients are men.
Epidemiology
The prevalence of Narcissistic Personality Disorder within the general population ranges from 2 to 16 percent in the general population, but is less than 1 percent in the clinical population. The fact that these individuals represent less than 1 percent of the clinical population is not surprising because these individuals rarely, if ever, seek out treatment. The reason is quite clear: These individuals see themselves (and their lives) as nearly perfect and do not see any need for change.
For NPD, there have been no known genetic or environmental factors. It is believed that this is seen when parents over-indulge in the amount of encouragement they display to their child, over-zealously praise the accomplishments of the child, tell their child that they are not responsible for their own wrongdoings or spoiling their child.
However,additional evidence suggests a genetic influence may be at play in determining the character of NPD. These inherited aspects include hypersensitivity, aggression, low frustration tolerance, and problems in affect regulation.
Some researchers believe that Narcissistic individuals don't grow out of the period when they don't see the viewpoint of others as a child.
In the clinical practice for substance abuse, 10 to 15% have Narcissistic Personality Disorder (SAMHSA, 2009).
Etiology
The Encyclopedia states that at present there are two major theories about the origin and nature of NPD. One theory regards NPD as a form of arrested psychological development while the other regards it as a young child's defense against psychological pain. The two perspectives have been identified with two major figures in psychoanalytic thought, Heinz Kohut and Otto Kernberg respectively
Both theories about NPD go back to Sigmund Freud's pioneering work On Narcissism, published in1914. In this essay, Freud introduced a distinction which has been retained by almost all later writers—namely, the distinction between primary and secondary narcissism. Freud thought that all human infants pass through a phase of primary narcissism, in which they assume they are the center of their universe. This phase ends when the baby is forced by the realities of life to recognize that it does not control its parents (or other caregivers) but is in fact entirely dependent on them. In normal circumstances, the baby gives up its fantasy of being all-powerful and becomes emotionally attached to its parents rather than itself. What Freud defined as secondary narcissism is a pathological condition in which the infant does not invest its emotions in its parents but rather redirects them back to itself. He thought that secondary narcissism developed in what he termed the pre-Oedipal phase of childhood; that is, before the age of three. From a Freudian perspective, then, narcissistic disorders originate in very early childhood development, and this early origin is thought to explain why they are so difficult to treat in later life.
Kohut and Kernberg agree with Freud in tracing the roots of NPD to disturbances in the patient's family of origin—specifically, to problems in the parent-child relationship before the child turned three. Where they disagree is in their accounts of the nature of these problems. According to Kohut, the child grows out of primary narcissism through opportunities to be mirrored by (i.e., gain approval from) his or her parents and to idealize them, acquiring a more realistic sense of self and a set of personal ideals and values through these two processes. On the other hand, if the parents fail to provide appropriate opportunities for idealization and mirroring, the child remains "stuck" at a developmental stage in which his or her sense of self remains grandiose and unrealistic while at the same time he or she remains dependent on approval from others for self-esteem
In contrast, Kernberg views NPD as rooted in the child's defense against a cold and unempathetic parent, usually the mother. Emotionally hungry and angry at the depriving parents, the child withdraws into a part of the self that the parents value, whether looks, intellectual ability, or some other skill or talent. This part of the self becomes hyperinflated and grandiose. Any perceived weaknesses are "split off" into a hidden part of the self. Splitting gives rise to a lifelong tendency to swing between extremes of grandiosity and feelings of emptiness and worthlessness.
In both accounts, the child emerges into adult life with a history of unsatisfactory relationships with others. The adult narcissist possesses a grandiose view of the self but has a conflict-ridden psychological dependence on others. At present, however, psychiatrists do not agree in their description of the central defect in NPD; some think that the problem is primarily emotional while others regard it as the result of distorted cognition, or knowing. Some maintain that the person with NPD has an "empty" or hungry sense of self while others argue that the narcissist has a "disorganized" self. Still others regard the core problem as the narcissist's inability to test reality and construct an accurate view of him- or herself
Macrosocial Causes.
One dimension of NPD that must be taken into account is its social and historical context. Psychiatrists became interested in narcissism shortly after World War II (1939–45), when the older practitioners in the field noticed that their patient population had changed. Instead of seeing patients who suffered from obsessions and compulsions related to a harsh and punishing superego (the part of the psyche that internalizes the standards and moral demands of one's parents and culture), the psychiatrists were treating more patients with character disorders related to a weak sense of self. Instead of having a judgmental and overactive conscience, these patients had a weak or nonexistent code of morals. They were very different from the patients that Freud had treated, described, and analyzed. The younger generation of psychiatrists then began to interpret their patients' character disorders in terms of narcissism.
In the 1960s historians and social critics drew the attention of the general public to narcissism as a metaphorical description of Western culture in general. These writers saw several parallels between trends in the larger society and the personality traits of people diagnosed with narcissistic disorders. In short, they argued that the advanced industrial societies of Europe and the United States were contributing to the development of narcissistic disorders in individuals in a number of respects. Some of the trends they noted include the following:
The mass media's preoccupation with "lifestyles of the rich and famous" rather than with ordinary or average people.
Social approval of open displays of money, status, or accomplishments ("if you've got it, flaunt it") rather than modesty and self-restraint.
Preference for a leadership style that emphasizes the leader's outward appearance and personality rather than his or her inner beliefs and values.
The growth of large corporations and government bureaucracies that favor a managerial style based on "impression management" rather than objective measurements of performance.
Social trends that encourage parents to be self-centered and to resent their children's legitimate needs.
The weakening of churches, synagogues, and other religious or social institutions that traditionally helped children to see themselves as members of a community rather than as isolated individuals
Empirically Supported Treatments
For NPD, the treatment of choice is normally Psychotherapy, but this method may prove problematic because the patient may become envious of the therapist and not respond to them. Long -Term Care Individual Counseling for these patients is recommended to help manage not only the self-aggrandizement, hypersensitivity, and need for control and attention, but also their anger and depression.
Group Therapy is another option for patients, but the therapist should set down boundaries and limits on time, interruptions, the respect of others' feeling, responding to other group members, and listening to others' responses and feedback.
It's important to obtain treatment as quickly as possible to avoid the onset of other disorders. Also, treatment should be continued for as long as allowed as personality traits are often very difficult to change. The inability to change is even more of a problem for the narcissistic type because, after all, they have the best personality already
Psychotherapy
Several different approaches to individual therapy have been tried with NPD patients, ranging from classical psychoanalysis and Adlerian therapy to rationalemotive approaches and Gestalt therapy . The consensus that has emerged is that therapists should set modest goals for treatment with NPD patients. Most of them cannot form a sufficiently deep bond with a therapist to allow healing of early-childhood injuries. In addition, the tendency of these patients to criticize and devalue their therapists (as well as other authority figures) makes it difficult for therapists to work with them.
An additional factor that complicates psychotherapy with NPD patients is the lack of agreement among psychiatrists about the causes and course of the disorder. One researcher has commented that much more research is necessary to validate DSM-IV-TR 's description of NPD before outcome studies can be done comparing different techniques of treatment
Hospitalization
Low-functioning patients with NPD may require inpatient treatment, particularly those with severe self-harming behaviors or lack of impulse control. Hospital treatment, however, appears to be most helpful when it is focused on the immediate crisis and its symptoms rather than the patient's underlying long-term difficulties
Read more: www.minddisorders.com
Medication
As of 2002, there are no medications that have been developed specifically for the treatment of NPD. Patients with NPD who are also depressed or anxious may be given drugs for relief of those symptoms. There are anecdotal reports in the medical literature that the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, which are frequently prescribed for depression, reinforce narcissistic grandiosity and lack of empathy with others
Prognosis
The prognosis for younger persons with narcissistic disorders is hopeful to the extent that the disturbances reflect a simple lack of life experience. The outlook for long-standing NPD, however, is largely negative. Some narcissists are able, particularly as they approach their midlife years, to accept their own limitations and those of others, to resolve their problems with envy, and to accept their own mortality. Most patients with NPD, on the other hand, become increasingly depressed as they grow older within a youth-oriented culture and lose their looks and overall vitality. The retirement years are especially painful for patients with NPD because they must yield their positions in the working world to the next generation. In addition, they do not have the network of intimate family ties and friendships that sustain most older people
Prevention
The best hope for prevention of NPD lies with parents and other caregivers who are close to children during the early preschool years. Parents must be able to demonstrate empathy in their interactions with the child and with each other. They must also be able to show that they love their children for who they are, not for their appearance or their achievements. And they must focus their parenting efforts on meeting the child's changing needs as he or she matures, rather than demanding that the child meet their needs for status, comfort, or convenience
Portrayed in Popular Culture
In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a very beautiful guy that all the girls wanted to date, but Narcissus wanted nothing to do with them. He would pass by the loveliest and the most beautiful girls, not even bothering to look at them. One of his spurned lovers prayed to the goddess Nemesis that "he who loves not others love himself". Nemesis granted that prayer, and when Narcissus bent over a clear pool to get a drink of water, he saw a reflection of himself and fell in love with it. He could not leave his image, and so he pined away, leaning perpetually over the pool, fixed in one long gaze until he died. They say that when his spirit crossed the river that encircles the world of the dead, it leaned over the boat to catch one last glimpse of itself in the water (Hamilton, 1969).
Wall Street (1987)
301.6 Dependent Personality Disorder
DSM-IV-TR criteria
A pervasive and excessive need to be taken are of that leads to submissive and clinging behavior and fears of separation, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
has difficulty making everyday decisions without an excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others
needs others to assume responsibility for most major areas of his or her life
has difficulty expressing disagreement with others because of fear of loss of support or approval NOTE: Do not include realistic fears of retribution.
has difficulty initiating projects or doing things on his or her own (because of lack of self-confidence in judgment or abilities rather than a lack of motivation or energy)
goes to excessive lengths to obtain nurture and support from others, to the point of volunteering to do things that are unpleasant
feels uncomfortable or helpless when alone because of exaggerated fears of being unable to care for himself or herself
urgently seeks another relationship as a source of care and support when a close relationship ends
is unrealistically preoccupied with fears of being left to take care of himself or herself
Associated features
Dependent individuals are often very pessimistic, self-defeating, and exhibit low self-esteem. They tend to belittle their assets and to refer to themselves as "stupid." They take criticism very personally, seeing it as "proof" of their worthlessness. Their tendency is to seek out over protection and dominance from others. These individuals become very anxious when faced with a decision and may avoid positions of responsibility. Chronic physical illness or Separation Anxiety Disorder in childhood may predispose an individual to developing Dependent Personality Disorder.
There may be an increased risk of Mood Disorders, Adjustment Disorder, and Anxiety Disorders.
These individuals lack self confidence and lack a sense of autonomy. They see themselves as extremely weak and others very powerful. They are extremely dependent on others and have a great need to be taken care of, which makes these individuals cling to others and to be submissive to others' wishes and demands. When one relationship ends, they become desperate and have to form another relationship to replace the broken one. Some individuals panic if they have to be alone or separated from depended-upon people.
They do not demonstrate appropriate anger with other people because they are terrified of losing their support. As a result, they remain in psychologically and physically damaging and abusive relationships. They, in effect, lose their individuality because they let others make the decisions, both large and small in their lives.
Child vs. Adult Presentation
This diagnosis is only cautiously given to children and adolescents, as some dependent behavior may be developmentally appropriate at this time.
Symptoms in adults are very similar to Separation Anxiety in children.
Gender and Cultural Differences in Presentation
Prevalence rates are significantly higher in India and Japan, possible because dependent behaviors is expected and encouraged, especially for women.
Dependent Personality Disorder occurs more frequently in women, and is co-morbid with Borderline, Schizoid, Histrionic, Schizotypal, and Avoidant Personality disorders. There is also co-morbidity within the Axis I disorders of Bipolar Disorder, unipolar depression (or major depressive episode), anxiety disorders, and Bulimia Nervosa .
Epidemiology
Dependent PD is one of the most reported Personality Disorders in mental health clinics and they do not give a percentage of prevalence. But a reasonable estimate is from 0.5% to 1.5% of people in the general population have this type of PD. There is around 1.4% in outpatient psychiatric settings; there are no significant familial problems.
It is reported that about 10% of outpatients seen in mental health clinics also have Dependent PD (SAMHSA, 2009).
Etiology
Parents who are more authoritative (holds very high standard for achievement and low in giving love and attention to the child) can cause person to develop Dependent PD because the person is not used to making their own choices and decisions. Parenting styles are authoritative, meaning many rules and chores.
People with Dependent PD have very low sense of self-efficacy. There is restricted development of self-efficacy. They often don't believe that they are able to do some things by themselves.
Females diagnosed with Dependent PD generally have a history of depression or depressive symptoms in early adolescent girls.
Peers may have responded to these individuals with rejection, teasing, and other remarks on their dependence and incompetence, thereby reinforcing the views conveyed by caregivers that the person with DPD is in dire need of constant care.
Infantile temperament may be an additional variable that interacts with parenting style to further elicit overprotective and authoritarian responses to the individual child.
Empirically Supported Treatments
Psychotherapy
Used as treatment for people with dependent personality disorder. Cognitive-behavioral therapy focuses on patterns of maladaptive thinking and seeks to eliminate them. Often people in cognitive-behavioral therapy set goals that they eventually try to achieve without relying on others. Interpersonal therapy is also a useful approach. Often the patient is receptive to the treatment and seeks help with their personal relationships. With this particular kind of therapy, the therapist will help the patient understand how they interact with others and how this contributes to their dependency issues. This particular therapies purpose is to show the patient that their dependency comes with a high price and that they do have alternatives. Another type of therapy used to treat dependent personality disorder is group therapy. Often people taking part in group therapy must be highly motivated to see improvement. Studies show that time-limited assertiveness-training groups with very clear goals are successful. It has also been said that family or martial therapy can improve a person's independence by working on the families relationship as a whole.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy
Cognitive-behavioral approaches attempt to increase the affected person's ability to act independently of others, improve their self-esteem, and enhance the quality of their interpersonal relationships. Often, patients will play an active role in setting goals. Methods often used in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) include assertiveness and social skills training to help reduce reliance on others, including the therapist.
Interpersonal therapy
Treatment using an interpersonal approach can be useful because the individual is usually receptive to treatment and seeks help with interpersonal relationships. The therapist would help the patient explore their long-standing patterns of interacting with others, and understand how these have contributed to dependency issues. The goal is to show the patient the high price they pay for this dependency, and to help them develop healthier alternatives. Assertiveness training and learning to identify feelings is often used to improve interpersonal behavior
Group therapy
When a person is highly motivated to see growth, a more interactive therapeutic group can be successful in helping him/her to explore passive-dependent behavior. If the individual is socially reluctant or impaired in his/her assertiveness, decision-making, or negotiation, a supportive decision-making group would be more appropriate. Time-limited assertiveness-training groups with clearly defined goals have been proven to be effective
Family and marital therapy
Individuals with dependent personality disorder are usually brought to therapy by their parents. They are often young adults who are struggling with neurotic or psychotic symptoms. The goal of family therapy is often to untangle the enmeshed family relationships, which usually elicits considerable resistance by most family members unless all are in therapy. Marital therapy can be productive in helping couples reduce the anxiety of both partners who seek and meet dependency needs that arise in the relationship.
Medications
According to the encyclopedia of mental disorders, Individuals with dependent personality disorder can experience anxiety and depressive disorders as well. In these cases, it may occasionally prove useful to use antidepressants or anti-anxiety agents. Unless the anxiety or depression is considered worthy of a primary diagnosis, medications are generally not recommended for treatment of the dependency issues or the anxiety or depressive responses. Persons with dependent personality disorder may become overly dependent on any medication used
Antidepressants, anti-anxiety agents, sedatives, and tranquilizers.
Dependency can eventually become an issue for someone using one of these medications, therefore most often they are not prescribed.
Prevention
Since dependent personality disorder originates in the patient's family, the only known preventive measure is a nurturing, emotionally stimulating, and expressive care giving environment
Portrayed in Popular Culture
Bella/Edward relationship from Twilight
They are completely dependent on each other to the point of being suicidal without the other
Peter Pettigrew from Harry Potter
The once friend of James Potter shifts the target of his submissive behavior from James and his friends to Voldemort and the Death Eaters.
In The Prisoner of Azkaban, when his transgressions are revealed, Peter soon tries to gain anybody's approval by groveling and pleading
DSM-V Changes
Dependent Personality Disorder will be represented and diagnosed by a combination of core impairment in personality functioning and specific pathological personality traits, rather than as a specific type.
301.82 Avoidant Personality Disorder
DSM-IV-TR criteria
A pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety o contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:
avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact, because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection
is unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked
shows restraint within intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed
is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations
is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy
views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others
is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing
Associated features
People with Avoidant Personality Disorder often appraise every movement and expression of those whom they are around. They can be fearful and tense which can elicit the ridicule of others which confirm preconceived self-doubts. They tend to be very anxious thinking that they will react to criticism with crying or blushing. Others describe them as "shy," "lonely," "timid," and "isolated." Their major problems are in social and occupational functioning. Their low self-esteem and hypersensitivity to rejection can restrict interpersonal contacts. Individuals may become isolated and do not usually have a large social support network to help them. They want affection and acceptance and fantasize over idealized relationships. The avoidance behaviors also adversely affect occupational functioning because of the fear the individuals have of social situations. They may try to avoid situations that are important for jobs and advancements.
These individuals are fearful of the possibility of criticism, rejection, or disapproval and therefore, will usually not engage in social relationships unless they are assured of being liked. However, these individuals desire affection and thus are often lonely and bored. They may even go to the extreme where they avoid work situations that involve a lot of interpersonal situations and contacts. Being alone is not enjoyed and is caused by their inability to relate to others, which causes extreme anxiety and often leads to low self-esteem and being excessively self-conscious. Ridicule and rejection are seen when in fact none exists. Also, they also tend to say or do little when they have to be involved in social situations because they are fearful that they will say something silly or foolish. They see themselves as being incompetent, inferior to other people, and are not risk takers. They generally do not get involved in or with new activities.
Co-morbidity is often displayed with Dependent Personality Disorder. This occurs because when a friend or friends are made, they become extremely attached to and dependent on that individual. Avoidant personality disorder is also co-morbid with Borderline PD and the Cluster A disorders, Paranoid, Schizoid, and Schizotypal. It is often diagnosed with Mood and Anxiety Disorders, especially generalized Social Phobia and unipolar depression.
Child vs. Adult Presentation
Avoidant Personality Disorder does not typically become a diagnosis of children. The normal guideline is that usually no one under the age of 18 are diagnosed with this disorder. Most patients, however, report that their symptoms were present during childhood or adolescents.
Gender and Cultural Differences in Presentation
There may be variations in the prevalence of diagnosed individuals across cultures as the degree of appropriate diffidence and avoidance differs between societies. Avoidant behavior may also be influenced by problems in acculturation following immigration ("culture shock"). Avoidant Personality Disorder seems to occur equally between males and females.
Epidemiology
Prevalence rates of Avoidant Personality Disorder for the general population are between 0.5% and 1%. There is a prevalence rate between 2% and 5% in the general population, and around 15% in psychiatric outpatient settings. It is reported that about 10% of outpatients seen in mental health clinics also have Avoidant Personality Disorder.
Avoidant behavior often starts in infancy. Shyness is normal in children, but tends to dissipate with age. Those who develop Avoidant Personality Disorder may become increasingly shy over time. Some evidence suggests that APD tends to lesson or remit with age.
Etiology
There is evidence to suggest that genetic factors play a role in the development of Avoidant PD. Shyness is also believed to be genetically inherited or linked to a person. There is a link to bio-genetic tendencies toward a lowered autonomic arousal threshold.
Environmental factors also play a role in a person with Avoidant PD. A history of being ridiculed or rejection may cause the person to later develop this disorder.
May have parental or peer rejection and/or ridicule.
Recent studies show evidence of shyness in post birth temperaments (compared to children the same age).
Empirically Supported Treatments
A mixture of medication to reduce sensitivity when being rejected and cognitive therapy seems to work best for people with Avoidant PD compared to medication alone or therapy alone.
Treatment can be vital to living anything close to a "normal" life. Without treatment, those who suffer from APD make retreat completely to their homes. They will begin to avoid every and any social event instead of just most. They might also develop a second disorder along with their APD that could have been completely avoided altogether.
Psychodynamically oriented therapies
According to the Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders these approaches are usually supportive; the therapist empathizes with the patient's strong sense of shame and inadequacy in order to create a relationship of trust. Therapy usually moves slowly at first because persons with avoidant personality disorder are mistrustful of others; treatment that probes into their emotional state too quickly may result in a more protective withdrawal by the patient. As trust is established and the patient feels safer discussing details of his or her situations, he or she may be able to draw important connections between their deeply felt sense of shame and their behavior in social situations.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
may be helpful in treating individuals with avoidant personality disorder. This approach assumes that faulty thinking patterns underlie the personality disorder, and therefore focuses on changing distorted cognitive patterns by examining the validity of the assumptions behind them. If a patient feels he is inferior to his peers, unlikable, and socially unacceptable, a cognitive therapist would test the reality of these assumptions by asking the patient to name friends and family who enjoy his company, or to describe past social encounters that were fulfilling to him. By showing the patient that others value his company and that social situations can be enjoyable, the irrationality of his social fears and insecurities are exposed. This process is known as "cognitive restructuring."
Group therapy:
may provide patients with avoidant personality disorder with social experiences that expose them to feedback from others in a safe, controlled environment. They may, however, be reluctant to enter group therapy due to their fear of social rejection. An empathetic environment in the group setting can help each member overcome his or her social anxieties. Social skills training can also be incorporated into group therapy to enhance social awareness and feedback.
Family and marital therapy:
Family or couple therapy can be helpful for a patient who wants to break out of a family pattern that reinforces the avoidant behavior. The focus of marital therapy would include attempting to break the cycle of rejection, criticism or ridicule that typically characterizes most avoidant marriages. Other strategies include helping the couple to develop constructive ways of relating to one another without shame.
Medications
The use of monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) has proven useful in helping patients with avoidant personality disorder to control symptoms of social unease and experience initial success. The major drawback of these medications is limitations on the patient's diet. People taking MAOIs must avoid foods containing a substance known as tyramine, which is found in most cheeses, liver, red wines, sherry, vermouth, beans with broad pods, soy sauce, sauerkraut, and meat extracts.
Prevention
Since avoidant personality disorder usually originates in the patient's family of origin, the only known preventive measure is a nurturing, emotionally stimulating and expressive family environment.
Avoidant PD versus Social Phobia
Looking at psychophysiological and cognitive variables, there are no differences between the two
There were differences on behavioral skill factors, molecular behaviors such as eye contact, and on overall skill
Avoidant PDs were less socially skilled than those with social phobia
APD reported:
more social avoidance and subjective distress
significantly higher score on the SCL-90-R Interpersonal Sensitivity scale as well as on the SCL-90-R Anxiety, Depression, and Obsessive-Compulsive subscales
(Turner, Beidel, Dancu, & Keys, 1986)
Portrayed in Popular Culture
Rubeus Hagrid from Harry Potter
Although he develops strong relationships with several characters in the series, his half-giant background and shameful exits from Hogwarts make him very sensitive to the opinions of others
DSM-V Changes
Reformulated as the Avoidant Type
Individuals who match this personality disorder type have a negative sense of self, associated with a profound sense of inadequacy, and inhibition in establishing intimate interpersonal relationships.
More specifically, they feel anxious, inadequate, inferior, socially inept, and personally unappealing; are easily ashamed or embarrassed; and are self-critical, often setting unrealistically high standards for themselves.
At the same time, they may have a desire to be recognized by others as special and unique.
Avoidant individuals are shy or reserved in social situations, avoid social and occupational situations because of fear of embarrassment or humiliation, and seek out situations that do not include other people.
They are preoccupied with and very sensitive to being criticized or rejected by others and are reluctant to disclose personal information for fear of disapproval or rejection.
They appear to lack basic interpersonal skills, resulting in few close friendships. Intimate relationships are avoided because of a general fear of attachments and intimacy, including sexual intimacy.
Individuals resembling this type tend to blame themselves or feel responsible for bad things that happen, and to find little or no pleasure, satisfaction, or enjoyment in life’s activities.
They also tend to be emotionally inhibited or constricted and have difficulty allowing themselves to acknowledge or express their wishes, emotions – both positive and negative – and impulses.
Despite high standards, affected individuals may be passive and unassertive about pursuing personal goals or achieving successes, sometimes leading to aspirations or achievements below their potential.
They are often risk averse in new situations
301.4 Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
DSM-IV-TR Criteria
A pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:
is preoccupied with details, rules, lists, order, organization, or schedules to the extent that the major point of the activity is lost
shows perfectionism that interferes with task completion (e.g., is unable to complete a project because his or her own overly strict standards are not met)
is excessively devoted to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friendships (not accounted for by obvious economic necessity)
is over conscientious, scrupulous, and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values (not accounted for by cultural or religious identification)
is unable to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value
is reluctant to delegate tasks or to work with others unless they submit to exactly his or her way of doing things
adopts a miserly spending style toward both self and others; money is viewed as something to be hoarded for future catastrophes
shows rigidity and stubbornness
Associated Features
Obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) is a disorder in which the subject suffers from an obsession with control and rules and becomes so fixated on following these rules or rituals that it becomes detrimental to their day to day lives. They believe that these rules and rituals keep them from harm. This harm is something they perceive out of their own warped perspective. People with OCPD experience things such as rigidity, indecisiveness, and depressed demeanor.
Relationships are hard to maintain due to their volatility. This volatility surfaces when this person is put in a situation where they have lost control. Some resort to aggressive behavior while others may simply withdraw from the situation completely. The subject generally does not express emotion very well. People who suffer from this disease tend to excel at school or work because of their devotion to rules. Though beneficial in some situations this dedication to rules often leads to failure because of their lack of flexibility when unexpected change occurs.
These individuals are preoccupied with maintaining control mentally and in their interpersonal relationships. They make sure they do not make a mistake, and often check for the presence of mistakes. Much attention to detail is observed, and this often causes homework to not get completed because of perfectionist qualities. They tend to be workaholics and are not involved in many leisure activities; there may be problems in relaxing or having any type of fun.
They demand everything be done their way and posses stubborn qualities. Individuals are usually serious, rigid, formal, inflexible, and tend to be extremely moral. They tend to be stingy and want to save useless stuff of no value. Basically, those that cannot let loose, are cold, and stiff with anal tendencies most likely retentive. The OCPD is different from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in that the personality disorder does not include the obsessions and compulsions that define OCD. These disorders are contrary to popular belief that they are related on the same spectrum
Co-morbidity is often seen with Dependent Personality Disorder, and Avoidant Personality Disorder.
The most common types of obsessions in persons with OCD in Western countries are:
fear of contamination (impurity, pollution, badness)
doubts (worrying about whether one has omitted to do something)
an intense need to have or put things in a particular order
aggressive or frightening impulses
making lists The most common compulsions in Western countries are:
Child vs. Adult Presentation
Once this disorder begins to manifest itself in early adulthood, there is no child presentation to compare with the adult presentation.
Unusual behaviors in children that may be signs of OCD include:
Avoidance of scissors or other sharp objects. A child may be obsessed with fears of hurting herself or others.
Chronic lateness or dawdling. The child may be per forming checking rituals (repeatedly making sure all her school supplies are in her book bag, for example).
Daydreaming or preoccupation. The child may be counting or performing balancing rituals mentally.
Spending long periods of time in the bathroom. The child may have a hand washing compulsion.
Schoolwork handed in late or papers with holes erased in them. The child may be repeatedly checking and correcting her work.
Gender and Cultural Differences in Presentation
Men are twice as likely to suffer from this disorder as women. Some researchers theorize that the cause of the gender difference is due to the Western culture allowing men to act more controlling and stubborn.
Epidemiology
This disorder appears to only be present in approximately 1% of the United States population. It also seems to affect men more often than women. There is prevalence between 2% and 8% in the general population, and between 8% and 9% in outpatient psychiatric settings. And anywhere from 3% to 10% of individuals in mental health clinics have Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder. There are no significant familial problems.
Etiology
The causes of OCPD are not well-known. Research leads us to believe that most sufferers are genetically predisposed. Another assumption is that OCPD is caused by things such as rigid parenting with young children. Children that are punished too harshly and receive little or no positive reinforcement for their good behavior are likely to develop this disorder. In most cases the children who develop OCPD are the oldest children in their families. Individuals were often punished for failing to be perfect and received no rewards for success. Affection and emotions were expected to be controlled or remain unexpressed.
These individuals do not generally present themselves voluntarily to treatment settings, thus making these disorders more difficult to properly research. Those that do come in are in a debilitated state, and it becomes difficult to specify the causal factors because we have to go back and piece together the etiological pieces of the puzzle. The most critical problem is that many of the Personality Disorders are co-morbid with each other, making it very difficult to separate out which factors are unique to each disorder.
Individuals with OCPD expect others to judge and criticize them in the same way that caregivers did during their development. Therefore, individuals with OCPD judge others by the same strict standards and self-criticize in the same manner as the caregivers who once criticized them.
Psychosocial causes:
In the early part of the century, Sigmund Freud theorized that OCD symptoms were caused by punitive, rigid toilet-training practices that led to internalized conflicts. Other theorists thought that OCD was influenced by such wider cultural attitudes as insistence on cleanliness and neatness, as well as by the attitudes and parenting style of the patient's parents. Cross-cultural studies of OCD indicate that, while the incidence of OCD seems to be about the same in most countries around the world, the symptoms are often shaped by the patient's culture of origin
Biological causes:
There is considerable evidence that OCD has a biological component. Some researchers have noted that OCD is more common in patients who have suffered head trauma or have been diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome. Recent studies using positron emission tomography (PET) scanning indicate that OCD patients have patterns of brain activity that differ from those of people without mental illness or with some other mental illness. Other studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) found that patients diagnosed with OCD had significantly less white matter in their brains than did normal control subjects. This finding suggests that there is a widely distributed brain abnormality in OCD. Some researchers have reported abnormalities in the metabolism of serotonin, an important neurotransmitter, in patients diagnosed with OCD. Serotonin affects the efficiency of communication between the front part of the brain (the cortex) and structures that lie deeper in the brain known as the basal ganglia. Dysfunction in the serotonergic system occurs in certain other mental illnesses, including major depression. OCD appears to have a number of features in common with the so-called obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders, which include Tourette's syndrome; Sydenham's chorea; eating disorders; trichotillomania ; and delusional disorders. There appear to be genetic factors involved in OCD. The families of persons who are diagnosed with the disorder have a greater risk of OCD and tic disorders than does the general population. Childhood-onset OCD appears to run in families more than adult-onset OCD, and is more likely to be associated with tic disorders. Twin studies indicate that monozygotic, or identical twins, are more likely to share the disorder than dizygotic, or fraternal twins ( www.minddisorders ).
Empirically Supported Treatments
Treatment for this disease is mostly limited to psychotherapy and self help treatments. Generally very difficult to treat, Cluster C seems most promising to treat and Cluster A least so.
Medicine seems to only alleviate some depressive symptoms but doesn’t seem to improve symptoms in the long term sense. Obsessions can be influenced with selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors or mono amine oxidase inhibitors.
In extreme cases electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) or neurosurgery are used.
Prevention is also almost impossible. As stated earlier most cases are people who are genetically predisposed. Early detection and treatment offers the best results.
Therapy for this disorder can be quite difficult. Because of patients obsession with rules and doing things their own way it is difficult to teach them a new concept.
Medications
According to the encyclopedia of Menatal Disorders, the most useful medications for the treatment of OCD are the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which affect the body's reabsorption of serotonin, a chemical in the brain that helps to transmit nerve impulses across the very small gaps between nerve cells. These drugs, specifically **clomipramine** (Anafranil), **fluoxetine** (Prozac), fluvoxamine (Luvox), **sertraline** (Zoloft), and **paroxetine** (Paxil) have been found to relieve OCD symptoms in over half of the patients studied. It is not always possible for the doctor to predict which of the SSRIs will work best for a specific patient. Lack of response to one SSRI does not mean that other drugs within the same family will not work. Treatment of OCD often proceeds slowly, with various medications being tried before the most effective one is found. While studies report that about half of those treated with SSRIs show definite improvement, relapse rates may be as high as 90% when medications are discontinued.
Portrayed in Popular Culture
Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory
Harvey Dent Two-Face from Batman
Has a preoccupation with coin-flipping
Mr. Edward Nygma (The Riddler) from Batman
He has to leave riddles behind
In a 1999 issue of Gotham Adventures, he tries to commit a crime without leaving a riddle, but fails
Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter
The temporary Headmistress and Inquisitor of Hogwarts upon Dumbledore's disappearance is the perfect picture of obsessiveness and rigidity.
She has to maintain order at all times
DSM-V Changes
Reformulated as the Obsessive-Compulsive Type
Individuals who match this personality disorder type are ruled by their need for order, precision, and perfection.
Activities are conducted in super-methodical and overly detailed ways. They have intense concerns with time, punctuality, schedules, and rules.
Affected individuals exhibit an overdeveloped sense of duty and obligation, and a need to try to complete all tasks thoroughly and meticulously.
The need to try to do things perfectly may result in a paralysis of indecision, as the pros and cons of alternatives are weighed, such that important tasks may not ever be completed.
Tasks, problems, and people are approached rigidly, and there is limited capacity to adapt to changing demands or circumstances.
For the most part, strong emotions – both positive (e.g., love) and negative (e.g., anger) – are not consciously experienced or expressed.
At times, however, the individual may show significant insecurity, lack of self confidence, and anxiety subsequent to guilt or shame over real or perceived deficiencies or failures.
Additionally, individuals with this type are controlling of others, competitive with them, and critical of them.
They are conflicted about authority (e.g., they may feel they must submit to it or rebel against it), prone to get into power struggles either overtly or covertly, and act self-righteous or moralistic.
They are unable to appreciate or understand the ideas, emotions, and behaviors of other people.
(APA, 2010)
Electro-convulsive Therapy
An example of how Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder is portrayed in pop culture. In the television show Big Bang Theory, Sheldon Cooper, a theoretical physicist who shows signs of Asperger Syndrome and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, has a compulsive need to knock three times, say the persons name three times, and repeat for a total of three times.
requires that the respondent meet the general diagnostic criteria for a PD
(Verheul & Widiger, 2004)
Epidemiology
Less then half of all studies providing overall Axis II prevalences provide a separate rate for PDNOS
Studies that do not take PDNOS into account may be grossly understimating the prevalance and/or failing to consider adequately the extent to which personality pathology has impacted the results
The best estimate of the absolute prevalence of PDNOS in patient samples is in the range of 8 to 13%
The best estimate of the relative prevalence of PDNOS is in the range of 21 to 49%
In structured interview studies, PDNOS is the third most frequently used PD diagnosis, whereas in non-structured interview studies, PDNOS is often the single most frequently used diagnosis
PDE/IPDE yielded higher PDNOS prevalences than either the SCID or SIDP
(Verheul & Widiger, 2004)
Associated Features
Symptoms are a large mixed list of any personality linked dysfunction, sign, symptom, or complaint that will not fit into a specific disorder category.
The only required sign and symptom is that a person's social or mental personality be effected or impaired in such a way that it causes a distress or dysfunction in one or more of the important areas of life.
The important areas of life are:
social
sexual
interpersonal
Those that meet the criteria for Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified have a higher risk of behavioral, educational, and interpersonal problems during childhood and early adulthood than those with a specified personalty disorder.
They also have an increased risk of having later education failures, interpersonal relationship difficulties, psychiatric disorders and serious physical aggression acts by the time that they are adults.
DSM-V Changes
Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified will not be included in DSM-5. This disorder should be represented and diagnosed by a combination of core impairments in personality functioning and patients' unique pathological personality traits.
Depressive Personality Disorder
DSM-IV-TR Criteria
A pervasive pattern of depressive cognitions and behaviors beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five
(or more) of the following:
usual mood is dominated by dejection, gloominess, cheerlessness, joylessness, unhappiness
self-concept centers around beliefs of inadequacy, worthlessness, and low self-esteem
is critical, blaming, and derogatory toward self
is brooding and given to worry
is negativistic, critical, and judgmental toward others
is pessimistic
is prone to feeling guilty or remorseful
Does not occur exclusively during Major Depressive Episodes and is not better accounted for by Dysthymic Disorder.
Associated Features
These individuals may be quiet, introverted, passive, and unassertive, preferring to follow others rather than taking the lead.
This pattern may occur with approximately equal frequency in females and males.
Individuals with this presentation may be predisposed to developing Dysthymic Disorder and possibly Major Depressive Disorder.
These conditions may exist on a spectrum, with depressive personality disorder being the early-onset, persistent, trait like variant of the Depressive Disorders.
Preliminary evidence suggests that depressive personality disorder may have an increased prevalence in family members of probands with Major Depressive Disorder.
Conversely, Major Depressive Disorder may occur with increased frequency in family members of probands with depressive personality disorder who do not themselves have Major Depressive Disorder.
Typical Beliefs
I am always disappointed with myself and cynical about others and the future.
I do not consider the spreading of good cheer to be among my responsibilities.
I am not eager for authority.
I expect those under me to take on a great deal of work.
When I am in charge, the work atmosphere need not be upbeat, personally encouraging, or even supportive.
I can be quite critical of those who work under me.
I never expect things to go right.
I don't get much pleasure from anything outside of work.
I What's the use of looking at life from the bright side.
Life is just work, pain, and loss.
I'll believe it when I see it.
Life is depressing; I have a right to always be pessimistic.
I believe that my dark views of things is just being realistic.
Bad news is interesting and reassuring because it represents reality.
A person should remain faithful to their spouse, even if their spouse does not.
I expect worse from others.
I am very critical of my mate.
Other people expect too much of me.
Parents should teach their children not to expect too much from life.
Parents should inculcate the value of work; activities outside of homework and chores should be restricted.
I am severely limited as a person; if only I'd been born with a different temperament.
My life has been a series of failures and I am helpless in the face of forces beyond my control.
I should continually prepare for the worst.
I must keep my nose to the grindstone, adhere to routine, and remain un-distracted by impulses and passion.
I should always think everything through before acting, not take risks or challenge fate, and never try to escape into pleasure.
There is no hope, now or ever.
(Beck & Freeman, 1990)
In Terms of the 5-Factor Model of Personality
They Experience:
(APA, 2010)
For More Information, Please Read:
Finnerty, T. (2009). Depressive personality disorder: Understanding current trends in research and practice. Columbus, OH: WorldWideMentalHealth.com
Phillips, K.A., Gunderson, J.D., Triebwasser, J., Kimble, C.R., Faedda, G., Lyoo, I.K., & Renn, J. (1998). Reliability and validity of depressive personality disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 155, 1044-1048.
Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder (Negativistic Personality Disorder)
DSM-IV-TR Criteria
Passive-aggressive behavior is a pattern of expressing your negative feelings in an indirect way.
A pervasive pattern of negativistic attitudes and passive resistance to demands for adequate performance, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following (Rotenstein):
Passively resists fulfillment
Toward those apparently more fortunate
Voices exaggerated and persistent complaints of personal misfortune
Alternates between hostile defiance and contrition
Does not occur exclusively during Major Depressive Episodes and is not better accounted for by Dysthymic Disorder
Different from previous formulations, the DSM-IV description of the disorder places emphasis on the pattern of sullen and irritable moods and negativistic attitudes (DSM-IV, APA, 1994).
Associated Features
It is a long-term (chronic) condition in which a person seems to actively comply with the desires and needs of others, but actually passively resists them. In the process, the person becomes increasingly hostile and angry (Moore & Jefferson, 2004).
These individuals are often overtly ambivalent, wavering indecisively from one course of action to its opposite.
They may follow an erratic path the causes endless tension with others and disappointments for themselves.
An intense conflict between dependence on others and the desire for self-assertion are characteristics of these individuals.
Their self-confidence is often poor despite a superficial boldness.
They foresee the worst possible outcome for most situations, even those that are going well.
They have an outlook of always being defeated, which can evoke hostile and negative responses from others who are subjected to the complaints of these individuals.
They will typically not confront others directly about problems, but will instead attempt to undermine their confidence or their success through comments and actions that can be explained away easily so as not to place any blame on themselves.
This pattern of behavior often occurs in individuals with Borderline, Histrionic, Paranoid, Dependent, Antisocial, and Avoidant Personality Disorders.
Manifest itself as: resentment, stubbornness, procrastination, sullenness, dawdling, deliberate inefficiency, pretended forgetfulness, unreasonable criticism of people in authority, or intentional failure at doing requested tasks.
For example: They might take so long to get ready for a party that they don't want to go to, that by the time they are ready, the party is nearly over.
It is often seen in people who view themselves as peaceful.
Expressing their anger this way is morally favorable to direct confrontation.
Symptoms often include:
(McCrae, 1994)
Gender and Cultural Differences in Presentation
Although little research has dealt with gender differences regarding PAPD, Mair and colleagues(1992) have noted that PAPD tends to be more frequently diagnosed in females.
The passive-aggressive style may be a way for women to avoid the social stigma and rejection that are often associated with women who are seen as challenging or aggressive in advocating for their own need and wants.
Epidemiology
The prevalence rate for Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder is 3.3%
Etiology
The exact cause is still unknown due to a lack of research in this area however some have suggested that this disorder, like most personality disorders, hails from a combination of genetic and environmental factors.
May also be a result of society's conditioning of individuals.
Society teaches that direct confrontation can lead to harmful consequences.
Childhood abuse and/or neglect as well as sexual abuse has appeared to contribute to this disorder.
Empirically Supported Treatments
The most common, is psychological treatment for those individuals who do not see themselves as having a problem. They are usually forced into treatment, e.g., family, employers, or the legal system. These clients with PAPD have minimal insight; they fail to admit that they are a major factor in the problems they have.
Counseling is useful in helping the person identify and change the behavior.
Cognitive therapy and antidepressant drugs are very effective to control negative attitude (McCrae, 1994).
Typical beliefs
I am self-sufficient, but I do need others to help me reach my goals.
The only way I can preserve my self-respect is by asserting myself indirectly, for example, by not carrying out instructions exactly.
I like to be attached to people but I am unwilling to pay the price of being dominated.
Authority figures tend to be intrusive, demanding, interfering, and controlling.
I have to resist the domination of authorities but at the same ti me maintain their approval and acceptance.
Being controlled or dominated by others is intolerable.
Making deadlines, complying with demands, and conforming are direct blows to my pride and self-sufficiency.
If I follow the rules the way people expect, it will inhibit my freedom of action.
It is best not to express my anger directly but to show my displeasure by not conforming.
I know what's best for me and other people shouldn't tell me what to do.
Rules are arbitrary and stifle me.
Other people are often too demanding.
If I regard people as too bossy, I have a right to disregard their demands.
(Beck & Freeman, 1990)
In Terms of the 5-Factor Model of Personality
They have:
Clinicians have to make arbitrary decisions, which leads to poor diagnostic agreement
This accounts for great diagnostic overlap, prevalence of the diagnosis NOS and limited validity
(Livesley, 2003)
Failures of the Categorical Model
Excessive Diagnostic Co-Occurrence
DSM-IV-TR routinely fails to indicate the presence of a specific pathology and suggest a specific treatment
Diagnostic comorbidity is so extensive that some argue for abandoning the term comorbidity in favor of a term that is more simply descriptive
Much of the PD diagnostic co-occurrence is readily explained if the DSM-IV-TR PDs are understood as maladaptive variants of general personality structure
Inadequate Coverage
PDNOS is one of the most frequently used Axis II diagnosis in clinical practice
Not entirely clear how clinicians are using PDNOS within their practice, but it is suggested that clinicians are not finding the existing diagnostic categories to be adequate in their coverage of PD symptomatology
Efforts to demarcate a limited number of specific categories to identify homogeneous and distinct groups, yet also provide adequate coverage, will likely continue to be problematic and frustrating
Arbitrary and Unstable Boundaries with Normal Psychological Functioning
DSM-IV-TR provides specific and explicit rules for distinguishing between the presence versus absence of each of the individual diagnostic categories but the schizotypal and borderline diagnoses are the only two for which a published rationale has ever been provided
No explanation, rationale, or even supportive discussion has ever been attempted for the diagnostic thresholds for the Avoidant, Schizoid, Paranoid, Histrionic, Narcissistic, Dependent, or Obsessive-Compulsive PDs
There have been many revisions, deletions, and additions to the criterion sets that the current diagnostic thresholds no longer relate well to the original thresholds
These unanticipated and substantial shifts in prevalence rates across revisions to the DSM are problematic to scientific theory and public health decisions
Seemingly minor changes to criterion sets result in substantial changes in prevalence rates
Heterogeneity Among Persons with the Same Diagnosis
DSM-III-R switched to polythetic criterion sets in which only a subset of diagnostic criteria are required
Polythetic criterion sets do not resolve the problems associated with the heterogeneity among persons sharing the same diagnosis
Polythetic criterion sets are simply an acknowledgement of the existence of this problematic heterogeneity
Inadequate Scientific Base
The only PD whose literature is clearly alive and growing is that of Borderline PD
There has been little comparable research on the etiology, course, pathology, or treatment of the Paranoid, Schizoid, Histrionic, Avoidant, Passive-Aggressive, or Obsessive-Compulsive PDs
(Widiger & Trull, 2007)
Failure to lead to a specific diagnosis
Reliance on the personality disorder NOS wastebasket diagnosis
Unstable and arbitrary diagnostic boundaries
There have been no adequate empirical studies on the treatment of the Avoidant, Schizoid, Paranoid, Histrionic, Narcissistic, Obsessive-Compulsive, or Dependent PDs
PDs are among the more difficult disorders to treat
Treatment rarely invovles a comprehensive or complete cure of the PD and does not appear to focus on the entire personality structure
An integrated dimensional model of PD would consist precisely of the dimensions of maladaptive personality functioning that are currently the focus of clinical attention
Limitation of the FFM
Some of the lower order facet scales focus primarily on the normal variants of personality functioning that are themselves unlikely to be the focus of clinical interventions
(Widiger & Trull, 2007)
Medications to Treat Personality Disorders
According to Essentials of Abnormal Psychology by Andrew Gatzfeld for most of the PD's, psychotropic medications are somethimes used in treatement. In order to determine which drug to perscribe is based on the Axis I disorder the persoanlity disorder resembles. When unipolar depression occurs in a PD, SSRIs such as Prozac (fluoxetine) is useful. Avoidant Personality Disorder patients can be prescribed anxiolytics such as Xanax (alprazolam) to help alleviate their phobias and social anxieties. Drugs such as Risperdal (risperidone) can be given to Schizotypal PD pateints (Getzfeld, 238).
Text has shown that no one medication is ideal to treat Borderline PD. Antidepressants and anxiolytics may help calm some of the emotions of a borderline patient, but will not alter the long-term maladaptive behavioral patterns. Prozac (fluoxetine) seems to help in reducing aggression, depression, and impulsivity in those with borderline. LIthium also appears to reduce anger and suicidal behaviors and gestures, while antipsychotics appear to reduce anxiety along with suicidal behaviors and gestures and their psychotic symptoms. Boderline patients however have an increased risk for abusing drugs and a greater risk for successfully completing suicide, as a warning these drugs must be given with extreme caution. ASPD patients may be given Lithium and Tegretal (carbamazepine, and anticonvulsant) for the anger or rage these patients may have but data for the usage of these drugs are rare. Anxiolytics may be used but because of the impulse control of ASPD patients is poor, using it is not recommended. Antisocial PD remaines under knowledged therefore medications are not recommended (Getzfeld, 238).
According to the Mayo Clinic there are no medications specifically approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat personality disorders. However, several types of psychiatric medications may help with various personality disorder symptoms.
Antidepressant medications.
Antidepressants may be useful if you have a depressed mood, anger, impulsivity, irritability or hopelessness, which may be associated with personality disorders.
Mood-stabilizing medications.
As their name suggests, mood stabilizers can help even out mood swings or reduce irritability, impulsivity and aggression.
Anti-anxiety medications.
These may help if you have anxiety, agitation or insomnia. But in some cases, they can increase impulsive behavior.
Antipsychotic medications.
Also called neuroleptics, these may be helpful if your symptoms include losing touch with reality (psychosis) or in some cases if you have anxiety or anger problems.
Seeking Help
To find more information, causes, symptoms and treatments visit www.minddisorders.com .
Also when talking to a physician seek someone other than the primary physician for a second opinion due to biases and the likelihood of being misdiagnosed.
References
The validity of DSM-IV passive-aggressive (negativistic) personality disorder. Rotenstein, Ora H.; McDermut, Wilson; Bergman, Andrea; Young, Diane; Zimmerman, Mark; Chelminski, Iwona; Journal of Personality Disorders, Vol 21(1), Feb, 2007. pp. 28-41.
Getzfeld, Andrew R. Essentials of Abnormal Psychology. Essentials of Personaltiy Disorders. copyright 2006. 208-238.
American Psychiatric Association. (2010). Personality and personality disorders. DSM-5 development. Retrieved from http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/PersonalityandPersonalityDisorders.aspx
Beck, A.T. & Freeman, A.M. (1990). Cognitive therapy of personality disorders. New York: Guilford Press.
Facing the Facts. (2010). What are the symptoms of borderline personality disorder. Retrieved from: http://www.bpdfamily.com/tools/articles2.htm .
Hamilton, E. (1969). Mythology: Timeless tales of gods and heroes. New York: Warner Books.
Kershaw, I. (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Kreger, R. (2008). The essential family guide to borderline personality disorder: New tools and techniques to stop walking on eggshells. Center City, Minnesota: Hazeldon Publishing.
Landau, E. (2010). What is darth vader's diagnosis. The Chart. Retrieved from http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/07/what-is-darth-vaders-diagnosis/
Livesley, J.W. (2003). Diagnositc dilemmas in classifying personality disorder. In K.A. Phillips, M.B. First, & H.A. Pincus (Eds.) Advancing dsm: Dilemmas in psychiatric diagnosis (pp.153-189). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Maser, J.D., Kaelber, C., & Weise, R.D. (1991). International use and attitudes toward DSM-III and DSM-III-R: Growing consensus in psychiatric classification. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100, 271-279.
McCrae, R.R. (1994). A reformulaton of axis II: Personality and personality-related problems. Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor Model of Personality. Washington, D.C.: The American Psychological Association.
Moore, D.P. & Jefferson, J.W. (2004). Passive-aggressive personality disorder. Handbook of Medical Psychiatry. Philadelphia, PA: Mosby Elsevier.
Raine, A., Lencz, T., Bihrle, S., LaCasse, L., & Colletti, P. (2000). Reduced prefrontal gray matter volume and reduced autonomic activity in antisocial personality disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 57, 119-127.
Rowling, J.K. (1997-2007). Harry Potter (Vols. 1-7). New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.
Shiner, R.L. (1998). How shall we speak of children's personalities in middle childhood: A preliminary taxonomy. Psychological bulletin, 124, 308-332.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2009). Substance abuse treatment for persons with co-occurring disorders. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Turner, S.M., Beidel, D.C., Dancu, C.V., & Keys, D.J. (1986). Psychopathology of social phobia and comparison to avoidant personality disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95(4), 389-394.
Verheul, R., & Widiger, T.A. (2004). A meta-analysis of the prevalence and usage of the personality disorder not otherwise specified (pdnos) diagnosis. Journal of Personality Disorders, 18(4), 309-319.
Widiger, T.A., & Trull, T.J. (2007). Plate tectonics in the classification of personality disorder: Shifting to a dimensional model. American Psychologist, 62(2), 71-83.
Yamagata, S., Suzuki, A., Ando, I., One, Y., Kijima, N., ... Yoshimura, K. (2006). Is the genetic structure of human personality universal: A cross-cultural twin study from North America, Europe, and Asia. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 987-998.
Zanarini, M.C., Frankenburg, F.R., Vujanovic, A.A., Hennen, J., Reich, D.B., & Silk, K.R. (2004). Axis II comorbidity of borderline personality disorder: Description of 6-year course and prediction to time-to-remission. Acta Psychiatica Scandinavica, 110(6), 416-420.
| i don't know |
What would a conchologist be interested in? | Philippine Marine Mollusks Book
Volume IV: Philippine Marine Mollusks
Volume IV starts with a foreword of Gisela P. Padilla-Concepcion. She is Professor in the University of the Philippines, Diliman where she occupies the Chair of the Marine Science Institute. Gisela ...
click here to read more.
Visaya Vol. 4 No. 5
Huang, S., Fu, I. & Poppe, G. T.: Taiwanese and Philippine Colloniidae. Nomenclatural Remarks and the Description of 17 New Species (Gastropoda: Colloniidae). Anseeuw, P.: Two New Pleurotomariid Subsp...
click here to read more.
VISAYA Vol. 4 No. 4
Govaert, F., Deprez, J. & Vandenberghe, P.: The western range subspecies of Umbilia hesitata (Iredale, 1916) (Gastropoda: Cypraeidae). Fehse, D.: On the identity of Hespererato pallida Oleinik, Petuch...
Iconography
The Superfamily Stromboidea - Addenda and Corrigenda. - In: A Conchological Iconography
During the last fifteen year, passed after the publication of the volume "A Conchological Iconography - The Family Strombidae", by Kreipl & Poppe (1999), a lot of new knowledge has been accumulated co...
click here to read more.
Gloria Maris
29 years of ‘Gloria Maris’, the journal from the Royal Belgian Society of Conchology. The years 1962 to 1991 are now online as a searchable archive!
click here to browse.
Hawaiian Shell News Archive
44 years of Hawaiian Shell News is a now online as a searchable archive containing all issues from 1960 until 2011.
click here to browse.
Of Sea and Shore
34 years of 'Of Sea and Shore', the journal created and maintained by Tom Rice. The complete set is now online as a searchable archive containing all issues from 1970 to 2004!
click here to browse.
Rossiniana
Rossiniana or 'Bulletin de l'Association Conchyliologique de N.C.' is a journal published from 1978 until 1995. In total 62 issues appeared with original descriptions, travel stories, interesting finds and many more articles.
| Shell |
When setting the table for a formal dinner, does the fork(s) go on the left or the right of the plate? | COA :: History
The Shells
COA History
In October of 1972, the Conchologists of America organization was born. Eight enthusiastic shell collectors met at the Newport (Rhode Island) Motor Inn. They were: Kirk Anders of Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Mrs. Robert Armstrong of Westford, Massachusetts; Carl Erickson of Auburn, Massachusetts; Dorothy and Robert Janowsky of Brooklyn, New York; Mrs. Bette Rachlin of Brookline, Massachusetts; Miss. Mavis Walkup of Clovis, New Mexico and John Paduano of Newport, Rhode Island, COA's founder. Bette Rachlin was elected as the first COA president.
A short and simple constitution and by-laws were adopted in 1973 which officially established the Conchologists of America and its purpose "to unite shell collectors and clubs in the United States and promote conservation and interest in shell collecting. The emphasis of this organization shall be on CONCHOLOGY rather than Malacology." The constitution has been revised several times since then, but the concept of the basic purpose remains the same.
The original officers were to be President, Vice-President, and Secretary/Treasurer (this position was later divided ). These people, along with the immediate past president, would be the Executive Committee to organize the annual COA meetings. During the 1979 convention, the constitution was changed to add two board members at large to be appointed by the President. Also a Historian and Publicity Chairperson would be appointed by the President. During the 1990 convention, it was decided that the Board would have a "mid-year" meeting in January as well as the annual business meeting at the convention due to the growth of COA.
Any person interested in Mollusca could become a member. By the 1973 convention, COA had 141 individual and 5 club memberships, and by the end of the 1977 convention, COA membership was 300 strong. Today there are over 1,350 memberships worldwide.
The original COA by-laws stated that "a newsletter shall be sent periodically to members covering club activities, and for the exchange of thoughts, ideas and experiences in the field of Conchology." This newsletter, called Conchologists of America Bulletin, was first edited by Frank Nelson. The publication grew and developed under several different editors with the current editor, Lynn Scheu, taking over in 1987. The Bulletin's name was changed to American Conchologist in 1987 and today it is published as a quarterly, well-respected journal with a worldwide circulation.
Members attending the 1978 convention adopted a proposal for a COA Trophy to be presented at shell shows. The Trophy would be given by the official judges at a shell show to the most outstanding exhibit, or to one showing particular excellence. It would not be given to an exhibit receiving another major award at the same show during the same year. Dr. Abbott was named chairperson of the Awards Committee and the first COA Trophy was presented at the Astronaut Trail Shell Show in January, 1979. Gene Everson was the proud recipient for his exhibit "Seashells of the Americas." Today, 27 COA Trophies are available to be presented at shell shows around the world.
The 1978 Convention saw another new development. Visiting dealers' hotel rooms to buy shells had become a popular extracurricular activity among convention goers. A local dealer did not have a hotel room so he set up a sale table in the hotel lobby. The response from members was so great that other dealers quickly followed suit. The formal "Bourse" or "cooperative marketplace" for conventions was born. Since then, the Bourse has become a leading attraction at the annual COA conventions.
The COA Local Club Representative program was approved in June 1985 to help communication with clubs around the country. The current president of each club designates a representative to act as liaison between the club and COA. The representative has to be a COA member in good standing.
Early on, COA members saw the need to support research on mollusks through a grants program. Since 1985, the COA has awarded over $42,000.00 in grants in the field of malacology. In June, 1995, Dr. Gary Rosenberg was appointed COA Grants Director, and is assisted by Dr. Henry Chaney and Dr. G. Thomas Watters.
Are you interested in further, more in-depth details on the history of COA? See our publications page for information on how to obtain a copy of Twenty Year History of Conchologists of America (1972-1991).
| i don't know |
What bumbling, inept cartoon character superhero’s alter ego was mild-mannered police station janitor Penrod “Penry” Pooch? | Hanna-Barbera - Classic Retro Cartoon Links
Classic Retro Cartoon Links
2 Stupid Dogs is about a big dog and a little dog, neither of whom, as the title explains, is very intelligent, and their everyday misadventures.
The Banana Splits
The Banana Splits Adventure Hour was an hour-long, packaged television program that featured both live action and animated segments
Clue Club
The show centers around four adolescent friends who open the titular private investigation agency out of Larry's suburban residence.
Dastardly & Mutley Wacky Races
The cartoon had an unusually large number of regular characters, with twenty-three people and animals spread among the 11 race cars.
The Flintstones
Set in the Stone Age town of Bedrock. In this fantasy version of the past, dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, and other long-extinct animals co-exist with cavemen
Wally Gator
A Cajun alligator. He is more comfortable when he is at home, in the city zoo. Mr. Twiddle is the zookeeper that keeps a close watch on Wally because sometimes he escapes to check out what things are like outside.
Hong Kong Phooey
Hong Kong Phooey, is a superhero who uses Chinese martial arts to fight crime. Hong Kong Phooey is the secret alter ego of Penrod "Penry" Pooch, a "mild-mannered" police station janitor.
Huckleberry Hound
A blue dog that speaks with a Southern drawl and has a relaxed, sweet, and well-intentioned personality.
Yogi Bear
Yogi Bear was the first breakout character created by Hanna-Barbera, and was eventually more popular than Huckleberry Hound.
Frankenstein Jr.
Taking place in Civic City, boy scientist Buzz Conroy and his father Professor Conroy fight supervillains with the aid of a powerful heroic robot named "Frankenstein Jr."
Johnny Bravo
Stars a muscular beefcake young man named Johnny Bravo who dons a pompadour hairstyle and an Elvis Presley-like voice and has a forward, woman-chasing personality.
Loopy De Loop
A gentleman wolf who mangled the English language in his bid to converse in a bad French-Canadian accent, and always wore a characteristic tuque knit cap.
Pac Man
The show follows the adventures of the title character, Pac-Man his wife Pepper, their child Pac-Baby , their dog Chomp-Chomp and their cat Sour Puss.
Yippee Yappee & Yahooey
Are dogs who serve the King as his royal guards. They must always protect, serve and obey the King. At times, the three heroes find themselves fighting a fire-breathing dragon and other villains.
Qiuck Draw McGraw
A sheriff in a series set in the Arizona Territory of the Old West. Quick Draw was often accompanied by his deputy, a Mexican burro called Baba Looey who spoke English with a Mexican accent.
The Ruff & Reddy Show
Starring Ruff, a straight and smart cat , and Reddy, a dumb and stupid dog. Was originally broadcast in black and white until fall 1958.
Squiddly Diddly
The round-headed, sailor-hatted Squiddly, more octopus than squid in appearance, who is captive in an aquatic park known as Bubbleland, and resides in a pool with his name on it.
The Smurfs
The characters included Papa Smurf, Smurfette, Brainy Smurf, the evil Gargamel, his cat Azrael, and Johan and his friend Peewit. The Smurfs was nominated multiple times for Daytime Emmy awards.
Grape Ape
A 40-foot-tall purple gorilla with the mind of a child. His catch phrase is saying his name twice ("Grape Ape, Grape Ape") He travels the countryside with his canine pal Beegle Beagle.
Top Cat
A frequent plot-line revolved around the local beat policeman, Charles "Charlie" Dibble, NYPD and his ineffective attempts to evict the gang from the alley.
Yakky Doodle
Yakky is always one to run into danger when it is most expected. This usually comes in the form of the show's main antagonist Fibber Fox or secondary villain Alfy Gator.
The Amazing Chan And The Chan Clan
Mr. Chan, his children, nieces nephews and their dog Chu Chu solve mysteries around the city, with the children helping their father/uncle in every episode.
Birdman And The Galaxy Trio
An ordinary human endowed by the sun god Ra with the ability to shoot solar rays from his fists and project “solar shields” to defend himself against attacks. Aassisted by his eagle sidekick Avenger.
Cow & Chicken
Focuses on the misadventures of two unlikely yet somehow biological siblings; the sweet-natured, dim, ecstatic anthropomorphic Cow and her cynical elder brother Chicken.
Dexters Laboratory
The series follows a boy-genius named Dexter who has a secret laboratory filled with an endless collection of his inventions.
Lippy The Lion & Hardy Har Har
Are a pair of anthropomorphic Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, a lion in a tattered top hat and vest and a hyena in a porkpie hat and bow tie, respectively.
Help!...It's The Hair Care Bunch!
Three fun-loving bears The Afroed, fast-talking Hair Bear, confusing-talking Bubi Bear, and laid-back Square Bear. Who are always trying to find a way to escape the Wonderland Zoo on some sort of get-rich-quick scheme.
Precious Pup
A large, mangy dog, and his owner, Granny Sweet. Granny is a kindly woman with a passion for motorcycles, completely oblivious to the fact that her beloved, affectionate pet is something of a neighborhood terror.
Hokey Wolf
Adventures of a con-artist wolf who is always trying to cheat his way into the simple life. He is often accompanied alongside by sidekick Ding-A-Ling Wolf.
I Am Weasel
Lives in a cavern, which he constantly tries to make more habitable for himself. No matter what he does, however, he always winds up back where he started or worse off than he was before.
Atom Ant
A cartoon about a superheroic ant (voiced by Howard Morris). When he flew he used his catchphrase, "Up and at'em, Atom Ant!"
Captain Caveman & The Teen Angels
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels centers on the mystery-solving adventures of the Teen Angels—Brenda, Dee Dee and Taffy—and their friend Captain Caveman
Dastardly & Mutley In Their Flying...
Members of the Vulture Squadron, a crew of aviators on a mission to stop a homing pigeon named Yankee Doodle Pigeon from delivering messages to the other side.
Dynomutt Dog Wonder
Blue Falcon, and his assistant, bumbling yet generally effective robot dog Dynomutt, who could produce a seemingly infinite number of mechanical devices.
Touche Turtle & Dum Dum
A pair of heroic fencers who battle villains and heroically saves kings, queens, maidens and others in distress. Touché was the brave and dashing leader, whereas Dum Dum the sheepdog was more of a simple minded follower.
The Herculoids
The Herculoids battled to defend their planet from menaces on Amzot/Quasar and from outer space. All of the Herculoids displayed Human-level intelligence - employing precision teamwork.
Hillbilly Bears
The Hillbilly Bears aired as part of The Atom Ant Show. The characters in the series were a family of four funny animal bears: Paw and Maw Rugg, their teenage daughter Floral, and their young son Shag
Pixie & Dixie And Mr. Jinks
The show featured two mice, Pixie and Dixie in a southern accent, and a cat, Mr. Jinks (a.k.a. Jinksy to the mice)
The Impossibles
A trio of rock and roll musicians. When contacted by "Big D" about criminal activities in Empire City, they became superheroes. Like the Monkees,
The Jetsons
| Hong Kong Phooey |
Acting as labor companions, what word, originally meaning female slave in Greek, describes women who gives support and help to a pregnant woman before, during and after childbirth? | Hanna-Barbera - Classic Retro Cartoon Links
Classic Retro Cartoon Links
2 Stupid Dogs is about a big dog and a little dog, neither of whom, as the title explains, is very intelligent, and their everyday misadventures.
The Banana Splits
The Banana Splits Adventure Hour was an hour-long, packaged television program that featured both live action and animated segments
Clue Club
The show centers around four adolescent friends who open the titular private investigation agency out of Larry's suburban residence.
Dastardly & Mutley Wacky Races
The cartoon had an unusually large number of regular characters, with twenty-three people and animals spread among the 11 race cars.
The Flintstones
Set in the Stone Age town of Bedrock. In this fantasy version of the past, dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, and other long-extinct animals co-exist with cavemen
Wally Gator
A Cajun alligator. He is more comfortable when he is at home, in the city zoo. Mr. Twiddle is the zookeeper that keeps a close watch on Wally because sometimes he escapes to check out what things are like outside.
Hong Kong Phooey
Hong Kong Phooey, is a superhero who uses Chinese martial arts to fight crime. Hong Kong Phooey is the secret alter ego of Penrod "Penry" Pooch, a "mild-mannered" police station janitor.
Huckleberry Hound
A blue dog that speaks with a Southern drawl and has a relaxed, sweet, and well-intentioned personality.
Yogi Bear
Yogi Bear was the first breakout character created by Hanna-Barbera, and was eventually more popular than Huckleberry Hound.
Frankenstein Jr.
Taking place in Civic City, boy scientist Buzz Conroy and his father Professor Conroy fight supervillains with the aid of a powerful heroic robot named "Frankenstein Jr."
Johnny Bravo
Stars a muscular beefcake young man named Johnny Bravo who dons a pompadour hairstyle and an Elvis Presley-like voice and has a forward, woman-chasing personality.
Loopy De Loop
A gentleman wolf who mangled the English language in his bid to converse in a bad French-Canadian accent, and always wore a characteristic tuque knit cap.
Pac Man
The show follows the adventures of the title character, Pac-Man his wife Pepper, their child Pac-Baby , their dog Chomp-Chomp and their cat Sour Puss.
Yippee Yappee & Yahooey
Are dogs who serve the King as his royal guards. They must always protect, serve and obey the King. At times, the three heroes find themselves fighting a fire-breathing dragon and other villains.
Qiuck Draw McGraw
A sheriff in a series set in the Arizona Territory of the Old West. Quick Draw was often accompanied by his deputy, a Mexican burro called Baba Looey who spoke English with a Mexican accent.
The Ruff & Reddy Show
Starring Ruff, a straight and smart cat , and Reddy, a dumb and stupid dog. Was originally broadcast in black and white until fall 1958.
Squiddly Diddly
The round-headed, sailor-hatted Squiddly, more octopus than squid in appearance, who is captive in an aquatic park known as Bubbleland, and resides in a pool with his name on it.
The Smurfs
The characters included Papa Smurf, Smurfette, Brainy Smurf, the evil Gargamel, his cat Azrael, and Johan and his friend Peewit. The Smurfs was nominated multiple times for Daytime Emmy awards.
Grape Ape
A 40-foot-tall purple gorilla with the mind of a child. His catch phrase is saying his name twice ("Grape Ape, Grape Ape") He travels the countryside with his canine pal Beegle Beagle.
Top Cat
A frequent plot-line revolved around the local beat policeman, Charles "Charlie" Dibble, NYPD and his ineffective attempts to evict the gang from the alley.
Yakky Doodle
Yakky is always one to run into danger when it is most expected. This usually comes in the form of the show's main antagonist Fibber Fox or secondary villain Alfy Gator.
The Amazing Chan And The Chan Clan
Mr. Chan, his children, nieces nephews and their dog Chu Chu solve mysteries around the city, with the children helping their father/uncle in every episode.
Birdman And The Galaxy Trio
An ordinary human endowed by the sun god Ra with the ability to shoot solar rays from his fists and project “solar shields” to defend himself against attacks. Aassisted by his eagle sidekick Avenger.
Cow & Chicken
Focuses on the misadventures of two unlikely yet somehow biological siblings; the sweet-natured, dim, ecstatic anthropomorphic Cow and her cynical elder brother Chicken.
Dexters Laboratory
The series follows a boy-genius named Dexter who has a secret laboratory filled with an endless collection of his inventions.
Lippy The Lion & Hardy Har Har
Are a pair of anthropomorphic Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, a lion in a tattered top hat and vest and a hyena in a porkpie hat and bow tie, respectively.
Help!...It's The Hair Care Bunch!
Three fun-loving bears The Afroed, fast-talking Hair Bear, confusing-talking Bubi Bear, and laid-back Square Bear. Who are always trying to find a way to escape the Wonderland Zoo on some sort of get-rich-quick scheme.
Precious Pup
A large, mangy dog, and his owner, Granny Sweet. Granny is a kindly woman with a passion for motorcycles, completely oblivious to the fact that her beloved, affectionate pet is something of a neighborhood terror.
Hokey Wolf
Adventures of a con-artist wolf who is always trying to cheat his way into the simple life. He is often accompanied alongside by sidekick Ding-A-Ling Wolf.
I Am Weasel
Lives in a cavern, which he constantly tries to make more habitable for himself. No matter what he does, however, he always winds up back where he started or worse off than he was before.
Atom Ant
A cartoon about a superheroic ant (voiced by Howard Morris). When he flew he used his catchphrase, "Up and at'em, Atom Ant!"
Captain Caveman & The Teen Angels
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels centers on the mystery-solving adventures of the Teen Angels—Brenda, Dee Dee and Taffy—and their friend Captain Caveman
Dastardly & Mutley In Their Flying...
Members of the Vulture Squadron, a crew of aviators on a mission to stop a homing pigeon named Yankee Doodle Pigeon from delivering messages to the other side.
Dynomutt Dog Wonder
Blue Falcon, and his assistant, bumbling yet generally effective robot dog Dynomutt, who could produce a seemingly infinite number of mechanical devices.
Touche Turtle & Dum Dum
A pair of heroic fencers who battle villains and heroically saves kings, queens, maidens and others in distress. Touché was the brave and dashing leader, whereas Dum Dum the sheepdog was more of a simple minded follower.
The Herculoids
The Herculoids battled to defend their planet from menaces on Amzot/Quasar and from outer space. All of the Herculoids displayed Human-level intelligence - employing precision teamwork.
Hillbilly Bears
The Hillbilly Bears aired as part of The Atom Ant Show. The characters in the series were a family of four funny animal bears: Paw and Maw Rugg, their teenage daughter Floral, and their young son Shag
Pixie & Dixie And Mr. Jinks
The show featured two mice, Pixie and Dixie in a southern accent, and a cat, Mr. Jinks (a.k.a. Jinksy to the mice)
The Impossibles
A trio of rock and roll musicians. When contacted by "Big D" about criminal activities in Empire City, they became superheroes. Like the Monkees,
The Jetsons
| i don't know |
May 15, 1940 saw the first restaurant in what fast food franchise, now the worlds largest, open in San Bernadino, Ca? | World’s First McDonald Restaurant | Amusing Planet
World’s First McDonald Restaurant
Kaushik Thursday, September 06, 2012 2 comments
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The world's largest chain of fast food restaurants that serve around 68 million customers each day in 119 countries began operation in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant run by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald at 1398 North E Street at West 14th Street in San Bernardino, California. The original restaurant was named "McDonald's Famous Barbeque" and served over forty barbequed items.
In October 1948, after the McDonald brothers realized that most of their profits came from selling hamburgers, they closed down their successful carhop drive-in to establish a streamlined system with a simple menu of just hamburgers, potato chips, and orange juice. The following year, French fries and Coca-Cola were added to the menu. This simplified menu and food preparation using assembly line principles allowed them to sell hamburgers for 15 cents, or about half as much as at a sit-down restaurant.
McDonald Brother's store in San Bernadino, California
In 1953, the McDonald brothers began to franchise their successful restaurant, starting in Phoenix, Arizona and Downey, California; the latter is today the oldest surviving McDonald's restaurant. In 1954, the McDonald brothers licensed Ray Kroc, a seller of Multimixer milkshake machines, to setup McDonald restaurants throughout the country. Subsequently a new restaurant was opened in Des Plaines, Illinois, near Chicago, on April 15, 1955, the same day that McDonald became a corporation. The company usually refers to this as The Original McDonald's as it marked the beginning of the phenomenal growth of the most popular fast food franchise in history.
Both McDonalds at San Bernardino, California and Des Plaines, Illinois, now houses replica museum with exhibits such as the original fry vats, milkshake Multimixers, which Kroc had sold when he first encountered the San Bernardino McDonald's restaurant, soda barrels and grills, attended to by a crew of male mannequins in 1950s uniforms. Visitors can walk in through the back, or peek through the order windows in front. There is also a collection of vintage ads, photos and a video about McDonald's history.
Photo from the 1950's. Customers at a McDonald's restaurant
Photo from 1955, of Ray Kroc's first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois
Exterior shot of the first store in Des Plaines, Illinois
Original crew members in front of first store in Des Plaines, Illinois.
Exterior view of the first McDonald's fast food restaurant with its neon arches illuminated at night, Des Plaines, Illinois. Circa 1955
The site of the first McDonald's restaurant, San Bernardino, California. Only part of the sign remains from the original structure
McDonald Museum at Des Plaines, Illinois
The first McDonald's Drive-Thru established in Sierra Vista, AZ
Fred Turner and Ray Kroc looking at blueprints of future McDonald's restaurant
The oldest operating McDonald's on Lakewood and Florence in Downey, California, was the chain's third restaurant and the second to be built with the Golden Arches. The restaurant is almost unchanged in appearance since it opened in 1953.
McDonald Museum at Des Plaines, Illinois
Inside McDonald Museum at Des Plaines, Illinois
McDonald's ad from the Grand Opening
| McDonald's |
On May 10, 1893, the Supreme Court of the United States decided the case of Nix v. Hedden, which address the issue of whether the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. Which one is it? | Free mcdonalds Essays and Papers
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Public Relations Overview Of McDonalds - ... Although tropical rainforests cover only seven percent of the earth's surface, they are home to over 50% of the earth's species. For each of the past 25 years that Central American has been deforested to make room for cattle, a thousand species have been forced into extinction. A large portion of the beef raised in Costa Rica, Brazil, and other Latin American countries is exported to the United States. The imported beef is cheaper and leaner than what is produced domestically, but it also attributes to the destruction of one of the last biologically diverse natural wonders on the planet.... [tags: mcdonalds, public opinion, fast food]
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Analysis and Description of McDonalds’ Dollar Menu - The content of this document begin by introducing McDonalds’ and also explains the company’s dollar menu. The document also contains a description of my selected product; ‘the dollar menu’ in terms of the four utilities of customer value, mainly possession, time, place and form. The document also identifies the product’s target market in the US as well as in China, the competition of the product category in both home and foreign markets, it contains an explanation of how I would apply the segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) approach to market the product in the foreign market; it discusses the major environmental facts and trends in the foreign markets that might affect sales of t... [tags: mcdonalds, fast food, dollar menu, hamburguers]
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McDonalds and Consumer Protection - Making existing and potential customers knowledgeable about products/services, consumer awareness creates more informed buying decisions. Consumers cannot purchase products and services if they do not know they exist. That being said, I believe McDonalds does uphold the basic rights of consumers. Currently, McDonalds displays nutrition facts on all of there food items. That was not always the case. Prior to the movie super size me, and the ensuing lawsuits, McDonalds would offer consumers the option to upgrade their already unhealthy meals to a even larger potion known as super size.... [tags: Health Fast Food McDonalds]
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McDonalds Business Analysis - Since Richard and Maurice McDonald founded in 1948, McDonald's has grown from a small restaurant in California into one of the most recognized brands in the world with a chain of outlets that spans the globe. For over 50 years, McDonald's defined the fast food industry while indelibly etching its golden arches logo on the face of both American and global culture through such icons as character Ronald McDonald and the Big Mac sandwich. Millions of people started their very first jobs at McDonalds while even more began to have their eating habits redefined by the chain.... [tags: McDonalds Business Analysis Management Strategy]
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McDonalds Consumer Satisfaction in China - 1. Introduction As requested, this report is based on a market research on the consumer satisfaction of the services of McDonald's in China. This report shows McDonald's background , history, an introduction of its services and reveals the benefits and the drawbacks of the services of McDonald's in China, in the increasing restaurants in China, for McDonald's in China itself and also the customers. Also, there are some recommendations for McDonald's. 2. Procedures The information shown in this report was gathered from: http://www McDonald's com/ http://www.bokee.net/newcirclemodule/article_viewEntry.do?id=464256&circleId=111136 http://www.mcdonalds.com.tw/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mc... [tags: China Mcdonalds Market Marketing]
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Mcdonalds In India - McDonald’s in India In America, we consider McDonald’s to be a beef serving, sometimes fatty fast food restaurant, but after a 6 year business plan to sway the Indian population, McDonald’s has transformed. If they can continue this growth in India, and all over the world, globalization will start to love McDonald’s even more. They seemed to have hit the right points, from playing it safe, investing their time doing marketing research, to find the best places to put a restaurant and finding out what it is that people in India like to eat.... [tags: International Busines Culture India Mcdonalds]
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Ethnographic study at McDonalds - This essay focuses on the topic of globalization, taking along several other factors with it. Increasingly in the world, it becomes obvious that the globalization is affecting almost all the businesses of the world. Every market in some way or the other is following the principles of globalization. For example, McDonalds is a chain of restaurants working in collaboration to deliver their customers with the best product and to achieve this McDonalds follows the concepts of globalization. This essay will discuss anc ethnographic study at McDonalds examining whether it confirms or denies the claims made about globalization.... [tags: globalization]
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The Role Globalization plays on Cuisine for McDonalds - When society thinks about the local McDonald’s, they probably do not think “innovation’. That is because everyone has become accustomed to the many novelties that McDonald’s has introduced over the years. Some people do not even know that McDonalds was the leader in innovation being the first major international fast food restaurant, with the first drive-through window. What many people do not realize is that McDonald’s continues to drive innovation in fast food. Some times the innovation is well advertised, but other times they are designed so that customers will never even notice (Ritzer, 2004).... [tags: Global Marketing]
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McDonalds: An American Icon - The largest of the fast food companies have forever cemented themselves into the American culture and they are fully aware of that fact. Written on a McDonald’s paper tray liner is their statement to this knowledge; “I think about great memories from my past. Road Trips, friends, study breaks and lots of laughs. Anytime nostalgia sets in, I know it’s not too long before I’ll be going to McDonald’s for a Big Mac. Someday in the future, when I’m looking back at today, McDonald’s will still be there.” Since our future only holds visions of more and more fast-food restaurants springing up across the horizon, we need to learn where the best food is being served outside our own kitchen.... [tags: fast food, restaurant]
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Mcdonalds Porters Five Forces Model - Analysing McDonalds (fast food outlets) using Porters 5 Forces model – sometimes called the Competitive Forces model. Introduction McDonalds Canada opened in 1967, thirteen years after McDonalds had taken the United States by storm. This was the first restaurant to be opened outside of the United States. It was in 1965 that McDonalds went public and offered shares on Wall Street. Since then it has been important for McDonalds to continually monitor its performance, to make sure it is competitive and profitable while also being aware of its immediate community responsibilities.... [tags: Strategic Management]
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Mcdonalds Case Study - In order to understand McDonald's structure and culture and why they continue to be the world's largest restaurant chain we conducted a SWOT analysis that allowed us to consider every dimension involved in the business level and corporate level strategies. Our research indicated more viable strengths than weaknesses. Strengths such as brand recognition, steady growth in global markets, and strong leadership. McDonald's has become part of America's culture and now the same can be said for the global arena based on the demonstration of growth and continued dominance over competitors.... [tags: Business Analysis Strategy]
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The Different Management Theories Used Within Bodyshop and McDonalds - The Different Management Theories Used Within Bodyshop and McDonalds Introduction The aim of this report is to show the different types of management theory's and how they are now used in Bodyshop's and McDonald's business to day. The different management approaches In this section I will list the different approaches to management and explain what they mean. Also I will state the advantages and disadvantages for each approach. Scientific management is the most influential theory in production line businesses during the first two decades of the twentieth century and is still widely used to day.... [tags: Papers]
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Swot Analysis Of Mcdonald's Vs. Burger King - The McDonald brothers' first restaurant, founded in 1937 in a parking lot just east of Pasadena, Calif., didn't serve hamburgers. It had no playground and no Happy Meals. The most popular item on the menu was the hot dog, and most people ate it sitting on an outdoor stool or in their cherished new autos while being served by teenage carhops. That model was a smashing success--for about a decade. Then America's tastes began to change, and the Golden Arches changed with them. As cars lost some of their romance, indoor restaurants took over.... [tags: McDonalds Business Compare Burger King]
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McDonalds Sweden Case Study - McDonald's Sweden is working to find innovative ways of providing fast, healthy, low-cost food for the majority of the people, while functioning as a sustainable operation - financially, socially, and environmentally. With the help of The Natural Step Sweden and 8,000 committed employees, in just five years McDonald's Sweden has reduced costs through numerous eco-efficiency programs, spurred new innovations, motivated and energized staff, and transformed their public image. By studying the fundamental nature of their business through the lens of the TNS framework, McDonald's Sweden is moving beyond eco-efficency.... [tags: Business Management Strategy Analysis]
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Fast Food Obesity - Throughout the years, fast food is becoming more and more of an outlet for many people that are short on change, in a rush but still need to grab a bite to eat, or even who are just too lazy to cook a meal. Fast food is very cheap, yet when we eat it we don’t necessarily realize the price we pay when we are starting to gain weight. Who is to blame. The person that is addicted to fast food, or the fast food restaurants. I agree fast food is cheap, yet delicious. I understand that it may get addicting, I do not believe that it is the restaurants fault for your lack of self-control.... [tags: nutrition, fast food, Mcdonalds]
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McDonalds, what does it mean to you? - Marketing Management 3-4:30 Current Issues Paper McDonald’s, What Does It Mean to You. McDonald’s Corporation has held a prominent position in the fast-food market for much of its existence. A person would be hard pressed to find consumers who would not readily recognize the famous golden arches, as the company has expanded its market globally. However, as global consumer tastes shift to a more heath-conscious public which cares less about “super sizing” and more about “slenderizing” the popular burger chain has been experiencing a drop in sales.... [tags: essays research papers]
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Personal Choice and Responsibility: Don't Blame McDonalds if You Are Obese - After Thanksgiving dinner in 2002, Morgan Spurlock sat on his couch to relax after his huge Thanksgiving feast. As he flipped through the channels, he came across news about two women who were suing McDonalds for making their children obese. This report made him question fast food and its nutritional value, and stimulated him to make a daring and risky choice. He wanted to prove a point and educate people about the dangers of fast food by changing his diet for a month to strictly McDonalds and to get it all on video.... [tags: Super Size Me]
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An Anaysis of McDonald’s Corporation - The corporation I chose to discuss is McDonald’s. McDonald’s is a publicly traded corporation that includes the following domestic companies, McDonald’s, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Boston Market. This paper will discuss the following: • Choosing the socio-cultural and global segments of the general environment and explaining which segment would rank highest in the influence on McDonald’s Corporation and also assessing how those segments affect McDonald’s Corporation. • Discussing the two forces of competition, which are threat of new entrants and threat of substitutes, and identifying the most significant of those forces for McDonald’s Corporation.... [tags: McDonald’s Case Study]
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The "Faster" McRevolution of the 1950's - In the 1950’s, one of the words to help describe America was faster. Americans craved faster cars, faster music, and faster lives. This was the perfect time for Ray Kroc to contribute his groundbreaking ideas for the fast food industry. At first, Ray Kroc was just a salesman for the Multimixer shake machine, while McDonald’s was just a single, small hamburger stand in San Bernardino, California, that offered quick service. Kroc saw the potential of this small stand (to which he had sold 8 Multimixers) operated by Richard “Dick” McDonald, and his brother, Maurice “Mac” McDonald.... [tags: mcdonalds, ray kroc, fast food, franchise]
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The McDonald's Franchise Internationally - There are many different cultures making up the world that we live in. Some can be experienced right where you live, while others are in another state or even country. Even though there are so many unique cultures in our world, it is hard for us to think of something as simple as McDonald’s being any different than our own. McDonald’s is something that many people in America have been to and experienced for themselves, but not many people can say they have experienced it some place else such as France or China.... [tags: richar and james mcdonald, inexpensive]
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McDonald’s Contribution to the Environment and the Community - The Golden Arches also known as McDonald’s. Who has not heard of this restaurants name. There are different food choices, career opportunities and community commitments within this corporation. Some may think McDonald’s is the greatest food service retailer or perhaps the worst company that could have evolved in Canada and the United States. The content entailed in this report shall inform you that there are more then just hamburgers and french fries in the world of McDonald’s. The major topics covered are McDonald’s contribution to the environment, and to the community.... [tags: McDonald’s, philanthropy,]
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Easycar.Com And Mcdonalds - CASE #5 easyCar.com Summary Easycar, rental car company, founded in 2000 on a £10million investment, has grown car rental business. Easycar was a member of the EasyGroup family of companies. Easycar’s differ from traditional rental care companies. They don’t work with intermediaries and started its business with only one vehicle, Mercedes A-class, while all most competitors rented various vehicles. In addition, they provide lower price to customers than their competitors and have several price policies such as returning its car by cleaning from customer, booking service on the website and phone reservation system, small place for parking, and so on.... [tags: Business Analysis]
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Analysis of McDonald’s - Intro The McDonald's Corporation is the largest chain of fast food restaurants in the world. It is franchised in over 119 countries and serves an average of 68 million customers daily. The company started in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald in the United States. They reorganized their business as a hamburger stand in 1948. In 1955, Businessman Ray Kroc joined the company as a franchise agent. He purchased the chain from the McDonald brothers and oversaw its global-wide growth (McDonald’s 2014).... [tags: McDonald’s Case Study]
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A New Solution to Bring Back the Smile - A New Solution to Bring Back the Smile Robert Liney is a divorced 34-year-old lawyer with four year old, a six year old, and an eight year old. Robert lives outside of Morristown, New Jersey and commutes an hour each way to his law firm. His law firm handles corporate mergers, and on average Robert works 60 to 70 hours a week. About two years ago, Robert and his wife, Marie, got divorced because of his busy schedule. On days when Bob gets custody of the kids, he does not have a lot of time to prepare dinner.... [tags: Customer Service McDonalds Restaurants Essays]
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The Man Behind the Clown: Ray Kroc and McDonalds - The man behind the clown Thomas A. Edison once said, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Ray Kroc was successful because he kept trying no matter how many people put him down. Also, if he succeeded in one thing he kept on going and fulfilling his other goals to continue. He had confidence and motivation in himself as a person and that contributed to his success. He set realistic goals for himself and had strived to be the best. He was hard working since young and knew what he was doing so that was building block to his success.... [tags: trying, food chain ]
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Analysis of Super Size Me - Analysis of "Super Size Me" Morgan Spurlock decided to make this documentary to investigate the fast food companies, and the effects of certain fast food chains products, particularly McDonalds, on the health of society. This Documentary explores the United States growing epidemic of obesity and diabetes as well. Morgan decides to eat nothing but McDonald's food for thirty days. He must eat one of everything on the menu at least once, and when asked to super size his meal he must do so. Another stipulation of Morgan's experiment is that he can only take 5,000 steps a day to replicate the exercise that most average Americans get on a daily basis.... [tags: Film Movies McDonalds Obesity Essays Papers]
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Will Fast Food be the Death of Us? - The American food industry has evolved in ways that may not be distinguishable to the human palate, but hopefully remain distinguishable to the human conscience. With all the options now available to company executives, citizens must be sure to keep them from abusing their powers and continuing to harm employees, mistreat animals, and kill consumers. The best ways are to promote public discourse and to make the most of the power of the consumer by thoughtfully deciding where to spend their hard-earned dollars.... [tags: The Dark Side of Fast Food, McDonalds]
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The Influence of Ray Kroc to McDonald’s - “I’m Lovin’ It!” “Ba da ba ba baa… I’m lovin’ it!” is an ingenious appealing slogan that would be ringing in somebody’s head over and over when watching a television. Most of us would guess right away that it is from McDonald’s, a multi-national corporation and world’s largest hamburger food chain that was founded in 1955. The big giant is a joint collaboration of Ray Kroc and the McDonald’s brothers. Ray Kroc brought in his unique philosophy of “in business for yourself, but not by yourself” focuses on working with franchisees and suppliers rather than for McDonald (The Ray Kroc Story).... [tags: McDonald's, franchisees, corporation]
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The Servicescape of McDonald´s in China - The servicescape of McDonald's in china Introduction The servicecapes of McDonald’s in china w ill be analyzed in this study critically. Although McDonald’s takes the local condition in planning the service environment, there are still some problems existing in its servicecape design, such as the use of music, the insufficiency of the spatial layout design and the decoration inside. However, for the sake of better satisfying the customers, the improvement of servicecape design become an important task of McDonald’s to maintain its development in China.... [tags: spatial layout design, decoration, environment]
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McDonald’s: Just Say No - “Buda-bup-bup-bup, I’m Lovin’ It!” Once you hear this noise: hide. All too commonly, Americans have traded in their beloved home cooking for the fast-food restaurant called McDonald’s; partly because of its swift delivery, but mainly because they are everywhere. In the small town of Claremore, Oklahoma (with a population of only 18,000), there are two: the convenient café and the “Oh my gosh they screwed it up again!” eatery. These tantalizing restaurants are illustrious for their massive amounts of calories and fat in each addicting bite, and have been serving the now-suspecting public for 71 years.... [tags: Argumentative Essays]
997 words
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McDonald’s and its Affects on Obesity - The American family has certainly transformed over the past 20 years. Whether someone lives with two parents or one parent they are probably working full time jobs to provide for the family. In addition to their outside jobs they have the responsibility of raising the children, helping with homework, cleaning the house, and provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Due to the events of the day, temptation wins and the family gorges on Big Macs, french fries, and a sugary soft drink. Great, the family is fed, but what are the long term affects of the fast food when ingested several times a month.... [tags: Fast Food, Family Life, Culture, Obesity]
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McDonald’s Innovative Project Failure: Case Study - McDonald’s Innovative Project Failure: Case Study McDonald’s is the world’s largest food chain for supplying burgers and other fast food options, when it comes to quality they definitely don’t hesitate to spend money and come up with new techniques. For the similar purpose, like for the satisfaction of their customers and the increase sales rate they tried to start a new project in year 2001 called as “INNOVATE”. The basic theme was globalization. Bringing different branches on a single platform, connecting all the restaurants and managing it through a single forum.... [tags: Business Management]
:: 9 Works Cited
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Investigating McDonald's - Investigating McDonald's The purpose of this report is to show my understanding of why McDonald's adopted franchising. In the report I am going to explain franchise and explain its legal framework. Also the amount of control McDonalds actually has over the McDonald's outlets and where the outlets should be located. I will also evaluate if original decision to franchise was the correct one. My report will include: v where my information comes from and why; v an introduction that will give a brief history of McDonalds and some of the characteristics of the company i.e.... [tags: Papers]
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McDonald's Review - McDonald's Review In 1954, Ray Kroc a salesman, who sold milk shake makers, visited a McDonald's hamburger stand in California that used eight milk shake makers at a time. He had never seen so many people served so quickly. That day he pitched the idea to open up several similar restaurants to the owners Dick and Mac McDonald. His plan was that if they opened up more stores, then he could sell eight milk shake makers to each one. When asked who would open the new hamburger stands, Ray Kroc said that he would do it.... [tags: Papers]
492 words
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McDonald's Case Study - McDonald's Case Study As organizations seeks ways to increase profits by filtering into international markets, many turn to the field of public relations as a way of reaching cross-cultural markets. Factors such as values, cultural differences, language barriers, beliefs, etc…in order to successfully promote an organization's products and services. Public relations practitioners have the responsibility to be the mediator between the organizations and public(s). According to Murphy and Dee (1992), " Public relations makes organizations more effective by building relationships with stakeholders in the environment that have the potential to constrain or enhance the mission of the org... [tags: Papers]
1751 words
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McDonald's is A Competitive Fast Food Firm - A Competitive Fast Food Firm Firms within the fast food industry fall under the market structure of competition. Market structure is a classification for the key traits of a market. The characteristics of a market that is competitive would include: a large number of buyers and sellers, easy entry to and exit from the market, homogeneous products, and the firm is a price taker. Take McDonalds fast food restaurant for example. In 1954, Ray Kroc became the first franchisee appointed by Mac and Dic McDonald in San Bernadino, California.... [tags: Fast Food Industry]
1151 words
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McDonald’s - Success through Development of a Rational System - McDonald’s - Success through Development of a Rational System At first, most people must have laughed at the idea of a chain of restaurants selling identical products all over the country, but little did they know that the genius idea that they had mocked would go on to revolutionise the business environment of the future. McDonald’s is now the international market leader for fast food, and has been ever since its pioneering first restaurant was launched in San Bernardino, California in 1948. Historical Background The original founders of McDonald’s, and the fast-food concept, were brothers Dick and Mac McDonald.... [tags: GCSE Business Marketing BTEC Coursework]
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McDonald’s The Dollar and Up Menu A burger costs more than $ 1 now. - McDonald’s is the leading global food service retailer with 1.8 million employees who serve 69 million people in 118 countries each day; from more than 34,000 local restaurants, 80% of which are franchised. ("Getting to know," 2013) I. Establish a sense of urgency McDonalds is facing a financial crisis The Dollar Menu is no longer producing the desired outcomes; providing a drawn for customers and profits for the franchise. The Dollar Menu itself had little opportunity to generate profits directly (6 cents per burger), but the indirect sales of higher profit generating items by customers once they were enticed into the store by the Dollar Menu was the means of generating profits.... [tags: Financial Crisis, Company]
:: 9 Works Cited
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Challenging Modern American Ideas on Obesity - Challenging Modern American ideas on Obesity: "Eat Fresh" or “Have it your Way" As children my brother and I would be thrilled when our parents would bring home a cheese burger and chicken nugget kids meals with fries from McDonalds. We would gobble down the fast food as we played with whatever colorful toy was placed within the decorated kid’s meal bag. This was a special occasion for my brother and I because the only time our parents would purchase fast food would been when they do not have the time to make the food themselves and they happened to be in town at the time.... [tags: eat fresh, cholesterol, Mcdonald's]
:: 4 Works Cited
| i don't know |
May 13, 1958 saw the trademark for what product, developed by Swiss engineer George de Mestral based on the hook and loop properties he observed on burrs on his dog following a hunt? | Do I Know This ?
Do I Know This ?
Updated May 17, 2013, 12:23 AM
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Amazing Facts
100 amazing & unknown facts!
# Our eyes remain the same size from birth onward, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
# The Barbie doll’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
# The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.
# Ants never sleep!
# When the moon is directly overhead, you will weigh slightly less.
# Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never called his wife or mother because they were both deaf.
# An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
# “I Am” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
# Babies are born without knee caps – actually, they’re made of cartilage and the bone hardens between the ages of 2 and 6 years.
# Happy Birthday (the song) is copyrighted.
# Butterflies taste with their feet.
# A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
# It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
# Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
# Minus 40 degrees Celsius is exactly the same as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
# No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
# Shakespeare invented the words “assassination” and “bump.”
# Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.
# Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.
# The names of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
# The sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses every letter in the English language.
# The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.
# The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
# The word “lethologica” describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
# Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from the blowing desert sand.
# TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard.
# You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath.
# Money isn’t made out of paper. It’s made out of cotton.
# Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.
# The dot over the letter “i” is called a tittle.
# A duck’s quack doesn’t echo. No one knows why!
# The “spot” on the 7-Up comes from its inventor who had red eyes – he was an albino. ’7′ was because the original containers were 7 ounces and ‘UP’ indicated the direction of the bubbles.
# Chocolate can kill dogs, as it contains theobromine, which affects their heart and nervous system.
# Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of plaster.
# There are only two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: “abstemious” and “facetious.”
# If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
# Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to slow film down so you could see his moves.
# The original name for butterfly was flutterby.
# By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.
# Dogs and cats, like humans, are either right or left handed.
# Charlie Chaplin once won the third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.
# Sherlock Holmes NEVER said “Elementary, my dear Watson”.
# The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
# Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
# The shortest English word that contains the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F is “feedback.”
# All Polar bears are left-handed.
# In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
# “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt.”
# Almonds are a member of the peach family, and apples belong to the rose family.
# Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
# The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is “uncopyrightable”.
# In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10
# Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
# Alfred Nobel, in whose name the Nobel prizes are instituted, was the inventor of dynamite.
# The planet Venus does not tilt, so consequently, it has no seasons. It is the only planet that rotates clock-wise.
# Honey is the only food that doesn’t spoil.
# The word “set” has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
# Molecularly speaking, water is actually much drier than sand.
# Human tonsils can bounce higher than a rubber ball of similar weight and size, but only for the first 30 minutes after they’ve been removed.
# US President John F. Kennedy was an accomplished ventriloquist.
# Coca-Cola was originally green.
# Moths are unable to fly during an earthquake.
# Contrary to popular belief, the white is not the healthiest part of an egg. It’s actually the shell.
# Nearly three percent of the ice in Antarctic glaciers is penguin urine.
# Hot water will turn into ice faster then cold water.
# “Rhythm” is the longest English word without a vowel.
# Like fingerprints, every person’s tongue print is different.
# No piece of normal-size paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
# The tongue is the only muscle that is attached from one end only.
# Pumice is the only rock that floats in water.
# Camel’s milk does not curdle.
# Your foot is the same length as your forearm, and your thumb is the same length as your nose. Also, the length of your lips is the same as the index finger.
# Natural pearls melt in vinegar.
# Buttermilk does not contain any butter.
# The human brain is 80% water.
# Men’s shirts have the buttons on the right while women’s shirts have the buttons on the left.
# Human fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
# The Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt holds a constant temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
# The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.
# Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age.
# It takes approximately 2 million flowers for a bee to make 1 pound of honey.
# Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular water.
# It is physically impossible to urinate and give blood at the same time.
# The letter J does not appear anywhere in the periodic table of the elements.
# The right lung of a human is larger than the left one. This is because of the space and placement of the heart.
# Watermelons, which are 92% water, originated from the Kalahari Desert in Africa.
# The hair of some cancer patients treated with chemotherapy can grow back in a different colour, and sometimes even be curly or straight.
# The markings that are found on dice are called “pips.”
# 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
# The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
# Leonardo Da Vinci never signed or dated his most famous painting, the Mona Lisa.
# The ampersand (&) was the last letter of the Latin alphabet.
# The palms of your hands and the soles of your feet cannot tan, or grow hair.
# Dolphins can swim and sleep at the same time, as they sleep with one eye open.
# Each nostril of a human being registers smell in a different way. Those by the right nostril are more pleasant than the left.
# The longest single-syllable word in the English language is “screeched.”
# The word “Checkmate” in chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah-Mat,” which means “the king is dead”.
# Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades – King David, Clubs – Alexander the Great, Hearts – Charlemagne, and Diamonds – Julius Caesar.
# In Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift described the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, giving their exact size and speeds of rotation. He did this more than 100 years before either moon was discovered!
# If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
Amazing Facts
Indonesia consists only of islands - 13,667 total
During World War II, the very first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo
People who ride on roller coasters have a higher chance of having a blood clot in the brain
The tallest freestanding sculpture in the world is Chief Crazy Horse in South Dakota, USA
Marie Curie, the Nobel prize winning scientist who discovered radium, died of radiation poisoning
898 tornadoes were recorded to have occurred in the United States in the year 2000.
The word Popcorn is derived from the middle English word "poppe," which means "explosive sound"
The food that is digested in your stomach is called "chyme."
Alcohol beverages have all 13 minerals necessary for human life
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses everyletter in the alphabet. (Developed by Western Union to Test telex/twxcommunications)
The word housekeeping was invented by Shakespeare
The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sportsgames (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after theMajorLeague All-Star Game.
In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only 6 people were injured
Lack of sleep can affect your immune system and reduce your ability to fight infections
All dogs are the descendant of the wolf. These wolves lived in eastern Asia about 15,000 years ago
It is not possible to tickle yourself. The cerebellum, a part of the brain, warns the rest of the brain that you are about to tickle yourself. Since your brain knows this, it ignores the resulting sensation
Parma ham is only Parma ham if it is made in the Parma region of Italy. The British chain supermarket Asda, made and packaged its own "Parma ham" and was successfully sued by the real Parma ham people (Parma Ham Trade Association)
With winds of 50 miles per hour, The Statue of Liberty sways three inches and the torch sways five inches
A famous bullfighter, Lagarijo, killed 4,867 bulls in the 19th century.
Police detectives have used snapping turtles to help them locate dead bodies
In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10
The national sport of Japan is sumo wrestling
The early occurrence of a fetus yawning is at eleven weeks after conception
In a month, a fingernail grows an eighth of an inch
Edward VIII did not officially become the King of England as he abdicated the throne to marry an American divorcee
The book "Little Red Riding Hood" was banned in 1990 by two school districts in California. They did this because in the book there was a picture of a basket that had a bottle of wine in it
The reason why golf balls have dimples on them is because it helps in the ball to move a farther distance by reducing drag
Americans consume the most peanut butter in the world
Celtic warriors sometimes fought their battles naked, their bodies dyed blue from head to toe
To make butter more attractive in colour, carrot juice was used by people in the Middle Ages
Early hockey games allowed as many as 30 players a side on the ice
Most fleas do not live past a year old
It takes seven to ten days to make a jelly belly jellybean
Some asteroids have other asteroids orbiting them
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the males head off
There is enough concrete in the Hoover Dam to pave a two lane highway from San Francisco to New York
Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day
Every 238 years, the orbits of Neptune and Pluto change making Neptune at times the farthest planet from the sun
There is a certain species of kangaroo that is only 2.5 centimetres long when it is born
In a lifetime, the average house cat spends approximately 10,950 hours purring
The real name of Toto the dog in "The Wizard Of Oz" was Terry
Stannous fluoride, which is the cavity fighter found in toothpaste is made from recycled tin
It takes 12 honeybees to make one teaspoon of honey
Thomas Watson, who was the chairman of IBM in 1943 predicted that their would probably only be a world market for five computers.
The largest hamburger cooked in the world weighed in at 6,040 pounds
The first lighthouse was in Alexandria in 290 B.C
Heinz first started making ketchup in 1876 and the recipe has remained the same ever since
The largest wedding chapel in Las Vegas is the Viva Las Vegas Chapel, which can seat 100 people
The most popular name for a pet in the United States is Max
Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil
The largest shopping mall in the world is the West Edmonton Mall located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
The CN Tower located in Toronto, Ontario Canada took a total construction time of 40 months to complete at an original cost of $63 million
The 20th president of the United States, James Garfield, was able to write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other at the same time
The country of Andorra has a zero percent unemployment rate
In Los Angeles, there are fewer people than there are automobiles
A woman has approximately 4.5 litres of blood in her body, while men have 5.6 litres
In India, pickled ginger, minced mutton and a cottage cheese like substance are popular pizza toppings
Oral-B were the first toothbrushes to go to the moon when they were aboard the Apollo 11 mission
A maple tree is usually tapped when the tree is at least 45 years old and has a diameter of 12 inches
In 1998, a law passed in the U.S. state of Virginia allows drivers to keep their road kill, as long as they report it within 12 hours. updated
A language becomes extinct in this world every two weeks
An acre of trees can remove about 13 tons of dust and gases every year from the surrounding environment
The decomposition point of Olive Oil is 220 degrees Celsius
Ten radishes only contain eight calories
Annually a thousand people are killed by scorpions in Mexico
Every year, 100 million sharks are killed by people
Tug of war was an Olympic event from 1900-1920
Of all the countries, Brazil has the most plant species, with over 56,000
One female mouse can produce up to 100 babies a year
Impotence is grounds for divorce in 26 U.S. states
Women who are romance novel readers are reported to make love 74% more often with their partners than women who do not read romance novels.
The average lifespan of a human taste bud is ten days
The monogram "RR" for Rolls-Royce has never been altered, except for when Sir Henry Royce passed away in 1933. Then it was changed from red to black.
People with darker skin will not wrinkle as fast as people with lighter skin
Fido means faithful in Latin
Pebbles cereal was actually named after the shape of the cereal and not the Pebbles Flintstone character
A group of kangaroos is called a mob
Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
Every three seconds, a new baby is born
More than 260,000 people have been killed by volcanic activity since 1700 AD.
The only predator that polar bears have are humans
Many insects can carry 50 times their own body weight
The last land battle of the U.S. Civil War was fought in Texas
Annually 7 million tons of textiles and clothing is thrown out. Out of this, only 12% is used again or recycled
A scorpion can have up to 12 eyes
A snake charmer in Bangladesh once found 3,500 poisonous cobras and their eggs hidden underneath the floors of two suburban homes
The IRS employees tax manual has instructions for collecting taxes after a nuclear war
There are approximately fifty Bibles sold each minute across the world
The pectin that is found in apples aids in lowering cholesterol levels
Post-It Notes, which are adhesive notes, were invented while looking for a way to improve the acrylate adhesive found in tapes
Crayola Crayons currently has over 120 different crayon colours
Odontophobia is the fear of teeth
The width of a tornado can range from less than ten yards to more than a mile.
In Johannesburg, the average car will be involved in an accident once every four years.
The youngest actress to be nominated as best actress is Keisha Castle-Hughes who was nominated at just 13 years old
The Taj Mahal was actually built for use as a tomb
According to studies, an average roll of toilet paper lasts about five days in the bathroom
Almonds are members of the peach family
The oldest known disease in the world is leprosy
A fall of 30 feet can be survived my most cats
The largest member of the dolphin family are orcas
In 1477, the first diamond engagement ring was given to Mary of Burgundy by Archduke Maximillian of Austria
The hormone replacement drug "Premarin" is made from the urine of pregnant horses
TWIX Caramel Cookie Bars were first introduced in 1979
Nintendo was first establish in 1889 and they started out making special playing cards
People over the age of fifty will start to lose their dislike for foods that taste bitter
In Kentucky, 50 percent of the people who get married for the first time are teenagers
Elephants have been known to learn up to 60 commands
On average 1,668 gallons of water are used by each person in the United States daily
Copper is the second most used metal in the world.
Milton Bradley originally wanted to name the game Twister, Pretzel; but he could not since the name was copyrighted
According to studies, men prefer to have white bedrooms and women prefer to have blue bedrooms
If someone was to fly once around the surface of the moon, it would be equal to a round trip from New York to London
St. Patrick never really drove out any snakes from Ireland. This story was an analogy of how he drove paganism out of Ireland
Fat is important for the development of children and normal growth
The most common seasonings found in American homes are chili powder, cinnamon, and seasoned salts
People who have eaten beetles say that it tastes like apples
Montreal was named after a local mountain "Mont Royal."
Millie the White House dog earned more than 4 times as much as President Bush in 1991. And, rightfully so
In an average lifetime, a person will spend 4 years travelling in an automobile and six months waiting at a red light.
A small drip from a faucet can waste up to 50 gallons of water daily, which is enough water to run a dishwasher twice on a full cycle
Kotex was first manufactured as bandages, during W.W.I
The longest Monopoly game ever played was 1,680 hours long, which is seventy straight days
The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C
Over 1,600 people in North America have been victims of trunk entrapment (being locked inside of a car trunk)
A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair
In 1992, when EuroDisney first opened in France, the public beat some of the park characters because at the time most people had been against the park being built
A jiffy is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second. Thus the saying, I will be there in a jiffy.
There is a muppet named Kami that appears on the South African version of the T.V. show "Sesame Street" that is HIV-positive
There are approximately one hundred million people in the United States that have a chronic illness
The oldest working Post Office in the world is located in the village of Sanquer, located in the Scottish Lowlands. It has been operating since 1712
Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City, after the Catholic Church
Approximately three jars of peanut butter are sold every second
In Australia, the average person uses 876 gallons of water daily. In Switzerland they use only 77 gallons of water per person daily
Every person has a unique tongue print
Hair will fall out faster on a person that is on a crash diet
In 1890, there was no sunshine for the whole month of December in Westminster in London.
Charles Darwin spent 39 years studying earthworms
The Boeing 737 is nicknamed the Fat Albert
Florida has twice as many lightning injuries and deaths than any other state
Chocolate can be fatal to dogs. Chocolate contains a chemical theobromine, which is poisonous to dogs
In China, there is a species of yam that is used to make a dye
Annually, approximately 46 millions Cokes, five million pounds of french fries, and seven million hamburgers are consumed at Walt Disney World Resort
The Chihuahua Desert is the largest desert in North America, and is over 200,000 square miles
Every continent begins and ends in the same letter. eg AfricA, EuropE
Baseball games between college teams have been played since the Civil War
The real name of actress Whoopi Goldberg is Caryn Elaine Johnson
Researches have discovered that eating five or more apples a week is linked to better functioning of the lungs
Boeing completed more than 15,000 hours of wind-tunnel testing on the first 747
The most popular ethnic food in the United States is Italian food
Parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls appeared for sale in the June 1, 1954 issue of the Wall Street Journal
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction
The YKK that you see on zippers stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha which is the name of the founder of the zipper manufacturing company in Japan
The theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters is "Sweet Georgia Brown."
27% of female lottery winners hid their winning ticket in their bras
To lose one pound of fat, a person has to burn approximately 3,500 calories
In 1969, the American side of Niagara Falls was stopped completely for several months
The name for insect poop is frass
A can of Pepsi has 41 grams of sugar. This amount to about seven teaspoons of sugar
Montreal is actually located on an island
There are over 2,000 species of butterflies in the rainforests of South America
The world record for the number of body piercings on one individual is 702, which is held by Canadian Brent Moffat
Before toilet paper was invented, French royalty wiped their bottoms with fine linen
The earliest known example of an organized market for equities dates from Rome, second century B.C
There are over 2,000 different species of cactuses
Each day 400 gallons of recycled blood are pumped through the kidneys
Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale ofvodka.
Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning
Bananas were discovered by Alexander the Great in 327 B.C. when he conquered India
Levan, which is located in Utah, got its name from "navel" which is levan spelt backwards. It was named this because it is in the center of Utah
Approximately one out of four injuries by athletes involve the wrist and hand
Former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln suffered a nervous breakdown in 1836
Musk is extracted from the bottom of a civet, and is used as an ingredient to make perfumes.
The first human heart transplant happened on December 3, 1967. Unfortunately the patient only lived for eighteen days, succumbing in the end to pneumonia
In New York City there are 6,374.6 miles of streets
The sound made by the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe is so loud that it can be heard 40 miles away
Ancient Egyptians used to think having facial hair was an indication of personal neglect
In Czechhoslovakia, there is a church that has a chandelier made of human bones
The largest hotel in the world is the MGM Grand, which has 5,034 rooms and is located in Las Vegas, Nevada
The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets
The fleshy bulbs on each side of your nose are called the Alea (AY-lee) singular Ala (AY-luh)
Male koalas mark their territory by rubbing their chests on a tree. Male koalas have a dark scent gland in the middle of their chest
An octopus has three hearts
Roses generally need around 6 hours of sunlight to grow properly.
Buttermilk does not contain any butter, but is a cultured milk product which is usually made from fat free milk
Pineapples were first called "anana", which is Caribbean for "excellent fruit."
Human birth control pills work on gorillas
The tallest woman that ever lived was Zeng Jinlian who was 8 feet 2 inches tall of China. Shed died at the age of 17
An adult "Gold Frog" measures to be 9.8 millimeters in body length
Each day, anywhere from 35-150 species of life go extinct
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never telephoned his wife or mother because they were both deaf
Alexander the Great made his troops eat onions as he believed it would prove their vitality
Bill Russell was the first black head coach of a major league pro sports team
In 1945, a seven ounce bathroom cup was the first item Tupperware marketed
Central air conditioners use 98% more energy than ceiling fans.
The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache
Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better
Everyday, U.S. business use enough paper to circle the Earth over 20 times
The Welwitschia plant can live up to 1,000 years
The dromedary camel can drink as much as 100 litres of water in just 10 minutes
According to the American Institute of Stress, job stress approximately costs the U.S. industry over $300 billion dollars per year
It takes 72 minutes for the restaurant at the top of the CN Tower to make one revolution
Coffee beans were chewed for more than 400 years before the first cup of coffee was brewed
All of the Peking ducks in the United States are descendents from three ducks and one drake imported to Long Island, New York in 1873
The first British ship to use the SOS distress signal was the Titanic
The Spring peeper (a frog) can survive the winter season with 65% of its body water as ice
Studies have shown that the scent of Rosemary can help in better mental performance and make individuals feel more alert
The search engine Google got its name from the word "googol," which refers to the number one with a hundred zeros after it
The Goliath beetle is about the size of your fist and can weigh as much as 3-4 ounces
If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create explosion that is equal to an atomic bomb
Humans have about the same number of hair follicles as a chimpanzee has
Studies indicate that listening to music is good for digestion
The Chihuahua was named after the Mexican state where they were discovered
There are no snakes in New Zealand
The most popular grown bulbs are tulips
Every day the human stomach produces about 2 liters of hydrochloric acid
The country of Bolivia is named after a fighter Simon Bolivar
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite
The first state to give the right to women to vote was Wyoming
In 1949 UNICEF produced the first charity Christmas card. The picture shown on the card was painted by a seven year old girl
Archeologists report that cannabis was most likely the first plant cultivated by humans. Cannabis was used for linen, paper, and garments
The garfish has green bones
Women who drink more than two cups of coffee a day have a higher chance of developing osteoporosis
The banana was officially introduced in 1876 in the U.S. at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. The bananas were wrapped in tinfoil and were sold for 10 cents each
A yawn usually lasts for approximately six seconds
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married
The food that people crave the most is cheese
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury
The only animal, besides humans that can get leprosy is the Armadillo
In 1894, the carnival made its debut in North America
The artist Vincent Van Gogh sliced part of his ear off in madness
According to Scientists, vampire bat saliva is the best known medicine for keeping blood from clotting.
People from North America prefer pickles with warts, where as Europeans prefer pickles with no warts
People that suffer from gum disease are twice as likely to have a stroke or heart attack
Close to 50% of the water used in a home originates from the bathroom
After the Krakatoa volcano eruption in 1883 in Indonesia, many people reported that, because of the dust, the sunset appeared green and the moon blue. The moon was said to appear blue for almost two years.
The country with the highest consumption of chocolate per capita is Switzerland, with 22 pounds per person, per year
In China, September 20 is "Love Your Teeth Day."
Actor Richard Gere was considered to play the role of John McClane in the movie Die Hard. Bruce Willis played the part instead
The record for the world?s worst drivers is a toss-up between two candidates: First, a 75-year-old man who received 10 traffic tickets, drove on the wrong side of the road four times, committed four hit-and-run offenses, and caused six accidents, all within 20 minutes on October 15, 1966. Second, a 62-year-old woman who failed her driving test 40 times before passing it in August, 1970 (by that time, she had spent over $700 in lessons, and could no longer afford to buy a car)
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur
Left-handed people are better at sports that require good spatial judgment and fast reaction, compared to right-handed individuals
Half of a cup of figs will give you just as much calcium as half a cup of milk
A "hairbreadth away" is 1/48 of an inch
In 1281, the Mongol army of Kublai Khan tried to invade Japan but were ravaged by a hurricane that destroyed their fleet
Walt Disney was afraid of mice
Studies show that couples that smoke during the time of conception have a higher chance of having a girl compared to couples that do not smoke
The reason why some people get a cowlick is because the growth of their hair is in a spiral pattern, which causes the hair to either stand straight up, or goes to a certain angle
Approximately 50% of Americans admit they have ran a red light
In 1755, the first Canadian post office opened in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The fist Deputy Postmaster General was American inventor Benjamin Franklin who was later dismissed for sympathizing with the American revolutionary cause
Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California.
On average, 90% of the people that have the disease Lupus are female
Unlike other four legged mammals, kangaroos cannot walk backwards
The itch from a mosquito bite can be soothed by cutting open a clove of garlic and rubbing it on the bite
If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar
Most American car horns honk in the key of F
A superstition in baseball is to never lend your bat to anyone or you will be jinxed
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave
Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air
In 1998, approximately 1.6 billion tree seedlings were planted in the United States. This amounts to about five trees per American
There are species of fish that can walk on land in search of water when its water source dries up. Some can survive as long as three days on land such as the snakehead fish
Racecar driver Lee Petty once left a pitstop and did a full lap at Nascar with a pit crew member still on the hood
The first fashion house to be set up was in 1858 by Charles Worth. He opened his store in Paris with the idea of having pre-made gowns presented on models to his customers
St. Patrick explained the Holy Trinity to King Laoghaire, using the shamrock to illustrate the trinity
More twins are born in the Western world than in the Eastern world
Nine egg yolks have been found in one chicken egg
The record for the longest Monopoly game played in a bathtub is ninety-nine hours
The flea can jump 350 times its body length, that is like a 6 foot-tall human jumping the length of 7 football fields
The 1988 move "Big" which was directed by Penny Marshall was the first movie by a female director to gross over $100 million domestically
When the Galileo Probe entered Jupiter's atmosphere, it was traveling at a speed of 106,000 miles per hour. This is the fastest impact speed ever achieved by a man-made object.
In 1972, a gorilla by the name of "Koko" was taught ASL (American Sign Language) for the deaf. By the year 2000, the gorilla could understand approximately 2,000 English words
3000 children die every day in Africa because of malaria
The reason why hair turns gray as we age is because the pigment cells in the hair follicle start to die, which is responsible for producing "melanin" which gives the hair colour
Approximately 125 people die in the United States from an anaphylaxis to foods each year
The word "vamp" is used to describe the upper front top of a shoe
Construction on the White House began in October of 1792
A galactic year is 250 million Earth-years. This is the time it takes for our solar system to make one revolution around the Milky Way Galaxy.
Leonardo da Vinci was dyslexic, and he often wrote backwards
The male platypus has poisonous spurs on its legs
Polar bears can smell seal from 20 miles away
Canadians Scott Abbott and Chris Haney invented Trivial Pursuit. They were planning on playing Scrabble and realized that some of the pieces were missing so they came up with the idea of making their own game; Trivial Pursuit
On average, there is about three molecules of ozone for every 10 million air molecules.
A person uses approximately fifty-seven sheets of toilet paper each day
The Barbie doll has more than 80 careers
James Buchanan was the only unmarried president of the United States
The Stanley Cup originally was only seven and a half inches high
In 1991, during an attempted political coup on Russian President Boris Yelstin, food supplies had dwindled down at the parliament buildings so they ordered Pizza Hut to deliver pizzas
Some people drink the urine of pregnant women to build up their immune system
The five Olympic rings represent the five continents linked together in friendship
Ray Kroc bought McDonalds for $2.7 million in 1961 from the McDonald brothers
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs
Shark cartilage has been used to make artificial skin for human burn victims
The first person to die in the electric chair was William Kemmler, an ax murderer from New York on August 6, 1890
Finland has 187,888 lakes and 179,584 islands
The average adult has approximately six pounds of skin
A crocodile can open and close its jaw but cannot move it side to side
There are over 1,000,000 swimming pools in Florida, eventhough the ocean is no farther than 80 miles away
99% of the blueberries that are produced in the United States are produced in the state of Maine
On May 9, 1999 approximately 600,000 gallons of whiskey flowed into the Kentucky River during a fire at Wild Turkey Distillery in Lawrenceburg
Thomas Jefferson had three achievements placed on his headstone at his request, "Here Was Buried Thomas Jefferson/Author Of The Declaration Of American Independence/Of The Statute Of Virginia For Religious Freedom/And Father Of The University of Virginia.? He never mentioned being President of the United States
Humans and cows have the same gestation period, which is about nine months
In the Victoria era, red tulips were a declaration of love
The sport Lacrosse was initially played by Native American Indians. They played the sport to prepare for war
It takes a sloth up to six days to digest the food it eats
According to Scandinavian traditions, if a boy and girl eat from the same loaf of bread, they are bound to fall in love
In 1796, Napoleon was only 26 years old when he took command of the French Army of Italy
A bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed every animal in the Berlin Zoo except the elephant, which escaped and roamed the city. When a Russian commander saw hungry Germans chasing the elephant and trying to kill it, he ordered his troops to protect it and shoot anyone who tried to kill it
The expression "Tying the Knot" comes from an old Roman custom where the brides clothes were tied up all in knots and the groom was supposed to untie the knots
Snake is a delicacy in China
In 1999, All Nippon Airlines, had one of its jets fully decorated with Pokemon characters from nose to tail on its exterior
The Dead Sea has been sinking for last several years
Uranus has 27 moons
Actress Sally Field was paid $4,000 a week for her role in the TV show The Flying Nun
More pollution is emitted from the average home compared to the average car.
The snow leopard protects itself from extreme cold when it sleeps by wrapping its 3-foot-long tail around its nose
Only 4% of babies are born on their actual due date
In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel 1 to mobile Services(two-way radios in taxicabs, for instance) but did not re-number theotherchannel assignments. That is why your TV set has channels 2 and up, butnochannel 1.
A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for approximately sixty-nine years
There are more Subway restaurants in Canada than there are McDonald restaurants
The CN Tower, in Toronto, is the tallest freestanding structure in the world with a height of about 553 metres
The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
Construction on the Leaning Tower of Pisa began on August 9th, 1173
President Lyndon Johnson used to smoke three packs of cigarettes a day
The Tibetan name for Mount Everest is Chomolungma
The word "laser" stands for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission by radiation."
In a lifetime, on average a honey bee produces 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey
There are 315 species of parrot in the world
The TV show Doctor Who, when it was popular, had an audience of 110 million people
The cost to build the Empire State Building was $40,948,900
A person who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day will on average lose two teeth every ten years
Wasps that feed on ferment occasionally get drunk and pass out
The largest cereal company in the world is Quaker Oats, located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA
The first Olympic games only had one event - a foot race
Colonel Sanders traveled over 250,000 miles a year visiting various parts of his Kentucky Fried Chicken Empire
Some desert snails have been known to sleep for three to four years
Over 80% of the brain is water
From the age of thirty, humans gradually begin to shrink in size
Jackrabbits can reach a speed of fifty miles per hour and can leap as far as twenty feet
There are 40 official jelly belly flavours
Early sewing machines were destroyed by mobs or workers who felt their jobs were threatened by automation
In 1992, the Antarctic Ozone hole was larger than the continent of North America.
Someone gets divorced every ten to thirteen seconds
There is a certain type of Hawk Moth caterpillar from Brazil that inflates its thorax, which makes its head look like a head of a snake when it feels it is in danger or alarmed
The CIA has made a disk camera that is as big as a quarter. This gadget can take many pictures at a time when the disk is opened.
The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."
In Hong Kong, delivery times are primarily influenced by traffic conditions on elevators. It often takes drivers longer to travel vertically than horizontally, as access to elevators is so congested during "high peak" hours. This is due to the volume of people residing in high rises
The ancient Greeks had a fascination with the planet Mars. They attributed the planet to Ares, their god of war, because of its red colour
The only lizard that has a voice is the Gecko
In Israel, religious law forbids picking your nose on Sabbath
In twins, there is a great chance that one will be left handed
In the 1920's, Q-Tips were invented by Leo Gerstenzang who got the idea after watching his wife clean their baby's ears with cotton stuck onto a toothpick.
In the Pacific Islands when people get burns they often use a banana leaf as treatment
Acorns were used as a coffee substitute during the American Civil War
An airplane mechanic invented Slinky while he was playing with engine parts and realized the possible secondary use for the springs. Barbie was invented by Ruth Handler after watching her daughter play with baby dolls imagining then in grown up roles
When the female grasshopper lays eggs, she covers her eggs with a pasty liquid that protects the eggs throughout the winter
The longest recorded duration of a total solar eclipse was 7.5 minutes.
On average, an American makes three pounds of garbage in a day
Even if you eat food standing on your head, the food will still end up in your stomach
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
The most common name in the world is Mohammed
Apple seeds are poisonous as they contain a cyanide compound
The word breakfast was coined due to the fact that after sleeping for hours, we are "breaking our fast."
The cardigan was originally made to be a military jacket made of knitted wool
The month of December is the most popular month for weddings in the Philippines
The deepest cave in the world is the "Lamprechtsofen-Vogelshacht" cave which can be found in Salzburg, Austria. The cave is 5,354 feet deep
The capital of Vermont, Montpelier is the only state capital in the United States that does not have a McDonalds
The longest engagement lasted 67 years, and the couple ended up marrying when they were 82 years old
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears. never stop growing
Milk and cheese can aid in the reduction of tooth decay
On average, a strawberry has 200 seeds on it
Coconuts kill more people in the world than sharks do
The average person spends two weeks of their life kissing
Research has indicated that indoor pollution is 10 times more toxic than outdoor pollution
Eating a banana at night can help in falling asleep
The stapler was invented in Spring Valley, Minnesota.
The first television newscaster was Kolin Hager, who used to broadcast farm and weather reports in 1928
Pixie, a Siberian Husky, gave birth to 7 puppies, one of which was bright green
Back in 1953, it took 27 hours to make one Marshmallow Peep. Now it takes only six minutes
On average, an ear of a corn has 16 rows and approximately 800 kernels
The green ring that is formed around the yolk of eggs that have been cooked too long is formed by the chemical reaction from the iron in the yolk and the sulphur in the white part of the egg
The silk that is produced by spiders is stronger than steel
The first president to have a picture taken was John Quincy Adams
Some brands of toothpaste contain glycerin or glycerol, which is also an ingredient in antifreeze
1 in 2000 babies are born with a tooth that is already visible
It was during World War II that clothes with elastic waists were introduced. This is because the metal used in zippers was badly needed for the war
In 1902, the game table tennis was brought to the U.S. from Europe by Parker Brothers
Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes themlooks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
The fat from sheep, which is called tallow can be used to make soap and candles
Next to bone marrow, hair is the fastest growing tissue in the human body
Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns
When playing competitive darts the player must be 7 feet 9 1/4 inches back from the dartboard. Also the board must be 5 feet 8 inches above the floor
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak
Earthworms have 5 hearts
If all the gold sitting in the oceans and seas were mined, every person on this plant would get about 20 kilograms of gold each.
To make an espresso 42 coffee beans are needed
The oil that is found in poison ivy is called "urushiol."
Of all the days of the week, the most popular day for people to eat ice cream is Sunday
The first museum in Moscow that was set up in 1791 was the Natural History Laboratory at Moscow University. This later was changed to the Zoological Museum
A surfer once sued another surfer for "stealing his wave." The case was thrown out because the court was unable to put a price on "pain and suffering" endured by the surfer watching someone else ride "his" wave
Many people in parts of China eat insects. Some common insects are bean worms, scoprions, and locusts
The largest dog in the world is the Irish Wolfhound
Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a fifty thousand-word novel, "Gadsby," without any word containing the letter "e."
The projection light used for IMAX theaters can be seen from space.
The human liver performs over 500 functions
Ballroom dancing is a course at Brigham Young University in Utah
The word "maverick" came into use after Samuel Maverick, a Texan, refused to brand his cattle. Eventually any unbranded calf became known as a Maverick
Finnish folklore states that when Santa comes to Finland to deliver gifts, he leaves his sleigh behind and rides on a goat named Ukko instead
More than $1 billion is spent each year on neck ties in the United States
In the 18th century, potatoes were given out as a dessert. They were served in a napkin, salted and hot
The only poisonous birds in the world are the three species of Pitohui. The Hooded Pitohui from Papua New Guinea is the most deadliest out of the three
Pretzels were originally invented for Christian Lent. The twists of the pretzels are to resemble arms crossed in prayer
The American Airlines Center in Dallas has more toilets per capita than any other sports and entertainment venue in the country
After 8 months, babies are more likely to get a diaper rash
The first modern toothbrush was invented in China. Its bristles came from hogs hair or the mane of a horse that were then put into ivory handles
The New Zealand Kiwi bird cannot fly
66% of wedding cards are hand delivered by people
Heavier lemons produce more, and tastier, juice
The leading cause of poisoning for children under the age of six in the home is liquid dish soap
The same amount of calories are burned by doing 6 sessions that are 5 minutes each of an activity and doing 1 session of that activity for 30 minutes
General William Booth is the founder of the Salvation Army
Iguanas can stay under water for up to thirty minutes
The fastest flying butterfly is the Monarch, which has been clocked with a speed as high as 17 miles per hour
Egyptian pyramid builders used to eat a lot of garlic because they thought it would increase their strength
The average office document gets copied 19 times
In just the first 56 days of life, the larva of the polyphemus moth eats about 86,000 times its birthweight
Every hour one billion cells in the body must be replaced
American actor Jack Nicholson, and American singer Bobby Darrin were raised believing their grandmothers were their mothers and their mothers were their older sisters
The first Ford cars had Dodge engines
The average height of an NBA basketball player is 6 feet 7 inches
One in five Americans move homes every year
The chocolate chip cookie was invented in 1933
The capital of Burkina Faso is Ouagadougou
A catfish has about 100,000 taste buds
The Liberty Bell was the first mechanical slot machine, which was invented by Charles Fey, a car mechanic in 1895.
A Russian man who wore a beard during the time of Peter the Great had to pay a special tax
The silkworm moth has lost the ability to fly ever since it has been domesticated
The first cheerleaders in the U.S. were men
The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P
The odds of having quadruplets are 1 in 729,000
In 1965, the price for an issue of TV Guide was 15 cents
In 1565 In St. Augustine, Florida the first orange trees were planted
Nose prints are used to identify dogs, much like humans use fingerprints
In the United States, six tubs of Cool Whip, a brand of whipping cream, are sold every second
The most popular chocolate bar in the United Kingdom for the last 15 years has been Kit Kat
White-Out was invented by Bette Nesmith Graham, who is the mother of Michael Nesmith from the "The Monkees."
There are over 2,000 different types of cheese in the world
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world
Owls swallow their prey whole because they have no teeth. After approximately 12 hours they cough up the feathers, bones, and fur in a shape of a football pellet
Historically, a blue ribbon has been awarded for first prize
Seventy-one percent of households report they have at least one snorer. Forty-five percent of those surveyed admit they snore, 35% said their partner snores, 12% said their child snores and 9% reported their pet snores
The original meaning of the word grocer was referring to a person who traded food in wholesale. These people would usually sell in large quantities, or by the "gross."
Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently eaten bananas
Actress Michelle Pfeiffer was the first choice to play Clarice Starling in the movie "Silence of the Lambs." She turned down the role because she found it too scary
The White House has 35 bathrooms, 3 elevators, 132 rooms, and 412 doors in it
Due to the deforestation of the forests in North China, over one million tons of sands blows into Beijing from the Gobi desert. It sometimes causes the sky to turn yellow.
Cows are able to hear lower and higher frequencies better than human beings
Approximately 60% of the water used by households during the summer is used for watering flowers, and lawns
The largest diamond that was ever found was 3106 carats.
In 1970, Chip maker Intel purchased a pear orchard to build their corporate headquarters on
The mating call of a male toadfish, who are underwater, is so loud that it can be heard by humans above water
The most popular jelly belly jellybean flavour is buttered popcorn
The Nike swoosh was invented by Caroline Davidson back in 1971. She received $35 for making the swoosh. The first shoe with the swoosh was introduced in 1972
Slaves under the last emperors of China wore pigtails so they could be picked out quickly
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out
Kiwis are the only known bird to have nostrils located at the tip of their beak
An adult esophagus can range from 10 to 14 inches in length and is one inch in diameter
A squash ball moving at 150 kilometers per hour has the same impact of a .22 bullet
Telephonophobia is the fear of telephones
The word alligator comes from the Spanish word El Lagarto, which means "The Lizard."
While still in college, Bill Gates and Paul Allen once built a special purpose machine called "Traff-O-Data." It was a machine that would analyze information gathered by traffic monitors. They never found any buyers.
The citric acid found in lemon juice is said to be able to dissolve a pearl
Robert Southey wrote the story "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" in 1834
The tallest woman in the world is American Sandy Allen who is 7 feet 7 inches
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class
Astronauts get taller when they are in space
Only 5 to 10 percent of cheetah cubs make it to adulthood
Dentyne gum was invented in 1899 by a druggist from New York named Franklin V. Canning
It takes about three hours for food to be broken down in the human stomach
When former Texas Governor James Hogg was on his deathbed he made a special request that a pecan tree be planted at the head of his grave instead of a tombstone. The governor passed away on March 2, 1906, which is Texas Independence Day. The pecan tree is now the state tree of Texas
In a year, there are 60,000 trampoline injuries that occur in the U.S
There is an organization called SCROOGE in Charlottesville, Virginia that stands for Society to Curtail Ridiculous, Outrageous, and Ostentatious Gift Exchanges. This was formed to keep gift giving affordable and simple
The first World Series baseball playoffs occurred in 1903
Archipelago is the word to describe a large group of islands that are located close together
The life expectancy of a garbage disposal is about 5 to 10 years
In the original movie "101 Dalmatians," there are exactly 6,469,952 spots on all 101 Dalmatians as they are shown in 113,760 frames of the film combined
The average North American car contains 300 pounds of plastics
A person who is a specialist in wine making is called an oenologist
You can only smell 1/20th as well as a dog
The number one cause of rabies in the United States are bats
The music for "The Star Spangled Banner" comes from a British drinking song named "Anacreon."
27 percent of U.S. male college students believe life is "a meaningless existential hell." (big surprise, eh?)
Close to fifty percent of the bacteria in the mouth lives on the surface of our tongue
Less than 1% of the women in the world will ever be able to wear a diamond that is the size of a carat or more
Ketchup originated in China as a pickled fish sauce called ke-tsiap
An ostrich's eye is bigger that it's brain.
In Britain, The Red Lion is the most common name for a pub
In 1997, the record for the highest skydive by a dog at 4,572 feet was established by a dog named Brutus
The majority of burglaries occur during the daytime when people are not home
Traditionally, wild cabbage was used as an aphrodisiac
Tiger Woods was introduced to golf at nine months of age by his father
A person will burn 7 percent more calories if they walk on hard dirt compared to pavement
It would take 29 million years for a car travelling 100 miles per hour to reach the nearest star
Blue Jays can imitate the calls of hawks
There are over three trillion craters on the moon, with some being having a diameter over three feet
In India, a 9-year-old girl was "married" to a stray dog, which tribal custom requires in order to protect a child whose first tooth appears on the upper gum
There is now an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which has a winter population of two hundred people
In Canada, men are three times more likely than women to have seen a doctor in the last year
The most expensive spice in the world is saffron
In one night, an adult hippopotamus eats approximately 150 pounds of grass
The U.S. paid Russia $7.2 million for Alaska in 1867
Cows can detect odors up to five miles away
There are about 125 million multiples (twins, triplets, etc.) worldwide
Arthur Giblin was the inventor of the first "flushable" toilet
Consuming chocolate was once considered a sin during the 16th and 17th century. During that time it was provided in the form of a drink and since drinking wine during lent was a sin, so was drinking chocolate
Approximately 40% of the states in the U.S. have severe, or extreme pollution problems
Wendel Clark holds the record for the longest span between NHL All-Star appearances, with 13 years (1986-1999)
Ancient Egyptians believed that onions would keep evil spirits away
Dill seeds are so small that approximately 10,000 dill seeds would be required to make an ounce
To make one pound of whole milk cheese, 10 pounds of whole milk is needed
If all the insects in the world were put on a scale, they would out weigh all creatures
Women smile more than men do
A ripe cranberry will bounce. Another name for a cranberry is bounceberry
Termites work 24 hours per day -- they do not sleep
The Romans used to clean themselves with olive oil since they did not have any soap. They would pour the oil on their bodies, and then use a strigil, which is type of blade, to scrape off any dirt along with the oil
The act of stretching and yawning is referred to as pandiculation
In the 1960 movie "Psycho" by Alfred Hitchcock, chocolate syrup was used to show the blood in the shower scene
Carolyn Shoemaker, famous astronomer, has discovered 32 comets and approximately 300 asteroids
The longest fangs of a snake are found on the Gaboon Viper (Bitis gabonica), and can reach over 2 inches in length
Once a human reaches the age of 35, he/she will start losing approximately 7,000 brain cells a day. The cells will never be replaced
The only king without a moustache in a deck of cards is the king of hearts
Approximately 100,000 people get married in Las Vegas each year
Amish people do not believe in the use of aerosal air fresheners
Coca-cola used to use the slogan "Good to the last drop," in 1908. This slogan was later used by Maxwell House
The blind cavefish is born with eyes, but they fall off as the fish grows
In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies including their eyebrows and eyelashes
The Indian election in 1984 was the largest election of any country. Over 379,000,000 voters were eligible to vote at over 480,000 polling stations
A single chocolate chip gives enough energy to a human being to walk 150 feet
There are 54 bones in your hands including the wrists
The name for Oz in "The Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence "Oz."
The town of Churchill, Manitoba, located in Canada, is known as the "Polar Bear Capital of the World"
Amtrak is the combination of the words "American" and "Track"
On average, an American relocates 11 times in their life
Fires onland generally move faster uphill than downhill
The cartoon character Popeye was actually based on a real person named Frank "Rocky" Fiegel who was a tough guy who was quite similar to Popeye physically
Frisbee got its name from William Russel Frisbee, who was a pie baker. He used to sell his pies in a thin tin pan, which had Frisbee written on it. When Walter Frederick Morrison thought of the idea of making saucer like disks to play catch, he visited the campus of Yale and noticed people there were using the pie pan to play catch so he therefore renamed his invention to Frisbee
Some arthritis medications contain gold salts, which is used as an anti-inflammatory
Lemon juice can aid in reducing the swelling caused by insect bites
LSD is made from lysergic acid, which is found in ergot, a type of fungus
DC-10, the name of an airplane stands for "Douglas Commercial."
In approximately 18 months, the papaya tree can grow to be 20 feet tall
Parrots cannot eat chocolate because it is poisonous to their body
Americans are responsible for generating roughly 20% percent of the garbage in the world
Termites are roasted and eaten like popcorn in South Africa
The official state tree of Illinois is The White Oak
It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year'ssupply of footballs.
In 1971, the postal code was introduced in Ottawa, Ontario
The tridacna clam can grow up to four feet long and weigh up to 500 pounds
The state that has the most diners in the world is New Jersey, which is referred to as the "Diner Capital of the World."
Approximately 1-2 calorie are burned a minute while watching T.V
The first recipe for a lasagna type dish was found to be from a British cookbook in the 14th century. Therefore, Italians were not the first ones to come up with the popular dish as believed
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older
If an identical twin grows up without having a certain tooth, the other twin will most likely also grow up with that tooth missing
Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952, but he declined
According to legend, tea originated in China when tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water
When you sneeze, all your bodily functions momentarily stop, including your heart
Kite flying is a professional sport in Thailand
Urine from men?s public urinals was sold as a commodity in Ancient Rome. It was used as a dye and for making clothes hard
All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5.00 bill
1 out of 350,000 Americans get electrocuted in their life
New Mexico is known as the "Land of Enchantment."
In 1890, Scott Paper produced the first toilet paper to be available on a roll
An elephant in the wild can eat anywhere from 100 - 1000 pounds of vegetation in a 16 hour period
Some of the other names that were thought of for the dwarfs in the Disney movie "Snow White" were Awful, Dirty, Shifty, Hotsy, and Jumpy
In the U.S., over 35 million people have used some sort of illegal drug in the last year
96% of candles that are purchased are by women
The oldest bird on record was Cocky, a cockatoo, who died in the London Zoo at the age of 82
A cow averages 40,000 jaw movements a day
The reason the soft drink Dr Pepper is called that is because the inventor Wade Morrison named it after Dr. Charles Pepper who had given him his first job
Annually 17 tons of gold is used to make wedding rings in the United States
Sex acts like a natural antihistamine, in can clear up a stuffy nose
Women on average live seven years longer than men do
A British term for slot machine is "fruit machine" or "one-armed bandit."
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin
Even though the rose does not bear any fruit, the rose hips have more Vitamin C than most vegetables and fruits
In 1946 Danon Yogurt were the first to add fruit to commercially produced yogurt in U.S
The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com on March 15, 1985.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class
The first flavour of a cheese ball was called "Cheddy Blue."
Over 500 million gallons of Kool-Aid drink are consumed each year
The waste produced by one chicken in its lifetime can supply enough electricity to run a 100-watt bulb for five hours
Hydrogen solid is the most dense substance in the world, at 70.6g/cc
Missouri has been to most NCAA tournaments than any other college without reaching the final four
The hump of a camel can weigh up to 35 kilograms
Lake Malawi has the largest number of fish species in the world
The country of Fiji is made up of 332 islands
The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City
The word "sophomore" means "sophisticated moron."
Jim Bristoe, an American, invented a 30-foot-long, 2-ton pumpkin cannon that can fire pumpkins up to five miles.
There are about 61,300 pizza restaurants in the United States of America
To tell if a egg is fully cooked or raw, just spin it. If the egg wobbles then it is still raw, and if it easily spins it is fully cooked
Used in art the word "sfumato" refers to the subtle blending of an outline by gradually blending one tone into another
There is a species of bird, Antpitta avis canis Ridgley, that barks like a dog
The flu pandemic of 1918 killed over 20 million people
Approximately 20% of Americans have a passport
The Nobel prize was first awarded in 1901
The reason why milk is white is because it contains a protein called Casein, which is white. Milk also contains fat, which is also white
After twenty-seven years, Betty Rubble made her debut as a Flintstones Vitamin in 1996
When telephone companies first began hiring telephone operators, they chose teenage boys for the job. They switched to women because the teenage boys were wrestling instead of working and pulling pranks on callers
In a lifetime, the heart pumps about one million barrels of blood
The Sears Tower in Chicago contains enough steel to build 50,000 automobiles
The first words that Thomas A. Edison spoke into the phonograph were, "Mary had a little lamb."
There are 400 species of bacteria in the human colon
On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
In the 20th century, over three million people have died from earthquakes
It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open
People still cut the cheese shortly after death
In ancient Egypt, the only person who was allowed to wear cotton was the High Priest
Blueberries have more antioxidents than any other fruit or vegetables
The Mount Horeb Mustard Museum which is located in Wisconsin has the biggest collection of prepared mustards. They have approximately 4,000 different jars and tubes from all over the world
Bananas trees are not really trees. They are considered to be giant herb plants
Sponge Candy was invented in Buffalo, NY
When the volcano Krakatoa off the Java islands exploded in 1883, it was so loud that it woke some people up in South Australia
Pearls are rarely found in North American oysters
The average cocoon contains about 300-400 metres of silk
Lake Nicaragua boasts the only fresh-water sharks in the entire world
Boxing champion Gene Tunney taught Shakespeare at Yale University
The most popular pickle is the Dill pickle
Diabetes is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S., accounting for about 180,000 deaths per year
Every year approximately 3,000 people choke to death
Cow is a Japanese brand of shaving foam
The fastest running bird is the Ostrich, which has been clocked at 97.5 kilometres per hour
When the divorce rate goes up in the United States, toy makers report that the sale of toys also rise
Q-Tip Cotton Swabs were originally called Baby Gays
The Pacific island of Tonga once issued a stamp that was banana shaped
A mole can dig a tunnel three hundred feet long in a single night
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher
The only commercial aircraft that is able to break the sound barrier is the Concorde.
U.S. Postal Service processes 38 million address changes each year
In 1984, Ronald Reagan declared the month of July to be "National Ice Cream Month."
The small intestine in the human body is about 2 inches around, and 22 feet long
In 1905, the first pizzeria in the U.S. opened in New York City
In the early nineteenth century some advertisements claimed that riding the carousel was good for the circulation of blood
For the blockbuster movie "The Terminator," O.J. Simpson was considered to play the role of the Terminator, but producers did not choose him as they thought he would not be taken seriously
The actor who played the T-1000 in Terminator 2 (Robert Patrick) and the lead singer of Filter are brothers
The sole purpose of a drone bee is to mate with the queen bee
There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones
Walt Disney had a fear of mice
Cleopatra married two of her brothers
In an average lifetime, people spend four years traveling in cars and six months waiting for red light to turn green
At one time, pumpkins were recommended for removing freckles
In just one drop of liquid, 50 million bacteria can be present
The Montreal Canadians hockey team has won the most Stanley Cups with 24
Nylon is a man-made fibre that is made from coal and petroleum
When the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, received an alarming number of threatening letters, soon after her husband became President at the height of the Depression, the Secret Service insisted that she carry a pistol in her purse
Swiss engineer George de Mestral, who got the idea after noticing burrs were sticking to his pants after his regular walks through the woods, invented Velcro.
Bees can communicate with other bees by dancing. Their dance can alert other bees as to which direction and the distance nectar and pollen is located
The steepest street in the world is Baldwin Street located in Dunedin, New Zealand. It has an incline of 38%
One billion pounds of pasta would need approximately 2,021,452,000 gallons of water to cook it. This is equivalent to 75,000 Olympic-size swimming pools
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously
The average Super Bowl party has 18 people
An ant can detect a movement through 5 centimeters of earth
One out of 200 women is colorblind
On average, the rainfall across the Amazon is 7 feet annually.
Passion fruits have a tranquilizing effect on the body
It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky
A snail can sleep for 3 years
"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt"
There is a large brass statue of Winnie-the-Pooh in Lima, Peru
In 1982, Larry Walters tied 24 weather balloons to his lawn chair in Los Angeles and climbed to an altitude of 16,000 feet
Centuries ago in India, a person could get their nose chopped off for breaking the law
The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in Jello
The total number of steps in the Eiffel Tower are 1665
The amount of blood a female mosquito drinks per serving is five millionths of a liter
An adult porcupine has approximately 30,000 quills on its body, which are replaced every year
The name for Ivory Soap was inspired by a verse from the Bible. Harley Proctor got though of the name when the minister read from Psalms 45:8, "All thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces whereby they have made thee glad."
A survey done by Clairol 10 years ago came up with 46% of men stating that it was okay to color their hair. Now 66% of men admit to coloring their hair
The name of the squiggly line "~" is called a tilde
In 1747, the first American mention of the Christmas tree occurred. However, it was a not a tree but instead a pyramid made out of wood and decorated with apples and evergreen boughs
There are more Barbie dolls in Italy than there are Canadians in Canada
The study of ants is called Myrmecology
In the United States, you are more likely to be killed by a bee sting than a shark attack
Coca-Cola was the first soft drink to be consumed in outer space
Frozen food can be just as nutritious as fresh food
Fourteen people die each day from asthma in the United States
The average amount of time spent kissing for a person in a lifetime is 20,160 minutes
The human body has approximately 37,000 miles of capillaries
The most expensive shoes in the world are ruby slippers located in Harrods in London, which cost $1.6 million, has a full time security guard. The shoes are made from platinum thread and has 642 rubies in them. It took over 700 hours to produce the shoe
Only 55% of all Americans know that the sun is a star
The city of Denver was originally chosen to host the 1976 Winter Olympics, but had to withdraw because Colorado voters rejected to finance it
The longest bout of sneezing recorded was by Donna Griffith. It began in January 13 1981 and continued until September 16 1983 and lasted for 978 days
The Taj Mahal, located in Agra, India, was actually built for use as a tomb by Mogul ruler Shah Jehan for his wife, Arjuman Banu Begum
In 1943, the July issue of "Transportation Magazine" had an article entitled "1943 Guide to Hiring Women."
Spotted skunks do handstands before they spray
A dime has 118 ridges around the edge
Scientists with high-speed cameras have discovered that rain drops are not tear shaped but rather look like hamburger buns.
Ancient Egyptian women used to wear perfume cones made of wax that would melt in the heat letting out a nice fragrance
Mardi Gras means "Fat Tuesday." This is the festival that New Orleans, Louisiana is famous for having every year
There was once a fish caught in Delaware Bay with a watch still ticking inside
In Singapore, it is illegal to sell or own chewing gum
During the female orgasm, endorphines are released, which are powerful painkillers. So headaches are in fact a bad excuse not to have sex
Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes
The nut "filbert" got its name from St. Philbert which is celebrated on August 22nd, which is also when the nut matures
Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his head
Some species of dolphin sleep with one eye open
The chewing gum Juicy Fruit has 10 calories. This is approximately the same as a bite of whole wheat bread
In ancient Egypt, doctors used jolts from the electric catfish to reduce the pain of arthritis
In order to scare away predators, Giant petrels, a type of seabird, throw up all over the intruder
Elvis Presley used to be a truck driver before he started singing
The average cow produces about 2,305 gallons of milk each year
Former U.S. president Ronald Reagan worked as a lifeguard in his youth at a beach near Dixon, Illinois and saved over 77 lives
In 2000, there were 1,579,566 drug arrests in the United States. Of those, close to half were for marijuana
Just like fingerprints, every cats nose pad is different
Popeye is 34 years old, weighs 158 lbs, and is 5 feet 6 inches tall
Researchers have shot footage of Orcas (killer whales) attacking and killing great white sharks
The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order
One bushel of wheat can make enough sandwiches that you could eat three sandwiches a day for over six months
In 1992, approximately 750 deaths occurred in the United States due to workplace violence
In the movie "Babe", the piglet was played by over 30 different piglets they outgrew the part so quickly during the production of the film
Research indicates that people prefer the colour blue for their casual clothing
The leading cause of deaths for children between the ages of 1 and 4 are motor vehicle crashes
The first toilet being flushed in a motion picture was in the movie "Psycho."
The human brain has about 100,000,000,000 (100 billion) neurons
One acre of wheat can produce enough bread to feed a family of four people for about ten years
Queen Victoria used marijuana, to help relieve menstrual cramp pain
On a ship a toilet is called a head
About 1 in 5,000 North Atlantic lobsters are born bright blue
Approximately 10.5 gallons of water is used in a dishwasher. Washing the dishes by hand can use up to 20 gallons of water
The thing that hangs from the top of the beak of a turkey is called the snood
Ticks can be as small as a grain of rice and grow to be as big as a marble
An American chews an average of 300 sticks of gum in a year
Most cows give more milk when they listen to music
Giant flying foxes, which are a type of bat, that live in Indonesia have wingspans of nearly six feet
Heavier lemons contain more and tastier juice
Since 1950, over 230 million eggs of Silly Putty have been sold
Oral-B is a combination of oral hygiene and the letter B, which stands for the word better
Frank Wathernam was the last prisoner to leave Alcatraz prison on March 21, 1963
A blink lasts approximately 0.3 seconds
In 1903 Mary Anderson invented the windshield wipers
Both Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter, U.S. presidents, were peanut farmers at one time
A cow releases about 125 gallons of gas per day
The Apollo 17 crew were the last men on the moon
Spartacus led the revolt of the Roman slaves and gladiators in 73 B.C
The Mexican version of the Tooth Fairy is known as the Tooth Mouse, which takes the tooth and leaves treasures in its place
In a day the blue whale calf drinks approximately 130 gallons of milk
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do
All racehorses in the U.S. celebrate their birthday on January 1st
A person would have to drink more than 12 cups of hot cocoa to equal the amount of caffeine found in one cup of coffee
The oldest documented footwear found was a 8,000 year-old sandal found in a cave located in Missouri, USA
Broccoli was first introduced into France during the royal marriage of Catherine de Medici to Henry II of France
By federal law, for a noodle to actually be a noodle it must have 5.5 percent egg solids in it, otherwise it cannot be called a noodle
The first female guest host of Saturday Night Live was actress Candace Bergen
The human heart beast roughly 35 million times a year
People that use mobile phones are 2.5 time more likely to develop cancer in areas of the brain that are adjacent to the ear they use to talk on the mobile phone
Turkeys can have heart attacks. When the Air Force was conducting test runs and breaking the sound barrier, fields of turkeys dropped dead because of heart attacks
The act of sneezing is referred to as sternutation
The average medium size piano has about 230 strings
A study revealed that men that were born with a low birth weight were less likely to get married
It takes about 63,000 trees to make the newsprint for the average Sunday edition of The New York Times
On average, you would need 12.5 gallons of milk to make one gallon of ice cream
A leech can gorge itself up to a maximum of five times its body weight
There are places in Saskatchewan called Elbow, Eyebrow, and Drinkwater
A butterfly has to have a body temperature greater than 86 degrees to be able to fly
The beeswax that is produced by Honey bees comes from eight paired glands that are located on the underside of their stomach
People in low-income homes spend 50% more time playing video games than people in high-income homes
Lighthouse keepers were nicknamed "wickies" because they tended the lamps wick
Taco Bell serves over 35 million consumers each week in the USA
During the Roman times, people used urine, called lotium in Latin, as a hair product
There are approximately 90 people that have been frozen after their death.
The smallest will ever written was 3.8 cm in diameter. It had 40 words written on it and was signed by two witnesses
The length of a human esophagus is 25 centimeters
In 1942 the Jello company introduced Cola flavored jello, which only lasted a year
Males account for 60% of toy injuries that occur in the U.S
The company "Sony" was originally called "Totsuken." They felt the name "Sony" would be easier to pronounce. The name was invented by a cross between the name "sonus" and "sonny." The name sound and sonic are derived. Sonny was used to represent a young man or boy, which would show a energetic young company
The Red Cross is called the Red Crescent in Arab countries
The Olympics were originally held for the Greek god Zeus
The oldest inhabited house in Scotland is the Traquair Castle. The castle has had 27 kings as visitors
Four billion pounds of watermelon were grown in the United States in 1999
Wham-O manufactured twenty-thousand hula-hoops a day at the peak of hula-hoop popularity in 1958
JELL-O was declared The "Official State Snack" of Utah in January 2001
Elvis Presley was obsessed with brushing his teeth
When the Statue of Liberty was moved from France to the United States, 214 crates were used to transport it. The Statue was also reduced to 350 pieces
There are approximately 2000 thunderstorms that are active at the same time which results in 100 lightning flashes a second.
In-vitro babies are born in Australia more than any other country in the world
Uranus? winter and summer seasons last the equivalent of 21 Earth years
More people die from eating sharks then from being eaten by them. This is due to a poison in shark meat
The murder rate in the United States is about four times greater than in Japan. In Japan, no private citizen can buy a handgun legally
The rarest chocolate bar in the world is the Porcelana bar. There are only 20,000 of these bars produced a year, and they sell for $90 per pound
The reason why locusts swarm are because when they are in groups, a "hot-spot" behind their hind legs is stimulated, which in turn causes their destructive nature. A large swarm of locusts can eat eighty thousand tons of corn in a day
There are an equivalent number of cows and people in Friesland, Netherlands
Centipedes always have an uneven pairs of walking legs
A chicken once had its head cut off and survived for over eighteen months, headless
The largest diamond found in the United States was a 40.23 carat white diamond. It was found in 1924 and nicknamed the "Uncle Sam."
Following directions off the Internet and chemicals obtained from a mail order company, a team of U.S. scientists created an identical copy of the polio virus.
Every day, the Hubble telescope transmits enough data to fit 10,000 standard computer disks
The average number of people that go to a party for the Super Bowl is 17
The amount of Kit Kat chocolate bars that are made at the York factory every 15 minutes are enough to outstack the Eiffel Tower
The skin of a shark is made up of "tiny teeth" which are called dermal denticles
The strongest gust of wind was recorded at the Mount Washington Observatory on April 12th, 1934, and measured 231 miles per hour.
The company Chanel claims that every 30 seconds, somewhere in the world, a bottle of Chanel No 5 is sold
In their lifetime, house cats spend approximately 10,950 hours purring
The reason why bubbles are round is because this is the most efficient shape that the soap film can take for the amount of air trapped inside
It is very common for babies in New Zealand to sleep on sheepskins. This is to help them gain weight faster, and retain their body heat
From 1526 to 1707, the first six Mogul emperors of India ruled in unbroken succession from father to son
A one kilogram packet of sugar will have about 5 million grains of sugar
Bats emit ultrasonic sounds to communicate with each other
Rats can survive up to 14 days without any food
Canola oil is actually rapeseed oil but the name was changed in Canada for marketing reasons
Three consecutive strikes in bowling is called a turkey
In a year, about 90 million jars of Skippy Peanut Butter are sold. This works out to three jars sold every second
In a lifetime, an average man will shave 20,000 times
The Pentagon has 284 restrooms
From 1967-1976, the town of Tororo located in Uganda had thunder 251 out of the 365 days in a year for those years.
Children grow faster in the springtime than any other season during the year
Another name for licorice is "Sweet Wood" or "Spanish Juice."
The reason the Animal Crackers box is designed with a string handle is because when the popular circus theme was introduced in 1902 they thought it would also be a good idea to package them with a string as a Christmas novelty so they could be hung from Christmas trees
Sheep can detect other sheep faces like humans do. They can remember up to 50 sheep faces
The loudest insect in the world is the male cicadas, which are like crickets. When they rub their abdomens, the sound made can be heard from 1300 feet
Each year 96 billion pounds of food is wasted in the U.S
In the past 60 years, the groundhog has only predicted the weather correctly 28% of the time. The rushing back and forth from burrows is believed to indicate sexual activity, not shadow seeking
Pretzel snacks have been around for over 1300 years. A European monk invented the snack using used leftover bread dough
Sharks are capable of surviving on average six weeks without eating. The record observed in an aquarium is fifteen months by a species of shark known as the "swell shark."
The destruction of the Berlin Wall began when private citizens began to demolish entire sections of the Wall without interference from government officials on November 9, 1989
Most American women have their first baby when they are 24.3 years old
Frogs do not need to drink water as they absorb the water through their skin
A group of larks is called an exaltation
The Kool Aid Man used to be known as "Pitcher Man" when he was first introduced in 1975
Wheel of Fortune star Vanna White holds the record for putting her hands together approximately 140,000 times to clap
Men sweat more than women. This is because women can better regulate the amount of water they lose
Research has indicated that approximately eleven minutes are cut off the life of an average male smoker from each cigarette smoked
The triangular shape that Toblerone chocolates are packaged in, is protected by law
In 1945, the first "floating ice cream parlor" was built for sailors in the western Pacific. This "floating ice cream parlour" could produce ten gallons of ice cream every seven seconds
The formula for Coca-cola has never been patented
The average day is actually 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.09 seconds. We have a leap year every four years to make up for this shortfall
Before its name was changed, the African Penguin used be called the Jackass Penguin because of its donkey-like braying call
During the high feeding season, it has been estimated that an adult blue whale can eat up to 40 million krill in one day. (Krill are shrimp like creatures)
Pound for pound, leopards are said to be seven times stronger than humans
One average, men spend 60 hours a year shaving
Botanically a rhubarb is a vegetable. It was changed to a fruit in 1947 by a U.S. Custom Court
Sawney Beane, his wife, 8 sons, 6 daughters, and 32 grandchildren were a family of cannibals that lived in the caves near Galloway, Scotland in the early 17th Century. Although the total number is not known, it is believed they claimed over 50 victims per year. The entire family was taken by an army detachment to Edinburgh and executed, apparently without trial
The movie that grossed the most money that was adapted from a T.V. cartoon is Scooby-Doo
There are five million scent receptors located in a human beings nose
When Coca-Cola was invented, American tourists that visited Spain were surprised to see that Coke was three times as expensive as a glass of brandy
Some silkworms can spin cocoons that contain more than two miles of silk
The mother of famous astronomer Johannes Kepler was accused of being a witch
At one time, Pumpkins were recommended for the removal of freckles and curing snake bites
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies
Approximately 200 pets are buried in a pet cemetery out of the thousands of pets that die each day
The average Hostess Twinkie is 68 percent air as measured by volume according to university researchers
In Haiti, only 1 out of every 200 people own a car. This is ironic considering approximately 33% of the country's budget on import is spent on equipment for fuel and transportation.
Every U.S. bill regardless of denomination costs just 4 cents to make
About 30% of American admit to talking to their dogs or leaving messages on their answering machines for their dogs while they are away
A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why
Caterpillar means "hairy cat" in Old French
The ostrich has two toes on each feet which gives it greater speed
On September 3, 1970, a hailstone was found in Coffeyville, Kansas that was eight inches in diameter and weighed 1.67 pounds.
Honorificabilitudinitatibus is the longest English word that consists strictly of alternating consonants and vowels
It can take up to a month for a rattlesnake to re-supply its venom
Close to 3 billion movie tickets are sold in India every year
The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left
There were approximately 2,228 people on board the Titanic when it sank. Of this, only 706 people survived
An elephant can live up to the age of seventy, or in some cases even more
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world
Elephants can't jump. Every other mammal can.
The name "cranberry" comes from German and Dutch settlers. The berry was intially called "crane berry." The reason it was called this was because when the flowers bloom, the petals of the flowers twist backwards and look very much like the head of a crane. Eventually the name was shortened down to be "cranberry."
In New Mexico, over eleven thousand people have visited a tortilla chip that appeared to have the face of Jesus Christ burned into it
On average, he ratio of yellow kernels to white kernals in a bag of popcorn is 9:1
The first toilet stall in a public washroom is the least likely to be used. It is also the cleanest
In 1955, only 330 Volkswagen Beetle's were sold at a price of $1800 each in the United States.
Printed on the tablet being held by the Statue of Liberty is July IV, MDCCLXXVI
The country of Fiji is made up of 332 islands
Orville Wright, a pilot, was involved in the first aircraft accident. His passenger, a Frenchman, was killed.
The first company to mass produce teddy bears was the Ideal Toy Company
Princess Anne from the British royal family competed in the 1976 Summer Olympics
Brazil produces the most oranges in the world
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
The eyeball of a human weighs approximately 28 grams
A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it is been decapitated
Witchcraft means "Craft of the Wise Ones."
500,000 kids in the US live in same sex households
In July 1874, a swarm of Rocky Mountain locusts flew over Nebraska covering an area estimated at 198,600 square miles. It is estimated that the swarm contained about 12.5 trillion insects. These insects became extinct thirty years later
Tropical rainforests cover about 7% of the Earth and receive over 80 inches of rain every year
The feet have approximately 250,000 sweat glands
Approximately 7.5% of all office documents get lost
The desert tortoise can live without having to drink any water. It extracts the water it needs from the vegetation it eats
There were 13 couples celebrating their honeymoon on the Titanic
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear
There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball
Elvis Presley had a twin brother named Jesse Garon Presley who died at birth
Robert Wadlow is the tallest man recorded in history. He grew to be eight feet and eleven inches and weighed 490 pounds when he died
Bank robber John Dillinger played professional baseball
Research indicates that plants grow healthier when they are stroked.
France is known as the perfume capital of the world
According to psychologists, the shoe and the foot are the most common sources of sexual fetishism in Western society
Constipation is caused when too much water is absorbed in the large intestine and the feces become dry
One ton of grapes can produce 720 bottles of wine
Eating about twenty tart cherries a day could reduce inflammatory pain and headache pain
In 2001, the five most valuable brand names in order were Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE, and Nokia
Milk chocolate was invented in Switzerland by David Peter in 1876
In November 1999, two women were killed by a lightning bolt. The underwire located in their bras acted as a electrical conductors, and when the lightning bolt hit the bra they left burn marks on their chest
Basketball was invented by Canadian James Naismith in 1891
Over 100,000 birds and sea animals are killed every year due to plastic garbage
The big toe is the foot reflexology pressure point for the head
85% of weddings are held in a synagogue or church
The sport of surfing originated in Hawaii
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs
Before soccer referees started using whistles in 1878, they used to rely on waving a handkerchief
Tobacco kills more Americans each year than alcohol, cocaine, crack, heroin, homicide, suicide, car accidents, fire and AIDS combined
The best time for a person to buy shoes is in the afternoon. This is because the foot tends to swell a bit around this time
Dead cells in the body ultimately go to the kidneys for excretion
Americans, on average, spend 18% of his or her income on transportation as compared to only 13% spent on food
There are some species of snails that are venomous. Their venom can be fatal to humans
The first box of Crayola that was ever sold had the same eight colours that are sold in the box today consisting of red, blue, yellow, green, violet, orange, black and brown. The box was sold for a nickel in 1903
A turtle can breathe through its butt.
The rarest coffee in the world is Kopi Luwak, which is found in Indonesia. It cost about $300 a pound
The average America online user spends 70 minutes day online
The song with the longest title is "I?m a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin? Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-On-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues" written by Hoagy Carmichael in 1945. He later claimed the song title ended with ?Yank? and the rest was a joke
People of Ancient China believed that swinging your arms could cure a headache
In 1938, Cliquot Club ginger ale was the first soft drink to be canned
The largest apple pie ever baked was forty by twenty three feet
Roughly 44% of junk mail is thrown away unopened
Catfish have tastebuds located on their whiskers
The laundry detergent Tide, has a market share of about forty percent market
A Canadian, Troy Hurtubise, spent $100,000 and almost went bankrupt building a RoboCop style suit so that he could withstand a bear attack
The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, andBudweiser, in that order.
The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League all-stars Game
In the United States, 8.5 million cosmetic surgical and non-surgical procedures were done in the year 2001
The Bible has been translated into Klingon.
Ian Fleming named his character "James Bond" after real-life ornithologist and author
Most dinosaurs walked on their toes.
On December 17 1991, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Miami Heat 148-80, the largest margin of victory in an NBA game
There are mirrors on the moon. Astronauts left them so that laser beams could be bounced off of them from Earth. These beams help give us the distance to the moon give or take a few metres.
The U.S. army packs Tabasco pepper sauce in every ration kit that they give to soldiers
The trunk of an elephant can hold up to two gallons of water
Every year, an igloo hotel is built in Sweden that has the capacity to sleep 100 people
During the holiday season, approximately $220 million worth of Poinsettias are sold
A newborn kangaroo weighs approximately 0.03 ounces and is small enough to fit in a teaspoon
When Scott Paper Co. first started manufacturing toilet paper they did not put their name on the product because of embarrassment
The most senior crayon maker Emerson Moser retired after making 1.4 billion crayons for Crayola. It was then that he revealed that he was actually colorblind
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point inColorado.
Scientists have determined that having guilty feelings may actually damage your immune system
"Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language
There are more than 250,000 rivers in the United States, which amounts to 3.5 million miles of rivers
Forty-one percent of women apply body and hand moisturizer at least three times a day
Pretzel that have no salt on them are called "baldies."
The 1912 Olympics was the last Olympics that gave out gold medals that were made entirely out of gold
Monopoly is the best-selling board game in the world
There was a book written fourteen years before the sinking of the Titanic happened titled "Futility" by Morgan Robertson. This book was remarkably similar to the tragedy that happened to the Titanic in 1912
One ounce of chocolate has about 20 mg of caffeine in it
A giraffe can go longer without water than a camel
Vikings, after killing their enemies, used their skulls as drinking vessels
Studies have shown that classical music helps cows produce more milk
Two out of five people end up marrying their first love
The Hawaiian alphabet only has 12 letters
The name "Muppet" was coined by Jim Henson. The word was made from a combination of the word "marionette" and "puppet."
In the Sahara Desert, there is a town named Tidikelt, which did not receive a drop of rain for ten years
The Christmas season begins after sunset on December 24th and lasts until January 5th. This is also known as the Twelve Days of Christmas
Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue more than any other color
In Italy, Santa Claus is known by the name Babbo Natale
Two objects have struck the earth with enough force to destroy a whole city. Each object, one in 1908 and again in 1947, struck regions of Siberia. Not one human being was hurt either time
When blue whales are first born, they gain as much as 200 pounds a day while they are calves
Families who do turn off the television during meals tend to eat healthier. This was regardless of family income, or education
About 25 percent of all the energy consumed in the US is from natural gas
American novelist Mark Twain was the first known author to submit a typed manuscript
If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb
Canada is the only country not to win a gold medal in the Summer Olympic games while hosting the event
The sound made by the toadfish when mating underwater is so loud that it can be heard by humans on the shore
In America, approximately 20% of children between the ages of 2 - 7 have televisions in their rooms
Traveling by air is the safest means of transportation.
In 1996, toy company Mattel released a "Harley Davidson" Barbie. This dolls distinctive feature is a birth mark on her face that changes position with every new release of the doll
The most common injury caused by cosmetics is to the eye by a mascara wand
There have been close to 200 coups and counter-coups in the country of Bolivia
On average, pigs live for about 15 years
Roughly 42% of people in the United Kingdom snore
No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl
Beluga whales which are also called "white whales" are not born white. They are born grey in color, and by the age of six become completely white
Tiger Woods is the first athlete to has been named "Sportsman of the Year" by magazine Sports Illustrated two times
The eight most popular foods to cause food allergies are: milk, eggs, wheat, peanuts, soy, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish
Club Direct, a travel insurance company in Britain, provides insurance plans for protection from falling coconuts
There are some bananas that are red instead of yellow
Only one out of every three people wash their hands when leaving a public bathroom
570 gallons of paint would be needed to paint the outside of the White House
Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day
Every three seconds a baby is born somewhere in the world
The total mileage driven by all U-Haul trucks in a year is enough to move a person from the Earth to the moon five times a day for an entire year
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every fivemust be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips intimes ofwar or other emergencies.
Pluto was discovered on February 10, 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh
Termites have been around for over 250 million years
The average person changes their career every 13 years
The New York Yankees have appeared in the World Series a league leading 38 times and won 26 titles
Approximately 18 billion disposable diapers end up in landfills each year. These diapers can takes as long as 500 years to finally decompose
Over 4.5 billion sticks have Trident gum have been chewed. If the stick of gum were laid out end to end they could circle the globe approximately 1.8 times
Oak trees can live 200 or more years
The brain of an ant has about 250,000 brain cells
About 26 per cent of all indoor water used by households in Sydney, Australia are for laundry
A rainbow can occur only when the sun is 40 degrees or less above the horizon
If you spray an antiseptic spray on a polar bear, its fur will turn purple
Over $7 billion a year is spent on chocolates by consumers
During World War II, Russians used dogs strapped with explosives to blow up German tanks. They trained the dogs to associate the tanks with food and ended up destroying about 25 German tanks using this method
Butterflies taste with their feet
St. Louis, Missouri was the first U.S. city to host the summer Olympics in 1904
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law whichstated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than yourthumb.
Every year Alaska has about 5,000 earthquakes, 1,000 of which measure above 3.5 on the Richter scale
A fetus develops fingerprints at eighteen weeks
It takes about a half a gallon of water to cook macaroni, and about a gallon to clean the pot
The cornea is the only living tissue in the human body that does not contain any blood vessels
In the U.S. peanuts account for 66% of all snack nuts
There are approximately 7,000 feathers on an eagle
Sharks can sense a drop of blood from a mile away
As a defense mechanism, the North American Opossum closes its eyes and becomes totally limp. Basically it plays dead
The longest town name in the world has 167 letters
A sneeze zooms out of your mouth at over 600 m.p.h
A cesium atom in an atomic clock that beats over nine billion times a second.
The mythical Scottish town of Brigadoon appears for one day every one hundred years
Kermit the frog delivered the commencement address at Southampton College located in the state of New York in 1996
In World War II, the German submarine U-120 was sunk by a malfunctioning toilet
The phrase "Often a bridesmaid, but never a bride," actually originates from an advertisement for Listerine mouthwash from 1924
Over 50% of lottery players go back to work after winning the jackpot
The largest cultivated crop in the United States is corn
Walt Disney holds the record for the most Oscar nominations with sixty-four
On average, Americans eat one hundred acres of pizza a day. This amounts to about three hundred fifty slices per second
As an iceberg melts, it makes a fizzing sound because of the compressed air bubbles popping in the ice
The Arctic Ocean covers an area of about 14,056,000 sq miles
The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C
Most toilets flush in E flat
Bile produced by the liver is responsible for making your feces a brownish, green colour
At one time the group "Grateful Dead" were called "The Warlocks."
Bats can detect food up to 18 feet away and what type of insect the food may be using their sense of echolocation
At the equator the Earth spins at about 1,038 miles per hour
People whose mouth has a narrow roof are more likely to snore. This is because they have less oxygen going through their nose
In one day, a human sheds 10 billion skin flakes. This amounts to approximately two kilograms in a year
On average, an American home has 3-10 gallons of hazardous materials
On average, 35 meters of hair fibre is produced on the adult scalp
Dalmatian puppies do not have any spots on them when they are born. They actually develop them as they get older
Male goats will pee on each other in order to attract mates
A dog by the name of Laika was launched into space aboard the Russian spacecraft Sputnik 2 in 1957
In 2002, dogs have killed more people in the U.S. than the Great White shark has killed in the past 100 years
The study of twins is known as gemellology
On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper right-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner
During one seven year period, Thomas Edison obtained approximately three hundred patents. In is whole life he obtained over one thousand patents.
When Black Jack Ketchum was hung back in 1901 in Clayton New Mexico, the noose actually ended up taking his head off. The head had to be sewn back on so Black Jack could be buried properly
Every 40,000 children are killed by fires
The highest recorded speed of a sneeze is 165 km per hour
In 1985, a pregnant women was falsely accused of shoplifting a basketball
In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere
The adult electric eel can produce a five hundred volt shock, which is enough to stun a horse
When the are in danger, kangaroos will beat the ground loudly with their hind feet
To manufacture a new car approximately 148,000 liters of water is needed.
In 410 A.D. Alaric the Visigoth demanded that Rome give him three thousand pounds of pepper as ransom
Actress Jamie Lee Curtis invented a special diaper for babies that has a pocket
Honeybees use the sun as a compass which helps them navigate
An average driver spends approximately 2 hours and 14 minutes kissing in their car in a lifetime
In gangster slang, a boxing match that is fixed is called a "barney."
| Velcro |
From which part of a tree do we get the spice cinnamon? | Democracy in America ~ Alexis de Tocqueville: Part Export
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robert b. iadeluca
May 28, 2001 - 07:26 am
America never stops showing us her incessant activity. Always something going on -- always something which, in the spirit of this extremely young nation, appears to be future oriented. We continue to float down the mainstream of Time, look across this great land, and it seems as if it were only yesterday that we watched with awe the first capsule shot into space and which traveled around the earth three times. Then, in the flick of an eye, the landing on the moon. Then the creation of a space station followed by a constant stream of "commuters" who added on extensions, repaired already existing devices, and did this so often that most of us finally didn't even bother to watch what they were doing, much less being awed by it. All this done by crews comprised of the military or federal employees.
And now what! We just had a civilian tourist!! Are we all able to grasp the significance of that word? Just as you or I fork out money (granted, not $20 million) to travel to another nation, or another state, or even to a nearby city, this guy buys a round-trip ticket to a spot 230 miles "out there." And, like any other tourist, he sits by the window, enjoys the view, snaps photos, and eats when meal time rolls around. Then he comes back and says it was "terrific" as if he had just toured one of the national parks. How commonplace can you get? But of course the time and effort contributed by our scientists (both basic and applied) toward making this all happen were not commonplace.
What is the role of science in a Democracy? Is it any different from the role of science in non-democratic nations? Alexis deTocqueville said 170 years ago that "it is not true to assert that men living in democratic times are indifferent to science. Only it must be acknowledged that they cultivate them after their own fashion, and bring to the task their own peculiar qualifications and deficiencies." What is our fashion? Just how do citizens in a democracy go about exploring space, exploring the mind, exploring the body, exploring the environment, exploring the stars, exploring the oceans, exploring the icecaps, exploring the volcanic depths? Is there any difference between the way we apply the scientific method and the way it is done in non-democratic nations? What are our qualifications? What are our deficiencies as regards science?
For those who do not have deTocqueville's book, we have a series of four quotations above which will be periodically changed. Your usual stimulating comments would be much appreciated.
BE SURE TO CLICK ONTO THE "SUBSCRIBE" BUTTON BELOW!
Robby
June 2, 2001 - 06:10 am
As I see it, science in the United States leans more to technology than research.
There always seems to be money available to develop new technologies and weapons for defense and war. There seems to be much less for researching such illnesses as cancer, AIDS and other illnesses which are incurable at this time. Research to find answers necessary for cures for and means to prevent these illness takes years sometimes and millions of dollars, which are not as readily available as the mllions and billions needed for development of weapons and military technology. This certainly is a comment on our culture and society, I believe, and certainly goes hand in hand with the previous discussion about personal use of guns.
I am fortunate to know two scientically trained men (one my former husband) who both own large research laboratories and devlopment labs for the creation of medical instruments and surgical procedures that save thousands and thoursands of lives.
Other scientists I know are in industries that provide Americans with the kinds of luxuries we seem to think we need.
A very few scientists in my acquaintance are in laboratories at universities doing pure research on any number of things important for the physical and mental health of this nation and the survival of the environment.
Knowing that there are at least a few scientists who are provided the means to do work that helps the health of this country gives me a degree of hope, rather than the rather dismal feeling I get when considering the amount of money spent on military-related research and technology.
Mal
Cathy Foss
June 2, 2001 - 06:26 am
Robby - I found it interesting that you said "We" just had our first civilian tourest in space". I don't like to nit-pick, but "We (USA) did not have our first tourist, Russia did. It would be interesting to know why US turned this brave civilian down on his initate journey into space. Russia did not hesitate. Why, do you think this is so?
robert b. iadeluca
June 2, 2001 - 06:44 am
You are correct, Cathy. Russia took the action. The tourist was American. It is my understanding that Russia did it to help them out financially.
Robby
robert b. iadeluca
June 2, 2001 - 06:49 am
Mal:--I assume you are seeing the connection between deTocqueville's comment (above) which begins "Their exclusively commercial habits..." and your remarks regarding technology.
Robby
June 2, 2001 - 07:05 am
Yes, Robby, I had de Tocqueville's statements in mind, especially this:
"In few of the civilized nations of our time have the higher sciences made less progress than in the United States."
Mal
Lou D
June 2, 2001 - 07:08 am
Yes, I believe that the people of Quebec are extremely happy to have been under British rule, and still wish to retain the status quo. And Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and myriad African countries would love to be subject to Her Majesty again. And England never fought a civil war, as any Scotsman can tell you. And also, there is a tooth fairy.
England had her civil wars long ago, but they were wars never-the-less. As for her treatment of subjects in Africa and India, a bit of reading should set one straight on that score. As for how she treated American colonists, it was more than "taxation without representation"! How about being forced to quarter troops in civilian homes, taking whatever they wanted without payment or recourse for the citizen, and generally extremely shabby treatment? the British were not above using torture at this time.
Now for an update on our own democracy - it seems the type of guns the FBI used at Waco were not tested, only a different kind. And the longer time goes by without proper tests, the less chance to prove what was claimed about the FBI shooting there. Coverup, anyone?
Cathy Foss
June 2, 2001 - 07:08 am
Robby - Perhaps it would be more interesting to ask: Why did we turn him (the civilian) down? We usually have the profit motive in mind in all that we do. Why this discrimination at this time? Public opinion should something go wrong? I suspect this was our rationality.
robert b. iadeluca
June 2, 2001 - 07:15 am
Referring to what deT called "higher sciences," it reminds me of my experiences when I was a Research Psychologist with the federal government. I worked with other Psychologists, 90% of whom were concentrating on "application" and 10% of whom concentrated on "basic" science. Many of the applied Psychologists tended to look down on those in "basic" who came up with results related to the variations in different parts of the eye or the change in heart beat when noise increased, not seeing how this was of any importance.
We thrill to the picture of the capsule being launched from Cape Kennedy and eliminate from our mind the hundreds of mathematicians, physicists, etc. who spend thousands of hours calculating equations which show us which planet is going to be where when which capsule arrives at a given point.
Robby
Malryn (Mal)
June 2, 2001 - 07:22 am
Are space exploration and space travel, either by NASA, space agencies in other countries or commercial space travel and the money involved in such ventures as important as research and development which would prolong the lives of people and make their quality of life better?
Space research and development are flashy and exciting. In my opinion, people in the United States are prone to think of this as science, perhaps the only type of science. What if exploration of genetics, cancer cells, the means to cure AIDS was made as interesting and appealing? These kinds of scientific research in my mind are much, much more important than a tourist travelling in space.
Mal
robert b. iadeluca
June 2, 2001 - 07:30 am
Please note that a fifth Link has been added above, thanks to our Jane. If you click onto this last link, you can go over the various discussions held in the last month or so. If you click onto the first link, you can see how this forum started and the direction in which we went. All five links contain the many sub-topics we have covered, such as politics, education, origin of America, population, families, the media, religion, law -- and many others. Putting all these together gives a "picture" of how those of us in the "older" age group view Democracy and how it is progressing.
Robby
robert b. iadeluca
June 2, 2001 - 08:07 am
Everyone acknowledges the affinity between humans and dogs. But can we agree that humans also feel close to birds? A science which is of interest to most people is Ornothology. Ornothologists estimate that 100 million birds a year kill themselves on man-made structures, mostly windows, but also TV towers. Said the deputy commissioner of natural resources with the Chicago Department of the Environment:--"We think several hundred thousand birds a year die from stiking buildings in Chicago.
And so the lights on the roof of the giant Sears Tower have gone dark at night. So has the distinctive crown of light atop the John Hancock Center, the gracefully muscular skyscraper on Michigan Avenue, Chicago's Champs-Elysees. And such prominent architectural icons as the ornate Wrigley Building and the gothic Tribune Tower have dimmed their lights, too.
The point is to attrct less attention at night -- not from people, but from birds -- from the song sparrow to the hermit thrush to the Baltimore oriole. Birds migrating from the south in the Spring and from the north in the Fall are attracted by the lights of buildings, apparently confusing a light bulb with the stars that they navigate by. And too often, ornithologists say, the birds smash into the windows and wind up dead or seriously injured.
Anyone here interested in the Science of Ornothology?
Robby
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 2, 2001 - 09:17 am
Mal - I believe you when you say that profit motivates some scientists, but there are several discoveries that were made by people seemingly totally disinterested in profit, but not in glory. I think of Dr. Salk's vaccine, and Banting and Best who discovered Insulin. I believe a lot of money goes into research right now to find a treatment or a vaccine for Aids, for cancer and other diseases. On the other hand, too little research is made for the prevention instead of the cure for diseases. Who wants to spend billions to only discover that animal fat and refined foods are not Natural for the body not to speak of pesticides and food additives etc. The medical and the pharmaceutical community are certainly not going to spend on prevention, they both profit from treatment of diseases. The tobacco industry made zillions before the medical world admitted that cigarette smoking caused cancer.
A de T. claims that great discoveries are never dissociated from wealth, because that goes along with glory. "You can be sure that the more a nation is democratic, enlightened and free, (America) people who will be interested in the engineering sciences will grow in number, and the more discoveries that are applicable immediately will bring profit, glory and even power to their authors because in Democracies the working class takes part in public affairs and those it serves can derive from it honor as well as wealth." Page 69 in my French version of Tome 11.
robert b. iadeluca
June 2, 2001 - 09:46 am
"You can be sure that the more a nation is democratic, enlightened and free, (America) people who will be interested in the engineering sciences will grow in number, and the more discoveries that are applicable immediately will bring profit, glory and even power to their authors because in Democracies the working class takes part in public affairs and those it serves can derive from it honor as well as wealth."
Thank you, Eloise, for sharing that quote of deT's from your French version (which when you get down to it, is more accurate than our English translation.) Do the rest of you here agree with deT that "those interested in engineering sciences are growing in number?" Do you also agree that "in Democracies, the working class takes part in public affairs?"
Robby
Malryn (Mal)
June 2, 2001 - 11:26 am
Eloise, I am unable to find in my posts any mention about scientists who are motivated by profit. My former husband worked for a few years for a large corporation which provided laboratories for research done in many areas. The scientists I knew well in that corporation and in other large chemical companies were extremely interested in the research they were doing and development of that research, and were paid well, as they should have been and still are.
It is the leaning toward research and technology done for war materials and weapons that bothers me. Research toward the betterment of health and life is important to me, not research and development of huge, life-threatening, killing weapons.
Jonas Salk is a hero to me as is Dr. Sabin, who also developed a vaccine to prevent poliomyelitis, and I'm sure you know why.
It seems to me that it all boils down to national priorities, and I'm not always sure that the United States has its priorities straight.
In my opinion, people in the working class take part in the public affairs that affect them personally. This is also true of other classes of society. Much of what working class people know about research and technology in science comes from the media, and the media often have a slanted point of view or publish what will make their particular medium sell.
Mal
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 2, 2001 - 12:01 pm
Malryn - Sorry if I mistook your intentions. I must have read it in a previous post and I did not verify enough who had written this. Still profit comes with glory whether the author of the discovery openly admits it or not.
I am constantly amazed at the forsight A de T. demonstrates when he writes about how human beings behave in general.
Robby - Thanks but if I had the English version, I would be tempted to compare I guess. Tocqueville wrote in the very best prose of his native language which I cannot possibly come close to achieve in any version. Like he said, Aristocrats had leisures to persue artistic and literary pleasures, something that people living in Democracies like ours are too busy working to persue. His logic just floors me.
robert b. iadeluca
June 2, 2001 - 12:23 pm
Eloise says:--"I am constantly amazed at the foresight A de T. demonstrates when he writes about how human beings behave in general."
So am I. I have his book constantly before me (the English version indicated above) and no matter what is happening day to day in America and other Democracies, he observed the same thing 170 years ago and was able to get to the core of our thinking.
Yes, the nation has changed but have people changed?
Robby
robert b. iadeluca
June 2, 2001 - 01:12 pm
Psychologists and Sociologists have been studying the issue of "happiness" for years. One of the most intriguing early conclusions holds that money does indeed make people happier but that it is less potent than imagined. When people inherit a large sum of money, for instance, they become more satisfied with their lives, according to recent research. But over the last 60 years, and particularly the last 30, a powerful set of social forces has outweighed the effect that rising incomes have had on people's well-being. People work more hours, lose their jobs more often and, most importantly, get married less and divorced more than they did in the past.
The research also found that women remain happier than men today, but that the gap has narrowed as -- and perhaps because -- women have entered the work force in larger numbers. In fact, men are about as happy today as they were in the early 1970's. Nerly all of the decline since then is among women.
Robby
BettyK
June 2, 2001 - 01:46 pm
Pure scientific research, that is research for which the results are thought to have no applications, has had a more difficult time getting funded, especially lately when so much of it is conducted by corporations that are looking for profitable pay backs.
Ironically, however, many such scientific discoveries for which contemporaries could think of no application became the basis of later innovations. Dr. Christine Ladd Franklin's work, for example, in theoretical mathematics in the late 1800s and early 1900s was thought to be sophisticated and most interesting, but would never have any application. It became the scientific basis of color television!
robert b. iadeluca
June 2, 2001 - 02:15 pm
I would imagine, Betty, that it was the results of some "pure research" which no one saw any application for, which enabled humans to leave this planet.
Robby
Lou D
June 2, 2001 - 04:00 pm
I am also sure that many products of military research have been adapted for civilian use, and the laser comes to mind immediately. Satellites, without which we would not have the communication facilities we have today, are the result of military research. Even the space program has brought many benefits to humans that were not the original intention of the research. There are usually benefits to all scientific research, whatever its original purpose.
robert b. iadeluca
June 2, 2001 - 05:05 pm
This sounds like a little game we could play for a bit and which certainly comes under Science and Democracy. What products of military and/or space research can you think of which have been adapted for civilian everyday use? Lou mentions laser and satellites.
Robby
Blue Knight 1
June 2, 2001 - 05:07 pm
I agree that the American (what ever his name is) had the monies to shell out to the Russians for a trip into space, and which they readily accepted as a generous donation of cold cash the unsavory Russian politicians could easily pocket for their own gain. Believing the monies went to the Russian space technology would be naive. The Americans at NASA are not unlike most other organizations, and they simply didn't want a non pilot to enter into their inner circle. This was clearly illustrated by their refusal to "hug" him when the men of each country met in space.
BTW, I may well stand alone on this, but every time I see a space shuttle leave earth I shudder at the waste of tax dollars for American joy rides. One ship goes up, and hundreds (perhaps thousands) in America are going to bed hungry. Democracy seems to be somewhat twisted. If I were one of those very hungry Americans, I certainly wouldn't look with pride at some guy in a white suit floating around in space.
Robby, where is this taking us from de Tocqueville's book? "Ornothologists estimate that 100 million birds a year kill themselves on man-made structures, mostly windows."
robert b. iadeluca
June 2, 2001 - 05:13 pm
Ornothology is a Science.
June 2, 2001 - 05:27 pm
Please click the link below:
Malryn (Mal)
June 2, 2001 - 07:22 pm
Though I've never studied much science, I have a strong interest in some of its disciplines. If you click the link below, you will see the Periodic Table of Elements, a copy of which hung on the wall over my kitchen table for many years.
Periodic Table of Elements
Some years after my husband took his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry and did post-doctoral work in Cryogenic Physics, we went to California on a trip to various universities. While there we met and had dinner with Felix Bloch, winner with Edward Mills Purcell of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1952. Doctors Bloch and Purcell won the Nobel Prize for "development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements in connection therewith".
June 2, 2001 - 09:06 pm
Velcro
kiwi lady
June 2, 2001 - 09:48 pm
Like Lee I too cannot bear to see the shuttles go up when the cost of the exercise could feed so many people and maybe house many too.
Carolyn
robert b. iadeluca
June 3, 2001 - 04:25 am
Mal:--Although you may not have "studied much science," it was certainly a part of your life and your interest appears to remain.
Betty:--I know what velcro is and the ways in which we use it now, but what was its origin?
Carolyn:--Concerning ths cost of sending up the shuttles vs hungry people, hasn't it always been that way throughout history? How many people could have been fed with the money that Queen Isabella gave Columbus? Isn't science a cost vs benefit exercise? The companies of the Old World were looking for spices. As a result the New World was found.
Robby
June 3, 2001 - 05:32 am
More information can be found at http://www.velcro.com
The Story of Hook & Loop
In the early 1900's as a small boy in Switzerland, George de Mestral loved two things- inventing and the outdoors.
George received his first patent at age 12 for designing a toy plane. A patent is a government grant that says only the inventor can make, sell or use his or her invention for a certain amount of time. George had a lot of success at a young age and decided he wanted to become an engineer, not the one who works on a train, but the one who designs new inventions.
After he was done with his studies, de Mestral took a job in the machine shop of a Swiss engineering company. He worked by day - but by night, he played with his machines.
As a person who was always outdoors, de Mestral was well aware Mother Nature is the best engineer of all. The burrs that stuck to his wool hunting pants and his dog's fur were annoying to him because of the amount of time it took to remove the pesky burrs. He also wondered why the burrs stuck. Looking at the burrs under a microscope, he noticed each burr consisted of hundreds of tiny hooks that "grabbed" into loops of thread or fur. Mother Nature had naturally made a fastener that was fool-proof! George de Mestral decided to take what Mother Nature had created to turn his idea into an everyday useful product. His idea interested a family friend, Alfred Gonet, who liked Mestral's idea.
De Mestral talked with fabric and cloth experts who worked with different types of woven and knit cloth in Lyon, France (which at the time was a worldwide center for weaving). Although the experts liked the idea of a hook and loop fastener, they were not sure if the idea would work. However, there was one expert who enjoyed challenges like de Mestral. Working on a small loom by hand, the weaver made two cotton tapes that, when pressed together, fastened just as strongly as Mother Nature's burrs.
In 1951, de Mestral applied for a patent (the government grant that says only the inventor can make, sell or use his or her invention for a certain amount of time) in Switzerland. In 1952, with the support of a company called Gonet & Co., de Mestral began a company called Velcro S.A. in Switzerland. Velcro S.A. received additional patents in Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, Sweden, Italy, Holland, Belgium, France, Canada and the United States. These patents covered "the invention and fabrication of special napped piles of man-made material at least some of these loops having the means of hooking near their ends".
The Velcro Time-line
1940's: George de Mestral discovers the burrs on his pants have hundreds of tiny hooks that stick to fabric or fur.
1951: George de Mestral applies to the Swiss government for a patent for his hook and loop fastener.
1952: Velcro S.A., the first of all Velcro companies, is established in Switzerland.
1957: American Velcro Inc., opens in Manchester NH, where many textile workers live. Hook and loop are manufactured on looms called "shuttle looms".
1958: The Velcro trademark (see below) is registered in the United States and other countries. American Velcro has an original idea in the United States market. United States customers interested in using the product have to buy from American Velcro because they are the only company with the special patent.
1967: In addition to woven hook, the company begins to make a molded plastic hook product because certain customers want to use a molded hook instead of a woven hook.
1976: The company name changes to Velcro USA Inc.
1979: Technology takes a big step when needle looms replace shuttle looms. The original patents expire in the United States. This means other companies can begin manufacturing hook and loop fasteners, but only one company can make genuine VELCRO� brand hook and loop fasteners.
1984: To make sure hook and loop tape is always made the same way and always meets our customers' needs, Statistical Process Control (SPC) is used at the company.
1990: George de Mestral dies.
1995: Velcro USA Inc. receives its ISO-9001 registration.
1997: Velcro USA Inc. receives its QS-9000 registration, which recognizes that our business systems meet the auto industry's standards.
Lou D
June 3, 2001 - 05:34 am
How many jobs can be attributed to the space program? Isn't that where most of the money actually goes? (I'm sure they don't pack millions of dollars in cash and send it up!) The program provides jobs for thousands in industries that provide everything needed to manufacture and transport the thousands of parts that go into each space vehicle. Without those jobs, would we just be adding more to the total of poor and unemployed?
robert b. iadeluca
June 3, 2001 - 05:47 am
Mal tells us the story:--de Mestral was well aware Mother Nature is the best engineer of all. The burrs that stuck to his wool hunting pants and his dog's fur were annoying to him because of the amount of time it took to remove the pesky burrs. He also wondered why the burrs stuck. Looking at the burrs under a microscope, he noticed each burr consisted of hundreds of tiny hooks that "grabbed" into loops of thread or fur. Mother Nature had naturally made a fastener that was fool-proof!
1940's: George de Mestral discovers the burrs on his pants have hundreds of tiny hooks that stick to fabric or fur.
1951: George de Mestral applies to the Swiss government for a patent for his hook and loop fastener.
"To me the key sentence there is "He wondered why the burrs stuck."
WHY? WHY? WHY? The eternal question of the child. Could we all be scientists if we allowed our inner child to remain? Do we allow our adulthood to become the corpse of a child? Doesn't Democracy allow us the freedom to think and to wonder and to do something about it? Is Science something far removed from our everyday lives or is it closer to each of us than we realize?
Robby
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 3, 2001 - 06:25 am
Robby - Velcro used to replace buttons and metal closures for the astronauts to use in space. It was used for its lightweight and easy manoeverability when astrnauts have to wear thick gloves that do not have the flexibility and dexterity of fingers. Also its used inside satellites to attach several items in which ropes or sticky tape are not suitable. Special lightweight suits were then developed to provide freedom of movements whenever they do space walks that we now all benefit from. There are many other benefits (better insulin) from scientific, medical and commercial discoveries.
Also, scientists warn of the many dangers in the prolification of probes, shuttles, satellites because a lot of them use plutonium and uranium nuclear energy which can fall back on earth eventually.
I have transcriptions of interviews by space scientists that might be too long to copy here, but are very interesting and also very frightening. This data is not secret.
Cathy Foss
June 3, 2001 - 07:11 am
If I were to assign a task for science it would be: A totally nutritious liquid or capsule, pill - whatever. It would contain all the nutrition needed for a robust and healthy life.
Can you imagine the time saved in the dull repetition of grocery shopping; saving of energy in both cooking and the cook. It is rather shocking to take note of the time and energy spent on our current habits of food consumption to sustain life. To be free of the expense of maintaining our search and methods of food production could be simplified and still have a splendid healthy populace. It would free up countless hours spent in the pursuit of food and its preparation.
I am as vulnerable as anyone in salivating for a good meal, but I would welcome wholeheartly for a simple method for retaining good health and still have the time to pursue other interests. Women would especially be freed up from having to manipulate food three times a day only to repeat the process again and again and again!
I bet I get lots of hooting on this particular approach, but think about it!! Talk about FREEDOM! =:-o)!
robert b. iadeluca
June 3, 2001 - 07:30 am
Hooting anyone? Think like a scientist in a free Democracy!!
Robby
Cathy Foss
June 3, 2001 - 09:28 am
Robby - I am sure you realized I posted somewhat with tongue in cheek concerning a universal nutritional item, such as: A tablet, powder, drink - whatever.
But I was very serious in asking us to think about it. The beleagured third world countries would be freed to lift their heads in thought rather than spending all their strength in the search for food. Who knows what genuis has been lost in the pathetic search for food by African nations and the "poor" in all nations. It makes me sweat with frustration to see human effort so wasted. The intense effort to survive is robbing us of variety of thought in all countries. To solve the food problem is, to me, the first step in a great civilazation.
robert b. iadeluca
June 3, 2001 - 09:37 am
"But I was very serious in asking us to think about it."
I know you were, Cathy, and I am asking others here to put their Scientific thinking caps on - either regarding your idea or other ideas.
Robby
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 3, 2001 - 10:52 am
Cathy - Please no! Not tablets to replace meals. I cook 3 times a day for the sheer pleasure of first cooking meals then eating.
Look at it another way. For instance "Cr�pes Suzette flamb�es". Can you imagine the taste of that? It just melts in your mouth. With that a glass of Champagne! You take a bite, let it sit there a bit, letting the flavors mingle before you swallow, a sip of Champagne bubbles in your mouth and it tingles before you swallow it. (I seldom can afford it). We talk and laugh with everyone around the table for an hour more or less and get up totally satisfied that the meal was a success.
One summer we went to the beach around Cape Cod and I spotted an big illustrated cook book and everything looked so yummy. I bought it and for days I just read page after page and I wanted to try every recipe. Eating is one of the best pleasures in life.
Persian
June 3, 2001 - 11:52 am
I heartily second Eloise's comments about the pleasures of cooking and would like to add the enjoyment of the wonderful and diverse aromas as the food is prepared. Actually, even earlier than that stage, is the selection of the fresh fruits and vegetables - the aroma of fresh strawberries, a lovely ripe melon which will soon become a refreshing dessert or the absoutely seudctive aroma of freshly ground coffee. I am from a family background where the aroma, preparation and presentation of food is equally as important as the enjoyment of eating. The conviviality of enjoying all these --even the good natured camaradie of clearing the table, washing the dishes and taking that last sip of after-dinner coffee - is part of the gastronomic pleasure. I appreciate the recommendation of developing a pill that would suit all of the health needs and release more time into our daily lives, but for me one of the pleasures to look forward to each day is the selection, preparation and consumption of good food in good company.
MaryPage
June 3, 2001 - 12:11 pm
"Do we allow our adulthood to become the corpse of a child?"
Robby, that is truly beautiful.
I applaud our going into space. It is basically an endeavor to give the human species more millennia of life. This planet will become too contaminated by our waste products to sustain life. Or perhaps the life forms present on it today will go the way of the dinosaurs, with another astroid encounter. Or our sun will go nova, and burn us up. No one can predict our species' end, anymore than anyone can predict our individual ends. But the death of our entire species is a given. Only our scientists hold the keys to the heavens, where we can spread our seed infinitely.
Blue Knight 1
June 3, 2001 - 12:53 pm
Lou......
You pose a good argument and one worthy of consideration. However, not to be stubborn, I must stick to my guns on the space issue. I wouldn't know where to begain to find employment statistics in the comparison of lost employment to a Nasa shut down, to the lost jobs from American businesses moving lock stock and barrel to other countries seeking cheeper employment and materials. This does not include manufacturers purchasing materials and from China et al.
(Another isue)...This year the bails of hay I must purchase will measuably increase in cost because our farmers are selling larger shiploads to China, Korea, and other countries. MOst of us living on retirement live on fixed incomes with little to no annual cost of living increases, and those we do receive cannot match the ever rising cost of living. My thrust is to retain American companies in America, employ our own, and keep our dollars here.
Blue Knight 1
June 3, 2001 - 01:03 pm
Mary Page.....
There are thousands of PROVEN and completed prophecies 100% to the very letter that say you are mistaken when you say: ". Or perhaps the life forms present on it today will go the way of the dinosaurs, with another astroid encounter. Or our sun will go nova, and burn us up. No one can predict our species' end, anymore than anyone can predict our individual ends."
Since the dinosaurs went by way of the great flood, and we have been promised that will NOT happen again, we will not have to worry ourselves about another flood. Surprisingly, you are 100% correct when you say we will be destroyed by fire. You did say that "NO one can predict our species end." Really Mary Page, it HAS been predicted by the best source known to man.
Blue Knight 1
June 3, 2001 - 01:10 pm
Eloise.....
You and my Vivian would get along famously. I must admit though, She has placed me on the Mediteranian diet (strictly heart smart foods) and I've become so accustomed to it that other cooking just doesn't taste as good as I used to think it did. She's trying to avoid another bypass (on me).
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 3, 2001 - 01:11 pm
"In few of the civilized nations of our time have the higher sciences made less progress than in the United States." (P158, Taste for Science.)
If this was true in 1830, we sure made a lot of progress fast didn't we? Perhaps because the US was busy populating and organizing the government of this vast land, there was little incentive to surpass the scientific progess of Europe. Could A de T be wrong? I find so few of his statements that I don't agree with.
Blue Knight 1
June 3, 2001 - 01:17 pm
Robby.....
How many people could have been fed with the money, gold, precious gems, stored foods, silks, and other materials that Queen Isabella hoarded?
robert b. iadeluca
June 3, 2001 - 01:31 pm
Shaken by two failed Mars missions in 1999, NASA spent most of last year trying to restore morale, reform management and forumulate a new strategy for exploring the planet over the next 15 years, culminating in flights to bring back soil and rock samples from Mars.
The space agency announced last October a revised program for Mars exploration that officials characterized as more flexible, responsive and resilient than previous approaches. The plan includes six flights over the next seven years but stretches out the timetable for later flights to incorporate new technolgies, more deailed investigation of the planet and possible joint ventures with France and Italy.
Any comments?
robert b. iadeluca
June 3, 2001 - 04:08 pm
This year, NASA is sending two small roving vehicles to Mars, with the landings in January 2004. Their primary objective is to investigate surface geology and likely sources of water beneath the surface.
In 2005, A Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter, modeled on the successful Mars Global Surveyor which is still orbting and mapping the planet.
In 2007, a "smart" landing craft outfitted with a precision guidance and navigation system and hazard-avoidance systems for improving the chances of landing in the right place and in one piece. In the same year, NASA plans to launch the first Scout mission, a low-budget scientific craft that could, for example, deploy instrument-bearing balloons or a small airplane.
In 2009, NASA may team up with the Italian Space Agency to use ground-penetrating radar for prospecting for water from orbit.
Robby
June 3, 2001 - 05:17 pm
You bet I have comments Robby.
Billions of tax payors dollars for the few (very very few) elite that will play in space at the expense of very hungry United States citizens. Those billions upon billions could serve mankind for an honest exploration and that exploration would be deep into the relm of medical sciences.
Most everyone in this forum has viewed one or more science fiction movies where the earth is coming to an end, and as the billions of earthlings stand doomed to die, the very few standing at the launch pad are fighting to see who will escape into the unknown. Here's my practical cynicism....Man suffers at the hands of medical and physical plagues that could well be solved but for those wasted billions of "research" dollars. However, in the movies, the few who's lust to save themselves was only to escape earth and leave the poor fools that financed their folly behind, and they cared less for the certain death of the many. Had those monies been spent toward the betterment of mankind, extended life for we duped earthlings would have enjoyed the fruits of medical longevity, and those dollars would have saved many souls from premature dying in their prime of life. You agree, fine, you don't agree, that's fine also. We all have a right to our opinions.
Lou D
June 3, 2001 - 05:59 pm
I still believe the billions spent on space will result in more benefits to man in the long term than any other research going on now. As for spending this money to feed the starving children, at the present time there are many programs available to do just that. If one does not avail themselves of the help that is there, just how would we go about solving the problem? I, for one, do not wish to see the government taking these unfortunates and throwing them into institutions. The communists have done that, and brainwashed them to the extent that children were even turning in their own parents. God forbid that we should take lessons from them! No one in this country need starve. Help is already here. It only remains to get this help to the needy.
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 3, 2001 - 08:07 pm
I took these notes from the TV Space documentary. "Destination Mars" Produced by Shanda Production in Montreal. They are in shorthand form, but should be clear enough to see what goes on officially on the subject of Space exploration.
Didier Smith, Director of Life Science European Space Agency.
A year on Mars is from 18 to 24 months. � Pathfinder landed in 1997 and mapped the entire surface of the planet Mars. - Liquid once existed on the surface. � There are two ice caps there just like we have on earth. � There was once ice beneath the surface. � Mars is about half the size of earth. � Scientists believe that there was once life on Mars like we have on earth. Not any more.
Robert Zubrin, President, Society for NASA Consultant.
Mars is 500 million kilometers away from earth. � 31 probes were sent to Mars, 8 succeeded in landing. � Hazards. Space Launch might fail. Systems might fail. We are better prepared now to send people to Mars than we were when we sent people to the moon. - It takes 1 second to send a signal from moon to earth, but 20 minutes for a radio signal from Mars to Earth. � Moon is a rock, Mars is a world. � A day and a night on Mars is 12 hours. � Seasons changes similar to earth. � Mars is easier to live on than the moon. It has atmosphere and average temperatures are minus 60 to plus 20 degrees centigrade. � Gravity is 40% of the earth, assuming you get there in the first place. It takes 6 months to get to Mars and because of planet configuration, the return cannot be accomplished before 6 months, then another 6 months to come back. � Once you are there you can't come back even if anything happens.
Dan Golden, Chief Administrator NASA.
In order to shorten the trip to Mars from 6 months to 3 months, we need another kind of propulsion system, then we wouldn't have to wait for perfect planet alignment. This alignment happens when Mars is the closest to earth.
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 3, 2001 - 08:38 pm
Robert Zubrin,
The first flight to Mars should be around 2015. After several unmanned flights have landed and brought back data. The cost was around 20 Billion dollars just a few years back, but should be reduced to 2 billion dollars. It is obvious that it should be an international venture with partners already in space exploration. If we calculate that we want to send people to Mars, the cost would only be .04 cents per capita. Peanuts.
Psychologists would be appointed to choose the best candidates to go and spend one year in space. It would require extreme psychological challenge. They cannot leave. They would have to get along.
Nigel Packham, Commander Life Support Test Project, NASA.
Physical dangers of Mars mission is that there is less gravity there than on earth. There will be exercise protocol to make sure they stay fit. Exercise prevents osteoporosis, muscle loss that affects the immune system. � They lose a bit more than 1% of bone mass per month in space. Radiation exposure is much more severe. � Mars could become the only habitable planet of our solar system.
My personal opinion is that nothing can stem the tide of space exploration. It is launched and it will expand. There are only two big problems about going to Mars. Gravity which they can't make artificially, and the speed of space travel without using nuclear energy. This problem could be solved in a few years.
" It looks like the earth was make just for us critters", said Joel Primack, Astrophysicist of University of California.
So we better make the best of the planet we now have, because I think there will be no other one for us to run to if we destroy this one. It was perfect to start with, but we tampered with it making it unlivable. I will continue to believe in God who made the whole universe and the Holy Bible which explains how heaven and earth was created. Space is eternity.
Blue Knight 1
June 3, 2001 - 11:02 pm
Eloise.......
Is the following a quote, or is it yours?..."So we better make the best of the planet we now have, because I think there will be no other one for us to run to if we destroy this one. It was perfect to start with, but we tampered with it making it unlivable. I will continue to believe in God who made the whole universe and the Holy Bible which explains how heaven and earth was created. Space is eternity."
Regardless of who said this, it is truth and man refuses to read the Bible you are speaking of, which contains (as I've recently posted) thousands of prophecies that prove exactly what you have posted. Man says: "Don't give me that religion stuff, I don't want to hear it." Why? because it tells them the truth about their future, and they would rather guess than know? Oh, they will skirt around it, but when someone speaks who KNOWS anything about it they run. I'd give anything to know why man will read every history book on the shelf except the real history book of man's beginnings and and yes, his ending as well.
robert b. iadeluca
June 4, 2001 - 03:17 am
Thank you, Eloise, for all that most enlightening information. I found especially interesting the following comment by one of the NASA staff: "My personal opinion is that nothing can stem the tide of space exploration. It is launched and it will expand."
NASA officials are also discussing with the Italian Space Agency the possibility of a joint mission in 2007 to place a satellite in orbit around Mars to relay the increasingly heavy communications load from spacecaft there. In October, France's Research Ministry signed a "statement of intent" with NASA to collaborate on small landers. The flights are being planned to search for the most likely places where water may exist or had been present in the past - places, that is, where life may have emerged. NASA emphasized that there were no plans for manned missions.
It is obvious from these plans that we are speaking not only of activity by Americans but of a scientific collaboration of various Democracies around the world.
Any comments by others here?
Robby
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 4, 2001 - 04:03 am
Lee - The two paragraphs which starts with "My personal opinion...." and "So we better....." are mine. I pray for people who don't believe. Its no good to hammer down beliefs with a sledge hammer. The truth is there for everybody to see, its up to us to choose to believe it or not.
robert b. iadeluca
June 4, 2001 - 04:17 am
I agree with Eloise's comment that "its no good to hammer down beliefs with a sledge hammer."
We are all entitled to our beliefs but stating the same belief over and over again could be considered proselytizing.
Robby
Malryn (Mal)
June 4, 2001 - 06:16 am
I know a man who worked with NASA for many, many years. He holds two Ph.D.'s and numerous other degrees. After working in numerous scientific and other areas, his field became communications. He and his crew were responsible for keeping communication lines open among scientists and laypeople and military in space projects. One of the reasons many of us do not understand science is because we do not understand scientific language and abstract thinking.
This man also is well-respected for his foresight and ability to project into the future of space and science. His advice has been sought by heads of state in this country and others.
He told me recently that the next great explorations in science will be infinitesimally small and inward. It will be interesting to see if what he predicts comes true in the next century.
I was thinking of the many areas of science that come into play in space exploration. Chemistry, physics, biology, botany, psychology, kinesiology, metallurgy, astronomy and more. Space exploration is possible only through the use of many scientific disciplines.
The curiosity of human beings will never be satisfied, and things we've never dreamed of will happen in science in the future. I am not a religious person in the usual sense and do not use the Bible as a prognosticator for the future of the human race. An opening of one's mind to all possibilities is what is necessary in scientific endeavors. Trying to understand these endeavors demands an open mind, too.
Mal
robert b. iadeluca
June 4, 2001 - 07:02 am
"I was thinking of the many areas of science that come into play in space exploration. Chemistry, physics, biology, botany, psychology, kinesiology, metallurgy, astronomy and more."
A most important point, Mal. We tend to think only in terms of what the layperson calls "rocket science." The average person, leading his "average" life is constantly being affected by the findings in space laboratories.
In addition to "indoor" laboratories, we should consider what is being found and learned "outdoors." Scientists have been studying a potato-sized meteorite found in Antarctica in 1996. They say that they found chemical traces that could have been left by tiny bacteria that either hitched a ride on the meteorite, or had once lived in it before it was knocked off Mars. They believe it is a chunk of Mars rock that fell to Earth 13,000 years ago, that it was knocked off Mars about 16 million years ago by an asteroid, and that it stayed cool enough to sustain life. Other studies have suggested that rocks can make it from Mars to Earth in a year, and that some living organisms can live in space for several years.
Possible? Not possible?
Malryn (Mal)
June 4, 2001 - 09:01 am
Anything is possible. All one has to do is the experiments which prove whether the hypothesis which led to the theory can be proved in practice.
Mal
robert b. iadeluca
June 4, 2001 - 10:25 am
A professor of engineering at Trinity College in Hartford has come up with a firefighting robot for the home. The robots are small, their size lmited to a cubic foot.
He and others have created a contest -- a robot firefighting competition, open to designers of all ages. Robots would search for a fire, and the one that was first to find and extinguish the flames would win. Now there is an annual Trinity College contest. The robots are not yet ready to put out a typical household fire soon after it starts, but they are much closer to that goal.
In the contest, the goal is to extinguish a candle flame. The professor says that the robots are faster and more agile each year. The first year, it took them about five minutes to find the fire. At the recent contest, some of the robots did the job within 10 seconds under far more complicated conditions. The problms that the robots must solve have steadily increase, substituting tiles, carpeting and rubber mats, for instance, for the smoothe floor that was once the standard.
The robot has a plan of the house. It first needs to figure out where it is and in what direction it needs to go. Then it has to seek the fire, looking in each room as it goes. The robots function autonomously, controlled by a computer, not a person.
See any connection here between Science and your home?
Robby
June 4, 2001 - 12:49 pm
Robby......
BY what stretch of the imagination do you believe......."stating the same belief over and over again could be considered proselytizing.".....has occured here? If per chance you have an understanding that I have "proselytized Christianity with my refererences to prophecies regarding the "end times," (which by the way were responses to another persons post) then you are sorely mistaken. Had you asked Robby, I would have told you I was quoting from the JEWISH Old Testament.
The responses in this forum are but spit in a large lake of individual knowledge, that come from a wide assortment of backgrounds and a wealth of individual experiences. Each of us are here to contribute to the specifics of the topical questions, and add at times our thoughts to side tracking by yourself, and other participants. If you have something to say to me directly Robby, my name is Lee and I will be most pleased to respond to you directly, rather than through comments you make to me through your posts to others. I understand your cold shoulder Robby, but I will continue to stick around and add a thought or two whan I can. Being impolite is not my thing.
Blue Knight 1
June 4, 2001 - 01:05 pm
I forsee a major problem with two and three story homes, and especially those where doors are closed and even locked for security purposes with dead bolts, extended jamb bolts, and hindge pinned doors. Attached garages also will pose a challenge with gasolene, and other volotile liquid materials.
In order to obtain a UL listing and approval, Robot fire units would be required to carry sufficient liquid and powder fire retardant materials to handle a wide varity of fires that can occur in a home. Sounds like another gimmick to be placed on the market.
MaryPage
June 4, 2001 - 02:48 pm
Interesting thoughts about possible problems there, Lee.
And to go back a post, if I may, and speak in Robby's defense, when I read his post I thought his statement true, but he did not mention any names or refer to any specific posts. I felt he was simply reminding ALL OF US to tred carefully. Really, it never occurred to me he was writing about you.
Cathy Foss
June 4, 2001 - 03:14 pm
I truly respect Eloise's belief in the Bible. I am somewhat surprised at her faith in the Bible. As far as I am able to believe science has already made the Bible irrelevant. But faith in God, in my opinion, does not require belief in Genesis! Science has already debunked this rather charming story of our beginning.
I am all for science probing space and all realms of our being. Our gift of intelligence/ curiosity/determination/ will someday give us many answers, and I think our ability to remain agile in our thinking will be our chance of survival. I truly believe in a higher intelligence than ours exists. I think it waits patiently for us to reach it.
MaryPage
June 4, 2001 - 03:22 pm
Cathy, I have very similar thoughts.
Cathy Foss
June 4, 2001 - 04:12 pm
I would like to say a few things in defense of this forum. I use to post in many round tables, but became discouraged at the just plain meaness of some of the posters. I did not take offence if someone blasted my post, but there is a way to disagree and still preserve the dignity of both the poster and the reader. I think Robby's forum has that dignity. He is one of the most dedicated hosts and works hard to keep it on course. I think it about time we let him know that we recognise his contribution of time and patience.
MaryPage - I do think we are soul sisters. I love this forum and truly desire to lighten Robby's burden. I think we can do that by t using good manners, such as yours. Mary, I have admired nearly all of your posts. Here's to GOOD MANNERS! HERE'S TO ROBBY1
Malryn (Mal)
From Wired News :
"About Russian exploration of Mars, NASA Ames Laboratory research scientist, Chris McKay, said that thanks to genetic mapping, scientists would be able to tell if a form of life found on Mars originated on Earth. He also noted that any life that was transported with the ship would likely only be able to survive within the confines of the ship itself.
"However, fungal spores are just about the hardiest things you can imagine.
If a fungal spore or a form of bacteria had survived a crash landing and somehow found protection -� the Martian surface is littered with rocks large enough to provide protection from solar radiation -� it might still be there, waiting for humans to find it. After all, life has been found recently in places on Earth that were thought to be completely uninhabitable.
"Whether Mars has already been contaminated is somewhat less important in the long run. That's because Mars and Earth have been trading rocks back and forth -- in the form of meteorites -- for 4.5 billion years.
"Therefore, the real question might be, did life on Earth come from Mars?"
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 4, 2001 - 04:51 pm
Before I take off for a week, I wish to say I also want to come in defense of Robby. He has proven his value and his discretion and I appreciate his leadership in this discussion.
Forgive me for saying things that came from the heart which might have been better left unsaid.
Have a good week everyone. Much love Elo�se
Blue Knight 1
June 4, 2001 - 06:20 pm
Ok ladies, I'll leave and bow out to Robby and the ladies. Lou, you'e the only male left. It's been interesting.
Cathy Foss
June 4, 2001 - 06:29 pm
You are one of the most provocative posters I have run up against. I consider you vital and find it always essential to check up on your posts.
Just because people disagree with some of your thinking should not drive you out. Stick to your guns and speak your heart. I admire you for being as out spoken as you have been. We need more like you. But, and this is a big BUT, one has to be ready to take it on the chin.
robert b. iadeluca
June 4, 2001 - 07:07 pm
Any frequent flyers here?
To help guide pilots more effectively, Greatland Laser, based in Anchorage, is developing a laser device that enhances the painted lines pilots see as they taxi. Most airports mark runways and taxiways with red, green or yellow painted lines and often with incandescent lights that are flush with the markings.
Most fliers are familiar with the stop-and-go traffic of airport taxiways and the frustration that can set in while the plane waits in line to take off. While the wait can be tedious for passengers, it is a time when the pilot has to be alert and pay careful attention to the various pavement markings and lights that lead to the runway. The instances when pilots miss the hold lines that keep them from entering active runways are being reported more frequently as airports become more crowded, aviation experts say.
The device can emit red, green or yellow lines, which are the colors used to mark things like hold lines and stop bars, analogous to yield signs and stop signs for car traffic. The president of Grantland Laser said the lack of lighting at many of Alaska's airports had inspired him to design the system. "There were times," he said, "when I'd have to rely on someone going out to the runway and igniting a coffee can stuffed with toilet paper and diesel fuel 40 minutes before my approach."
Anyone here with similar memories of frustration?
Robby
June 4, 2001 - 07:32 pm
One to Robert. I don't see where Space Exploration is benefitting mankind.
Secondly - Mental Illness. Here we go again with statements about mentally ill people. Mentally ill people are often treated as criminals when they are delusional! I agree wholeheartedly with Robbie. Many mental illnesses can be treated very successfully. Ok maybe some people will never have a cure but with medication they can lead full and productive lives and have a quality of life. My heart goes out to that Mother and her children. Never make banal statements unless you have walked in that womans shoes or know someone who has. You will have no idea what you are talking about. That woman needs help not jail and condemnation!
Carolyn
robert b. iadeluca
June 5, 2001 - 05:06 am
Many of America's 15,000 air traffic controllers are getting old all at the same time. The earlier replacements, many young military veterans, become eligible for retirement if they have 20 years' service by the time they are 50. Many will reach that milestone this summer.
Veteran controllers who were hired before 1972 face no legal limit on how long they can work. They can stay on the intense and demanding job as long as their desire remains. But this group of controllers is rapidly aging. Many of the older controllers at the Washington Air Traffic Control Center wear bifocals.
Said the president of their union: "This is a young man's game." For younger controllers, it is a young person's game by law. Congress changed the rules in 1972 to require controllers hired to retire at 56. The union estimates that half of the nation's controllers will be gone within nine years. Retirements should peak in 2006 or 2007 but sooner in the busiest places, such as the Washington center, where more senior people tend to work, and where it takes longest to train a new controller, about three to five years.
Science has taught us much about air flight. Are we applying what we know to make it safe?
Robby
robert b. iadeluca
June 5, 2001 - 04:14 pm
If ever there was a time when SCIENCE was close to the "average" person, it is now. Perhaps a better way of saying that is: "close to their lives." I am speaking, of course, about AIDS.
Africa's plight is gaining increased attention. Africans did not start dying of the disease yesterday. Public Health officials have been warning of a third-world AIDs holocaust for at least a decade. Today, the World Health Organization estimates that 25 million Africans are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, but only about 10,000 are getting the drugs that could save lives.
In March members of ACT Up, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, staged a "die-in" outside the headquarters of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America in Washington. The rallying cry was: "MEDICATION FOR EVERY NATION!" Drug makers are caught in a squeeze play, hemmed in on one side by moral outrage over the plight of Africans dying for lack of medications readily available in the United States, and on the other by an intense pharaceutical pricing debate here at home.
Said the vice-president of AARP: "It may be very dramtic in Africa, but it is really a very similar situation on a day-to-day basis to seniors in this country who do not have drug coverage." Elderly people must sometimes choose between buying pills and food and often go to Mexico or Canada to buy cheaper drugs.
These issues are now playing out on the global stage. In South Africa, protests have erupted over a lawsuit brought by 39 drug companies seeking to black the country from buying inexpensive generic AIDS drugs. Pharmaceutical giants have been left scrambling for some kind of redemption.
SCIENCE is now very much in the forefront. The world is the scene of a pandemic. Further research is needed. Money is needed to conduct the research. Where is the source of the money? Where should it be spent? Who comes first?
Robby
betty gregory
June 5, 2001 - 04:30 pm
This is a good group of posters. Most of our posts (from all of us) are thoughtful and acknowledge, even if indirectly, that there are other ways of thinking. I do see religion as a complex area of thought, though, more difficult to corral than other areas, and maybe there is reason in it. Politics and social theory are other difficult areas to limit.
Lee, I think you began posting after Robby's twice weekly friendly admonitions to me that there are political discussions elsewhere. (A Tom Daschle size smile here.)
I guess, in general, though I don't enjoy hints from Lee that I'm missing something by not knowing the already written bible predictions of the end of things, I also don't think we need frequent reminders about what should and should not be included in our posts. I don't need that much protection....and, besides, when I'm bursting with some political news, it's a round-about compliment to both sides...those that agree and those that don't...remember that idea of worthy contender. This group is a hearty bunch; they can live through a feminist's rantings without calling for smelling salts.
I have thought about this for a while. Even though political and religious comments can be disruptive, I'd rather the emphasis be on style of comment (as Robby asks, sometimes), not elimination. Inclusive style is difficult to teach, so maybe an "inclusion statement" could be mandatory, e.g., "These are my thoughts. I know others may see things differently," or something similar. IMHO (in my humble opinion) required.
I probably wouldn't think of posting these comments if we all didn't stick to the strait and narrow most of the time, anyway (strait, from the bible, means difficult).
Waaay back in my thoughts is my mother, whose language can not be separated into religious and non-religious. I don't mean specific words; I mean the whole of language and thought. I think of her sometimes when someone says (to me, or just in general), "That has nothing to do with gender issues." My silent response to myself is always.....gender doesn't start and stop, isn't present then absent...as long as there are two sexes, our life, our experiences are gendered. Subtly, most of the time, sure. Not everything about gender is in your face, turn on the microphone. Neither is religion, I would guess. So, during a discussion about predicting the end of the world, my mother wouldn't know any other way to answer that, either, except to say where it is written. In a discussion about the good old days, how else could I think about that, except to think about how good it wasn't for so many?
It comes to mind, often, that as we struggle to be tolerant in this discussion (sometimes missing the mark), we are learning tolerance.
betty
June 5, 2001 - 05:11 pm
Well said, Betty. Learning tolerance is an ongoing process.
The keywords of the Southern Poverty Law Center , are "Teaching Tolerance".
Tolerance.org says, "Equality is an unfinished dream."
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit organization, of which Tolerance.org is a part, fights injustice and intolerance through education and litigation for American citizens, whatever their race, color, creed or belief, and has defended the rights of Americans all over the United States.
Tolerance begins at home. I have recently chided myself for a closed-mindedness I never realized I had before.
After all, I don't have biases or prejudices. Or do I? Learning of tolerance begins with me.
Mal
robert b. iadeluca
June 6, 2001 - 03:14 am
About a dozen foreign drug manufacturers are helping us to understand how little these medicines cost to make. These drug makers sell their products to countries like Brazil, India and Argentina, which have largely ignored the patents that the world's largest makers depend on for a monopoly and for a wide latitude in setting prices. The small companies are expected to sell even more in developing countries around the world after 39 big drug makers bowed to public pressure in April and dropped their legal effort to keep South Africa from importing cheaper drugs.
Small manufacturers in places like India, South Korea and China use the Internet, faxes and phones to find buyers for their medicines. They produce either the active ingredients in AIDS drugs or package the ingredients into finished drugs themselves and sell lifesaving medicines for a fraction of the brand-name price.
Are scientific companies helping the population in one way and holding them back in another?
Robby
Lou D
June 6, 2001 - 05:40 am
How safe are these drugs manufactured (illegally) in foreign countries? Do they have the same quality control and government specifications to adhere to as those manufactured here? And how much costly research goes into the development of most drugs? I can't fault the drug companies here from wanting to make a profit, although I think many of those profits and prices seem way out of line, but it still takes money to develop these medications. Many countries have been copying other products with no regard for patents. I have a Rolex watch (it says so right on it), which my son bought in Korea for $20.00. Now, I know it is only a copy, but would it be fair for me to sell it to someone who didn't realize it was fake? Nike shoes are another product that get the same treatment there. The imitations look authentic, but do they have the same quality as the real ones? So may be the case with some drugs.
robert b. iadeluca
June 6, 2001 - 08:36 am
Brand-name companies spend millions of dollars making sure they comply with the standards of the Food and Drug Administration. Some industry officials question the quality of the drugs made by some foreign generic manufacturers. A spokesman for PhRMA, the industry's trade group says: "Kids are dying of bad cough medicines in India because they just are not up to standards."
But some of the biggest foreign manufactuers -- including ACIC and Cipla -- have factories that meet standards set by the F.D.A. because they sell their active drug ingredients to companies producing generic and even brand-name medicines for Americans.
Physicians are constantly making decisions as to whether they should prescribe the brand name or the generic name. (That is, if they can prescribe the generic -- depends on the patent). The generic is cheaper and the physician might prescribe that to help the patient financially. Or he/she might prescribe the brand name because he/she believes there is a difference or because of an affinity (not affiliation) with the drug company.
A "generic" is not a "fake" medicine. It is the chemical name for the same medicine. For example, Wellbutrin is bupropion. Zyban is also bupropion.
And we might ask ourselves an ethical question. If we are dealing with a South African child who is HIV-positive and we have a choice between giving a foreign-made medicine which is not quite that pure versus giving no medicine at all, what do we do?
Robby
MaryPage
June 6, 2001 - 11:54 am
Robby, I can remember having a sandwich-on-the-desks type lunch in an office back 20 years ago, when AIDS first hit the headlines. Some in WHO and CDC were predicting the whole human race would reap the whirlwind on this one. I remember that discussion so vividly because, in the midst of the sense-of-alarm permeating our conversation over these reports, one co-worker threw an entirely different and unexpected perspective into the discussion. He told us AIDS was just to strike down those who had vilely sinned, and that the End of Days would be coming at the end of 1999, through fire, and that those of us present would have nothing to worry about if we were born again.
I think we were celebrating one of our birthdays, and that threw cold water on the party Real fast. End of discussion.
I tell this now to make 2 points: one, that the scientists were always right on target as to what this virus portended and two, that the unscientific viewpoint did not pan out.
As for research and the money to fund it, thank God for philanthropists! I have a grandson-in-law who works in a lab at Johns Hopkins as we speak, trying to find the cure for AIDS. Every moment of his working day is spent with that virus. Hopkins gets a lot of big money from people committed to the survival of our species.
Persian
June 6, 2001 - 12:52 pm
Robby - I wonder if the comment you quoted about "kids are dying of bad cough medicines in India because they just are not up to standards" meant that the children were beyond the stage of being treated with cough medicines OR that the physicians there were depending on cough medicine to treat a more serious illness or that something in the cough medicines were making the children die. Could you clarify that a bit, please.
There was a rather eye-opening program on the PBS station recently about how many Americans travel to Mexico (I know many already go to Canada, too) to obtain prescription drugs over the counter, visit physicians and otherwise deal with medical needs that cannot be addressed in the USA due to cost or the lack of insurance.
I wonder also, if we put too much faith in "FDA approved," since there seem to be so many adverse effects connected with many of the medicines used in the USA.
Martex
June 6, 2001 - 01:04 pm
There was also a news program on television a week or so ago about the number of americans that go to Mexico for medication and dental care. Both of which are very good. No complaints from anyone who has availed themselves of either.
When I complained to my opthamologist about my eye drops going from $l7 to $56 in a little over 2 years after I had taken them for 12 years, he really recommended that I go to Mexico and get them.
I know many people that go to Mexico for dental care. The USA is not the only place in the world where medical care is "safe". People are surviving all over the globe.
Personally, I think the FDA drags their feet too often in approving a drug or procedure that have been used in other parts of the world for long period of times with great success.
robert b. iadeluca
June 6, 2001 - 03:29 pm
Mahlia:--It was the drug industry spokesman's comment that "kids are dying of bad cough medicines in India because they just are not up to standards". He gave no documentation. One would expect a comment of that sort from the trade group.
Robby
robert b. iadeluca
June 6, 2001 - 04:36 pm
In South Africa, AIDS had a "poster boy." I say "had" because he died last week. Nkosi Johnson, a frail 12-year-old died after being on the brink of death for five months. He was born infected and not expected to live past the age of 3.
Born in 1989, he was said to be the country's "longest-surviving AIDS baby" at age 7. A year later, his white foster mother, Gail Johnson, fought a public battle to have him admitted to her local public school despite opposition from other parents. This led to a national policy banning discrimination against infected children.
The boy came to real prominence a year ago for his speech at the 13th International AIDs conference in Durban. He described how his mother gave him up "because she was very scared that the community she lived in would find out that both she and he were infected.
In the middle of his 10-minute address he said: "We are all human beings. We are normal. We have hands, we have feet, we can welk, we can talk, we have needs just like everyone else. I just wish that the government can start giving AZT to pregnant H.I.V. mothers to help stop the virus being passed on to their babies." These words stung President Thabo Mbeki who walked out of the forum while Nkosi was delivering the speech.
We are discussing Science and Democracy. South Africa is a Democracy.
Robby
Lou D
June 6, 2001 - 07:02 pm
Thre is one thing about aids no one seems to have touched on in this forum. Aids is a completely avoidable disease if proper precautions are taken. (I don't mean those who are born infected with it - that is not their fault.) Why aren't there heavy penalties for anyone with aids who infects others, whether through sexual relations or other means (dirty needles, etc.)? People should be held accountable for their actions, especially with something as deadly as this. It borders on murder when someone knowingly infects others.
kiwi lady
June 6, 2001 - 09:58 pm
We have a foreign musician in Jail for knowingly infecting 7 women with the aids virus. We have a sex offender in jail who knowingly infected I dont know how many people with aids. He is in protective custody so he cannot hang about public toilets and infect others. Dont know what law is keeping him in Jail. I think it is because they took no precautions to avoid infection and did not tell any of their partners.
Medical costs. My sisters student from Beijing says back home its $25NZ for a root canal. It would be worth flying to China from NZ to have major dental surgery. My next door neighbours flew home to Hungary to have dental work done for one hundredth of the cost here. They both had major dental work done. They saw family at the same time but even allowing for air fares they still saved money.
Our doctors use a lot of generic drugs now as our prescriptions are partly subsidised by the Government. However some drugs are not subsidised at all which includes some cancer drugs. People die here if they dont have the medical insurance or the money to cover those cancer drugs.
I think that maybe there has to be some deal between governments and the drug companies regarding the drugs which are used for treating aids or some African Countries will be left with no workers and just elderly people and young children before too long. I think the figures are even worse than they realise because of the number of untested people. The world may have to go back to the unfashionable idea of monogamy to stem this epidemic!
Carolyn
robert b. iadeluca
June 7, 2001 - 03:56 am
The day before yesterday (June 5th) was the 20th anniversary of the date when "knowledge" of AIDs first burst upon public awareness. Perhaps "burst" is the wrong word. On that day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reported that "five young men, all active homosexuals" had turned up at three hospitals in Los Angeles, all with the same rare and potentially fatal pneumonia. It was a symptom of a new disease, gay-related immune deficiency, now AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome.)
AIDS since then has killed more than 438,000 Americans and nearly 22 million people worldwide since that report in 1981. In America, the disease control agency estimates, as many as 900,000 people are infected with H.I.V. Of these, 320,000 have developed AIDS, which occurs when the virus debilitates the immune system enough to make patients vulnerable to a range of other infections. Each year, federal health officials say, another 40,000 Americans become infected with H.I.V. Globally, the figure was 5.3 million last year.
Are the numbers so big that we become numb to them and no longer pay attention? Are we doing too little to help the scientists who can help us?
Robby
Ann Alden
June 7, 2001 - 06:22 am
Thought you all might be interested in reading this article from the NYTimes today. WWII Memorial-Shrine to Sentiment
robert b. iadeluca
June 7, 2001 - 08:26 am
AIDS is no longer confined to gay men and intravenous drug abusers. In America it is increasingly an epidemic of the poor. It is increasingly an epidemic of minorities. Blacks, who make up only 13 percent of the population, now account for more than half of all new H.I.V. infections, according to the disease control agency.
deTocqueville says:--"Their exclusively commercial habits have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects." (P160, Taste for Science.) Are we, as Americans, saying in our "taste for science," that giving care to the minorities is not "practical?"
Robby
3kings
June 7, 2001 - 12:17 pm
ROBBIE. Can you explain why AIDs is so prevalent amoung the poor? I don't understand what economic well being can have to do with it. I know poor and crowded housing can have an influence on such as TB, or Hepatitus,(sp?) but why does AIDS effect the poor more than the middle classes?-- Trevor
MaryPage
June 7, 2001 - 01:06 pm
Lou, we do charge people in American courts with the crime of spreading AIDS, when and where it can be proved. With the needles and the druggies, it is near impossible to prove a source. Hospitals do require new patients to list all sexual contacts, and these people are notified to get tested. We are doing as much as can be done here, and that is probably why our numbers are low.
Trevor, THE WASHINGTON POST did a series on the subject, and went out and questioned the economically and culturally challenged. It gave me chills to hear how little this segment of our population reads. I mean, they DO NOT read anymore than they MUST read to get through a day! Labels on things, and so forth. No newspapers. No magazines. Never a book! No news programs. They get their information on things such as AIDS by word of mouth! One fellow said he did not worry about safe sex because AIDS did not affect black people! Really scary stuff.
Lou, as far as the African nations are concerned, most of them lack the organizational apparatus to take care of any type of epidemic, AIDS or anything else. They lack the income, the legislative impetus, the agencies. And there is a basic cultural aversion to ANY mouthing in public, even between 2 persons such as you and I, any word or information about sexually transmitted diseases. The medically trained try hard, but are not making inroads at all. Women who are dying or close to those who are dying, are all afraid and most anxious to do something. The men rule, however, and a woman will be cast out of her entire tribe, and the whole world as she knows it, if she refuses a man sex out of fear of contamination. The women in Africa are in a desperate situation. The men appear to view the warnings from the World Health Organization and the medical volunteer groups as direct threats to their personal manhoods, and they are closing their eyes and turning their heads, very stubbornly.
betty gregory
June 7, 2001 - 01:20 pm
I know there are other reasons, Trevor, why AIDS takes a larger toll on minorities, but what comes to mind are: (1)less sophisticated education about AIDS in poorer schools, (2) reluctance in Black families to speak up outside the family about "private" things , (3) several studies have shown less aggressive care of Blacks with AIDS and poorer medical care in general from doctors, (4) reluctance of Black people to get tested for AIDS (just as in breast cancer), (5) poorer prenatal care in general for poor families.
edit...Hi, MaryPage. We were posting at the same time.
Persian
June 7, 2001 - 02:50 pm
In 1999-2000, I was on contract to USAID's Africa Bureau. Our group participated in the National Summit on Africa held in Washington. Many Africans joined with their American counterparts in discussing some of the vast areas of concern and how Western countries could best help. Day after day, we discussed AIDS; in sessions with large groups, in small panels, and in one-to-one gatherings. Most of the participants were well educated, professional people who were working extremely hard to do the best they (and their oroganizations) could to continue encouraging support (both financial and psychological)for more AIDS education among indvidiuals, families and communities less well educated. For Americans who may NOT have traveled in Africa or worked closely with American health care, it was shocking to hear the concerns repeated in such brutally harh terms. Yet that is what it will take to get (and keep) the attention of traditional people in Africa who, as has already been explained in this discussion, are not as open as Americans in discussing publicly their personal intimate lives. And within the American minority communities, the stereotypes about AIDS are rampant - almost as much as the disease.
I recently received an email from a colleague in China - a professional whom I'be known for more than 20 years - in which he asked if I would please forgive him for asking, but could I explain EXACTLY what AIDS was; what HIV meant; and why was everyone so concerned. I immediately sent him a copy of the recent series that the Washington Post newspaper did on AIDS in China and how vastly underreported it is and how wide-spread it has become. I was so shocked that a man of my colleague's professional standing could be so ignorant, I almost burst into tears. There is a TREMENDOUS amount of work left to do; not just in Africa or in the minority communities in the USA; but WORLDWIDE.
Lou D
June 7, 2001 - 05:44 pm
So, what I gather from posters' statements is that education won't work. Neither here in the minority communities (which, BTW, I really don't believe, but some statements have given that impression), and in African countries it won't work either. From what I have read about some of these countries, it won't do the poor people much good to send money for that purpose, or the drugs either, because those in power skim off most of the cash, and would likely sell the medicine to line their own pockets. And we sure can't do this by ourselves! How about some of the former colonial powers, such as England, Germany, and the Dutch, among others, taking on the lion's share of the problem, as they took from those colonies for years, and should now pay back some of what they took.
MaryPage, there is quite a difference between being charged with something and being convicted and punished. I have yet to see where anyone has been convicted of spreading aids, although it probably has happened somewhere, but I'll bet not often. And would the punishment be fitting for one who may have condemned others to a certain death? It still is a preventable disease. Other diseases have been wiped out worldwide (smallpox, for one), even in the most backward countries. So there is no reason that aids should flourish as it does. (Yes, I know there is a vaccine for smallpox and polio, but how were the populations of these countries reached to take advantage?). I feel much more sympathy for cancer victims, who, in the main, are not responsible for their conditions. And I also feel the same for the innocent children, who had no choice. But it is hard for me to feel the same towards one whose own actions have brought on disease, even when they know the risk, and don't seem to care.
MaryPage
June 7, 2001 - 06:29 pm
Lou, a lot of the women in foreign countries, and here as well, ARE believing what they are hearing from the health clinics; it is the men who are the larger problem. What is an extremely dependent woman to do? There are no easy answers, not at all.
Have you heard that smallpox is popping up again? And WHO is feeling quite uptight about it because there is a very, very tiny supply of vaccine? And most of us are vulnerable! Most of our vaccinations are no longer protecting us.
robert b. iadeluca
June 7, 2001 - 06:56 pm
Taking medication for AIDS is not a simple matter.
First come the protease inhibitors, 10 giant capsules. These are the drugs that revolutionized AIDS therapy. Cmbined with other anti viral medicines in so-called drug cocktails, they suppress the virus that causes the disease, and have brought countless people back from the brink of death.
Next come more antiviral pills and antibiotics to stave off infections.
Then there is a tiny rose-colored tablet, to ward off thrush -- a green tablet for iron -- a yellow one for folic acid -- and an orange-coated aspirin, to guard against heart attack.
All this involves a systematic rhythm -- two pills, a sip of juice, a nibble of toast, two more pills. Then comes the tingling and numbness crawling across the lips. Then comes the diarrhea which might cause spending at least an hour in the bathroom.
All this is in America where the medicine is available. People elsewhere in the world are dying for lack of these medicines. In this country, those life-prolonging medicines have helped push the disease out of the public consciousness, even as the H.I.V. (human immunodeficiency virus which causes AIDS) spreads alarmingly in the poorest neighborhoods.
Poverty and lack of education go together with AIDS.
Robby
Persian
June 7, 2001 - 08:28 pm
LOU - may I respectfully disagree. EDUCATION is a very significant part of dealing with worldwide AIDS. It is DEFINITELY one of the answers. However, education in the USA is quite different - easier, if you will - then in the traditional countries around the world, which (as in the case of Africa) are already dealing with enormous numbers of suffers and some (as in the case of China) have only recently begun to mention the problem in the press.
Another aspect to rememer is that whereas in the USA, students learn about hygiene, their bodies, sex and reproduction at an early age in school, students in many areas of the world NEVER learn about these topics in a systematic manner. These are topics which are NEVER taught in school, let alone discussed openl; no one encourages participation in training programs which would offer additional information and there certainly is no trustworthy information handed down from the older generation to the youth in an organized fashion. This issue is one of the MAJOR complaints that was put forward at the National Summit on Africa; "people are too traditional, shy and uncomfortable to talk about these issues," was repeated over and over. Thus, when women wish to move a tiny step forward and learn about family planning or just basic hygiene in intimate relations, they are scolded harshly, put outside their homes by husbands or fathers who think they are behaving "sluttishly." The transmission of information, based on solid education, in communities like this abroad is NOT as easy as it is even in the poorest or minority communities in the USA.
And yes, indeed, coupled with the above, there is ENORMOUS graft and corruption at the senior government levels in the undeveloped world. The Africa nations have a mighty job ahead to try and divest themselves of the harsh civil wars that are ongoing or spring up periodically, die down and then blossom again. Those with even a modium of education - and lack of morals - go to extreme lengths to overtake communities, entire villages, clans and tribes. And in many cases, those without education, but vicious natures, just slaughter their way to leadership in the face of peple too frightened to do anything but follow meekly.
MARYPAGE makes an excellent point about the women who do not have the RIGHT (according to their culture)to become independent enough to say NO to a husband or lover who wishes intimate relations without protection. They are verbally abused, beaten, ostracized, starved and left to die. The rule of the male is DOMINANT and although there are many fine women working long and hard to overcome the cultural restrictions, they are few in the face of thousands. But they continue, as we all must in our own ways.
3kings
June 8, 2001 - 02:30 am
LOU D As you will see if you read CAROLYN'S post above, there are two persons in custody in NZ for an indefinate period, for knowingly spreading AIDS, by induging in unsafe sex with their victims. And there will be others,if they can be caught.
Re your complaint about 'the former colonial powers' not trying to help their earlier colonial subjects. This is just not true in the case of the Germans, Dutch, and British. I have no figures that I can quote you, but I fully expect that their combined giving is greater than that of the US. who, by the way, does not even pay her UN dues -- Trevor.
robert b. iadeluca
June 8, 2001 - 03:32 am
AIDS changed nearly everything about America. According to a professor of public health at Columbia University, "It shattered the illusion that advanced industrial societies were somehow immune to infectious disease. It contributed to the unraveling of homophobia in American society."
AIDS altered people's sex lives and changed the discussions parents have with their children about sex. New topics arose in literature and theater. Patient advocates assumed greater responsibilities. Advocates for AIDS patients pushed the government to approve new medicines faster.
AIDS ushered in a SCIENTIFIC research effort without parallel. While there have been notable failures -- there is still no vaccine -- the successes in therapy stand as a powerful reminder, according to the top AIDS expert at the National Institutes of Health, of "what can happen when one puts a lot of resources into a public health calamity."
But what the disease has changed most is the lives of the people who live with it. Once a sure path to the cemetery, infection with H.I.V. is today as manageable for some people as diabetes. Yet the disease still carries a social stigma so strong that sometimes the biggest burden of having H.I.V. is keeping it a secret.
America (and the world) will never again be the same.
Robby
MaryPage
June 8, 2001 - 08:22 am
I am horrified by the story in this morning's WASHINGTON POST about a 15 year old girl in Texas who, after being assaulted by her father and being unable to run from the house due to her broken leg, locked herself in the bathroom and dialed 911. 28 minutes later, no police had come.
In a rage, the father shot her AND her mother. This man had a history of domestic violence. All the more reason why they should have RUSHED to the house. Apparently the police excuse for NOT rushing to the house. To the police, it was same old/same old. It should have been, hurry, maybe he'll kill them this time!
Buried next to her mother, the child is safe now from her father. She no longer requires police protection. It took the press something like 6 months to pry the call logs and the tape of the last call from the police department. The court had to order it. Normally, the press has freedom of information access to these things on a day to day basis.
This happened in Texas. Shame!
robert b. iadeluca
June 8, 2001 - 12:14 pm
Dr. Helene Gayle, who directs AIDS programs at the disease control centers in Atlanta, says: "These are multiple epidemics." They are:
1 - The inner-city epidemic
Blue Knight 1
June 8, 2001 - 06:09 pm
The American public should know that AIDS has NOT, I repeat, NOT altered the sex life of the sodomites in our socirty. They turn a blind eye and continue to have as many as 100+ sexual encounters per day. The Hollywood hills is abuze with sodomite activity where they drive to the park, sit in their cars (by the dozens) and as a prospect leaves his (It's) car and enters the shrubs, they quickly follow them trying to beat the rush of other sodomites so they can score. Harsh? No, not really, just a daily activity in the hills. Is there any wonder their quilts are growing?
I can't tell you how many sodomites my partners and I arrested when I was working Vice in the restrooms of Santa Monica Beach, and along the Palisades beaches. Bust one and ten take their place. Their activity is akin to hummingbirds at a feeder., there's no stopping them. Should anyone in this forum chose to visit Los Angeles at ANYTIME, I suggest they drive along Sunset Blvd west of Hollywood. You'll be shocked at their open activites on the street. I DO suggest you do not stop and leave your car or visit any of the night clubs. You WILL be appraoched.
Will the plague be stemmed by science and dollars toward enlightening the public against it? Wellll, if you know the mind of the average sodomite, the answer is absolutely nothing will stop it, and AIDS will continue to increase and will continue to plague the innocent as well. And, IF you are at all interested, please read Matthew 24 and you will know exactly why this scourge is here. You scoff? that's yours, I can only point to the source.
NO Robby, that's NOT proselytizing. You ask we read what an ancient Frenchman says, and I suggest we read what our Lord God has writen. In which will we place our trust regarding the AIDS you are speaking of?
Blue Knight 1
June 8, 2001 - 06:22 pm
Mahlia and Lou......
You both have made very good argument for your opinions regarding education. Yes, education has been affective in some areas of society, and has fallen far short in Africa, and as I previously stated, in the "sodomite community." The African male DEMANDS a right of passage with women and they will NOT take no for an answer, and will beat, and even kill a woman that refuses them. It is beyond a macho thing with them. AIDS will NOT be stopped in Africa and Lou is correct (IMO). However, Mahlia is also correct in her exegesis regarding the education of (teachable people).
dapphne
June 8, 2001 - 06:40 pm
Blue...
You have such a 'reality" problem.........
How come I am not surprised?????
Blue Knight 1
June 8, 2001 - 08:37 pm
dapphne.....
Had you been there, done that, then I'd respect your criticism. Until then, they are unfounded. Might I respectfully ask: On what do you base your cynicism?
Blue Knight 1
June 8, 2001 - 08:57 pm
Mary Page.....
In referring to the police you said: "Same old, same old. Are you saying this is the norm for that particular city Police department in Texas, or are you including ALL city and county police and sheriffs departments in Texas? OR, worse yet, are you saying this about ALL law enforcement agencies?
I ask these things because you make no bones about denegrading the police. If this went down as you say, and I have a hunch there is a lot more that hasn't been revealed, then apparently it was handled very poorly. 911 has a recordation of the call and I ask, have you heard this recording? Having personally been involved in untold numbers of Family disputes, ADW's in the home, numerous shootings, suicides and attempt suicides in homes, and about every kind of an physical assault cases imaginable, plus child molestation cases (I'm sure there are some I've never seen) I can safely say that should that incident have actually happened, it was rare, rare indeed.
I await your reply.
June 9, 2001 - 04:09 am
Lee:--Welcome back to our forum. I had thought you might return.
As we continue to discuss "Science and Democracy" and look at the scientific aspects of this plague, it is interesting to note the comments of Dr. David Satcher, Surgeon General of the United States. He sees America as a mirror of what has happened globally, that is, that the disease has settled in the most vulnerable communities. He also sees the discovery that AZT can practically eliminate mother-to-infant transmission of the virus as the "most dramatic progress and significant progress" so far. Looking forward, he is pinning his hopes on a vaccine, although he said it is unlikely that scientists will develop one within the next five years -- and, even if developed, it will take decades to erdicate H.I.V.
Not since the Black Death killed one-third of Europe's population in the 14th century, Dr. Satcher said, has there been an infectious-disease outbreak as devastating as H.I.V. Yet at the same time, America's sense of urgency about AIDS is waning. While a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that Americans view AIDS as the world's most pressing health issue, in the United States the disease has slipped into second place, behind cancer, as a concern.
In examining America's "taste for science," does deTocqueville have it exactly right in his comment (above) which begins with "Their exclusively...?"
Robby
betty gregory
June 9, 2001 - 06:02 am
Lee, since you don't want the actions of a few policemen to be taken as the actions of all policemen, why do you do that to gay men?
robert b. iadeluca
June 9, 2001 - 06:29 am
DEFINITION OF SCIENCE.
Science is a process of searching for fundamental and universal principles that govern causes and effects in the universe. The process itself is a method of building, testing, and connecting falsifiable models to describe, explain and predict a shared reality. The method includes hypothesis, repeatable experiments and observations, and new hypothesis. The prime criterion in determining the usefulness of a model is the ease with which the model correctly makes predictions or explains phenomena in the shared reality.
Malryn (Mal)
From Wired News :
"U.S. labs are trying to stop production of generic AIDS drugs used in Brazil - known as antiretroviral drugs - since they derive from formulas developed and patented in the U.S. The Brazilian manufactuers do not pay royalties."
To read this article, please click the link below. There are links to other articles about what's going on with AIDS and AIDS research at the bottom of that page.
robert b. iadeluca
June 9, 2001 - 07:19 am
Mal:--Thank you for that Link. This is exactly what we are discussing at the moment -- AIDS research -- all under the subtopic of the application of science in democracies.
Robby
MaryPage
June 9, 2001 - 09:55 am
Lee, please read again what I wrote. My "same old, same old" was meant to be a reference to the probable response in the minds of the police receiving the 911 call on the grounds that that address had been the source of many previous domestic violence calls. I am saying that it SEEMS as though that was their thinking when that last call came in from the 15 year old girl. It seems so because they took such a long time in getting there.
The entire 911 call was printed in the newspaper. It was explicit and desperate.
I am NOT saying what the police did or did not do was the "same old, same old." On the contrary, I have ENORMOUS respect for our men and women in blue. ENORMOUS! I was brought up to put my entire faith in them, and I have never ceased to do so.
That being said, you know perfectly well that some individuals and, even, some groups let down side. Fail their duty.
In this case, tragically, lives could have been saved. I sincerely believe those particular police made an erroneous assumption that it was just a tiresome additonal domestic violence call to that home, and thus dragged their feet.
I feel quite certain that our police are told by experts that perpetrators of domestic violence get more violent, not less. That the family members they assault become more in danger, not less. THESE police did not remember those lessons. They learned at the expense of the lives of this mother and daughter.
Ol Imp
June 9, 2001 - 11:50 am
It's with you for the rest of your life - Such was an observation regarding a number of diseases around that are hitting males and females that effect the immune system - Whether it be Aides; Herpes; Mononucleosus - It is true ,that some can be more devastating than others - I guess , to me , it is scary.. I had one friend (married and 2 children) who died of Aides , before they had clearly identified it; I have another friend who has Aides and other friends who are experiencing Herpes and Mononucleosus - I know there are numerous other diseases that fall in this category - Democracy (free choice) will give way to fear and isolation - Don't touch .
The weakness of the immune system is altering some behaviors to the point where closeness and warmth are being supplanted by fear and distance. The science of Democracy is failing.
robert b. iadeluca
June 9, 2001 - 12:03 pm
Welcome Ol Imp!! You say:--"The weakness of the immune system is altering some behaviors to the point where closeness and warmth are being supplanted by fear and distance."
In what way, however, do you see Science "failing?"
Robby
robert b. iadeluca
June 9, 2001 - 01:11 pm
In what ways has AIDS changed America? As the poem says, let us count the ways:--
1 - It changed the speed at which social services move
2 - It changed the people with whom politicians curried favor.
3 - It made patients with all types of critical illnesses press their doctors harder for information
4 - It took health workers out of their offices and into neighborhoods.
5 - It changed the following industries:
a - Insurance
June 9, 2001 - 04:52 pm
Mary Page....
Please accept my humble apology. Thank you for the clarification, because it did read the other way.
Persian
June 9, 2001 - 05:59 pm
ROBBY - YES, I've seen more people reach out to those with AIDS than I thought possible. Professionals who constantly bemoan their lack of time seem to have been able to "make time" to do hospice volunteering; teachers who have other class plans all worked out have scrapped them off the board and turned to in depth discussions about AIDS for their students; church men and women have undertaken information seminars to learn the "nuts and bolts" about AIDS and then worked with members of the community who are suffering from this horrendous disease. Conservative individuals, who might otherwise NOT become involved in outreach, have opened their hearts, minds and wallets to nurture in many ways. People (especially through their congregations) have shown more of a willingness to learn about the gay lifestyle and thus to learn more about AIDS. Once they've digested the new information, they've reached out to help as they can. Children in classrooms where I've lectured have taken up collections and donated their coins (sometimes dollars) to metropolitan hospice centers or other social services that help AIDS patients. Teenagers have held "TOUGH LOVE" programs (outside of school) to encourage each other to abstain from intimate relations or to force the issue of protected sex (in ONLY the way that teenagers can do with one another) for those who insist. These are ALL small things, but together they bring about a better understanding of the 20th and 21st century's "Black Plague."
robert b. iadeluca
June 9, 2001 - 06:04 pm
Mahlia reminds us that "conservative individuals, who might otherwise NOT become involved in outreach, have opened their hearts, minds and wallets to nurture in many ways. People (especially through their congregations) have shown more of a willingness to learn about the gay lifestyle and thus to learn more about AIDS. Once they've digested the new information, they've reached out to help as they can.
Amazing how we human beings all come together when we are all facing the same danger.
Robby
June 9, 2001 - 06:07 pm
Betty......
Please be specific. What have I "done" to sodomites?
robert b. iadeluca
June 9, 2001 - 06:15 pm
Physicians and other health care workers are out in the forefront where we can see them. But quietly behind the scenes, scientists continue to do research not only to conquer AIDS but to battle other diseases.
Many new agents are now under development to fight cancer. This new generation of cancer fighters will be the long-awaited payoff from decades of research into the molecular biology of cancer. Unlike chemotherapy and radiation, blunderbuss weapons that attack healthy as well as cancerous cells and can cause severe side effects, the new agents are designed to kill cancer cells alone. In principle, they should eliminate malignancies more effectively while being far gentler on the patient.
Progress in developing the new agents has been slow and generally unspectacular. Researchers and drug companies have put enormous effort into developing drugs against some obvious targets in cancer cells but so far without much success.
A leading cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins says: "We are at a critical huncture where so much has been learned and there is a lot of optimism that new kinds of therapies will be developepd. I share that optimism, but realistically it is not going to be simple."
Anyone here with personal or family contact with cancer who would like to share thoughts?
Robby
June 9, 2001 - 06:17 pm
Our continued goal in this forum is to discuss issues, not personalities.
Ol Imp
June 9, 2001 - 09:28 pm
There seemed to be simple scientific cures, a number of years ago, for a number of diseases - currently , it seems that there are no cures - the diseases stick with you - forms of hepatitis are not too good - Ecoli is not too good - Now there is a fatal disease that attacks youths in swimming pools that there is no cure for - Is it that we are less resistant? - Are ,our immune systems weaker? - seems like we are not going to able to keep up with them.. On top of this, I've noticed that there is an increase in lice on children in schools ; which has not been a problem for years - Smallpox is recurring - Can I get near a deer or a squirrel without fear of a tick or disease? - Have we done something to the enviorment to make it less habitable? - And our self imposed electro magnetic fields are presenting problems -
We have no fear of global warming - we must have a profit so that our 401 Ks will be better - short sighted needs -
Man needs a leash.
Ol Imp
June 9, 2001 - 09:47 pm
So a small bubble on your spouses foot is a melanoma that just gets caught in time ;surgery- A bit of bleeding is the sign of a uterine cancer that has penetrated the wall:surgery - not covered with a pabst - mammogram shows a shade that has to be checked;surgery - 40 years ago you used to lay in the sun , now you have 3 kinds of skin cancer - Where has the free and easy man and woman gone? Must we move with fear and concern?
Blue Knight 1
June 9, 2001 - 10:24 pm
Robby.......
As we know, Cancer and AIDS are not the only desease we face. I recall last year (June) while lying in my hospital bed having just come from tripple by-pass surgery, I gazed through the open door of my room watching doctors, nurses, and visitors of all ages, thinking: "If you folks don't die from cancer, or a traffic accident, chances are excellent you'll all be in my bed." There is more truth than fiction in this. I believe I recently heard that 400,000 heart by-pass surgeries were performed in the last year. Quite a club.
Blue Knight 1
June 9, 2001 - 10:32 pm
I have absolutely zero compassion for sodomites that contract AIDS, but my heart, monies and time, have, and will continue to go out to those innocent victims who by no actions of their own, have been infected by (and I like the name Mahlia has given it) the "black" plague.
AIDS is clearly a "pestilence" among many others of this time in history. I forsee that as long as the Africans continue their total disregard for the respect of individual rights of women, addicts swapping needles, and sodomites continuing their abomination of the natural, then our medical science will NEVER defeat AIDS.
I believe we all had lumps in our throats when that very young African boy pleaded with the world saying "All I want is to live a normal life like every one else." None of us should ever forget that poor childs plea. He's dead now.
robert b. iadeluca
June 10, 2001 - 04:25 am
Ol Imp says:--"Have we done something to the environment to make it less habitable? We have no fear of global warming."
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued two assessments of the research into global warming in 1990 and 1995. This panel operates under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program. Last November negotiators from most of the world's nations gathered in The Hague to work out details of the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty intended to cut releases of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The 1997 treaty has been signed by more than 150 countries but has not yet been ratified by any industrialized country.
The results of these meetings are that greenhouse gases produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels are altering the atmosphere in ways that affect earth's climate and it is likely that they have "contributed substantially to the observed warming over the last 50 years." Many panel members said that the summary represents the closest thing to a consensus possible in science.
We are a Democracy. We, the people, make the decisions. What should we be deciding in this area?
Robby
Ol Imp
June 10, 2001 - 07:45 am
I suppose the non-freon auto air conditioning unit was a step in the right direction - toward a lowering of greenhouse gases . - In the other direction: The lowering of the miles-per-gallon standards and the influx of SUV's is a step toward increasing pollution - The dealers make more dollars per unit on the SUV's. - The I've got mine standard (regarding money) overcoming a future ethical standard.
Man does not have a free Democratic choice - Man has a choice to be swung and manipulated - We are easily swayed - I can remember satires on the detriment of smoking 40 years ago - and the cancers continued; and the heart conditions continued.. A profit had to be made - market share!
The Coachella Valley is building a Hydrogen powered bus (Sunbus) - the idea has been around for 35 years - the inertia and resistance from those with oil and gas investments - they have to make a profit-The governmental investment into the alternative energy industry, and the tax write-offs have been far less than coal , oil and nuclear - a profit has to be made in oil and gas..
I guess our inablibity to be truly Democratic and be easily led into the profits of 401 K's are more important than our health and welfare - Man by nature is not democratic - man by nature can be manipulated into thinking he has choice - man is but a pawn..
It would be nice to respond positively to the Kyoto accords other than ignore them.
robert b. iadeluca
June 10, 2001 - 07:55 am
Ol Imp tells us that "man by nature is not democratic - man by nature can be manipulated into thinking he has choice - man is but a pawn."
Agree? Disagree?
June 10, 2001 - 09:01 am
AIDS is the feature story in the June 11, 2001 NEWSWEEK .
There are maps of the world included in this story, along with percentages. The highest rate in the world at the time this was written is to be found in Botswana in the South of Africa. The rate sent chills up and down my spine; especially since this is the home of those darling peoples featured in that wonderful movie: THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY .
THIRTY-SIX percent ( 36% ) of Botswanaians have AIDS!
kiwi lady
June 10, 2001 - 01:47 pm
Yes I agree that man is but a pawn.
Regarding cancer. Yes there are many good treatments for cancer but unfortunately it all depends on money. If you have money or good medical insurance you may live a few more years if not you die. Many patients here are not offered certain drugs as the hospital authorities know they have not the money to pay for them. There is a ceiling here for chemotherapy and its a very small amount of money per patient when that is exhausted if you dont have medical insurance or a large savings account there is no further treatment with drugs which are not deemed to be on the free list by whichever RHA is treating the patient. The irony of it is that some RHA's in smaller towns do pay for the treatment. In Auckland the largest city they do not. I think its about three cycles of chemotherapy which is allowed. The figure quoted was $750 for the actual drugs per patient. This fact is not publicised and it was only revealed to me on a current affairs program a few months ago. Yes indeed even with cancer we are pawns in the game of life.
Carolyn
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 10, 2001 - 05:29 pm
Hello my friends. I'm just back from Quebec City where I was a delegate of Senior's Citizens Forum of Montreal to an "Intergenerational Seminar" organized by the "Minist�re de la Famille" of the Quebec Provincial government to promote stronger links between generations. I certainly would like to help with that.
Last year my daughter invited an man who suffered from AIDS to sleep over because he had been evicted from his home and he had nowhere else to go. It was winter. The next morning when I came down she told me about him and I said: "You are so brave" they have two small children. I don't know for sure if I could have done that. I love her so much for the courage she has always shown to help desperate people. She is a compassionate woman.
Robby please explain what is the relationship between new diseases and Democracy. Do you mean that Democratic countries, (or any country) should do more research or be generous?
Science, at this time, seems unable to work fast enough to eradicate or treat them. Granted they have made giant steps in the field of medicine, vaccines, medication. I don't think pharmaceutical companies or researchers alone can, and should, be made accountable for the lack of availability of drugs, or cure. If they can't make a profit, they can't experiment to find new treatments for diseases.
No blame should be put on anybody who comes down with any disease in any country, who follows any religion. Disease has always been part of humanity.
Blue Knight 1
June 10, 2001 - 05:41 pm
Kiwi Lady......
Of course we all see things differently, and I for one cannot find it within me to call cancer victims "pawns." They, in my opinion, are victims to this desease, and as all victims, they are at the mercy of forces they cannot control. I can't fault doctors from earning a good living, but I do criticize them for hardening their hearts to these victims when they can actually offer a modicum of relief. We have all (I believe) read stories of doctors flying to South American countries and offering their services free of charge for a wide variety of medical problems suffered by the poor who cannot pay for help. I salute these wonderful men and women, yet, I find great fault in those who cannot offer one to more hours per month of their time and expertise as a give back to those in dire need. Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, doctors, nurses, and medical staff personnel may not be obligated (understandably) to give a portion of their services to their fellow man, but the example of the "Good Samaritan" seems to stand out.
Lou D
June 10, 2001 - 05:58 pm
Are we all pawns? Not me! Maybe many of you think of yourself as such, but if you blindly follow your chosen leaders, it is your choice. If you refuse to to be led, then you are not a pawn. When one listens to the hucksters who promote every feel-good product, and purchases just to be in style, or otherwise allows himself to be manipulated, then indeed you are a pawn. If you allow yourself to be swayed by rhetoric, without investigating what has been said, or do something just because your parents did it, then you have allowed yourself to become a pawn. Democracy is not the cause. How can having the freedom to think for oneself contribute to becoming a pawn?
kiwi lady
June 10, 2001 - 08:40 pm
No matter how supposedly democratic a system is it is money which manipulates the system. If you cant see this you are indeed kidding yourself. It is money which gets Politicians elected and for the money they are pawns in the hands of others. History shows us this.
Carolyn
Ol Imp
June 10, 2001 - 09:30 pm
The open mind - Democracy - So altering the colors on an Oxydol (soap) box they found that they could penetrate that mind , with no rhetoric - Orgasmic sounds, sell shampoo - A baby (security) wrapped in a tire - The images are faster, and hit us deeper - A horse sells us a truck - And everybody wants to be a "Millionaire" - "lets play"
No we are not victims - we are just fodder - We have choice - So we select aol ISP so that are children will be protected - So that our peers will like us -
It is almost better to have no choice and have a dictator than to be put in the position of thinking you have choice and then being manipulated into doing something - Coke; Pepsi and McDonalds are taking it to the world for the mind of man -
Salivation and gustatory experiences are more important than Aides - The Weather channel will supplant our need to look at global warming - and secure we sit as we move on.
Blue Knight 1
June 10, 2001 - 10:37 pm
Ol Imp......
For the sake of posting another opinion, life is a matter of choices, and we are not commanded to purchase or submit to advertisement via the media, soap, and cereal boxes. Should the American public assume the position you suggest, I dare say we wouldn't be "pawns," we'd be mindless robots. What the United States is experiencing, is another phase that only time will change, and it's called "I want mine, and I want it now" mentality. Movie stars with their millions, sports personalities with their multi millions, fledgling CEO's with their millions and billions, TV shows that promote easy $$$$$$, one cannot blame Joe Doe citizen from falling victim to making poor choices. However Ol Imp, we really can't put everyone into the same box. I'm not one of them, and I don't believe you are either.
As you and I sit in front of our TV's and the AVERAGE commercial hits the screen, don't we look, listen (before we mute it) and ask ourselves, "Just who are they playing that trash to?" Certainly the commercials are not made for adults, and the companies that buy into the sillyness and even idiotic commercials, have to be of the same mind as the ad agencies.
robert b. iadeluca
June 11, 2001 - 03:49 am
Eloise:--Welcome back from being a delegate at an "Intergenerational Seminar" to promote stronger links between generations. The need is there and you are doing more than just talking about it.
As we continue to discuss Science and Democracy, one of the current concerns is Global Warming. One of the most striking findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that the average global temperature over the next 100 years could be 11 degrees Fahrenheit higher from what it was in 1990. By comparison, average temperatures are only 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer now than they were at the end of the last Ice Age.
The worsening of the picture, according to the panel, is due to a projected cleansing of the atmosphere in coming decades of other emissions from fuel burning that have a cooling influence on climate -- specifically the veil of tiny particles of sulfates from unfiltered burning of coal and oil that contribute to smog and acid rain.
Through a decade of scientific and political debate over global warming, the opponent always was industry, particularly oil and coal companies threatened by anything that might bring about an early end to the carbon age.
But we are a Democracy, are we not? Aren't industries entitled to the benefits of a Democracy?
Robby
Lou D
June 11, 2001 - 04:19 am
Robby, it's kind of a moot point whether industries are entitled to the benefits of democracy. As long as there is a demand for something, whether it be energy (to run our computers and tv's, or to keep us warm or able to travel in private vehicles) or new clothes, there will always be someone to supply them. If all people are willing to give up all their conveniences, which all require polluting energy in one form or another, then we could cut down on those pollutants that everyone decries. If not, then we will have to put up with what we have now until science comes up with a practical answer. Industry thrives in any political climate. It is probably better regulated in a democracy.
robert b. iadeluca
June 11, 2001 - 04:34 am
Does this, then, fit in with deTocqueville's comment (above) starting with the phrase: "The Americans were naturally inclined...?"
Robby
This article contains another viewpoint on global warming not usually presented to the public.
robert b. iadeluca
June 11, 2001 - 04:57 am
Thank you, Lou, for that Link. It shows us again that there is more than one side to a story. That is why we are called a "discussion group."
Robby
June 11, 2001 - 07:12 am
I want Mine - I want to keep it -
So Sempra; Duke; Halliburton are making millions selling electricity and not providing any information; "There's no law against it" so therefore it is ok to charge 7 times as much.
I'm not choking on it hence it is ok - Sounds similar to the Tobacco industry - Society will cure the cancers and mend the hearts. -
It is obvious that the judicial system , up to the Supreme court is bought and partisan - the appointments are partisan -
So Sarah Winchester made money off of selling weapons so that people could kill each other more efficently - and she built a house to nowhere - steps to nowhere - doors to nowhere - I'm afraid the freedoms of Democracy are leading industries onto these UNETHICAL paths to nowhere.
Can man stay on a path of free choice and remain ethical - I think not- man needs a leash - Is man less ethical than a dog; probably - If his Ford Pinto explodes on impact ; It is cheaper to pay off the dead than it is to change the assembly line..
The word from Kyoto is that we are our brothers keepers - doesn't fit when you want to make a profit.
robert b. iadeluca
June 11, 2001 - 07:16 am
Ol Imp says:--"The word from Kyoto is that we are our brothers keepers - doesn't fit when you want to make a profit."
Agree? Disagree?
Ol Imp
June 11, 2001 - 07:25 am
There is enough energy from solar and wind to supply the entire country (US) from these sources - It is sad that the various renewable source industries had to go to court , to get the existing coal/oil cartel to buy the electricity - The laws were written for the coal/oil cartel.
There is money to be made in oil and gas - So FERC is stacked in favor of oil and gas and nuclear people.
Malryn (Mal)
June 11, 2001 - 08:13 am
Ol Imp, I'm in agreement with so much you say. Before you posted, I was thinking about how people in this country are controlled by what they see on TV, hear on radio, read in newspapers and other publications, and what is conveyed by word of mouth. It has bothered me for a very long time to see and hear so few original thoughts. People parrot what they're fed by very commercial media, and for the most part do not seem to question what they see and hear. The way people dress and the cars they drive are very good examples of this kind of brainwashing. Why should we all look as if we came from the same denim jean mill and think like a flock of sheep?
This is nothing new. Look at attitudes and opinions that were handed down to us when we were kids fifty and more years ago. People who questioned what they were told by an "authoratative source" then were called rebels, heretics, anarchists, unAmerican, socialists, communists, anti-religious among other epithets, and worst of all liberals. Is it being liberal and unAmerican to want to protect and save the environment and humanity? I don't think so.
Scientists already know and have developed alternatives to fossil fuels used in vehicles, industries and homes, but if somebody's wallet is threatened by change, these alternatives are not supported and utilized even when the resulting effect is and can be disastrous to the world.
An aside here:
Did anyone ever stop to think that life imprisonment with no hope of ever getting out of prison or breathing free air is a far, far worse penalty to pay than what I just read was a "swift, silent death"?
Mal
June 11, 2001 - 08:52 am
When you are dead, you can't talk...
The government tried McVeigh...
and pulled a fraud against the courts
And now they are getting away with murder..
After allowing the Supreme Court to Select a far right winged conservative to be the leader of the 'free' world...
There is nothing 'democratic' about these two attrocities.
And it makes me sick that the 'sheep' can't see the 'error of their ways'...
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 11, 2001 - 09:49 am
I wonder if Tocqueville was correct when he predicted what is happening today, he wrote "Aristocracy could come out of industry".
I will try to resume his most convincing lines in this chapter.
"We will see in what oblique way industry would bring back men towards aristocracy.
When an artisan works every day doing the same task, he finishes a product faster, more easily and more economically. He becomes more skillful, but less industrious. We can say that the man regresses as the worker progresses. His mind becomes fixed in his monotonous job and he cannot help but stay with it. He has been assigned, in society, a certain place from which he cannot escape. He has become immobile, weaker and more dependant.
The larger the industry, with large investments and credit, the cheaper the products. Industry makes progress because rich and enlightened Moguls present themselves to exploit industries which artisans used to exploit until then. Thus while industrial science pushes down the working class, it elevates that of the masters who aspire at higher and higher achievements. Soon workers will only need physical strength without intelligence where the masters will need science, if not genius to succeed. (Some technological skills are not that difficult to acquire for a worker)
The master and the worker have nothing in common and the gap widens more each day. One is in a continuous narrow dependent state who needs the master and seems to be born to obey and the other one to command. One resembles an administrator of a vast empire, the other a brute. (A de T. had not predicted that unions would protect some workers from abuse).
If we go to the source, Aristocracy seem to come naturally within the confines of Democracy. Just like the Aristocracy of old, a few affluent men rise above a multitude of miserable people.
The difference between the old Aristocracy and the new Democracy is that the first had a moral obligation to help and relieve the miseries of its subjects, but the new Democracy does not feel obligated to do that after it has used and abused of its workers who sometimes fall on Welfare. The Aristocracy (Industrial) that is rising right before our eyes is one of the harshest ever produced on earth. Friends of Democracy should keep a close watch because if inequality ever penetrates in the New World, we can PREDICT that it will enter through this door". Pages 221 to 225 in my French version.
I can't help but agree that we are going towards this. Industry Moguls know very well what ordinary people enjoy and target their efforts in that direction as long as profits continue to grow. Americans have a cushy life which we are unwilling to part with. Manufacturers and Ad Agencies researchers know which button to push in order to tempt people to buy their products. All our life is centered on how to keep our lifestyle, or make it better. Our house, our food, our entertainment, our transport. We "pursue happiness" with glee unaware that THAT is what is going to bring in a society which we had not intended to get but might get anyway.
TigerTom
June 11, 2001 - 09:56 am
Blue Knight 1, I have just been reading some of the back posts and while I find your posts interesting and I agree with much of what you say. I do have a question: You asked "What have I done to Sodomites." Of course, the opposite question is what has Sodomites done to you? Actually, I think that the term Sodomites is a bit harsh. From what little I know about Homosexual behavior from reading I doubt if it is a life style that is Voluntary. I cannot imagine anyone choosing to do what apprently Homosexuals do to one another. So, Blue Knight, be glad that for the grace of god go you and I and have a little pity, they need it.
Blue Knight 1
June 11, 2001 - 01:33 pm
Dapphne.....
I received this from a friend of mine and I'll not edit it,
"Let's see, if I understand how America works lately . . . If a woman burns her thighs on the hot coffee she was holding in her lap while driving, she blames the restaurant.If your teen-age son kills himself, you blame the rock 'n' roll music or musician he liked. If you smoke three packs a day for 40 years and die of lung cancer, your family blames the tobacco company. If your daughter gets pregnant by the football captain you blame the school for poor sex education. If your neighbor crashes into a tree while driving home drunk, you blame the bartender. If your cousin gets AIDS because the needle he used to shoot up with heroin was dirty, you blame the government for not providing clean ones. If your grandchildren are brats without manners, you blame television. If your friend is shot by a deranged madman, you blame the gun manufacturer.And if a crazed person breaks into the cockpit and tries to kill the pilots at 35,000 feet, and the passengers kill him instead, the mother of the deceased blames the airline. I must have lived too long to understand the world as it is anymore. So if I die while my old, wrinkled butt is parked in front of this computer, I want you to blame Bill Gates, OK?"
It's really a shame the government gave McVeigh a trial by a jury of his peers. What's really terrible is that he was given several attorneys in his "defense" (how undemocratic). How horrible that a confessed mass murderer was found guilty and passed this unjust judgment of death. I'm surprised the courts refused to listen to the livingroom, rocking chair attorneys who obviously withheld their volumes of evidence, insight and "hidden," or was it "secret" information they have regarding the "evidence" FBI withheld which both sides of the court reviewed and found not to be sufficient evidence to cause a retrial? I can only surmise that the bleeding heart liberals who are crying for this once deranged sicko, also cried their eyes out for those little babies as they were being crushed to death by tons of cement and "collateral" debris, with some who choked to death from the dust before the valient rescuers could reach them.
You opened with: "When you are dead, you can't talk..." I ask, about what? the beast confessed and said he was the master of his fate.
Oh yes, isn't that what McVeigh called those little babies? Yes, that's it, "Collateral damage." Personally, my heart goes out to the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, and friends of McVeigh's "Collateral damage." But then, our hurt for the survivors makes us a bunch of...Let's see, what do you call us? Oh yes, you call us "Sheep," Just a bunch of lambs, noted for being sweet, gentle, and soft as wool.
Blue Knight 1
June 11, 2001 - 01:54 pm
Tiger Tom......
Blue Knight 1, I have just been reading some of the back posts and while I find your posts interesting and I agree with much of what you say. I do have a question: You asked "What have I done to Sodomites." Of course, the opposite question is You asked: "what has Sodomites done to you?"
May I reply in a different way than your question. The sodomites (thank goodness) haven't personally done anything to me other than attack and fight me. The question is, what have, and are, they doing to society? They approach and molest young boys to name one. They also have spread their vile desease into society with their abominable acts against nature. Hollywood sodomites REQUIRE young men to submit in order to gain a part in films and TV, thus causing AIDS to be spread to the men and women in and out of the industry. Now how on earth does Lee know this? I worked in the industry for several years.
You write: "I think that the term Sodomites is a bit harsh. From what little I know about Homosexual behavior from reading I doubt if it is a life style that is Voluntary." Hopefully, Tiger Tom, I've given insight to the "voluntary." And the term "Sodomite" is an exact (term) for what they actually do.
You close with: "I cannot imagine anyone choosing to do what apprently Homosexuals do to one another."
And my friend, You added: "be glad that for the grace of god go you and I." When you bring our Lord into it, and when you do, you speak of the true authority on the subject. God says they do it by choice, and He calls them an abomination. I promise you Tiger Tom, you and I will NEVER go that way, simply because we do NOT choose to.
Your final close says" "and have a little pity, they need it."
The only pity I have is for their soul. I personally know ex sodomites, and they all have told me that they CAN get away from it if they really want to.
I apologize for sounding so harsh, but I'm really trying to be realistic. We both have given our views on this matter, and I hope mine doesn't offend you. I'm serious about that.
Malryn (Mal)
June 11, 2001 - 03:16 pm
If ever I met a homophobic police officer, I'd be afraid he or she would decide my sons, my daughter and I are some of the people he or she dislikes for whatever reason that officer has.
Michelangelo, whose sculptures and paintings adorn the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican in Rome was a homosexual, as were Plato, Leonardo Da Vinci, playwright Tennessee Williams and composer Benjamin Britten. Leonard Bernstein, world reknowned pianist, composer and conductor had numerous homosexual encounters. There were many more brilliant homosexual men in the arts and sciences in the past and are today, whom I will not name here.
Michelangelo used only male models. The model for his statue, Night, a depiction of a woman, was a male. It and Michelangelo's sculpture, Day, are on the tomb of Giuliani di Medici at the Medici Chapel in Florence, Italy where Catholic masses are said.
For an article about Michelangelo, please click the link below:
TigerTom
June 11, 2001 - 06:11 pm
Blue Knight 1, I am not offended by seriously held opinions. I am at times taken aback by the vehemence of some of them. However, I am fairly thick skinned at times (in addition to being thick headed) so I generally handle those things well. Preying on young children doesn't seem to be confined to either hetro or Homo sexual types. the casting couch is used on both sexes. Hell, when I was a boy I had a couple "chicken Hawks" I believe the term is take a hit at me. Scared me, but I just got moving out of their way and went up to an adult Usher (both times was in a movie theater) and that was that. I still cannot fathom anyone choosing to do those things. Let me take that back, I cannot fathom anyone doing some of those things that they do by choice. True, you having been a police officer have had more expierence that I but I too have seen a few things in my wanderings. All I can do is shake my head in wonder. The Human being continues to amaze me.
Ol Imp
June 11, 2001 - 06:38 pm
I think a man tried to have sex with a monkey - I surmise that gave rise to the Aides problem - I do know homosexuals who have respectable jobs and have long term relationships and do not prey on the young - These are personal friends of mine ; that I have known for years - We talk and laugh together as we enjoy each others company..
It is interesting that Democracy is a Greek term - people power - says nothing about who you are or what you are - sort of a nice thought - I know the Greeks had slaves - not to cool - There are always the "Napoleon" pigs - Animal Farm - That must be more equal than others - everybody needs somebody to look down on -
Democracy as conceived in ideal form has never existed - Man has always been pulled , pushed and manipulated - So this the world according to Gates - And here I am ,punching away on his software -
So where do we go from here ? I would hope a more ethical society that is accepting of all.
robert b. iadeluca
June 11, 2001 - 07:15 pm
Eloise reminds us that according to deTocqueville, "If we go to the source, Aristocracy seem to come naturally within the confines of Democracy. Just like the Aristocracy of old, a few affluent men rise above a multitude of miserable people.
As we continue to examine Science within Democracy and, while we are examining diseases, looking at the pharmaceutical industries, are they the Artistocracy of our Democracy?
According to Ol Imp, "everybody needs somebody to look down on" and that "Democracy as conceived in ideal form has never existed."
As the price of medications arises and as many people in need are not finding these medications even available, are the aristocratic pharmaceutical corporations looking down on us?
Robby
June 11, 2001 - 07:25 pm
I'm a happy member of the "miserable multitude" -
robert b. iadeluca
June 11, 2001 - 07:32 pm
How about industries that specialize in energy? Are they the Aristocracy?
At Kyoto, a central issue was whether developing countries would be required to chip in on emissions cuts. But that issue quickly slid to the back burner in favor of the sharp dispute between the United States and the European Union, where the Green Party holds substantial sway.
The United States initially sought to get halfway to its emissions-cutting target by using its vast forests as a carbon dioxide "sink." The European Union objected, saying it was a back-door way for the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases to reduce its target.
Is the European Union ahead of America is taking action toward protecting our planet?
Robby
June 11, 2001 - 07:37 pm
Tiger Tom......
You say it well. None of us could possibly have reached our present age and not have experienced a trip around the horn a few times. You also are keen on the correct term for them (chicken hawks), and I too was approached in a movie theater when I was a little boy. I went home and told my dad ( a cop) that it was the manager, and he went down to the theater and beat the dailights out of the guy.
Blue Knight 1
June 11, 2001 - 07:39 pm
Malryn.....
Individual intellegence and mastery of the arts is not in question.
MaryPage
June 11, 2001 - 07:59 pm
MAL, I'm just coming aboard and reading back over a lot of posts, and would like to applaud you for your most excellent and intelligent # 144 and # 150.
Wish I had written them, but I'm here now to second every word!
robert b. iadeluca
June 11, 2001 - 08:00 pm
The 170 countries that gathered in The Hague to address the threat of global warming have fallen short of their main objective, which was to translate the 1997 Kyoto Accord into a detailed, enforceable treaty. The British are blaming the French, the French are blaming the Germans, and nearly everyone is blaming the United States.
The United States, by far the biggest producer of the greenhouse gases that are believed to be a big part of the warming problem, has a special obligation to see that the diplomacy continues. The Kyoto agreement committed the industrialized countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 5.2 percent. The dominant greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, caused by the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil in power plants and vehicles.
In principle, the agreement allowed nations to meet their targets in several ways. They could make "real" reductions in fossil fuel use, for example by investing heavily in cleaner fuels and cleaner plants. They could earn credits by investing in clean-air projects in other countries, or by buying those credits on the open market from other countries that had already met their targets. They could also claim credit for the so-called carbon "sinks" -- forests that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.
Do you folks see any of this happening? Is SCIENCE moving forward in the Democracies?
Robby
MaryPage
June 11, 2001 - 08:09 pm
Yes, but we are playing that old game from childhood of "Mother, May I?" We go 2 or 3 steps forward, and then 1 or 2 back.
It seems to depend on who our unhuddled masses freely believe at any given moment.
The scientists proclaim, and we believe them when we first hear them. Take 3 steps forward. Yes, you may.
Then the monied interests, whose pocketbooks might become just a tad more pinched if they had to do as the scientists advise, yell out their wounded complaints at the top of theirs and their well-financed (by them) representatives voices. After the droning meters of the scientists, these yells are much more attention commanding. Take 2 steps backwards. Yes, you may.
i know. color me cynical.......
kiwi lady
June 11, 2001 - 10:54 pm
The masters of Industry would have put pressure on the US Government (To return their election bribes) to pull out of Kyoto. Yes the European States are far ahead of The USA in their attempts to clean up our air. We were horrified to hear the USA had reneged on Kyoto Protocols. When you reach the level of pollution where you cannot breathe your masters of industry may try to do something constructive by then it will be too late!
Carolyn
3kings
June 12, 2001 - 02:29 am
I was amused by that link to a Jewish business wrag, which was trying to belittle the effects of greenhouse gasses on atmospheric warming. They claim that satelites show the upper atmosphere to be cooling. It is known that warming the lower atmosphere results in a deeper troposphere, because the mean lapse rate remains the same. This in turn results in a higher tropopause, and higher tropopauses are always colder than lower ones, thus resulting in lower upper air temperatures. It is because the lower atmosphere is warming, that the upper temperatures are cooling. This is elementary stuff, known to any who care to do a little study. I find it depressing that such rubbish should appear in a supposedly serious journal.-- Trevor.
robert b. iadeluca
June 12, 2001 - 04:03 am
As we discuss global warming and the realization that forests are carbon dioxide "sinks", which help us by taking in carbon dioxide and putting out oxygen, we cannot but help at the same time consider the vast amount of forests in America, perhaps greater than any other nation. At the present moment, the "forest plan" calls for nearly 60 million acres of pristine federal forests to be off limits to road building and most logging. This sets aside nearly a third of all the forest land owned by the federal government for special protection.
Under this plan, the U.S. Forest Service will ban road building in 58.9 million acres of federal forest without roads, including 9.3 million acres in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. While the vast majority of roadless forests are in the West, the plan affects part of federal forests in 38 states, including Florida's Apalachicola National Forest, Virginia's George Washington National Forest, New Hampshire's White Mountain National Forest, Idaho's Bitteroot range and Alaska's Tongass, viewed by environmentalists as North America's rain forest.
I live right near the George Washington National Forest which is perhaps small compared to some of the Western forests, but it is beautiful. Does anyone else here feel a closeness to any of these forests, even if you don't live near them?
Robby
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 12, 2001 - 06:26 am
Robby - The pulp and paper industry has been stripping forests for decades here in Quebec. In a documentary, we saw that the trees on the side of the road are left standing. Behind that, the forest is stripped bare and we think that the Canadian forest stretches for thousands of kilometres beyond. No wonder autochtones are decrying these practices. The Pulp and Papers just cuts happily away and gives nothing in return not only to the indians, but to nature. Sure they plant trees, but not as fast as they cut. Again the Multinationals profit supersedes the needs of nature to replenish itself.
I am very very sceptical about science finding ways to preserve as much as nature needs to keep it in balance. Some sciences probe, theorize, experiment and after all that has been done, publish their findings and are sure that people will believe in their "discoveries" (which was always there in the first place in some cases).
If we look only at the cosmos for instance, scientists (Joel Primack, Astrophysicist) says that the Hubble telescope only sees light in space, all the rest is theory. Yet people take it for granted that a theory is proof enough that there ARE other enhabited planets out there. Perhaps yes, but that has NOT been proven yet.
robert b. iadeluca
June 12, 2001 - 06:38 am
Eloise, you say:--"People take it for granted that a theory is proof enough that there ARE other inhabited planets out there. Perhaps yes, but that has NOT been proven yet."
You are so correct and any reputable scientist will tell you that you are correct. Good scientists almost never use the term "proof." They come up with expressions such as "it appears that," or "evidence points toward" or "there is a high probability that." The media may change the wordings from what the scientists originally said or people may read the scientific conclusion and interpret it the way they want to interpret it.
Thank you for emphasizing this point as we continue our subtopic of Science and Democracy.
Robby
Ol Imp
June 12, 2001 - 07:47 am
So some of the uninhabited planets had people that were well invested in fossil fuels in their investment plans - They had a nice plan but no air to breathe - and there we go , on our way to being uninhabited - But, we had free choice - we were a Democracy - We had the right to bear arms along with a lot of fossil fuels -
Hey! look at that planet - no life - it's got a thick cloud cover - golly it has a bunch of lines - like things made of oil - I wonder if they had free choice? - I wonder what they did with it? - There seemed to be a tendency to build walled communities - You say they called it Earth?
I've got mine - I've got my Initial Public Offering in Greenhouse Gas Incorporated - It's based in Texas and has a good market share.
It seems that Democracy brings about an increasingly shorter vision of planetary needs -
robert b. iadeluca
June 12, 2001 - 07:55 am
Ol Imp, are you then agreeing with deT's comment (above) starting with "As soon as the multitude...?"
Robby
Ol Imp
June 12, 2001 - 08:00 am
As I order my meds from Merck on the internet ;I never thought of them as an upper class - I just ordered and paid the toll - as I buy gas from Arco, I never thought of them as part of the upper class - I just pump gas and pay the toll - As I use electricity from So. Cal. Edison - I never thought of them as part of the upper class - I just used electricity and paid the toll -
Dare I question? This is the system - I'm in a Democracy - So they tell me -
Ol Imp
June 12, 2001 - 08:25 am
The industrial Aristocracy has entered through the door - As we pawns are pushed to the side with creature comforts of a satellite dish - limited health insurance - no retirement benefits - limited Social Security - Will the pawns rise up? - No , they will just surf on the channels.
There is no compassion in the industrial aristocracy -
MaryPage
June 12, 2001 - 09:50 am
Trevor's Science is correct.
Re the forests, Robby, YES! YES! YES!
Oh, Eloise, Science will find, indeed, has found ways to preserve as much as nature needs. It is the PEOPLE Science cannot manage.
Imp, you're right about that surfing. Anesthesia has nothing on that!
Ol Imp
June 12, 2001 - 09:59 am
The serfs will surf.
Ol Imp
June 12, 2001 - 10:19 am
Stick out our tongues and go yahhhhhhh! - order pizza to clog our arteries - Eat a burger and fries and say "thank you" to the purveyors of our demise - We have free choice - It's a democracy.
Watch the Avalanche get the Stanley - become a Shaq advocate - Order a Yankee hat ,on the internet ,at their web site - Mourn the death of Earnhardt - Will Tiger win the Open again? - Who will get voted off the island?
Drink your beer; eat your pizza - enjoy - enjoy - tomorrow is another day - "Hey! don't bother me I'm eating" -
I've got this moment, in time, in this Democracy - I have freedom to choose, at this moment in time, in this Democracy .
"Global Warming" ? is that a new Rock Group? Is that a new game for Game Boy?
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 12, 2001 - 11:13 am
Ol Imp - I am trying not to be too cynical, but its hard. I have to keep plugging at looking at the good side of things. Its not natural. I also try to understand everybody's use of the English language. Sometimes I fail miserably and give up trying but I will learn with time. You all should hear me speak English. At least I can write the language.
But you write great things Ol Imp, forgive me for not telling you more often. OK Elo�se, shut up.
robert b. iadeluca
June 12, 2001 - 12:10 pm
I know Ol Imp from another discussion group. He often speaks with tongue in cheek but if we pause to listen, we realize there is much solid serious thought behind his quips.
Robby
June 12, 2001 - 02:41 pm
Ah ha, but with Pizza tongue in cheek!
Lou D
June 12, 2001 - 05:47 pm
Regardless of how you feel, Ol Imp, we do have a choice. As you said, it is the people. It is not the "industrial aristocracy" that foists everything on us. No one holds a gun to anyone's head and says "buy this" or "buy that!" It is the choice the people make of their own free will. There are many things we can do, if we wish, to ease the energy and other crises, but most of us prefer to maintain our present status. Want to conserve heating oil? Just leave Maine and move to the south. Tired of high gasoline prices? Sell your car and buy a horse. I could go on, but the list would be endless. Most of us are great at paying lip service to conservation practices, or blaming the politicians for everything, but it is us who are truly at fault.
BTW, deTocqueville was born into aristocracy. Here in America anyone could become a member of the "industrial aristocracy" if they were astute enough. It wasn't an accident of birth, as in Europe.
robert b. iadeluca
June 12, 2001 - 05:50 pm
Shades of Pogo? We have met the enemy and he is us?
Robby
Lou D
June 12, 2001 - 05:54 pm
Pogo was among the greatest philosophers of our time! How sad he is no longer with us.
robert b. iadeluca
June 12, 2001 - 06:01 pm
The current Conservation Act not only effectively prohibits commercial logging but also oil and gas development across an area larger than the nation's current national parks. This may set off furious challenges from Western states. Among those who plan to head almost immediately to federal court to try to block the sweeping effort is the governor of Idaho who, with other Westerners has denounced the action as an unwise intrusion into land-use decisions better made at a local level. Our participant, Lee, lives in Idaho and might have some comments on this.
Environmentalists have hailed this Act as rivaling only the steps taken by Theodore Roosevelt in laying the foundation for today's national forest system. The director of the Heritage Forests Campaign says:--"This is a great moment in history, and it is smething for which our children will express gratitude."
Robby
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 12, 2001 - 06:03 pm
This place is like a MASH rerun. You hear the jokes, but its hard to get the meaning sometimes. We get those reruns 3 times a day here and when I want a rest from the problems of the world, I look at MASH. It still makes me laugh.
robert b. iadeluca
June 13, 2001 - 03:20 am
Environmental actions are not only taking place in the West. The most ambitious river cleanup in the nation's history involves the General Electric Company's spending a half-billion dollars to dredge toxic PCB's embedded in the mud beneath the Hudson River. G.E. owned the factories north of Albany that legally dumped the chemicals in the river over a 30-year period. The company will have to bear the cost of the cleanup under a formal order to be made this year.
Under the proposed plan, about 2.65 million cubic yards of river bottom mud, containing an estimated 100,000 pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCB's, would be dredgd from the river in various so-called pollution hot spots along a 40-mile stretch from the Troy dam to the Thompson Island pool, about 35 miles north of Albany. The dredged material would be sent to existing licensed landfill disposal sites.
As we examine the physical health of our planet and taking action to improve it, are we going about it the right way?
Robby
June 13, 2001 - 04:36 am
I go, you go, we go, POGO!
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 13, 2001 - 06:40 am
Robby - No we're not going about it the right way because GM will only Transfer the contaminated sludge to another site on earth. I saw on TV how they dispose of garbage coming out of greater New York City by putting tons and tons of it on a barge and letting it float there indefinitely on already polluted oceans.
There is NO solution to garbage disposal that is environmentally safe in my opinion. Less garbage would be a small solution to a big problem.
Malryn (Mal)
June 13, 2001 - 07:21 am
There's a campaign going on "in protest of the current energy policies and lack of emphasis on efficiency, conservation and renewables" in the U.S. If you're interested, please click the link below.
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 13, 2001 - 07:33 am
Malryn - Good show, hit it where it hurts, in the pocketbook. Yes we have clout, but We have to make the sacrifices, otherwise They won't listen.
williewoody
June 13, 2001 - 08:28 am
Having just returned from a trip along the East Coast, visiting historic sites along the way, the most impressive of which was Independence Hall in Philadelphia. I tried to visualize how it must have been 200 + years ago as I stood in the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed. The Articles of Confederation voted on and promulgated as our first laws, and finally, The Constitution passed and made the enduring fabric of our democratic form of government.
What seemed so impressive was to think of the immence size of our halls of government today as compared to the small room with maybe a dozen or so desks to seat the representatives of our newly established government. I could almost visualize George Washington seated in the famous chair behind the desk at the front of the room. The phraze "from a tiny acorn the mighty oak tree grows" comes to mind. There are some mighty trees (I'm not sure whether they are oaks) that surround Washington's beautuful home on the Potomac.
All Americans should make every effort to see these shrines of our Democracy.
MaryPage
June 13, 2001 - 09:05 am
Thanks, Mal. I have all ready received 2 e-mails about the big protest on June 21 from 7 until 10, and I plan to participate.
Blue Knight 1
June 13, 2001 - 09:17 am
Your power boycott will be just as effective as my boycotting products made in China. (0) It's all a bandwagon thing. Something to keep the restless busy. Who's it going to affect? Yep, your right, you.
Malryn (Mal)
June 13, 2001 - 10:04 am
In 1773 there was a boycott of tea in the American colonies which mobilized large parts of the population and helped link the colonies together in a common experience of mass popular protest. On December 16, 1773, patriots under Samuel Adams staged a dumping of tea into Boston Harbor. This spectacular act was called the Boston Tea Party. Other seaports followed this example and did the same.
When King George III and Lord North instigated a policy of coercion to force payment of damages caused at the Boston Tea Party, part of the seaport of Boston was closed. Immediately, new resistance sprang up among the colonists up and down the coast.
My question is this:
Exactly where did the protests of 1773 against the then aristocracy lead us?
Mal
Ol Imp
June 13, 2001 - 10:52 am
So my Pogo schtick is take care of me - I may, get tired of hopping around on my own .
robert b. iadeluca
June 13, 2001 - 11:25 am
So, if I'm hearing all this clearly, we are all giving up. The Industrial Aristocracy has won.
Robby
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 13, 2001 - 12:16 pm
Now I know what a Pogo Stick is. I thought it was a dressed up hot dog on a stick. You see I am learning.
Robby - The Industrial Aristocracy is winning, but the battle is not over yet. What to do? I humbly suggest that:
We have LESS: New cars, food, new clothes, air conditioning, beauty products, entertainment, luxury items, garbage. Watch LESS violence on TV. Do MORE: volunteer work, be MORE tolerent, loving, forgiving, enjoy and preserve nature MORE.
Am I preaching? If you say yes, forgive me but you asked.
robert b. iadeluca
June 13, 2001 - 12:20 pm
Eloise:--I hope you don't lose your French accent before we meet you in Washington in November.
Robby
MaryPage
June 13, 2001 - 12:30 pm
Eloise, a Pogo stick is a metal pole with a handle on top and two tiny footrests on each side just inches up the stick. The trick was (1) to get on the thing and (2) to make it hop you somewhere while you stayed on it. I never could see the purpose, but have tried.
POGO was a delightful comic strip from years back. Yes, it was very philosophical. Critters in the Okefenokee Swamp, which is mostly in Georgia, with a little bit in Florida. I loved their music, more than anything. Pogo has gone down in history for saying: "We has met the enemy, and it is us!" (or was it the gator who said that?)
Blue Knight 1
June 13, 2001 - 01:06 pm
Ladies and gentlemen......
We all recognize that all we say here is for our own entertainment and enjoyment. Nothing we say or do in this forum will change the course of history past, present, or future. Our American Democracy is all we have ever had, have, or will ever have. We stand together, or we stand apart, and, in our sunset years we can boast that we were blessed to be born into a country that has afforded us that all to precious thing called freedom. All of us have given to, contributed to, and cherished, the freedom to love this great country and proudly display it's glorious flag.
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHY THE AMERICAN FLAG IS FOLDED 13 TIMES...... when it is lowered or when it is folded and handed to the widow at the burial of a veteran? Here is the meaning of each of those folds and what it means to you.
The first fold of our flag is a symbol of life.
The second fold is a symbol of our belief in eternal life.
The third fold is made in honor and remembrance of the veterans departing our ranks who gave a portion of their lives for the defense of our country to attain peace throughout the world.
The fourth fold represents our weaker nature, for as American citizens trusting in God, it is to Him we turn in times of peace as well as in time of war for His divine guidance.
The fifth fold is a tribute to our country, for in the words of Stephen Decatur, "Our Country, in dealing with other countries may she always be right; but it is still our country, right or wrong."
The sixth fold is for where our hearts lie. It is with our heart that we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States Of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.
The seventh fold is a tribute to our Armed Forces, for it is through the Armed Forces that we protect our country and our flag against all her enemies, whether they be found within or without the boundaries of our republic.
The eighth fold is a tribute to the one who entered into the valley of the shadow of death, that we might see the light of day, and to honor mother, for whom it flies on Mother's Day.
The ninth fold is a tribute to womanhood; for it has been through their faith, their love, loyalty and devotion that the character of the men and women who have made this country great has been molded.
The tenth fold is a tribute to the father, for he, too, has given his sons and daughters for the defense of our country since they were first born.
The eleventh fold, in the eyes of a Hebrew citizen represents the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon, and glorifies in their eyes, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The twelfth fold, in the eyes of a Christian citizen, represents an emblem of eternity and glorifies, in their eyes, God the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.
When the flag is completely folded, the stars are uppermost reminding us of our nation's motto, "In God We Trust".
After the flag is completely folded and tucked in, it takes on the appearance of a cocked hat, ever reminding us of the soldiers who served under General George Washington, and the sailors and marines who served under Captain John Paul Jones, who were followed by their comrades and shipmates in the Armed Forces of the United States, preserving for us the rights, privileges, and freedoms we enjoy today.
The next time you see a flag ceremony honoring someone that has served our country, either in the Armed Forces or in our civilian services such as the Police Force or Fire Department, keep in mind all the important reasons behind each and every movement. They have paid the ultimate sacrifice for all of us by honoring our flag and our Country.
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 13, 2001 - 01:33 pm
Lee - This is quite a revelation to me. I had no idea that each fold of the flag had so much profound meaning to instill in the American people the love of their country that they so well demonstrate. I understand why you and so many others are so deeply attached to your beautiful country. May God let it remain always what those 13 folds represent.
Malryn (Mal)
June 13, 2001 - 07:18 pm
My post about the Boston Tea Party this morning was not just a message about American history. Did you catch the part where it says the colonists linked together in 1773 to protest unfair practices and coercion by the then aristocracy?
The moral to that story is that if enough people get together and yell loud enough, somebody way up there in government or whatever happens to be in control is going to pay attention and make some changes.
If people sit on their butts and allow themselves to be pushed around, nothing ever happens. That's pogo stick mentality.
If you have a complaint and want change, throw your pogo stick out the window, get up off your tush and begin to yell.
Do something!
June 13, 2001 - 07:23 pm
Right on!
kiwi lady
June 13, 2001 - 07:37 pm
Some people have no choice as to where they live. They dont even have the money to get a bus ticket out of the city! Not everyone can be a professional person and not every poor person is poor because of choices. Open your eyes and see!
Carolyn
June 13, 2001 - 07:40 pm
Sometimes when you get off your butt and yell you get hit by a baton!
Carolyn
Lou D
June 13, 2001 - 07:42 pm
I am again curious as to what this blackout is supposed to accomplish? Wouldn't it be better to get people to sell their SUV's and buy a small car, or foreswear their air conditioning for a whole weekend, or any of innumerable ways to accomplish whatever is hoped to be done, but in a much more meaningful way? It doesn't even get dark until 9:00 P.M., so little energy will be saved. I really don't see what they expect to accomplish, other than a few viewers less to watch summer reruns. (When the colonists dumped the tea in protest against unfair taxes, it made a much greater impact, as there was more than just symbolic protest.)
Ol Imp
June 13, 2001 - 07:48 pm
Nice to know what the folds mean -
Took awhile for the powers to accept blacks into baseball -
Took awhile for the powers to mix blacks with whites in the military -
Took awhile for blacks and mexicans to get mortgage loans -
Took awhile for a woman to get the right to vote -
Took awhile for a woman to obtain property rights -
Took awhile for blacks to get jobs as firemen -
Havn't ratified the equal rights amendment yet -
Took awhile for some of the PGA clubs to accept blacks -
With liberty an justice for all if you have a good attorney and the judge was appointed by your political party.
So is this the aristocracy struggling to hold a position or is it a system that is not a democracy claiming to be a democracy?
Sounds more like the kid's game - King of the mountain - I've got my position and I am going to do everything in my power to keep you from getting to the top of the mountain - even if I have to hang you; burn a cross in your yard; paint a swastika on your place of worship.
So we have a kid's game - King of the mountain - push them off
What do we call it? - not democracy - not ,power of the people -
Blue Knight 1
June 13, 2001 - 08:06 pm
Ah yes, perfection. Will it ever occur within our lifetime? Will it ever occur while man struggles and grasps for the top of the mountain? Will ir EVER occur? Yes it will, but not until the Jewish Messiah returns. Sit back and enjoy life my friends, you haven't got much of it left.
Ol Imp
June 13, 2001 - 08:36 pm
Choice - So one time I thought I would sleep on the beach and listen to the soothing surf - I was awakened - There I was, staring at a policeman's gun - I guess I had some choice in this event - I chose to leave the beach - I don't like looking at guns..
I guess choice, at times, is limited -
The best course is to know what the system is and stay within the known parameters of same - that is not democracy -
betty gregory
June 14, 2001 - 12:26 am
The protesting spirit is alive and well in Europe....there are huge groups of protesters meeting Bush in every country in his first trip to Europe...literally his first trip....he's never been to Europe.
The European "man on the street" people (not protesters) are surprisingly informed about the United States and Bush. The overwhelming majority who are interviewed are critical of his policies and inexperience. Many sound genuinely worried about "the fate of our world," as one man put it. My favorite quote, though, came in the form of a more lighthearted critique of our sophistication....the guy said...recently, the U.S. is viewed as the W.W.F. of the planet.
robert b. iadeluca
June 14, 2001 - 04:19 am
As we continue to examine Science and Democracy, we find ourselves talking less about the scientific work itself and more about the reaction of the everyday citizen to the scientific work.
Diesel soot, which has been associated with increased asthma, bronchitis and heart disease, as well as possibly cancer, has been of special concern to health specialists. A recent study at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health found a link betweeen exposure to microscopic soot and death rates in 20 large cities.
The American Petroleum Institute cited a study which said the new sulfur requirements would boost diesel prices by at least 15 cents a gallon and cause "a significant risk of fuel shortages" by 2007.
Let us assume, for discussion's sake, that science did a good job in both cases and was comparatively accurate. Which result is of the greatest importance to the average citizen? deTocqueville said a full 170 years ago:--"The Americans were naturally inclined to require nothing of science but its special applications to the useful arts and the means of rendering life comfortable." (P159, Taste for Science.)
Was "comfort" the most important factor in the life of an American shortly after we declared independence and is "comfort" still our greatest desire? Is that the goal of Democracy?
Robby
June 14, 2001 - 05:18 am
WHAT DAY IS TODAY, AMERICANS?
AND DOES IT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO MOST OF THE PEOPLE ACROSS AMERICA, IF THEY KNOW AT ALL?
Robby
June 14, 2001 - 05:29 am
Flag
It doesn't take a flag to make me know I'm an American.
Mal
Lou D
June 14, 2001 - 05:30 am
If by "comfort", you mean the freedom from disease and the ablity to defend ourselves from foreign invaders, and yes, to free others from conquering invaders (such as Europe in two World Wars), and to help ourselves in the pursuit of life, liberty and happyness, then yes, our greatest desire is for scientists to provide "comfort".
Funny, but the European "man on the street" protests that we will not be a party to the Kyoto agreement, but the only European country to sign that agreement so far has been Romainia! As it was, the vote of the U.S. senate regarding Kyoto was 95 to 0. It seems both major parties were against participating in the treaty. Oh well, it seems we can do nothing right as far as they are concerned.
robert b. iadeluca
June 14, 2001 - 06:45 am
In a 109-page report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nopnprofit group based in Cambridge, Mass., it was stated that antibiotics are being used far more heavily in pigs, cows and chickens than has been revealed by the drug and livestock industries. Healthy farm animals are routinely fed antibiotics to promote growth and prevent infections. That practice can breed strains of drug-resistant bacteria, which can infect people who eat contaminated meat or come into contact with food or water contaminated by the animals' droppings.
The Animal Health Institute, a trade group in Washington that represents 31 makers of veterinary drugs, has disputed the findings, which are 40 percent higher than industry estimates.
Government scientists say that, regardless of who is right, the conflicting figures highlight a werious problem -- the glaring lack of reliable information about the amounts and types of antibiotics used in lifestock in different parts of the country.
What have you been eating lately?
Robby
Ol Imp
June 14, 2001 - 07:16 am
I guess I don't feel comfortable when ITT and the US government decide to eliminate a duly elected person (Allende) in Chile.
I guess I don't feel comfortable when the US decides to support a monarchy in Kuwait - golly ,there were Texas oil investments there.
Look the other way, regarding human rights, just to get inexpensive articles - China - I'm comfortable - don't bother me -
Make sure that the dope smugglers of Afghanistan are well armed and can continue to supply the world.
It's more important to have bananas and make an agreement with United fruit than it is to have duly elected governments..
So Fox is a Pepsi man or was it Coke - That makes him ok. for Mexico.
Yes ,we are seeking our personal comfort from the world - It has nothing to do with Democracy - It has nothing to do with ethics. - If comfort can be correlated with making money then I guess we are seeking our comfort from the world..
Shall we go back to the Opium wars - China didn't want the stuff - British and American investors wanted to push the opium - Opium does make one more comfortable -
robert b. iadeluca
June 14, 2001 - 07:27 am
Ol Imp says:--"We are seeking our personal comfort from the world - It has nothing to do with Democracy - If comfort can be correlated with making money then I guess we are seeking our comfort from the world."
People all over the world like their comforts and would like to make money. So how is Democracy any different from any of the other non-democratic nations whose citizens have the same goals?
Robby
Ol Imp
June 14, 2001 - 07:28 am
I shall put my antibiotic milk on my genetically altered strawberries . Hey! they are the right color - is there anything else that is important?
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 14, 2001 - 08:16 am
Last weekend I attended a Seminar organized by the Family, Seniors and Youth Ministries of the Quebec Provincial Government. This seminar was called "Intergenerational" and regrouped 150 representatives of Seniors organizations one of which I am a part of.
I have just translated the preamble of the Seminar because it clearly explained the content of the seminar.
"The family is the cradle of social order and standards of behavior in any society. The transformations that weighted upon it since a few decades brought new difficulties. Problems related to work, difficulties going through a separation or the reconstruction of families and problems related with the absence of parental or maternal role models in the case of single family homes. It increases demands on the Social Services and Health Care System's financial resources while those diminish further with the ageing population and the lower birth rate.
The intergenerational recommendation supports prevention and aims at limiting costs on the health hare system. One of the proposed ways is to develop the role of seniors within the context of families.
"Integenerational" becomes a prevention mechanism while increasing the possibilities of familial success, for example, school successes for children, prevention of mental disorders in parents, better health for seniors in general.
This seminar aimed at increasing, the worth of senior's contribution in the community, the awareness of their own value and to inform young adults and families of the existence of resources, for example: Addresses of community centers, family organizations, seniors organization, youth organizations, social workers, research groups".
If we want to do something big, we have to be able to do something small. A de T.
Cathy Foss
June 14, 2001 - 08:16 am
As I have been absent from this forum for well over a week I feel a bit hesitancy to plunge in, but how else to get back on tract. So, here I go: Is it possible we have too much unroganized information, both in our minds and files, to make a connection as to cause and effect? (I still have to fight with which verb is correct - affect/effect. I don't think I will ever get that correct. Can anybody friendly to the casual writer give me a simple test to use for selection of the right word.)
ANYWAY when I read the many, many posts I have missed I feel the weight of information that most of us have at our disposal. I seem to discern that it is possible to have too much information. Is that our dilemma? Do I read some "latest reseach" and gallop away with a wisdom I think I have because of the "New" information? I sometimes know I am guilty of this.
I think we must stop and ingest the bombartment of the everyday informational flow, and thoughtfully work it into our mental capacity to understand its significance. IT AINT EASY How else can we operate?
TigerTom
June 14, 2001 - 11:22 am
Blue Knight 1, you say enjoy life we haven't much time lfet. You know something we don't? Is the Sun going to NOVA, Comet going to impact the earth? Everybody going to lose their heads at one time and blow this old earth to hell and gone? I KNOW I ain't got much time left, but that is the nature of things. I am thankful that I wake up in the morning, I expect someday I am not going to. But you got me thinking that the fates are going to cut my thread real soon, tell me it isn't so.
Blue Knight 1
June 14, 2001 - 01:09 pm
Ol Imp......
When one thinks about the policeman having to had PC, you were obviously in violation of a felony. Thank God you live in a country where the police can keep our beaches clean.
robert b. iadeluca
June 14, 2001 - 05:37 pm
The public has a vital interest in the increasing use of antibiotics as a regular supplement in the feed and water consumed by cows, pigs and especially poultry because the number of microbes that are resistant to antibiotic treatments is increasing, and much of the problem stems from the overuse of antibiotics, which kill off susceptible microbes but leave the resistant ones to proliferate.
There is already widespread concern in the medical community about the prescription of unnecessary antibiotics for human use, but that problem is exacerbated by the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in agriculture. The practice of giving animals antibiotics is largely unnecessary, as farmers in Sweden, where giving important human antibiotics to farm animals is illegal, have proved.
The public also has an interest in the quality of information concerning antibiotic usage. What did you have for supper?
Robby
Persian
June 14, 2001 - 05:39 pm
CATHY - you've made a good point about the overwhelming amount of information to which we have access. The glaring differences that we do not even consider become readily apparent when one is talking to someone from a developing country. Obviously, there is not the daily (hourly?) availability of information on an unlimited amount of information; the lack of full freedom of press and public expression; or a cultural backing that encourages independent thinking. Perhaps that is why the USA has had difficulty dealing with countries that are not democracies. OR to take this thought even further, perhaps it is the interpretation (via language, culture, societal norms, religion and economic levels, as well as often the LACK of intellectual stimulation in schools) that becomes the obstacle, NOT the unlimited information available to the West.
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 14, 2001 - 06:32 pm
MaryPage - Thanks for your explanation of the Pogo Stick. I really appreciated your input. We never had that Comic Strip, even in English here in Quebec unfortunately.
Cathy, Mahlia - Yes I agree with what you say.
Robby - Antibiotics, pesticides, additives, growth hormones, genetically modified foods all contribute at changing our genetic code and will be making future generations into other human beings of I don't know which kind of species.
Blue Knight 1
June 14, 2001 - 09:42 pm
Tiger Tom.......
"It is appointed once for man to die." The sooner or later we have no control.
Ol Imp
June 14, 2001 - 09:44 pm
A local city ordinance - nobody allowed between 2 and 4 am - So I was asked to leave - They cleaned the beach of me.
Hmm! supper - Left over coleslaw - a glass of Chardonnay wine - 1/2 avocado - peanut butter and jelly sandwich..
When I have been in other countries it seemed that they were better informed than I, plus they spoke a number of different languages.
betty gregory
June 14, 2001 - 10:02 pm
Cathy, Merriam-Webster online dictionary reports that the question of "affect/effect" use is the number one reason people access that site. So, you are in good company. The way I remember their use is rather convoluted, so I'll tell you instead what I do when similar questions plague me. I make myself look them up in the dictionary each time, even when I'm 90 percent sure I remember something accurately. Reading down through the uses again and again...then coming up with your own reminder is the only method I know that works. The repetition helps establish the new habit. (Although last night I looked up...for the umpteenth time...further and farther.)
I might have disagreed with you on the "too much information" comment....until I read in today's paper that vitamin C is linked to cancer. I'll reserve my thoughts until I can find the original source. Maybe it's only the massive doses of vitamin C supplements that have a negative effect.
betty
betty gregory
June 14, 2001 - 10:38 pm
Jay Leno is joining the rolling blackout protest. If I heard the details correctly (on the local news), he'll shut down his studio during the specified hours....no taping, no working...the studio will lose a lot of money.
The particular details of the protest don't matter...what matters is that single voices joined together have a chance of being heard. Or maybe I'm wrong about the first part...depending on how many participate, there is a chance that a few industries will have to take notice. For example, Pepsi or others could be cancelling the tv ads scheduled for those hours. A few averages might be knocked out of whack in the financial online markets. The telephone company will lose money....phone lines won't be interrupted, but who will make phone calls in the dark? This has potential.
robert b. iadeluca
June 15, 2001 - 03:10 am
Scientists at the country's national laboratories have projected enormous energy savings if the government takes aggressive steps to encourage energy conservation in homes, factories, offices, appliances, cars and power plants. They differ with the theory that the nation needs to build a big power plant every week for the next 20 years to keep up with the demand for electricity, and that big increases in production of coal and natural gas are needed to fuel those plants.
A lengthy and detailed report based on three years of work by five national laboratories said that a program emphasizing research and incentives to adopt new technologies could reduce the growth in electricity demand by 20 percent to 47 percent. That would be the equivalent of between 265 and 610 big 300-megawatt power plants.
Should the three-year-long research by five national laboratories be ignored?
Robby
Lou D
June 15, 2001 - 03:15 am
Don't ignore the research! Just find a way to carry out their recommendations. That is what they should now concentrate on with their research! (We could start by taking away all government limos and SUVs, and replacing them with small, fuel efficient vehicles. I'd like to see that come to pass!)
robert b. iadeluca
June 15, 2001 - 08:08 am
Some of the proposed conservation steps by the researchers are neither costly nor complex. Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announced that they had developed a fluorescent table lamp that reduces the need for overhead lighting. The lamp matches the combined output of a 300-watt halogen lamp and a 150-watt bulb, but uses a quarter of the energy.
At Fort Polk, an Army base in Louisiana, electricity use during peak hours fell by 43 percent after base managers installed fluorescent lights, low-flow shower heads, new attic insulation and new home heating and cooling systems.
Most of the savings came from installing geothermal heat pumps. an efficient home heating and cooling system that circulates fluids through underground coils but otherwise uses conventional technologies. Hundreds of homes on the base were equipped with the systems, generating immediate cost savings for electricity and totally eliminating the homes' use of natural gas for water heating.
A study prepared by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory last year contended that striving to make such savings often made sound economic sense. In this Democracy of ours are we using the knowledge that Science is giving us?
Robby
MaryPage
June 15, 2001 - 08:08 am
Betty, the vitamin C thing was just what proved true in test tubes, not with human beings or, for that matter, any type of animals.
Dr. Linus Pauling, Nobel prize winner who took 15 GRAMS of Vitamin C DAILY, lived to be 93!
Hate to go back to a discussion we have finished with, but this article about AIDS in Africa was of personal interest to us as it represents our official attitude; or, to put it another way, the attitude adopted officially on our behalf and speaking FOR US!
TigerTom
June 15, 2001 - 08:37 am
May I break in on the conversation(s.) I nave noted that in the Metropolitian Newspaper I read and on the National Network I view for the news (abc affiliate) Nothing, nitcht, Nada, is said about the Bush trip. True, if one looks one will find, buried and I mean BURIED, somewhere in the middle of the Newspaper a short item of the Bush trip overseas. Why? How about in your area of the country? I have not rpt not looked at CNN or Fox yet, but will. Usually when a U.S. President travels overseas it is front page news for the entire trip. Am I living in such a backwater that we don't know about these things. It is puzzling. I will have to do a little more viewing to see if anyone is carrying this. But so far, as I have seen, nothing.
MaryPage
June 15, 2001 - 08:52 am
Tiger Tom, THE WASHINGTON POST and NEWSWEEK are all over the place with this story. Also the nightly news as broadcast nationally on the NBC, ABC and CBS channels and all day on CNN and CNBC. There must be others that I don't have time to catch.
robert b. iadeluca
June 15, 2001 - 09:21 am
A gentle reminder that comments about political figures are covered in the many excellent political forums we have in Senior Net. In this discussion group, we try to refrain from naming politicians and compare America in general with the America that deTocqueville saw 170 years ago and examining the comments of deTocqueville himself. For those who do not have the book, we have quotes above which are changed periodically. This forum comes under Books and Literature.
Robby
robert b. iadeluca
June 15, 2001 - 09:24 am
deTocqueville said: "In few of the civilized nations of our time have the higher sciences made less progress than in the United States." (P158, Taste for Science.)
As we look at the current lack of progress in solving our energy problem, is deTocqueville right on the mark?
Robby
robert b. iadeluca
June 15, 2001 - 09:31 am
Plans have been announced for the world's largest wind farm, 450 windmills along the Oregon-washington border that will generate enough electricity for 70,000 homes in 13 Western states. Construction should be complete by Dec. 31.
The 240-foot windmills will straddle the state line, in Walla Walla County, Wash., and Umatilla County, Oregon.
Is science moving us in the correct direction here?
Robby
Ol Imp
June 15, 2001 - 10:15 am
I like the idea of windmills - The concept goes back 5 to 600 years utilizing mechanical energy from windmills - There is enough wind energy in the United States to supply the whole country's elecrtic needs - This was FEMA research done in the 60's and 70's - There are areas that give 300+ days of wind per year..
It took a court case in Wisconsin to get the power grid to accept power generated by a private windmill - Similary a current court case? and probably legislation? will be needed in California to get the power grid to accept excess electricity generated by solar cells from a point on the coast.
It seems that the system has been bottled up and controlled by fixed interest for years - The Aristocracy wants to continue to turn a profit on fossil fuels. Part of the problem has been putting alternative energy research into the hands of the Aristocracy; Unocals geothermal experiment doesn't seem to be a good placement of research dollars.
Blue Knight 1
June 15, 2001 - 10:19 am
Betty......
The *other* side of the coin.
Jay Leno? Humph, he's just another man. Are you aware that if they cancel the scheduled shooting time during those short hours, they won't lose a penny? It'll be equilavent to a coffee break. All programs are taped, so they reherse, set the taping either ahead or later. Regardless, the show must go on. NO loss. But those NOT in the know really believe this guy's one of them, so his planned ratings go up. Three cheers for media hype.
Blue Knight 1
June 15, 2001 - 10:21 am
Ol Imp......
They be unsightly, but very efficient. Good update and reminder.
robert b. iadeluca
June 15, 2001 - 10:26 am
Ol Imp says:--"The Aristocracy wants to continue to turn a profit on fossil fuels. Part of the problem has been putting alternative energy research into the hands of the Aristocracy."
Interesting that more and more of you in this forum are adopting deTocqueville's term "aristocracy" and applying it to the controlling interests in a Democracy.
Everyone, aristocracy and not, use energy. How do you folks suggest that the power (double meaning) be taken away from the aristocracy? Or do we just light the candles and be philosophical?
Robby
June 15, 2001 - 10:31 am
Tiger Tom.....
Unfortunately, we watch CNN and as usual, they refuse to stress anything positive about Bush. Anything positive is always backed with strong negatives, and, the few disgruntled poster carrying hate the USA groups receive top billing as *Headling news.*
Ol Imp
June 15, 2001 - 10:35 am
On top of everything else, there have been attempts to control windmill construction using local taxes and unusal federal laws - There is not a receptive mood by the powers (Aristocracy) for the windmills - eg. A windmill might hurt an eagle -
My personal attempts at retrofitting a house for solar hot water and solar pool heating were difficult - It seems that the permit system was not layed out so that it could be easily followed .. hopefully it is better now..
In the past Los Angeles and San Diego both had good electric transit systems - They were abandoned so the Aristocracy could make a profit on buses and tires.. The Aristocracy did this by intent.
In the 70's the Electric Car (Van) industry attempted to get the Post Office to accept use of their vehicles for delivery of mail and less pollution - It didn't occur because of the existing Aristocracy.
Is democracy about control of things so that a profit can be assured above and beyond the benefits to the miserable masses?
Ol Imp
June 15, 2001 - 10:43 am
DWP in Los Angeles and IID in the Coachella Valley are non profit local dispensers of electricity that seem to be doing fairly well - possibly the way for the future is control to be turned over to non profits..
Blue Knight 1
June 15, 2001 - 10:51 am
Robby.....
Your: ". How do you folks suggest that the power (double meaning) be taken away from the aristocracy? Or do we just light the candles and be philosophical?" Suggests (IMO) the solicitation of anarchism, or a communist phylosophy. I refuse to use the "A" word, as I deem it a negative European word used by the *little* guy who is jealous of those who *have* (the have nots against the haves). We are not a people that *take away* the power intrusted to our government. Your suggested solution also suggests we are too weak to seek legal avenues to correct a problem that that we ourselves didn't see coming, and, which took many years to come about. Subtle suggestions are oft mightier than the sword.
robert b. iadeluca
June 15, 2001 - 10:55 am
Lee says:--"Your suggested solution also suggests we are too weak to seek legal avenues to correct a problem that that we ourselves didn't see coming."
I made no suggestion at all nor do I in most of my postings. I ask open questions for participants to answer openly according to their opinions. If you inferred a suggestion, that is your inference and does not mean I implied it.
Robby
June 15, 2001 - 11:28 am
No positive news from abroad???
Can't get blood out of a turnip!
8:)
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 15, 2001 - 12:06 pm
In Quebec we have Hydro Electricity. We have so much of it that we sell some of our surplus to the US. But some homes are still heated with oil and gas, pipelined from Alberta. They cost about the same.
In Europe until after the war they were living like we were one hundred years ago. They went to the bathroom outside in cubicles that had a cement floor with a hole in the middle. Some still remain in small towns. Their cooking was done on a medieval looking cooking thingies using bottled gas. Their fridges were minuscule (grocery shopping was, and still is, a daily affair in France). Very few houses were heated during the winter. They have very few rivers if any to harness water for energy production and they were using coal and gas for cooking and heating. Energy is still extremely expensive there.
Then nuclear energy came, and France adopted it throughout the territory to solve their crucial energy problems. It seems that they are not about to go back to the old archaic energy production. They have enough sun for solar energy, but they are not building with this in mind. They also have enough wind, but are not using their precious territory for such a lofty cause as an alternate source of energy.
If the US makes inroads in solar and wind renewable energy production, do you want to bet that Europe will attempt at "catching" up to the US?
As long as the Industrial Aristocracy is winning, they will continue to CONTROL energy production. If they are loosing, because of popular pressure or any other reason, they will do everything in their power to produce another source of energy to keep making a profit. In the meantime, we the people just sit and watch since we are part of the Populace.
My precious mother often said "Necessity is the mother of invention".
Blue Knight 1
June 15, 2001 - 04:46 pm
Eloise......
We were so poor when I was a kid (one parent family) that when ever we complained that we didn't have enough food, my mother always said: "Just remember the starving Armenians."
Much can be said about being poor and having little food.....We learned to tighten our belts when life hands us an empty dish. Robby would understand my next comment. All though my adulthood I have left a miniscule portion of food on my plate. Something to do with saving for a day when the larder was empty. I guess I now do it out of habit.
BTW, up here in North Idaho ( and in the north west) many people still have those "Two holers" in their backyards, they call them thar thangs Outhouses.
And, our primary source of heat in the winter is from our wood stove in the basement. Seven cords of wood per winter at a hundred dollars a cord, stacked.
Our closest neighbors (5-acres away) use "bottled gas" (propane) for cooking.
robert b. iadeluca
June 15, 2001 - 06:01 pm
Lee:--The "two-holer" or "one-holer" that you describe is not what Eloise was referring to. I know eactly what she meant because I had the opportunity(?) to use one for a period of time after the war. As she said, there was a cement floor with nothing there but a hole in the middle. In the one where I went, there were marks on each side of the hole and if you placed your feet exactly on these marks while you were standing but squatting, then the aim was perfect. I'm sorry folks if this is not a pleasant subject but I am talking about life as it was. And I'm referring not to a small town but the city of Rennes in France, the capital of the province of Brittany in 1946.
And while we're talking about energy (or the lack thereof), in the same city were many lavoirs which appeared like small swimming pools where the women took their clothes and washed them by hand. A woman I knew operated a "laundry boat." This was a more "modern" method of washing clothes and customers paid her for soap and other materials and for the use of this boat. Its deck was near the level of the water and on the edges of the boat were metal hooks where the clothes were twisted for wringing. In the morning, she would push the boat out into the center of the small river and anchor in the middle where the water was cleaner. The customers would then get on their knees and wash their clothes in this much cleaner water, then wring them out on special hooks before drying.
This primitive method of washing clothes was not due to the war. It existed before the war started. I'm talking about the 1940's.
Now what was this complaint you have about your washing machine or your lack of electric energy?
Robby
Ol Imp
June 15, 2001 - 06:09 pm
Have been to court a few times for various small issues - could have appealed one decision - would have cost more to appeal than I had at the time - I can remember an attorney wanting $25,000.00 for an appeal - this was years ago - this happened more than once - One time I mortgaged my house to appeal an issue for a friend - The legal system is not an easy route - If a judge rules against existing law ; the appeal process will eat you up - "Its my court" " I can rule however I want" "if you don't like it , appeal" - and they got you -
Figuring out what court is difficult - then when you get it figured out they throw a change of venue at you -
It seems to be a series of manipulations that suck up time,money and patience - I long ago decided ,that, there is no justice -
So, without justice, where does that leave democracy? I can remember one professional who delt with the legal system telling me to "stay out of their way" -
Scary advice - sort of saying, be afraid of them - You can't trust them - You don't know what they might do, to get their own way.
So I have chosen to stay out of their way - I can't afford it financially , time wise or emotionally -
So this system ,has put me in my place - It is not a democracy ..
robert b. iadeluca
June 15, 2001 - 06:13 pm
Ol Imp says:--"Without justice, where does that leave democracy?
Sorry you weren't with us, Ol Imp, when our subtopic was Justice and Democracy but if you click onto the Part V link above, you can see our many comments.
Robby
Martex
June 15, 2001 - 06:21 pm
in order to save the planet? When you talk about toilet facilities in the 40's and methods of washing clothes, well, this was done in the 70's in Turkey. In fact, my second bathroom was the cement steps on each side of a hole. By the way, the first bathroom wasn't much more modern. Lots of the world is still like this.
Today, packaged goods are wrapped in 3 layers of plastic that is impossible to get off without breaking a nail, we have to rake our lawn clippings up into plastic bags to go into a land fill where they will remain for too many years to imagine. We are filling landfills up with plastic diapers that don't go away, etc.
Buildings are designed with windows that don't open. So, even on beautiful pleasant days when we could have the windows open and let the breezes in, no....a/c or heating have to run constantly.
We have to have the biggest gas guzzling cars. Always got to outdo the neighbor. Any of you willing to fight the establishment by going backwards to a time when we could do without all the "extras"? I doubt it. I did it for nearly 5 years. Gave up all the frills. Not even tv. Best 5 years of my life and better yet, best 5 years of my children's lives. They learned how to read without tv and all the other distractions children have today.
By the way ol imp, when you get done writing your book, let me know. It would be one of the best books I have ever read.
Blue Knight 1
June 15, 2001 - 06:44 pm
Robby.......
Yes, I've seen the type you are speaking of. They are the norm in Japan, and I recall *several* years ago when the Japanese used to visit Los Angeles, the hotel managers had fits trying to keep them from standing (squatting) on top of the toilets. I've visited homes when I asked where the *John* was, they handed me a shovel and pointed to the woods.
Blue Knight 1
June 15, 2001 - 06:56 pm
Martex......
I'd LOVE to see GM make the first move in eliminating the so called extras from our motor vehicles. The cost of repairs would plummet, gas mileage would shoot up, but I can't speak for the cost of petrol.
As for washing in the river, I've had experience in washing my clothes at sea. I was taught to tie my clothes at the end of a rope and drop them off the fantail where they would bounce in the wake. I wasn't told not to leave them there overnight. The real dawn was to awake in the morning to find a limp rope.
robert b. iadeluca
June 15, 2001 - 06:58 pm
The Central Park police station in New York City has a 200-kilowatt fuel cell right outside the building. It does not take electricity from utility lines.
Fuel cells are one of the cleanest and most efficient technologies for producing electricity. They turn oxygen and hydrogen into electricity in the presence of electrolytes, charged particles in colution. Fuel cells emit negligible amounts of pollutants. They work somewhat like battries, in that both use electrolytes and electrodes to conduct current, but the cells use a constant source of fuel (usually natural gas for the hydrogen and air for the oxygen) so they don't lose their charge as batteries do.
Says a spokesman for the New York Power Authority:--"In this age of rolling blackouts, fuel cells are seen as a reliable source of backup power. The end user has the generator capacity right at their doorstep, so there's no relying on transmission and distribution lines."
So there's fuel cells and windmills. As we examine Science and Democracy, where are we headed?
Robby
June 15, 2001 - 09:00 pm
Where are we headed?
Unfortunately the great scientific discoveries of the day have not been always used for the good of the people. Unfortunately the great scientific discoveries are not always available to the masses. Sometimes great new discoveries in medicine are not available to those who need them because they cannot pay for the operations or afford the drugs. Its so very sad when money counts for more than saving lives. I am afraid I am becoming very cynical. What I am trying to say is that a lot of the time great scientific discoveries are only lining the pockets of a few ie drug companies or medical professionals instead of being available to help everyone. I do not know where we are headed!
For instance the results of global warming are becoming more and more noticable. In the fifty odd years I have been on this earth I have seen our climate change dramatically. In the twenty odd years I have lived in this house I have seen winter frosts every year change to no frosts at all in the last 10 years. Our summers are becoming more sub tropical with lots of rain and humidity and our winters almost unnoticable. We have had one week of cold weather here and now we have temperatures more attune to spring than mid winter our plants and birds are confused and I have the starlings back in my eaves some months before they should have arrived. Even though a large body of scientists are warning us about our pollution with greenhouse gasses we have the industrial aristocrats trying to prove them wrong so they can continue to spew out their poison into our atmosphere. Man will soon reap the results of his own greed much sooner than he thinks.
Carolyn
June 15, 2001 - 09:46 pm
Kiwi Lady.......
I'm really not at all convinced that this "global warming" thing is as real as we are being told. I mean man's being responsible for it. I guess I'll be a hold out for much more proof than what's been presented so far. Man was placed on earth to live and procreate and to enjoy the fruits of his labors. Industry and expansion is, IMO, as necessary as life and death. There's really no cause to be concerned about the so-called "global warming" because the real warming is not too far in the near future.
I've heard mankind quote great books of history but they refuse to read ALL history. I often wonder why?
dapphne
June 15, 2001 - 10:21 pm
When 'Global Warming' becomes a reality in life, dare say, we all will be a "long lost thought".....
And then we won't be.....
LOL
kiwi lady
June 15, 2001 - 10:57 pm
Lee I know where you are coming from. Man was put on this earth as guardian of the earth (Read Genesis!) To enjoy the fruits of our labour is not to destroy the creation by greed! Sometimes I just dont believe how blind some people are! Man is the author of his own destiny and God knew this!
I can see from the dramatic climate change in our country and the results in our country from the hole in the Ozone layer directly above NZ and Australia that the scientists who say beware are right! We only have about 10mins before we burn here in high summer. Burn times are put on the weather report every night in summer in NZ.
Seems to me scientific fact is often manipulated to suit mans own purposes. Take the latest report (probably commissioned by the kings of Industry) on Global Warming not being so far advanced as the other body of scientists say it is. I know who I believe the facts are self evident.
Carolyn
MaryPage
June 16, 2001 - 02:37 am
There are a lot of people in deep denial over Global Warming, and in even further denial about the fact that our species is directly responsible for it.
It exists. We are. Now we need to wake up, make plans and DO something!
Or be willing to condemn our progeny and our species to extinction.
robert b. iadeluca
June 16, 2001 - 02:40 am
With blackouts in the picture, some people are taking matters into their own hands. A turkey farmer in the Central Valley of California raises turkeys where daily summer tempeatures soar about 100 degrees on dusty ranches. He is forced to use electric fans and fog-making machines to cool his one million turkeys. With energy experts forecasting more than 200 hours of blackouts this summer and no relief in sight, he has bought eight small generators that he could hook up to trctors and use to keep the fans and misters running when the Pacific Gas and Electric Company cuts his power. He regularly conducts drills on the 14 farms that supply him with turkeys -- 4 farms he owns and 10 run by independent contractors -- and has spent weeks reducing the routine down to 40 minutes, barely enough time before the birds begin to wither under the searing sun.
The Legoland California Amusement Park in Carlsbad, near San Diego, has an arrangement with its utility, the San Diego Gas and Electric Company, to keep the lights on but the park is prepared in the event of a loss. The contingency plan consists of keeping open the 3 rides, of the the 20 total, that are not powered by elecricity. Barbecues would be rolled out to cook food, and the park's boulevards would be flooded with performers, including singers, dancers, jugglers and musicians who will entertain until the power comes back on.
Many tourist attractions, including Disneyland in Anaheim, are already prepared becaue they upgraded their systems in 1999, fearing a Year 2000 disaster that would threaten the power grid. Said their director of communications:--"A lot of these things were already tested and documented. We are skilled at emergency evacuations. Energy is only one part of that."
Is this the answer for us everyday citizen -- like the Boy Scout, to BE PREPARED?
Robby
Lou D
June 16, 2001 - 02:56 am
Isn't it odd that some people only want to believe the reports that favor their own positions, such as on global warming? I don't know about New Zealand weather, but Florida just had one of the coldest winters in many, many years. Weather has never been predictable, and some heat records going back to the turn of the century have yet to be broken. Scientists on both sides of the question have research to back up their conclusions. It appears to me that "global warming" has become a catch phrase that hasn't yet been proven or disproved.
robert b. iadeluca
June 16, 2001 - 03:02 am
With blackouts in the picture, some people are taking matters into their own hands. A turkey farmer in the Central Valley of California raises turkeys where daily summer tempeatures soar about 100 degrees on dusty ranches. He is forced to use electric fans and fog-making machines to cool his one million turkeys. With energy experts forecasting more than 200 hours of blackouts this summer and no relief in sight, he has bought eight small generators that he could hook up to trctors and use to keep the fans and misters running when the Pacific Gas and Electric Company cuts his power. He regularly conducts drills on the 14 farms that supply him with turkeys -- 4 farms he owns and 10 run by independent contractors -- and has spent weeks reducing the routine down to 40 minutes, barely enough time before the birds begin to wither under the searing sun.
The Legoland California Amusement Park in Carlsbad, near San Diego, has an arrangement with its utility, the San Diego Gas and Electric Company, to keep the lights on but the park is prepared in the event of a loss. The contingency plan consists of keeping open the 3 rides, of the the 20 total, that are not powered by elecricity. Barbecues would be rolled out to cook food, and the park's boulevards would be flooded with performers, including singers, dancers, jugglers and musicians who will entertain until the power comes back on.
Many tourist attractions, including Disneyland in Anaheim, are already prepared becaue they upgraded their systems in 1999, fearing a Year 2000 disaster that would threaten the power grid. Said their director of communications:--"A lot of these things were already tested and documented. We are skilled at emergency evacuations. Energy is only one part of that."
Is this the answer for us everyday citizen -- like the Boy Scout, to BE PREPARED?
Robby
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 16, 2001 - 04:29 am
In the winter of 1999 we had freezing rain for a solid 10 days in January after that the temperature plunged dramatically, something that had never happened before. The 6" think accumulation of ice on wires all the way from the Power Dams in northern Quebec caused the pilones to break and they came tumbling down like dominos all the way south to us here. Some 3 million people were without power, some for 2 weeks others like us only two days. The Quebec Hydro had not upgraded their system for decades. That was an unusual incident though.
Last summer it was cold and wet. Winter lasted from early in November to end only middle of April. Yesterday, the temperature went up to almost 100 degrees F. It broke the record for the 15th of June.
I believe if everybody makes some efforts at energy conservation it would help. My house is heated by electricity with a thermostat in every room. I turn them down at least 10 degrees at night and off when I am not at home. I hang my clothes out to dry on a clothesline. I don't have a/c, only ceiling fans. My car is a small model. I walk a lot and often use our good public transit system.
It's not much, but it's something.
Carolyn - I think we are starting to see the effect of the abuse of our natural resources. I fear that it's only the beginning.
robert b. iadeluca
June 16, 2001 - 04:39 am
Speaking about her own efforts at conservation, Eloise says:--"It's not much, but it's something."
May I tell a story. Many many years ago a group of 10,000 people decided to demonstrate the power of the people united. They gathered out on the desert and the plan was for each person to shout as the leader dropped his hand. The tremendous power of 10,000 people shouting at one time would rise to the heavens.
Everyone was excited. They spoke among themselves and discussed how loud the shout would be. And now the moment had come. They all watched the leader. He dropped his hand.
And everyone listened. And the silence was deafening.
Robby
Ol Imp
June 16, 2001 - 07:21 am
The Aristocracy at times must humble the masses ,so that they can hit them harder, in the pocketbook - The fiction of the gas lines in the 70's pushed the price of gas up for automobiles - The fiction of electric shortages will push the price of electricity up - The fiction of cost of research for drugs has pushed the price up - and the silence will be deafening ; we will pay the tribute to the Aristocracy.
The things that we need and use everyday are being tapped by the Aristocracy for profit - I am quite sure, as I once figured, that this tap into everyday items , makes the cost of living go up at 11% other than the normal COLA projections. And the silence will be deafening.
Where are we headed? - Forest fires in Florida and Oregon - More acid rain - More skin cancer - and the silence will be deafening.
The Boy Scouts eliminated gays - Congress said they could use the schools to meet - and the silence is deafening -
Be prepared? What is the next scam that the aristocracy will pull so that they can raise prices? The children of the Baby Boomers will hit the housing market and guess what? - real estate prices are going up - and the silence is deafening -
I know ; be prepared for the coming electrical failures - The coming earthquakes - I have made some preparations; not enough -
Ol Imp
June 16, 2001 - 07:41 am
I have held some power positions in different community and religious groups - I have observed and traveled in ,different countries with different systems of government - I have done some research into groups and group behaviors - I have read about and visited communes in the United states -
People,at times, give up what power they have to a figurehead - There have been situations in history where the figurehead was not questioned and people followed - People ,at times, ascribe power to a figurehead that is of their own making - democracy in this case would be an illusion - Maybe , people want to be taken care of and nurtured - by playing to this, the aristocracy can use and mold the multitude for their own ends.
Strange, it has nothing to do with education - People will subvert what they know for what they feel and perceive that they need.
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 16, 2001 - 08:23 am
Old Imp - Strange as it may seem, Alexis de Tocqueville knew about human behaviour like no other man or woman I ever had the priviledge to read. He understood how human beings tick, whether they be in the Aristocracy or in a Democracy, and any 'cracy' in between. If you havn't read his 2 books, it's worthwhile to spend the time reading and highlighting his totally accurate observations. Everything that is written in this discussion since it started a year ago, you can be sure that he saw it coming even in 1830. I understand more than I used to and can deal better with it now.
I'm off for the rest of the day to a beach 60 miles up north. It's a scorching 100 F. in Montreal right now.
robert b. iadeluca
June 16, 2001 - 09:28 am
Ol Imp says:--"People want to be taken care of and nurtured."
Eloise tells us that "Alexis de Tocqueville knew about human behaviour like no other man or woman I ever had the privilege to read. He understood how human beings tick, whether they be in the Aristocracy or in a Democracy, and any 'cracy' in between."
deTocqueville said:--"The Americans were naturally inclined to require nothing of science but its special applications to the useful arts and the means of rendering life comfortable." (P159, Taste for Science.)
All fits together, doesn't it?
Robby
kiwi lady
June 16, 2001 - 09:52 am
Of course people want to be taken care of and nurtured! A human being deprived of love and care never develops to their full potential. Nurturing however is not the same as self indulgence with consumables. To be nurtured is for the spirit to be taken care of as well as the basic physical needs a human being needs to survive.
Carolyn
June 16, 2001 - 10:11 am
Carolyn says:--"Nurturing is not the same as self indulgence with consumables."
As we approach greater energy conservation, on what basis do we set our priorities? The city of Palo Alto has agreed not to cut off power to Roche Pharmaceuticals as long as the company reduces energy consumption by 15 percent within 30 minutes of an announced Stage 3 alert. An exemption was granted for the Bay Area Rapid Transit Districct which runs 95 miles of commuter train service in the San Francisco metropolitan area. Pacific Bell Park, home of the San Francisco Giants has asked for an exemption.
These are priorities which must be set within the community. How about within your own home? Do you treasure light or do you want your computer shut down? Which has priority -- your washing machine or your microwave? Which is more important to you -- your television or your air conditioning?
Robby
TigerTom
June 16, 2001 - 10:55 am
Once again can I get off the present subject to ask about another? Part of this discussion has been concerned with Justice in a democracy. We have now and have had in the past a woman being charged with "Child Rape." In both case the child was a young male (13 to 14 years of age.) I can see a charge of contributing to the delinquicy of a minor, but rape, no. young early teen males hormones are raging so I doubt if the female(s) in question had to use any force to get the males to have sex with them. I also doubt if having sex with the older woman in any way harmed these young males. In past times when something like this occured the usual reaction was "the kid got lucky." Some even thought that it was all right that an older woman took a young male in tow and introduced to him to "Life" 100 or more years ago a father would take his son to a "Sprting House" and say to the female who was to SErvice the lad, inf effect, "here is the boy give me back the man" and upong leaving the establishment would tell his son that if he ever had urgings to come to a place like they were leaving and to leave "Decent" females alone. Also in the early 40's a teacher ran all over southern california with a 16 year old male student of hers. There was no talk of a crime or of putting her in jail, just admonishment to bring the boy home to let him get on with his chores and for her to get back to teaching. My qyuestion is: Should these women be charged with the crime of Rape?
robert b. iadeluca
June 16, 2001 - 11:33 am
Tom:--I remember that case being discussed here when we were covering Justice and Democracy but I don't remember what the consensus was.
Nuclear reactors are now so desirable that when old ones go on sale, bidding wars have broken out. Some regions of the country are short of electric power and the price of natural gas, the most popular fuel for new power plants, has doubled. Windmills look promising but still produce only a tiny amount of power. Solar power is even less significant.
There is expected to be strong support for new reactor construction. There are problems, for example -- this country has still not decided what to do with reactor waste Industry executives say that the first new order for a reactor, if it comes, is likely to be at a site where other plants are already operating and the neighbors are used to a nuclear installation.
The co-esistence of Science and Democracy brings up interesting questions. Take one for example. Any objection to a nuclear plant being in your neighborhood?
Robby
kiwi lady
June 16, 2001 - 01:32 pm
No way Jose! NZ is a nuclear free zone and the people spoke loudly against any type of nuclear industry in our country.
Ok the chances of an accident are not very great but when there is one what a catastrophe. Chernobyl - Remember! and the legacy goes on in untold human suffering even today.
Unsightly giant windmills would be better than nuclear power plants.
Carolyn
Malryn (Mal)
June 16, 2001 - 01:32 pm
I live in an apartment addition in my daughter's house. This house is in a neighborhood of houses ranging in price from $250,000 to a bit more than three quarters of a million dollars.
It is just south of a rich town where there are similar and more expensive neighborhoods. It is also located within twenty miles of the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant. I lived within twenty miles of a nuclear power plant before I moved to North Carolina from Florida, too.
A dump for low level radioactive waste has been proposed on the Chatham County-Wake County border. This house is very close to the Chatham County line. There is a furor against this among some people in this area. What is low level radioactive waste? What is high level radioactive waste? Where does the high level radioactive waste go to be dumped? For some information about low level radioactive waste, please click the link below.
June 16, 2001 - 02:13 pm
Imp, I think you are absolutely right.
I also think if the American people could have just 1 year, just 4 seasons, the way I knew them to be in the thirties, weather wise and air quality wise and water bathing and drinking wise, they would be jolted into realizing where we are now and where we are headed.
It is that old frog again. The experiment. Boil some water and put the frog in it, and he hops out immediately. Put him in some cold water and then heat it up very gradually, and you wind up with cooked frog.
Well, we shall wind up with cooked homo sapiens. Then, in later millenia, when another form of intelligent life takes over the planet, either from evolution or outer space, they will discover our bones and dig up our civilization, and the name in their language that they give us will NOT be sapiens!
robert b. iadeluca
June 16, 2001 - 02:14 pm
Changes since the 1970's do not bode well for new reactor construction. In those days, the utilities that built generating stations were regulated monopolies that could take on large projects with the assurance that their customers would pay the price almost no matter what it was. Said a nuclear reactor expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists:--"Somebody else was paying for your mistakes."
Nuclear waste is a more pressing problem than when the first plants were built. California, for example, has made it illegal to begin new reactors until the waste problem is solved. In every state, that will be an argument.
In response, some companies have announced plans to build coal-burning plants, but these require costly pollution controls, and even then, they will emit sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which cause acid rain and smog. The plants also produce carbon dioxide, which may eventually be regulated as a contributor to global climate change.
Are we perhaps saying that it is impossible to create electricity without polluting our planet in one way or another?
Robby
kiwi lady
June 16, 2001 - 03:31 pm
This is probably the cleanest way of generating power there is. However in doing this often the land has to be flooded to make the dams needed. I still think this way of generating power is the least dangerous to mankind.
I will ask my DILs father who is a Power consultant and works all around the world what methods he is advising. At present he has been in India for some years. Before that he was in Botswana and before that South Africa. I have never thought to go into detail about the actual power generation before when he has visited NZ. As soon as I get hold of errant son in Spain I will get his FILs email address and then I can ask these questions.
The nuclear waste generated by the Nuclear plants is one of the most dangerous wastes we have ever had to handle and there has been much protest about ships ferrying this waste passing near to Australia and New Zealand. Sometimes I feel our whole earth is but a big time bomb and the minutes are just ticking away to disaster!
Carolyn
June 16, 2001 - 04:01 pm
Speaking of Science, is Astrology Science?
Elizabeth Teissier is well known in France as the weekly horoscope columnist for a popular television guide, the author of a half-dozen books on astrology, and the astrologer to the French president Francois Mitterrand.
A Ph.D. candidate in sociology, she spent almost 10 years completing a 900-page thesis on astrology and in April received a passing grade at the Sorbonne for her efforts. An account of her thesis defense ran on the front page of Le Monde, France's most important daily newspaper. The article set off a storm of protest.
More than 400 sociologists have signed a petition asking the president of the Sorbonne to make an independent evaluation of the case. And the French Association of Scientific Information has assigned a group of scientists and social scientists to review the thesis.
Is Astrology a part of your life? Is it a Science?
Robby
June 16, 2001 - 04:38 pm
No.
June 16, 2001 - 04:57 pm
No and No. Absolutely not.
Blue Knight 1
June 16, 2001 - 05:04 pm
Flash:....Record breaking heat has swept the middle west with a 50-year old record smashed by 1/2 degree. Give me a break, those of you that are so easily excited, give the "Breaking news" an additional second of thought. If we have surpassed a fifty year old record by a whopping 1/2 degree (or even one degree), then global warming must have been horribly out of control 50-years ago (I wonder why it then decreased for 49 years?). Calm yourselves down, wait till next year and check the RECORD, but make certain you have recorded daily increases (or decreases) by each day of the week per month, then check to see how much it has increased or DECREASED.
Not one of us knew, or were a least bit concerned about "global warming" until some yo yo lit a short fuse, then the excitable jumped into the pool and said "Yes, Yes, government doesn't care about we poor little guys." Pardon my cynicism, but this whole "global warming thing is a scam.
Blue Knight 1
June 16, 2001 - 05:06 pm
Astrology. A game for the weak minded that would buy ice in Ancorage Alaska in January.
MaryPage
June 16, 2001 - 05:09 pm
Global warming cannot be proved or disproved by what the temperature is in one place at any given time.
It is shown by the mean temperature all over this globe and by the occurrences that is bringing about.
The global temperature has gone up. The glaciers are melting and falling into the sea. The sea level is rising. We have a huge ozone ring in the atmosphere that is growing at an alarming rate yearly. Read up on it thoroughly before you discount what the scientists from every country all over this planet are begging us to take notice of.
Lou D
June 16, 2001 - 05:18 pm
What about the scientists who say global warming is not a fact of life today? What caused the earth to warm up 10,000 years ago at the end of the ice age? There have always been periodic warmings and coolings since time immemorial. I wait until all scientists can prove that global warming is occurring, not just some aberrations that are mainly local.
There is no doubt that man is polluting earth, but how many are really willing to give up all their power-consuming conveniences? And how is one to get 6 billion other people to give up what gains in comfort they may have made? The problem seems insurmountable.
Ol Imp
June 16, 2001 - 06:38 pm
Don't use astrology - read it - now and then - It's been around awhile - Aries strikes again. - No it is not a science - Besides , I have to do a correlation between the latest fortune cookie and astrological data..
Hey! there is a comfort in reading the speculations of others, provided they are positive - I guess it is uncomfortable to speculate on the demise of the earth and mankind , due to global warming -
Blue Knight 1
June 16, 2001 - 09:57 pm
As for global warming, we had two inches of snow two days ago. We've been hoping for some sunshine so our squash will grow. I recall Kiwi Lady mentioned that the Ozone (hole) was directly above New Zeland. Not long ago it was over the south pole. Didn't one of our presidents say: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Blue Knight 1
June 16, 2001 - 10:18 pm
As for astrology, I like the "fortune cookie comparison." Most likely in the same relm of voodo, or the gal on TV that's promoting her tarrot card readings. Very dangerous mind warping parlor games.
What man really should be concerned about is an accurate prediction that said: "There will be wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes in diverse places, pestilences, and famines, but these are but the beginnings of birthpangs."
kiwi lady
June 16, 2001 - 11:06 pm
In my opinion astrology is not a science. Astronomy is.
Mind you there are a lot of people making a lot of money out of charting peoples lives. I always had the impression its a sort of Psychological suggestion. The clients are told how their life will progress and they run about trying to make it happen!
Carolyn
robert b. iadeluca
June 17, 2001 - 03:18 am
A senior scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center of Ohio State University tells us that it is likely that some natural changes were affecting the glacier before it felt any effect from the large, recent rise in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhoue gases from smokestacks and tailpipes. And, he noted, glaciers have grown and retreated in pulses for tens of thousands of years.
BUT the pace of change measured now goes beyond anything in recent centures. Says this scientist: "There may be a natural part of it, but there's something else being superimposed on top of it. And it matches so many other lines of evidence of warming. Whether you're talking about bore-hole temperatures, shrinking Arctic sea ice, or glaciers, they're telling the same story."
Some changes underway are:--
robert b. iadeluca
June 17, 2001 - 04:45 am
In August 1986, a cloud of carbon dioxide erupted from Lake Nyos in Cameroon in Africa. Heavy and deadly, the gas rolled down hills, into valleys and villages, suffocating everything in its path. By the next morning, 1,700 people were dead.
Micah Fink, reporting for the American Public Broadcasting System (PBS), did a special report on the subject which, when combined with a report for The New York Times, gave us a very good overview of the science and the solution.
Following the disaster, a group of scientists descended on the region and discovered that the crater lake is located inside a dormant volcano, and had become laden with carbon dioxide gas. This gas suddenly bubbled out of the lake and asphyxiated nearly every living being in the surrounding valley community.
It turns out there are two other lakes that exhibit these same characteristics. One is Lake Monoun, 60 miles to the southeast of Lake Nyos, and Lake Kivu on the DR Congo-Rwanda border in Central Africa. At Lake Monoun, a heavy cloud of toxic gas killed 37 in 1984, while at Lake Kivu, there has as yet been no eruption and the people there have learned how to gather the reservoir of carbon dioxide and methane for local purposes.
Carbon Dioxide is the gas that gives soda its fizz and in small amounts is harmless. Should we ignore it as we examine global warming?
Robby
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 17, 2001 - 05:22 am
Robby - If spectacular mount Kilimanjaro's icecap is melting away, as scientists are indicating what other proof do we need to heed their warnings?
Scientific information can be too scary sometimes for us to absorb because our pool of personal information does not include every details of scientific knowledge, and we need to sort them out and either accept their findings as true if there is sufficient evidence brought forward, or reject some of them until more proof is added. I think that Global Warming is happening faster than we realize.
What, as an individual, can I do about it?.
The Media is the most effective tool for swaying people into action today. Remains to be seen whether enough of us are willing to fight the giants of the Aristocracy. Little David did and won. Giants all have a vulnerable spot. The vulnarable spot of today's Aristocracy is their POCKETBOOK.
robert b. iadeluca
June 17, 2001 - 05:30 am
Eloise says:--"Remains to be seen whether enough of us are willing to fight the giants of the Aristocracy. Little David did and won."
Some of the past postings here have given feelings of surrender. Anybody here with a slingshot or know where one can be obtained?
Robby
MaryPage
June 17, 2001 - 07:04 am
It cannot be collusion among scientists, because their languages and cultures do not serve that much agreement, or even agreement to agree.
There exists a distinct minority, a very small number relatively, of scientists who are attempting to prove these are not portents of disaster, but natural occurrences. So far, they have not been successful.
Yet we have scientists from every continent, every country, sounding the alarm and saying the same things. The evidence mounts up daily.
What can we do? Our politicians are dragging their heels ONLY because industry does not want to have to spend money to address the crisis. They prefer to spend money to prevent legislation which could turn the tide on our pending catastrophe.
WE CAN LET OUR REPRESENTATIVES KNOW WE UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM AND CARE DEEPLY ABOUT IT.
Ol Imp
June 17, 2001 - 07:29 am
Didn't know about Nyos in Cameroon, Africa - There is a "Crater Lake" in Oregon, USA - Seems like we are expediting a natural order of things by our behaviors - So the wind turbines better be on high towers to protect them from rising waters - So, do we build an Ark ?- How was the Ark powered? - Who gets aboard? The Aristocracy ,of course - My slingshot didn't work.. please - please - will you let me aboard ,so that I can be an oarsman on your Ark . Oh , your going to charge me a fee for using the oar - ok - how much?
robert b. iadeluca
June 17, 2001 - 08:05 am
Thank you, Ol Imp, for posting with us. We need someone like you who can take some very serious items and call our attention to the basics with a "tongue in cheek" method which wakes us up. First we laugh at ourselves and then we pause to ask ourselves what is so funny about it.
Robby
June 17, 2001 - 09:15 am
Watch EARTH ON EDGE this coming Tuesday, June 19th on PBS at 8:00 p.m.
That is, that is the schedule for MY public broadcasting stations in my area. The time is Eastern Daylight Time.
Your public tv channel is bound to carry this: it is a brand new Bill Moyers production; no one has viewed it as yet.
But YOUR STATION may be carrying it on a different day at a different time. So if your particular television guide does not show this show on the day and time I have indicated, LOOK for it all week on your channel's listings.
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 17, 2001 - 09:52 am
Ghandi's sling shot was a National boycot of British cloth. He was a Giant amongst leaders and almost singlehandedly drove away the British out of India. Every single Indian wore cloth woven at home, himself included, from cotton grown inside their own country, thus disrupting the very lucrative British textile industry. Ghandi won.
We also have such weapons, but our comfort zone is a lot harder to crack than that of the Indian's.
We can buy almost anything used. Cars, houses, clothes, furniture etc. etc. Everything is recycleable. We can lower our expectations to win the right to have a clean earth. We can cook our food from scratch, avoiding packaged products. We can't control everything, but we can control our purse.
The Aristoracy knows how vulnerable we are when it comes to satisfying our five senses. They research ways to infiltrate into our brain in order to tap desires that we even don't know we have.
Perhaps WE are beyond repair, that we will see only after we have lost our freedom and then it might be too late. But for now we still can do it.
robert b. iadeluca
June 17, 2001 - 10:03 am
Eloise tells us: "We also have such weapons, but our comfort zone is a lot harder to crack. We can lower our expectations. We can't control everything, but we can control our purse.
The key word is "can" as opposed to "will." Is it too late? Are we in the Democracies too spoiled? Are we just playing a word game here? Are we willing to give up long-term goals for short-term gratifications?
Robby
LouiseJEvans
June 17, 2001 - 11:36 am
When Noah was building his ark and telling people why and what they must do to be saved, very few people paid any attention. As a result only 8 people were saved. This ark had no power of its own. It didn't need any.
robert b. iadeluca
June 17, 2001 - 11:46 am
Winds don't know state lines. How do we handle that situation? In 1997 certain states argued they could not bring the air within their borders into compliance with national standards unless the Environmental Protection Agency acted aganst pollution sources in upwind states. The states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania made a petition under a provision of the Clean Air Act of 1990.
The upwind industries have consistently argued that they are not at fault for pollution in distant states. Businesses and state officials in the upwind states had argued that the E.P.A. could not directly regulate the factories and that it should leave the work to the states. Last month an appeals court in Washington mostly upheld a crackdown by the E.P.A. on pollution from 392 Midwestern and Southern factories and power plants. The court agreed with the E.P.A. that the upwind states "contribute significantly."
Is this fair?
MaryPage
June 17, 2001 - 11:59 am
The air thing has to be global. We each breath in air that has been all over the world and has been breathed in and out by countless zillions of humans and beasts before us.
We do need to keep vigilance on a local, county, state and national basis of what pollutants are being spewed into our precious breathing air by whom and why. Our nation needs to look for what is being put out by other countries.
Looking for world-wide pollution is Much More Important than all the surveillance of world conversations. We are ignoring the immediate danger to our lives on the one hand, while working to safeguard our lives on the other!
Cathy Foss
June 17, 2001 - 12:18 pm
How do we strike a calm and forceful attitude about all of the portentous warnings of science concerning our enviornment? I have just finished reading many posts that make me want to shout: Enough already!
I can't think of any time in our human history that we heeded a warning and by doing so avoided disaster.
Perhaps others can, I would like to hear of those! Maybe our 39 year agreement with the Soviet Union not to proliferate nuclear arms has, so far, saved us from nuclear disasters. I can think of no others. Maybe this generation will do better and heed warnings in time.
�lo�se De Pelteau
June 17, 2001 - 12:33 pm
We 'can'control our buying is much weaker than we 'will' I agree. So each one of us 'should' better say 'will' refrain from buying something new for say: one week or one month. Such impact it would have if all of America did that at the same time.
It is proven that America is the worst offender in polluting the planet with consumerism. Since we have the means to consume we think that that gives us the right. I don't think that Africa is a polluter, but Western Europe and Japan certainly are. So waiting for someone else to start regulating pollution before we do it, will be defeating our own purpose.
Noah's ark didn't need power, it just floated. It was going nowhere.
kiwi lady
June 17, 2001 - 12:37 pm
In the wee small hours I was again wakeful and tucked up on the sofa, TV on my beloved BBC world service. There was a forum on the American Presidential visit to Europe and whether anything was accomplished. Several of the panelists pointed out that George Bush was elected on oil money, he comes from an oil state. They said this was the reason for the about turn on Kyoto. The comment was made that the governments are not ruling, the aristocrats of industry are. This is so true and as long as it is allowed for huge amounts of money to be used in election campaigns the donors will want their pound of flesh. How can it not be so?
We can fight the aristocrats! Its all in the way we caste our votes! If everyone voted just once for Green Candidates it would be a wake up call for the governments of the World!
Carolyn
Blue Knight 1
June 17, 2001 - 01:37 pm
The Ark received it's power by God. For over a year everyone had been invited to get aboard for free, no oars, all one had to do is have the faith to believe, and they would have been asked.
I assure you, David did NOT fight the "Aristocracy," he slew Goliath with one of five stones, because he too had the necesary faith which caused him to believe he could do it.
robert b. iadeluca
June 17, 2001 - 01:43 pm
Perhaps the general population does not have sufficient faith that they can move the Industrical Aristocracy toward following scientific results rather than following the Dollar and therefore makes no effort.
Robby
Blue Knight 1
June 17, 2001 - 01:49 pm
Why do you ignore proven prophecies? Why be at all concerned about a little heat when we know for certain that earth will be destroyed by fire?
robert b. iadeluca
June 17, 2001 - 02:03 pm
I would guess, Lee, that some people ignore various things and others do not because different people have their own faiths and opinions. And of course that's permitted and even encouraged in a Democracy isn't it? And most certainly permitted in this discussion group so long as none of us foist our beliefs on others.
Robby
Blue Knight 1
June 17, 2001 - 02:11 pm
Please tell me why the "Have nots" are so jealous of those that "Have"? We elect people of our choice because we have a belief that they will dedicate their term in office to fulfill their campaign promises. Their efforts to do exactly as they have said they would do are often thwarted by their *peers* who have their own self serving agendas in office. Because we (not me) are unhappy because their minds are NOT exactly in sync with our own, we call them Aristrocrats. Pity.
What ever happened to the words: Our elected? My take is that those who dwell on the word "Aristrocrate" are using reverse snobbery. (JMO)
robert b. iadeluca
June 17, 2001 - 02:18 pm
In all its branches, science is proudly defensive of its rigorous, disciplined empiricism, methodically excising unproven beliefs from its discourse and brushing off pseudosciences that try to attach themselves to its validating coattails.
The placebo effect -- which is supposed to account for the fact that about a third of patients get better when given a dummy pill or a sham treatment -- has been cited in textbooks and journal articles for decades. Some scientists focus their careers on exploring how it works, looking for changes in the immune system or in hormones that allow the mind to affect the body.
Two Danish researchers, publishing in the New England Journal of Medicine, happened to notice that the placebo effect had a sort of hearsay quality in medical papers. They found layer after layer of cross-references in scientific publications. Finally, they found the source:--a 1955 paper, "The Powerful Placebo," by an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Using a method of analysis that would not be accepted today, the anesthesiologist chose the subset of patients who improved with a placebo, and disregarded those who got worse. He concluded tht about a third of patients get better simply from taking a dummy pill. Said one of the Danish scientists: "He came up with the magical 35 percent figure that has entered plcebo mythology."
The two scientists revisited the phenomenon, using more up-to-date research methods. When they analyzed the data, they concluded that patients given nothing improved just as much as those given placebos. Their conclusion is that the placebo effect is nothing more than a medical legend.
| i don't know |
The golden spike, driven at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869, is famous for completing what? | May 10, 1869: Golden Spike Links Nation by Rail | WIRED
May 10, 1869: Golden Spike Links Nation by Rail
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Author: Keith Barry. Keith Barry
Date of Publication: 05.10.10.
Time of Publication: 12:00 am.
12:00 am
May 10, 1869: Golden Spike Links Nation by Rail
1869: Four years after the Civil War, the United States is joined from coast to coast by a transcontinental railroad, as a ceremonial final spike is driven at Promontory Summit, Utah. Travel time from Atlantic to Pacific will soon fall from as much as six months, down to one week.
In an early example of a staged media event , two locomotives sat a mere rail tie apart from each other as crowds of people looked on. Railroad financier and former California Governor Leland Stanford drove a single golden spike into the final tie with a silver hammer.
The rail lines from east and west were joined. A telegraph operator let the whole country know with a single message: “DONE!”
Congress had ordered the rail line built seven years earlier, because westward expansion had been hampered by the dangerous six-month wagon-train journey over the Oregon and California trails. The Central Pacific Railroad would build the line eastward from Sacramento, California, and the Union Pacific was to build the segment westward from Council Bluffs, Iowa. Mountains, rivers and the Civil War dictated where the rail lines could be built.
Though the work of the two companies eventually met, their founders, labor and use of government funds could not have been more different.
The Central Pacific was funded by the famed “Big Four” — Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker — and relied on recent Chinese immigrants from California and Mormon laborers from Utah to perform the often deadly work of installing rail ties and blasting through mountains.
The Union Pacific, led by former cotton smuggler and medical doctor Thomas C. Durant, would use the government’s preoccupation with the Civil War to its advantage. Since the government paid Union Pacific for each mile of track it laid, Durant had workers install large amounts of unnecessary track across land that he owned.
After the war’s end, Union Pacific hired Union and Confederate war veterans and recent Irish immigrants, and ended up completing two-thirds of the entire railway. Later, Durant and other Union Pacific honchos were caught in the Credit Mobilier scandal : overcharges that poured into a separate construction company and bilked the railroad’s public investors.
None of that mattered at 2:47 p.m. on May 10, 1869, when the golden spike was driven into the ground. It bore the phrase, “May God continue the unity of our Country as this Railroad unites the two great Oceans of the world,” a pronouncement made all the more meaningful by the war that had intervened in the railroad’s creation. The golden spike was eventually removed from the tie, to be replaced with a normal steel spike.
Despite the ceremony, it was another year before bridges and extensions created an all-rail link between Atlantic and Pacific. Then, in 1904, the Lucin Cutoff spanned Utah’s Great Salt Lake, rendering the Promontory Summit rails redundant.
The rails from Promontory were recycled during World War II, but the spike itself lives on at Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center. Promontory Summit is home to the Golden Spike National Historic Site , and the spike adorns Utah’s state quarter, unveiled in 2006.
Source: Various
| Transcontinental railroad |
In what language game, common among children, is the first consonant cluster moved to the end of the word and followed by an ay? | Emigration Canyon Railroad Served SLC Builders' Needs
Emigration Canyon RailRoad Served SLC Builders' Needs
Deborah Blake
Utah History Encyclopedia
On 10 May 1869 from Promontory Summit northwest of Ogden, Utah, a single telegraphed word, "done," signaled to the nation the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. Railroad crews of the Union Pacific, 8,000 to 10,000 Irish, German, and Italian immigrants, had pushed west from Omaha, Nebraska. At Promontory they met crews of the Central Pacific, which had included over 10,000 Chinese laborers, who had built the line east from Sacramento, California.
Promontory Summit
Actually, the construction crews built several miles of track parallel to each other. The federal legislation chartering the transcontinental project had not provided that the tracks join. There was nothing to prevent each line from continuing to build and thus increase the subsidies it might receive from the federal government. Therefore, Congress acted to set the meeting point at Promontory.
The ceremony that day to mark the completion of the last set of ties and spikes was somewhat disorganized. The crowd pressed so close to the engines that reporters could not see or hear much of what was actually said, which accounts for many discrepancies in the various accounts.
Union Pacific's No. 119 and Central Pacific's "Jupiter" engines lined up facing each other on the tracks, separated only by the width of one rail. Leland Stanford, one of the "Big Four" of the Central Pacific, had brought four ceremonial spikes. The famed "Golden Spike" was presented by David Hewes, a San Francisco construction magnate. It was engraved with the names of the Central Pacific directors, special sentiments appropriate to the occasion, and, on the head, the notation "the Last Spike." A second golden spike was presented by the San Francisco News Letter. A silver spike was Nevada's contribution, and a spike blended of iron, silver, and gold represented Arizona. These spikes were dropped into a pre-bored laurelwood tie during the ceremony. No spike represented Utah, and Mormon Church leaders were conspicuous by their absence.
Railroad poster
At 12:47 P.M. the actual last spike--an ordinary iron spike--was driven into a regular tie. Both spike and sledge were wired to send the sound of the strikes over the wire to the nation. However, Stanford and Thomas Durant from the Union Pacific both missed the spike. Still, telegraph operator Shilling clicked three dots over the wire: "done." Meanwhile, with an unwired sledge, construction supervisors James H. Strobridge and Samuel R. Reed took turns driving the last spike.
For several weeks Promontory continued to be a town of tents and crude shacks. The land speculators, petty merchants, saloon keepers, gamblers, and prostitutes who had followed these tent cities stayed only as long as there were workers to entice. But, unlike many of these "hell on wheels" camps, Promontory never became the site of a permanent city.
In 1901 the Central Pacific steam engine "Jupiter" was scrapped for iron. The Union Pacific's No. 119 was scrapped two years later. The 1903-04 construction of the Lucin Cutoff siphoned most of the traffic from Promontory's "Old Line." The last tie of laurel was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. One of the supporting ties had been used as a roof beam in a barn that Edgar Stone, the fireman on the Jupiter, had built in North Ogden. Only the "Last Spike" remained--ensconced at Stanford University.
In 1942 the old rails over the 123-mile Promontory Summit line were salvaged for war efforts in ceremonies marking the "Undriving of the Golden Spike." Artifact hunters picked over the area for ties and materials. The event of the completing of the transcontinental railroad, which some historians had compared in significance to the Declaration of Independence, seemed to fade from public consciousness.
However, a memorial marker of the "Last Spike" had been placed along the right-of-way in 1943, and in the years after World War II local residents began marking the event. In the 1948 reenactment of the driving of the last spike, miniature locomotives were furnished by the Southern Pacific. In 1951 a monument to the event was dedicated and placed in front of the Union Station in Ogden. In 1957 Congress established a seven-acre tract as the Golden Spike National Historic Site. Bernice Gibbs Anderson of Corinne organized the National Golden Spike Society in 1959 to promote the site. In 1965 Congress enlarged the site to encompass 2,176 acres and be administered by the National Park Service. That same year Weber County extended the highway from 12th Street to Promontory, which made access to the site easier.
The enthusiasm to mark the centennial of the transcontinental railroad grew during the next few years. Searches were made for old engines, a commission to plan the reenactment was organized, the Golden Spike Monument was moved 150 feet to the northwest, and the National Park Service began the reconstruction of the two railroad grades, the lines of track, and two telegraph lines, as well as switches and siding connections.
The engines used in the 1969 ceremonies were modified to resemble the originals. From 1970 to 1980 the annual reenactment used two vintage locomotives on loan from Nevada. But, in 1980, with water from Liberty Island in New York Harbor and Fort Point in San Francisco Bay, two replica steamers constructed by Chadwell O'Connor Engineering Laboratories of Costa Mesa, California, were dedicated. Built with $1.5 million in federal funds, these were the first steam engines constructed in the United States in twenty-five years. They now run daily from May to August and from Christmas to New Year's Day. Park Service personnel at the Golden Spike Information Center, also dedicated in 1980, can direct visitors to walking and driving tours along the old grades, as well as to photo and other exhibits celebrating the transcontinental railroad.
See: Utah Historical Quarterly (Winter 1969)
| i don't know |
If you are driving around the streets of Liberty City shooting people, which computer game series are you playing? | San Andreas Crime City II - Android Apps on Google Play
San Andreas Crime City II
Description
***** Introducing Jet Pack, Drive a Sports Bike, Swim in Ocean *****
Intro：San Andreas Crime City 2 : Gangster Story is one of the best action games in 2016!
In this game you are gangster - hero, who doesn't afraid anything. In your city mafia ruling the streets. Savage, aggressive criminals are everywhere. They shooting, kill people, rob banks and stores. There is a criminal chaos in the city.
It's time to show everyone who’s boss by shooting rivals and ruling the streets. You are not policeman. You are a gangster, who don't need for glory - you have a greed for revenge. You have a big gun and must to kill as much as possible bandits with guns, knifes and other weapons.
Are you ready to rescue a people from horrible life among blood, shots, bandits and killers?
You as a player are given a full sized city where you can go nuts, but don’t go on a rampage because then the cops will be upon you. The action in this crime simulator 3D game revolves around shooting and killing your enemies.
To stop these criminals you have to complete a lot of missions and you need to learn how to fly helicopter and jet planes. San Andreas Crime City is action packed with lots of missions. When you are driving around in San Andreas you can look on the minimap for missions or you can use the quick buttons to start right away a mission. Download the game for free.
Features:
2 1,690
1 7,113
U'd be stupid to download Who ever tried to make this game don't quit ur day job... This is worst than a crap swandwich I mean totally bombs like a diarrhea slushy...sorry not sorry.. Be blessed! But kiss the devils butt hole for making this game. Toddles.
ANZAR AHMAD
Good game But you can add more things in it like we spawn vehicles.adding more locations will me good and as we can have a bank and a hospital in which we can really go in.there has to be apartments in which we have to buy them and can go in to rest.if you developer added these things and what others say this game will be the bestest in the world.everything is cool in it but graphics problem and controls too.adding these will give you 5 stars by me
barbie jonse
So cool but ... If it had more things like planes or bikes or more places like he can travel to another city with the chopper or the boat or ...it would be better if we could go shopping too or the city had a hospital that you can actually go in it...or police cars and police station... if you add this things it would be awesome... 👍👍👍👍👍
Piyush Shrivastava
Please request DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS GAME IT TAKES VERY LONG TIME TO OPEN AND STOP ALWAYS. IT IS A VERY AND STUPID GAME
faBe g
It don't move right and to frustrating. And how you get that big as pack off the back
Harjeet Kaur
Better than others First I downloaded old version of S. C.C then new . New version was also good now I am playing the best game ever . But it should have some improvement like 1 gun should be free and police should be everywhere
User reviews
December 27, 2016
U'd be stupid to download Who ever tried to make this game don't quit ur day job... This is worst than a crap swandwich I mean totally bombs like a diarrhea slushy...sorry not sorry.. Be blessed! But kiss the devils butt hole for making this game. Toddles.
Full Review
ANZAR AHMAD September 17, 2016
Good game But you can add more things in it like we spawn vehicles.adding more locations will me good and as we can have a bank and a hospital in which we can really go in.there has to be apartments in which we have to buy them and can go in to rest.if you developer added these things and what others say this game will be the bestest in the world.everything is cool in it but graphics problem and controls too.adding these will give you 5 stars by me
Full Review
barbie jonse September 2, 2016
So cool but ... If it had more things like planes or bikes or more places like he can travel to another city with the chopper or the boat or ...it would be better if we could go shopping too or the city had a hospital that you can actually go in it...or police cars and police station... if you add this things it would be awesome... 👍👍👍👍👍
Full Review
Piyush Shrivastava August 7, 2016
Please request DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS GAME IT TAKES VERY LONG TIME TO OPEN AND STOP ALWAYS. IT IS A VERY AND STUPID GAME
Full Review
faBe g December 31, 2016
It don't move right and to frustrating. And how you get that big as pack off the back
Full Review
Harjeet Kaur August 13, 2016
Better than others First I downloaded old version of S. C.C then new . New version was also good now I am playing the best game ever . But it should have some improvement like 1 gun should be free and police should be everywhere
Full Review
October 25, 2016
Good game Really it's like a sander's game. But you can add a railway station and some more graphics. Missions are boring you can add some extra and good missions and locations
Full Review
August 15, 2016
Worst ! Worst ! Worst ! It is having the worst control. Worst, it lags so much. So plz.. Don't waste ur mb.
Full Review
Pritpal Singh September 7, 2016
Worst game evwr in the whole world It contains bakwaas graphics plz do not download it i uninstall this app worst
Full Review
Nana Andoh August 17, 2016
Boring Wast of credit please I can't play the game. When I click on it brings me back to home page😟
Mani Vmc October 18, 2016
It's veryyuyy bad waste mg data back. Colour contrast does not correct
Full Review
November 21, 2016
SO TOTALLY AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Greatest game I've ever played. Thanks man. You guys had really out done yourselves for this one I really love the idea of the game. And how there's no police officer in the game. Thanks man. Thanks. Even though the game may have some ads don't care really love it. Thanks again man
Full Review
Pawankumar Yadav October 1, 2016
ohh so u want a rate..bladdy sucking game ..the control system of this game sucks...game banana band karo aur jake kele becho stupids
Full Review
nitish niti September 19, 2016
Dumbs dumb I any body things this game will open then they will be fool's of fool's Miami crime city are was re developers in the world
Shabaaz Mustun October 30, 2016
Bad game Don't download this game.the game does not have best grafics
Full Review
August 15, 2016
خوبه فقط مشکلش اینکه نمیتونه بره تو مغازه ها و لباشو عوض کنه یا هرکار دیگه مثلا تفنگ بخره دومن وقتی میره تو ساحل براچی خاکا سفیدن ؟ خیلی تعجب اوره درکل نمیتونم بگم عالی بود فقط و فقط خوب
Reena Jadhav September 26, 2016
Nice graphics but, Can give bigger map and more vehicles..... Comparatively more M.B. Consuming
Full Review
Sanjay Dilore October 9, 2016
Boooooring! Oh. Yeah This game control is not in yours i download it on yesterday and i dont like it and advice you to not download it
Full Review
September 1, 2016
FINE VERY LESS MISSIONS DONT DOWNLOAD IT BUT DOWNLOAD 1 PART OF IT AS IT IS 2 I REQUEST MORE MISSION NEEDED UPGRADE IT
Full Review
October 22, 2016
Good but not too good There are no accidents and man sit in bike in a pathatic manner. It is bright as well. But it is good.
Full Review
Brijesh Agarwal December 27, 2016
Do not install A complete waste !bullshit!poor graphics,poor controls,driving is ridiculous,hitting is poor ,u cant get rid of the jet pack
Full Review
Connor Scanlan November 3, 2016
its like grand theft auto a bit I love it do you have boobies Barbie your sexy Barbie
Full Review
August 13, 2016
Bull shitt After 6 missions it asked to rate for More missions and even after rating the missions aren't coming
jizaiah Panoho August 9, 2016
Gta stripclub The Balloons won't 5free to get the most important thing
Full Review
Zuko J Jamangile December 3, 2016
San Andreas crime city 2 Here is the cheat code ,go to Google play ,search crime city 2 and uninstall
Blacc Beauty #1 August 5, 2016
It's so stupid it glitches watch out people for this game Stupid
Malachi Patterson September 1, 2016
This game sucks balls I can't even open the damn thing
Umesh Ranka September 11, 2016
So cool Ya its a nice game but It always hang my phone but I like it
Full Review
September 23, 2016
Tak best langsung Buat penat jer kita download lagu dia dah la tak best memekak je setting pon takde😡😡😠😠
amran alsaedy November 11, 2016
It's very good except bad update My phone has no memory since I updated it
Seema Jain September 23, 2016
Awesome game we have our own chopper, cars, bikes, THIS IS THE BEST GAME FOR ME
Full Review
Aalam Chuchra August 14, 2016
Good good good game I play this game in only our computer I don't take it any where then I download this game and I play this game any where please download it Good
Sunny Sonker August 29, 2016
Bad graphics The game has bad graphics and it was so boring bad cars
| Grand Theft Auto |
Who is missing: Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Endeavor, and Atlantis? | Classic PC review: Grand Theft Auto 1 (now a free download)
Classic PC review: Grand Theft Auto 1 (now a free download)
Posted by: Stuart
Grand Theft Auto. In the month leading up to the release of Grand Theft Auto IV for the Xbox 360 and PS3 on the 29th of April, here at videogamesblogger.com we’ll be looking back at the series that revolutionized the videogame industry, selling an amazing 65 million copies worldwide. The game that took us on our first visit to the dangerous streets of Liberty City, San Andreas and Vice City is the 1997 PC and PlayStation hit, Grand Theft Auto.
Download Grand Theft Auto For PC
Rockstar offers the original Grand Theft Auto as a free and legal download from their website . Point your browser at the Rockstar Classics page, register, download it and off you go.
System: PC (DOS) / PlayStation
Genre: Action, Driving, 2D Shooter
Released: December 1997 (EU), February 28th 1998 (US)
Players: 1
Developer: DMA Design (at present renamed Rockstar North)
Publisher: Take Two
Lara Croft Cosplay
Pokemon Trainers
Looking back at Grand Theft Auto is surprising. You’d expect a ten year-old game to have lower graphical quality and cruder style than today’s games, and the rough-edged sprite-based graphics and top-down 2D camera are definitely reminiscent of a past era. But when you realize it came out in a year that also saw the release of Mortal Kombat 4, Metal Gear Solid, and Tomb Raider 3 – all 3D games on the PlayStation, GTA begins to look as though it could be even older. But this game and its descendants took the world by storm. What was it about this game that spawned such enormous success?
The saga begins with a threat: You mess up, we mess you up.
There’s no other build-up or back story to Grand Theft Auto. You’re standing on a busy street, you’re told that work is available from the phones at the south end of the park…and off you go. From this point onwards, nothing is set in stone. You have just one goal – a score. How you reach that goal is up to you. Sure, there are jobs available, and you might get a few hot tips via your pager, but you don’t have to follow them up.
Traffic rumbles by, and a car horn sounds. A passerby jostles you out of the way and calls you a piece of sh*t.
You’re loose in the big city.
“Let the mayhem begin!”
This is where Grand Theft Auto differed from its contemporaries. It was something different, something unusual. At the time it was the equivalent of the Wii to the PS3/Xbox 360 – something no one had tried before, and a whole new way of looking at video games. Elements of free-roaming play had been used elsewhere, in Body Harvest for the N64 (notably also from DMA Design, now Rockstar North) and in Quarantine for DOS in 1994, but Grand Theft Auto took those elements of freedom and player choice and founded an entire game upon them. And the icing on the cake? It was irreverent, hilarious and enormous fun to play.
Here’s a video (no sound) of the game in action. This is taken from the PC (DOS) version:
For the first level, you have to score one million points. There are missions available if you choose – picking up and respraying ‘hot’ cars, being a getaway driver, assassinating city officials, recovering stolen drugs, blowing up vehicles with little bomb-rigged radio controlled cars…the list of possible activities is long, and for every successful mission you perform without dying or getting arrested, you get a score multiplier, which helps with getting to that goal score. Points are available from missions, odd jobs and wreaking havoc as you barge your way around the city. Run over a pedestrian or blow up a car and you’ll score some points. If you find yourself in a back alley and you steal a nice-looking vehicle, its owner may have laid it as bait in the hope of recruiting assistance from a criminal like you, and you have the option to take or leave the work. If you’ve stolen an especially nice car, you can sell it to the import/export guys who run the cranes down at the docks. Weapons, armor, power-ups, extra lives and get out of jail free cards are scattered around the city in roadside crates. Every so often on of these crates will contain a short, frantic bonus mission called a ‘KILL FRENZY!’ where you’re given unlimited ammunition and a score target to reach in an allotted time. Accidentally uncovering one of these during a quiet period of exploration instantly swings the game into a full-blown explosion fest.
The game is structured so that there are two levels played in each of three cities – Liberty City, San Andreas and Vice City, modeled on New York City, San Francisco and Miami respectively. The streets of each city are heavily based on grids and right-angled corners, but despite this, each city plan retains the main geographical features of the cities they are modeled on. The change in location is conveyed with subtle changes in road coloring, building colors and the types of trees. Liberty City is heavily urban, San Andreas has a central harbor with docks, and Vice City has a beach and palm trees scattered about. Despite the overall grid based layout, it is necessary to learn your way around each city, because there is no available map. Each time you enter a new part of a neighborhood, the name appears on screen, (North Brocklyn, South East Hackenslash etc) so by paying attention you can quickly gauge, roughly, where you’re meant to be heading, and after a while you’ll know fast routes and the best roads to reach crucial bridges and bottlenecks. Each level has a score that needs to be reached, but there’s no option to save in the middle of a level, so each time you start a game, you either reach the goal or fail in the attempt. The only way to achieve the high totals quickly is to pick up the multipliers awarded when you complete a mission, but with enough time and effort the totals can be reached without doing the missions… if your four extra lives last that long.
“For a GOURANGA! bonus, get the monks”
It’s inevitable that in the course of your activities you’re going to attract the attentions of the police; by running someone over in sight of a cop, shooting people, ramming a police car, or picking up the very shady goods your bosses direct you to shift around. Once the police are after you, they won’t stop or lose interest unless you shake them by respraying your car, successfully ending your mission, or completing a Kill Frenzy. Your wanted level is shown by a number of angry policeman faces along the top of the screen. At a wanted level of one, you’re safe out of sight of cops, but level two and above will bring roadblocks in your path and increasing numbers of pursuing cop cars.
There are four weapons; a pistol, a machine gun, a flamethrower and a rocket launcher. The weapon system is very basic, and takes some getting used to. You fire whichever way you’re facing and because of the crudity of the graphics it’s not always easy to tell which way that is, and sometimes it’s simplest to fire and see which way the bullet goes. If it hits a non-player character they’ll be nothing but a red splat on the sidewalk…and you’ll score some points and maybe attract some unwanted police attention. One bullet is enough to take someone down…including you, so you’re very vulnerable on foot without armor, which can be found as a power-up in the roadside crates. The rocket launcher can destroy buildings…or at least cause them to explode and catch fire, and standing too close to the flames is a sure way to end up WASTED! yourself.
Vehicles range from heavy fuel tankers and buses to incredibly fast sports cars, and the difference in performance can thrill and frustrate in equal measure. You can put a lot of ground between you and pursuing cops with a zippy “Cossie”, but after a couple of severe collisions you’ll be driving a fireball. A bus might be able to smash through barricades and take plenty of fire, but damn, you’ll be going slowly. In the PlayStation version of the game, each vehicle is locked to one of seven different radio stations. A pickup will likely be tuned to a country station, a muscle car to a hard rock or drum’n’bass station. These stations are rarely identified, with the exception of Head Radio (Music for your pleasure) and all simply loop after a while, or use simple ruses to repeat the short audio sample. ‘That song was so good, I think I’ll play it again…’ The humor present is classic Grand Theft Auto – cheeky, crude, juvenile…and funny. All the music was originally composed for the game, and the tracks are playable by placing the game disc into a regular CD player.
Overview: Liberty City
You begin as a lowly criminal doing work for faceless mobsters. After reaching the score total for the first level, one million points, you receive a target location, which turns out to be an individual standing in an alleyway. During a short and crudely animated cut-scene, you are warned not to cross a particular crime lord on pain of receiving a gun where the sun don’t shine…and the second level begins, with a target score of two million. On reaching this total, you receive another location, a garage in a building. Another cut-scene shows a fat gangster who you’ve been working for sitting behind a desk as police lights flash outside. This guy tells you the cops are ‘crawling up his ass’, it’d be a good idea to get out of town, and he’s booked you a ticket to San Andreas…
San Andreas
Your arrival in sunny San Andreas is greeted by a lackey of a local boss who has heard of your talents and invites you to visit him – Uncle Fu, at the Rampant Dragon. After a level to satisfy their requirements, you have the honor of meeting with the wizened Uncle Fu (again in an alley) who compliments you with the cheery “We extort money in the manner of our ancestors, and you do us proud”. Next you’re working for El Burro, who, when you finally meet him after his level, seems a little too eager to demonstrate why he got the nickname…and so it’s off to Vice City…
Vice City
You hit the streets in Vice having already attracted the attention of the corrupt Vice Squad chief, Deever, who says he has evidence to put you away for a long time, so you had better do as he says. After hitting his total, you’re working for the Rastas. At the end you’re face to face with a dreadlocked DJ, who says he’s going to miss seeing you around…
GTA: London 1969
Released in 1999, and the first true expansion pack for the PlayStation, GTA: London ran on the same engine as Grand Theft Auto and had many of the same game features, but had a different set of vehicles, missions and radio stations, as well as a completely different city setting. Set in 1969, the game pokes fun at the 60s in many ways, in the vein of The Italian Job and Austin Powers. Some other changes add a little local flavor – all the announcement voices from Grand Theft Auto are replaced with English accents and slang. Instead of WASTED! when you die, you get ‘You’re brown bread!’ (‘dead’ in cockney rhyming slang). Instead of ‘BUSTED!’ when collared by the police, you hear ‘You’re nicked!’. On completion of a mission, instead of the usual ‘mission completed’ cheering, you hear ‘Nice one my beauty!’. These are, I assure you, authentic translations from American into the Queen’s English. The cut-scenes, with their minimal animation, make a comeback, and I have to say to anyone playing this – here there’s a mixture of actual slang and made-up nonsense, where I think Rockstar’s British makers decided to have some fun with the world market. “I’ve heard you’re a bit tasty” is real and means “I’ve heard you’re good”, but, “Remember – I’m the monkey and you’re the cheese grater, so no messing around!” is, as far as I know, a joke, but if you know different, let me know! The radio stations in GTA: London are more complex, with more speech between songs, and I haven’t found any evidence to support this, but I believe that several of the songs may not have been original compositions for the game. A version of ‘The Return of Django’, a reggae track, appears on one of the stations. If true, this would be the first time GTA uses ‘real’ music.
“Sandbox”, “open-ended” and “non-linear” are all buzzwords used frequently in the games industry nowadays. Allowing players to choose the order in which they play a game, giving them an environment to explore and in which to be creative with the game elements…it all comes back to Grand Theft Auto, the forerunner of an entire generation of more mature, satirical games. It was the refreshing lack of respect for authority that garnered the initial success, simultaneously generating uproar in the press and political spheres. The concept of a video game packed with expletives and crime, in which points were scored for killing innocent pedestrians, and even more points were given for killing policemen…this was unacceptable for many in the public eye, and protests were many and vocal. The British Police Federation called Grand Theft Auto “sick, deluded and beneath contempt”. Educational groups and politicians joined in. Take Two used the heightened press coverage to their advantage, turning media-generated controversy into part of Grand Theft Auto‘s place in the entertainment landscape. Instead of suppressing the game, the controversy reinforced the subversive appeal the game offered, and it became a huge commercial success, selling a million copies. The ground was laid for a sequel.
Let’s wrap up our look back at GTA with the VGB scoring system:
FUN FACTOR: 9
There’s no denying it. Ten years on and GTA still has it. Its fun, it’s silly. It has comic book gore, satire and explosions. On a whim you can slip from earnestly playing to win to collecting a huge bunch of taxis and blowing them sky high just for kicks. You can try and evade the cops down tiny alleys, or you can barge through roadblock after roadblock trying to make your goal. The only limits to what you can do are imposed by the game world, which is large and varied.
Graphics: 4
Even for 1997 and 1998, the graphics are sub-par. The player sprite when on foot is a barely recognizable cluster of pixels (in GTA: London 1969, you play a barely recognizable cluster of pixels in flares). Within the budget graphic scheme, however, the different types of vehicles are well designed and can be easily told apart, and the perspective-shifting technique used on the buildings to create the impression of some three-dimensional elements is effective. The camera zooms out when you’re at high speed and zooms in when on foot, but I would argue that it doesn’t go far enough out for driving the faster cars (this could of course be deliberate!), and sometimes zooms in way too close. The textures were improved to a degree in GTA: London, but not so much that the game has a different feel.
Audio: 8
The PC version has switchable radio stations in the cars, allowing control of the music, but the PlayStation vehicles can only play one radio station each. This can lead to annoying repetition of some of the music when certain cars are used frequently (taxis in particular). Environmental noise is first rate, and goes a long way to redeeming the disappointing graphics. The background rumblings and car horns and the pedestrian insults add a lot of depth to the cities.
Ingenuity: 10
GTA cannot be matched here. It blew the games industry and the game playing public away.
Replay Value: 9.5
GTA was the first game to let you take the wheel and allow you to get from point A to point B any way you liked. It is a game built to be played and played again. Especially if you can find someone else with the game to play LAN multiplayer matches with to see who can take the other out first.
What would the developers do with the franchise now there was more money behind it? We’ll see in the next installment of our Grand Theft Auto reviews when we take a look at the 1999 sequel, Grand Theft Auto 2 .
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great post i like it thanks.
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all game is very nice but any one game not a downloding option
please easy method put the game.
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| i don't know |
Name the 1993 movie from its plot summary: "A married woman agrees to have sex with another man for $1,000,000." | Indecent Proposal (1993) - IMDb
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A millionaire offers $1,000,000 to a young married couple for a night with the wife.
Director:
a list of 27 titles
created 06 Jan 2011
a list of 39 titles
created 07 May 2011
a list of 31 images
created 15 Aug 2014
a list of 30 titles
created 31 Dec 2015
a list of 25 images
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7 wins & 8 nominations. See more awards »
Videos
A computer specialist is sued for sexual harassment by a former lover turned boss who initiated the act forcefully, which threatens both his career and his personal life.
Director: Barry Levinson
A New York suburban couple's marriage goes dangerously awry when the wife indulges in an adulterous fling.
Director: Adrian Lyne
A married man's one-night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover begins to stalk him and his family.
Director: Adrian Lyne
A stripper and single mother gets dragged into a dangerous situation after a congressman takes a fancy to her.
Director: Andrew Bergman
A violent, suspended police detective investigates a brutal murder, in which a manipulative and seductive woman could be involved.
Director: Paul Verhoeven
A remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic Dial M for Murder (1954).
Director: Andrew Davis
Carly Norris is a book editor living in New York City who moves into the Sliver apartment building. In the apartment building, Carly meets two of her new neighbors, author Jack Lansford who... See full summary »
Director: Phillip Noyce
A woman gets involved in an impersonal affair with a man. She barely knows about his life, only about the sex games they play, so the relationship begins to get complicated.
Director: Adrian Lyne
Edit
Storyline
A young couple very much in love are married and have started their respective careers, she as a real estate broker, he as an architect. She finds the perfect spot to build his dream house, and they get loans to finance it. When the recession hits, they stand to lose everything they own, so they go to Vegas to have one shot at winning the money they need. After losing at the tables, they are approached by a millionaire who offers them a million dollars for a night with the wife. Though the couple agrees that this is a way out of their financial dilemma, it threatens to destroy their relationship. Written by Ed Sutton <[email protected]>
A husband. A wife. A millionaire. A proposal
Genres:
Rated R for sexuality and language | See all certifications »
Parents Guide:
7 April 1993 (USA) See more »
Also Known As:
Ein unmoralisches Angebot See more »
Filming Locations:
Andie MacDowell was considered for the role of Diana Murphy. See more »
Goofs
David has shaved the right side of his face removing the shaving cream but when he comforts her he still has the shaving cream all over his face. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
David : [sitting on a pier] Losing Diana is like losing a part of me. I thought nothing could change the way we felt about each other. I thought we were invincible.
Diana : [riding in a bus] Someone once said, if you want something very badly, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours forever. If it doesn't, it was never yours to begin with. I knew one thing, I was David's to begin with, and he was mine.
Money can't buy love. Or a decent script apparently.
11 July 2005 | by hall895
(New Jersey) – See all my reviews
Mind-numbingly boring, utterly predictable and in the end simply laughable. That pretty much sums up the disaster that is Indecent Proposal. Starting with a decent premise the whole thing just unravels and becomes a complete mess. Basically the story boils down to the question, "would you let your wife sleep with another man for one million dollars?" Here of course the answer is yes because otherwise we wouldn't have a movie. Quite frankly, we'd have been better off if we didn't have a movie.
Our married (and financially troubled) couple are played by Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore. They go to Vegas to get rich. Yeah, that'll work. Anyhow, a billionaire, played by Robert Redford, takes a liking to the wife and makes the million dollar offer. For one night with the wife he will give them financial security. The aftermath of that one night is what the movie is really all about. Unfortunately nothing in that aftermath is the least bit entertaining. The script is so predictable you can say the characters' lines before they do. The performances leave much to be desired. Harrelson would be better off sticking to comedies as this attempt at serious acting completely misses the mark. Anguish is not something he seems capable of portraying. And it is quite safe to say that Demi Moore will never have to clear space in her home for any Academy Awards. Why is she a movie star again? In a part that should be full of emotion she conveys none. Only Redford escapes mostly unscathed. He's appropriately slimy yet suave and clearly the best actor of the bunch. But he can't save this film. Awful script, lousy acting, plodding pace, zero entertainment...Indecent Proposal is downright awful.
27 of 46 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
| Indecent Proposal |
Friday marks the anniversary of the explosion of Mt. St Helens, claimed to be the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the US, when it erupted in what year? | Indecent Proposal (1993) - IMDb
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A millionaire offers $1,000,000 to a young married couple for a night with the wife.
Director:
a list of 27 titles
created 06 Jan 2011
a list of 39 titles
created 07 May 2011
a list of 31 images
created 15 Aug 2014
a list of 30 titles
created 31 Dec 2015
a list of 25 images
created 2 weeks ago
Search for " Indecent Proposal " on Amazon.com
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7 wins & 8 nominations. See more awards »
Videos
A computer specialist is sued for sexual harassment by a former lover turned boss who initiated the act forcefully, which threatens both his career and his personal life.
Director: Barry Levinson
A New York suburban couple's marriage goes dangerously awry when the wife indulges in an adulterous fling.
Director: Adrian Lyne
A married man's one-night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover begins to stalk him and his family.
Director: Adrian Lyne
A stripper and single mother gets dragged into a dangerous situation after a congressman takes a fancy to her.
Director: Andrew Bergman
A violent, suspended police detective investigates a brutal murder, in which a manipulative and seductive woman could be involved.
Director: Paul Verhoeven
A remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic Dial M for Murder (1954).
Director: Andrew Davis
Carly Norris is a book editor living in New York City who moves into the Sliver apartment building. In the apartment building, Carly meets two of her new neighbors, author Jack Lansford who... See full summary »
Director: Phillip Noyce
A woman gets involved in an impersonal affair with a man. She barely knows about his life, only about the sex games they play, so the relationship begins to get complicated.
Director: Adrian Lyne
Edit
Storyline
A young couple very much in love are married and have started their respective careers, she as a real estate broker, he as an architect. She finds the perfect spot to build his dream house, and they get loans to finance it. When the recession hits, they stand to lose everything they own, so they go to Vegas to have one shot at winning the money they need. After losing at the tables, they are approached by a millionaire who offers them a million dollars for a night with the wife. Though the couple agrees that this is a way out of their financial dilemma, it threatens to destroy their relationship. Written by Ed Sutton <[email protected]>
A husband. A wife. A millionaire. A proposal
Genres:
Rated R for sexuality and language | See all certifications »
Parents Guide:
7 April 1993 (USA) See more »
Also Known As:
Ein unmoralisches Angebot See more »
Filming Locations:
Andie MacDowell was considered for the role of Diana Murphy. See more »
Goofs
David has shaved the right side of his face removing the shaving cream but when he comforts her he still has the shaving cream all over his face. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
David : [sitting on a pier] Losing Diana is like losing a part of me. I thought nothing could change the way we felt about each other. I thought we were invincible.
Diana : [riding in a bus] Someone once said, if you want something very badly, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours forever. If it doesn't, it was never yours to begin with. I knew one thing, I was David's to begin with, and he was mine.
Money can't buy love. Or a decent script apparently.
11 July 2005 | by hall895
(New Jersey) – See all my reviews
Mind-numbingly boring, utterly predictable and in the end simply laughable. That pretty much sums up the disaster that is Indecent Proposal. Starting with a decent premise the whole thing just unravels and becomes a complete mess. Basically the story boils down to the question, "would you let your wife sleep with another man for one million dollars?" Here of course the answer is yes because otherwise we wouldn't have a movie. Quite frankly, we'd have been better off if we didn't have a movie.
Our married (and financially troubled) couple are played by Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore. They go to Vegas to get rich. Yeah, that'll work. Anyhow, a billionaire, played by Robert Redford, takes a liking to the wife and makes the million dollar offer. For one night with the wife he will give them financial security. The aftermath of that one night is what the movie is really all about. Unfortunately nothing in that aftermath is the least bit entertaining. The script is so predictable you can say the characters' lines before they do. The performances leave much to be desired. Harrelson would be better off sticking to comedies as this attempt at serious acting completely misses the mark. Anguish is not something he seems capable of portraying. And it is quite safe to say that Demi Moore will never have to clear space in her home for any Academy Awards. Why is she a movie star again? In a part that should be full of emotion she conveys none. Only Redford escapes mostly unscathed. He's appropriately slimy yet suave and clearly the best actor of the bunch. But he can't save this film. Awful script, lousy acting, plodding pace, zero entertainment...Indecent Proposal is downright awful.
27 of 46 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
| i don't know |
Members of which branch of the U.S. military are sometimes referred to as jarheads? | Why Are United States Marines Called Jarheads? | eHow
Why Are United States Marines Called Jarheads?
Why Are United States Marines Called Jarheads?
By Contributing Writer
There several common nicknames for marines -- leathernecks, devil dogs and jarheads. While all may prove controversial, they are affectionate at the same time, and jarhead is one of the most popular.
History
There is evidence that U.S. Navy and Merchant Marine sailors began referring to marines as jarheads during World War II. Before that, they were known mostly as leathernecks and devil dogs. The term has since stuck and made it to popular usage.
Identification
The term jarhead stems from the Marine Corps' dress blue uniform, which features a stiff collar and a flat-topped hat. Both of these items may have led to the jar comparison because of the lack of head mobility marines exhibit while in dress blues.
Effects
If this uniform theory is true, the jarhead name comes from the same logic that named marines "leathernecks" -- a nickname that also refers to their stiff collar and demeanor.
Theories/Speculation
There are other origin stories related to the jarhead name -- one is that it's a corruption of "gyrene," a very old moniker for marines. Others yet claim it may be an attempt at insulting marines -- sailors were implying their heads were like empty jars.
Time Frame
A related piece of slang is "jughead," a name for pack mules that were a mainstay of logistics for the Marine Corps up until World War I. Marines have always taken great pride in being stubborn -- like mules.
Famous Ties
Several books and movies have been released with jarhead in their title, most famously the 2005 Sam Mendes movie Jarhead starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
| Marines |
What can be a fictional president, a fruit cultivar, and a book of quotations? | snopes.com: Jarheads
I was told by an Army officer while I was in ROTC at Norwich that "jarhead" referred to the USMC "high and tight" haircut. Why he told me, I don't remember, but that little piece of data has stuck in my head for over twenty years. Besides, the "high and tight" is pretty much a standard haircut in the military and among law enforcement officers. I myself wear a high and tight "horseshoe flattop" haircut. I was once called "panhead" by a drunk subject I was arresting. Maybe I reminded him of a motorcycle?
--------------------
NO BETTER FRIEND, NO WORSE ENEMY
--
"I grok when apes learn to laugh, they'll be people."
Posts: 727 | From: Southeastern Arizona | Registered: Sep 2005 | IP: Logged |
Let There Be PCs on Earth
posted
The OED's 2004 draft entry for "jarhead" notes that it's been part of the vernacular of the American South and the U.S. Army as another word for a mule since 1916. (Actually, that 1916 cite is with reference to an Army mule; "civilian" mules have been called "jar heads" in the South since at least 1899.)
"Jarhead" was being used (rarely) to signify a member of the U.S. Army at least by 1930 (because the mascot for the Army football team was a mule). Army football teams in the late '20s and into the '30s were referred to as the Jarheads.
It wasn't until the '40s that folks seem to have started referring to members of the Marine Corps as "jarheads." (It was also in the '40s that "jarhead" took on the meaning of a foolish or stupid person.)
The OED's earliest (and not particularly helpful) cite for usage with reference to the Marines is this,
quote:
1944 Reader's Digest Sept. 76 A 'jar-head' is a Marine.
So, is there evidence from the '40s and earlier, then, hinting as to why Marines were called "jar-heads"? Anything contemporaneous that mentions haircuts or high collars or helmets?
Might "jarhead" with reference to Marines be in any way linked to an earlier usage with reference to members of the U.S. Army?
Or is it just coincidental that for a brief span of time members of two branches of the U.S. military were referred to by the same term?
-- Bonnie
Se non � vero, � ben trovato.
Posts: -99014 | From: Chapel Hill, North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2000 | IP: Logged |
I'll Be Home for After Christmas Sales
posted
One of my former marine pals swears that it comes from the times of wooden ships and chamber pots. Marines were transported in the bottom decks of Naval ships, where they were out of the way of the crew until they were needed. To save the long climb up to the latrine (i.e. deck rail) they would urinate in jars. When the jars got full, they would carry them up and empty them over the side. Since the ladders in the lower decks were steep and narrow ... (here it comes)
... the marines would balance the jar of urine on their heads while they climbed.
Hence: "Jarhead"
Another former Marine tells me nearly the same story, except there are no feats of urine balancing. He says the term is simply a combination of "Jar" (self explanatory) and "Head" - as in the Marine term for latrine.
Both of these guys believe that Mr. Rogers was a marine sniper in Vietnam. When confronted with the evidence from our very own snopes, they dismissed it as, "Probably a gov't cover-up because he ran so many black-op missions."
I just always assumed marines were called jarheads because jars are much more useful when they're empty.
::starts sandbagging his position::
-Dare "I've done it now, Sarge" yawes
--------------------
Bediffled: adj. to be in such a state of confusion that you are unable to remember any real words that mean: to be in a state of confusion. bediffle, bedifflement, bediffling
quote:
Originally posted by Dareyawes:
One of my former marine pals swears that it comes from the times of wooden ships and chamber pots. Marines were transported in the bottom decks of Naval ships, where they were out of the way of the crew until they were needed. To save the long climb up to the latrine (i.e. deck rail) they would urinate in jars. When the jars got full, they would carry them up and empty them over the side. Since the ladders in the lower decks were steep and narrow ... (here it comes)
... the marines would balance the jar of urine on their heads while they climbed.
Hence: "Jarhead"
Back in the bad old days, when ships were made out of wood and men were made out of steel, officers' cabins were in the after part of the ship. Marines, who were generally better disciplined and more trustworthy than sailors, were berthed just forward of the officers, with the sailors berthed forward of the Marines. In a two- or three-decker ship, Marines would be berthed in all three decks. The Marines' berthing was specifically located to protect the officers in case of mutiny.
For sanitary reasons, urination and defecation were only allowed in designated areas. For enlisted personnel (aka other ranks), these areas were in the bow of the ship (which is why toilet facilities on board ships are called "heads"). When there are several hundred men living together in a relatively small space, sanitation is a prime consideration, especially on voyages that might last for months. Ships, particularly warships, are generally kept at a high state of cleanliness.
Since ships are subject to rolling and pitching, carrying chamberpots up ladders and through passageways would almost certainly result in spills. This would be bad for the crew's health and morale. Hence, chamber pots were not allowed in naval ships.
If you're carrying something on a rolling, pitching ship, you want to keep it close to your center of gravity. Carrying a pot on your head is a good way to lose control of the pot. If the pot is full of urine, sooner or later (probably sooner) you're going to have an unpleasant shower.
Dareyawes, that's a nice story that unfortunately falls flat when examined in real life.
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On a tour of the U.S.S Constitution, I was informed by a seemingly well-informed Marine tour guide that the term "Jarhead" dates from the time of wooden ships.
The lower decks are not more than 5'8" high. On being drafted in to the Navy, recruits would immediately be separated into Marines, those over 5'8" high (who would do the fighting on deck), and sailors, those under 5'8", who could sail the ship and operate the cannons below deck, in the dark, without hurting themselves.
Marines, being taller than the ceiling in the lower decks, were called "jarheads" by the sailors because they always jarred their heads when down there.
Posts: 305 | From: South Africa | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged |
Let There Be PCs on Earth
posted
Slightly off topic-I have family and friends in all branches of the Armed Forces it is funny as hell when they all get together and rag on each other. Since they all have fought in different wars(going back to WWII for my uncle) the comment made by El Camino is kinda funny. And each of them feels that their branch did better in the war(s)and/or the war(s) were best served by their branch.
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A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wits and add drama to an otherwise dull day! -Calvin and Hobbes
Posts: 251 | From: New Hampshire | Registered: Dec 2005 | IP: Logged |
Oh yeah, the Gulf War. That really compares to storming the beaches of Normandy and fighting in the jungles of Vietnam. Not to mention the brave Marines who came home after their Vietnam tours and criticized poor U.S. policy, and publicly came out against the war.
And I hate to say it ...but it wasn't a very good joke. So much for LOL, it wasn't even LATBI (laughing a tiny bit inside). It doesn't even work. You can't keep things in Marine's heads? They have no memories, all going through Memento type lives? Basic memory capacity really has little correlation with actual intelligence (although memory strategies do).
So maybe I should lighten up, assume you're just making a joke and don't really mean it. Or chalk it up to rivalry between branches of the military (assuming you actually served in a real military branch, not the National Guard like it sounds like your daddy got you into). Maybe if it was funny I would.
And if you were in the Army, I'd hope to god that you'd have better Marines jokes than that.
Posts: 1048 | From: Brunswick, Maine | Registered: Oct 2005 | IP: Logged |
Again, the joke itself potentially able to chalk that up to inter-branch rivalries (which I admit I didn't think of when I made the first post). But the comment, "And the marines didn't do shit to allow me to sit here," is blatantly wrong and idiotic. Come on now. Had we lost WWII things would be pretty different today, I'd have to say. Living in a country that was built on the blood of others, it doesn't sit well with me when people act like their sacrifice was useless, did nothing.
Posts: 1048 | From: Brunswick, Maine | Registered: Oct 2005 | IP: Logged |
It Came Upon a Midnight Clearance
posted
Wouldn't it be great if I could say something like, "I lost both my legs in Vietnam," or something like that (and not be lying about it)? Wouldn't that be awesome? But no, as I'm sure you were hoping, I'm not in the military.
Now tell me again how me not serving in the military prevents me from defending those who do?
The point is that just because you hung out in Saudi Arabia for a few months and then walked across the desert and suited up in riot gear and walked at a crowd doesn't give you the right to mock or belittle the sacrifices of those who have died in other wars.
Posts: 1048 | From: Brunswick, Maine | Registered: Oct 2005 | IP: Logged |
I wasn't hoping anything of the sort, highly suspecting but not hoping. I will relieve you of a duty though. I don't think you need to defend the military to pinqy. I suspect pinqy is well aware of the sacrifices the military makes. Hell, I suspect he made some of those sacrifices himself. Now, perhaps you'd like to trade in your little horse there for a nice defensible position?
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There is no interpersonal problem so big that it can't be solved with a suitably large amount of high explosives. ~ Bufungla
Posts: 3562 | From: South Texas | Registered: Oct 2001 | IP: Logged |
The point was that if pinqy served in, say, the Army there is an actual rivalry with the Marines. Both branches have lots of jokes about the other and a real professional rivalry: members are constantly insulting each other (in a semi-good natured way). The National Guard has no such rivalry, and is thus not an acceptable reason.
The "your daddy got you into" line was admittedly a bit out of line; I wasn't really thinking. But I think we can all agree that service in the National Guard is generally not akin to serving in the Marines, nor is a tour in Kuwait comporable to a tour in Vietnam or WWII, which was the point I was trying to make.
And the only "personal insult" I made was saying his denial of the sacrifice of lots of Marines was idiotic, not that he's an idiot. Everyone says/posts idiotic things, myself included. It doesn't make him an idiot.
Posts: 1048 | From: Brunswick, Maine | Registered: Oct 2005 | IP: Logged |
Markdown, the Herald Angels Sing
posted
quote:
Originally posted by El Camino:
So maybe I should lighten up, assume you're just making a joke and don't really mean it. Or chalk it up to rivalry between branches of the military (assuming you actually served in a real military branch, not the National Guard like it sounds like your daddy got you into). Maybe if it was funny I would.
Just so we're clear: It's ok for you to insult the National Guard AND personally attack pinqy, but he can't make joke about the Marines?
Right. Because the National Guard never does anything except fight & die when called the way "full-time" soldiers, sailors & marines do. ETA: Not to mention the full-timers who "retire" into the Guard.
The family members of the 497 National Guard troops who have died in Iraq (so far) might take offense at El Camino's dismissal of their sacrifices. Unless, of course, they just think he's a humorless ass and ignore him.
Four Kitties
It warn't th' hoss I suspect of the ganja, d00d.
A friendly word of advice? You will find that there are many, many military and ex-military types around here. The Pinq One is definitely among that group. If someone was lying about military service around here, they'd be flushed out pretty damn quick. And a personal observation? I have yet to see one member of that group spout off that worn-ass cliche about how we civilians need to get down and thank them for our right to be lazy ingrates. They're classy that way.
Posts: 4811 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Feb 2000 | IP: Logged |
The "Was on Sale" Song
posted
quote:
Originally posted by El Camino:
Oh yeah, the Gulf War. That really compares to storming the beaches of Normandy and fighting in the jungles of Vietnam. Not to mention the brave Marines who came home after their Vietnam tours and criticized poor U.S. policy, and publicly came out against the war.
And I hate to say it ...but it wasn't a very good joke. So much for LOL, it wasn't even LATBI (laughing a tiny bit inside). It doesn't even work. You can't keep things in Marine's heads? They have no memories, all going through Memento type lives? Basic memory capacity really has little correlation with actual intelligence (although memory strategies do).
So maybe I should lighten up, assume you're just making a joke and don't really mean it. Or chalk it up to rivalry between branches of the military (assuming you actually served in a real military branch, not the National Guard like it sounds like your daddy got you into). Maybe if it was funny I would.
And if you were in the Army, I'd hope to god that you'd have better Marines jokes than that.
Well just about everyone else has already said what needs to be said, but since I have personal experience here I just have to comment.
Do you even realize what a fool you are making of yourself? The Gulf War doesn't count? Are you shitting me? You want to say that to all the other Gulf War vets on this board? I would absolutely love to see you say that shit to them in person. And if you really think it wasn't a danger of any sort then I'd really love to hear your opinion on the time pinqy had to dodge shrapnel and launch himself over a wall to avoid being hit. I'd consider that fairly dangerous and am impressed with the way he handled himself in the line of duty.
Seriously, as Gayle has said, quite eloquently, we have plenty of military folks on this board. They often participate in joking back and forth about each other.
You really ought to stick around a while and read before you start going off half-cocked about something or someone you don't understand.
Making nasty personal remarks about someone whose "daddy got him in" is just way over the line. Who the hell do you think you are? It was a fucking joke. It wasn't a bad joke, it was a stupid joke. And yeah, it elicits laughter from Marines as well as other service-members.
As to what you think the Marines did to allow any of us to sit here and post, I'd love to hear more on that. Who was invading us, again? Please tell me you're not about to say that if it weren't for the Marines we'd all be speaking Japanese.
And why is it ok for you to make pinqy's sacrifices to serve his country meaningless, but he makes one single throwaway joke and you jump all over him?
And since pinqy serves in the military I'm sure you'll be sending him an apology PM for being so rude to him here, right? After all, you're for defending those in the military.
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ali_marea,
Because you posted at 2:51 and my last post was at 2:04, I'm going to have to assume you read it. As you can see, I haven't been on this board all that long and hence do not know anything about pinqy's military past. So I don't know if he was in the Army or not; he's never told me. And if he did serve in the Army, then, as you can see in my last post, I pretty much apologized. If it wasn't apologetic enough for you, I'm sorry. But for me, admitting I'm wrong is not all that common, and that post seemed pretty good. I was never calling him a liar about his military service, he simply had never said he was in the Army.
Also, I admit that the "let you sit here today" thing was cliche. And if pinqy's response was not directed at the Marines themselves but at the cliche-ness of that comment, then I'd have to apologize for criticizing them too, and chalk it up to misunderstanding. And even if it was cliche, if we had lost WWII things would be very different today. No, we wouldn't be speaking Japanese, but everyone might not have a computer either. Life (very probably) wouldn't be the same.
Also I never said the Gulf War "didn't count." But from a ground war standpoint, I'm afraid it really doesn't compare to WWII or Vietnam. Just a look at the casualties and you get that.
And come on, it's not like I'm the first one to make the "daddy got him into the National Guard" joke. Not to mention that I already admitted I was wrong to make that comment in the first place.
The point is, I already apologized for being hasty in my commments. I already said that if pinqy was in the Army my post criticizing his joke was silly. There's no need to jump down my throat about this crap AFTER I've apologized. Before, yes, after, no. And as you said, the point had already been made quite well by others, and I had already seen the proverbial error in my ways, thank you very much.
My original post was based on the (now-obviously) erroneous assumption that pinqy was a non-military person insulting the military in general and more importantly its members specifically, probably because he was against the current war in Iraq. I've run into that a lot lately, and I'm sick of it. And if it were the case, I would feel quite justified in the comments I made. Obviously that is not the case, and I feel silly for making the original post.
But who among us has never posted/said something in haste under parallel circumstances and realized their error afterword? I've already acknowledged my errors, sorry if I didn't do the "I'm sorry" apology outright, admitting I'm wrong is my way of doing that, especially in a forum. Pointing out things I've already apologized for almost an hour after I have done so is silly and unnecessary.
I suppose it's possible you missed that part of my previous posts, or misinterpreted my intended tone. That can happen in type, and I'm sometimes not as clear as I think I'm being. But read it again and you'll see, I think.
So, to clarify and avoid any further confusion, in conclusion to this rewriting of War and Peace (there's a joke in there somewhere), I was wrong (or at least silly) to criticizing pinqy's joke as well as the National Guard. Hope that clears things up, and I certainly never meant any personal insult.
Posts: 1048 | From: Brunswick, Maine | Registered: Oct 2005 | IP: Logged |
I'll Be Home for After Christmas Sales
posted
El Camino, when you try to justify what you said, and only apologize with certain conditions, then I certainly do feel justified in commenting on it.
I would love to know how I could have possibly misinterpreted your tone. And since you admit that you didn't apologize outright. So how you expected me to take what you said any differently is beyond me.
As to not being on this board for very long...that's a poor excuse for attacking someone the way you did. I appreciate that you apologized, but I hope you realize why many of us reacted the way we did. And I hope you can see why, without you actually apologizing, I wouldn't assume that's what you were doing.
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When we are little, our parents teach us that, when we have wronged someone, we should go up to them and say, "I'm sorry for..." In exactly those words. As we get older, that changes. For a lot of people, admitting we are wrong is apologyzing in a situation like this. I admitted my criticism of his joke was silly (I can't really see how something like that could be morally "wrong," but it was a silly thing to say) and also said my comments about the National Guard were "out of line." Which is almost EXACTLY what you said in your last post when you said it was "way over the line." That would have been a very appropriate comment had I not already admitted that myself.
Like I said, it was kind of a gut reaction when I responded so quickly, because I've heard similar derisions of military men man by ignorant people living in the US who have never served themselves. These people ignorantly misplace their bad feelings about the Iraqi War in general on the soldiers who actually do the work and have nothing to do with the strategy these people mean to criticize. Obviously I was very wrong about that. I apologized with the "condition" that this was indeed true. It was a comment made in haste, and one I later admitted was wrong. What more do you want me to do?
Posts: 1048 | From: Brunswick, Maine | Registered: Oct 2005 | IP: Logged |
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How many balloons has Nena and problems has Jay-Z? | 99 Red Problems - YouTube
99 Red Problems
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What brand of cereal has used a leprechaun as its mascot since 1964? | 99 Luftballons by Nena Songfacts
99 Luftballons by Nena Songfacts
Songfacts
This was one of the songs in the '80s to make a point about the brinkmanship and paranoia/hysteria surrounding the issue of war. The song talks about Nena and the listener buying 99 Balloons in a shop and letting them go, for fun. These balloons show up on the radar as unidentified objects and both sides scramble planes and go to full alert to counteract a perceived nuclear attack, when in fact it is the most childlike of things, a bunch of balloons.
The song, though difficult to understand, is about the dreams of the German people that were lost after World War II. The 99 balloons represent the many dreams that each person had. At the end of the song, she just wants to prove that the German people did have dreams by finding one balloon - she finds one balloon, a dream, and lets it go. >>
Suggestion credit:
Josh - Pleasant Plains, IL
Nena's guitarist, Carlo Karges, got the idea for the song after watching balloons being released at a Rolling Stones concert in West Berlin. He wrote the lyrics and Nena's keyboard player Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen wrote the music.
Nena's real name is Gabriela Kerner. She was is a band called The Stripes before forming her own group.
This was released in Germany, where Nena was from. Their record company had no intention of releasing it in America until a disc jockey at radio station KROQ in Los Angeles found a copy and started playing it. They recorded an English version (the original words are in German, and yes, "Captain Kirk" in German is still "Captain Kirk") with the title translated as "99 Red Balloons" and released it in the US, where it was a big hit.
Nena is a true one-hit-wonder outside of Germany, where she didn't even come close to another hit. Before this, however, her single "Nur Getraumt" was a #1 hit in Germany.
The California ska band Goldfinger released a popular cover version in 2000 on their album Stomping Ground that was used on the soundtrack of the 2001 film Not Another Teen Movie. Their version features one verse in German; lead singer John Feldmann said he had to take lessons to learn how to say some German words before recording it. >>
Suggestion credit:
Josh - Pleasant Plains, IL
The English-language version was #1 in the UK for three weeks in March 1984. It was the first of two songs about nuclear war to top the charts in the UK that year; the other was "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. >>
Suggestion credit:
Emery - London, England
"Luftballons" literally translates to "Air Balloons" in German, and means regular party balloons.
The Goldfinger version was used in a 2015 commercial for Coca-Cola as part of the company's campaign to recognize the 100th anniversary of it's iconic bottle.
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"Plane Crazy" was the first cartoon to introduce what now iconic cartoon character, when it debuted on May 15, 1928? | Mickey Mouse - The Ageless Icon | Cartoon Characters | Cartoon Characters
Mickey Mouse
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As the official mascot of the Walt Disney Company, Mickey Mouse is certainly a known figure to almost every kid in the world. He has easily become one of the most easily recognized cartoon characters, with his iconic white gloves, red shorts, and huge yellow shoes. Mickey has been featured not just on film and television, but even on comic books, video games, and every Disney merchandise imaginable. Get to know more about this famous cartoon character as you read along.
Contents
Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks
Species:
Mickey Mouse History
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
Mickey Mouse’s history goes a long, long way in the history of animation. However, he is not the first cartoon character created by Disney Studios. In fact, he was created only as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
But because of a misunderstanding between Walt Disney and Universal Studios, which owned the Oswald cartoon, the two companies separated and Disney established the new Disney Studio, together with a few employees that remained loyal to the animation company.
The new Disney Studio essentially started from scratch as the remaining employees thought of ideas for a new cartoon character that will carry the name of the animation studios. Several ideas cropped up, including cats, dogs, cows, horses, and even frogs. But at last, Walt Disney got inspired by a tame mouse at his desk, so Ub Iwerks started creating a new mouse character that was eventually named Mortimer Mouse. The name Mickey Mouse was given due to the insistence of Disney’s wife, Lillian.
How Old is Mickey Mouse?
Mickey’s birthday can be traced back to when Mickey was created. The preliminary sketches of Hugh Harman that led to Iwerks’ eventual conceptualization of the character began in 1925. Mickey’s screen testing started in May 1928 for the cartoon short Plane Crazy, although this one failed to impress the audiences. The second Mickey Mouse short did not even push through due to lack of distributor.
Steamboat Willie
The first Mickey short that had a distributor was titled, Steamboat Willie, a parody of Steamboat Bill Jr., a silent comedy film released in May 1928. Steamboat Willie was released a few months later on November 18, 1928. Since Iwerks incorporated sound in this short film, audiences and critics alike were impressed by this innovative idea in an era of silent films.
Because of Steamboat Willie’s success, November 18, 1928 was officially declared as Mickey Mouse’s onscreen debut or birthday. He quickly rose to popularity as one of the most prominent cartoon characters of that era.
Old Mickey Mouse
Vintage Mickey Mouse
The Mickey Mouse being seen today is not the vintage Mickey that Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney created in the past. There are differences when it comes to the littlest details, although the old Mickey can still be easily recognized by today’s generation.
For instance, Mickey’s head has always been featured as having a circular design, especially in his ears. In fact, the symbol of three circles used to depict Mickey back then is still being used until now by the Disney Company. It has certainly become his personal trademark and this design extends up to the present generation.
Originally, Mickey’s body was also circular in nature, but he was later redesigned by animator Fred Moore to have a pear-shaped body—a move which Walt Disney himself approved of.
Mickey Mouse with Gloves
Mickey’s hands only had three fingers and one thumb. However, his white gloves were given to him only in the 1929 Mickey Mouse film, The Opry House, as a way of contrasting his hands from his black body. This was very helpful during the time of black and white screens.
The first two Mickey shorts featured the cartoon character with large white eyes outlined in black. The black outlines were then removed in Steamboat Willie. In 1938, Fred Moore reimagined Mickey’s eyes as small and white with black pupils, and his face was given a Caucasian skin tone in contrast to his previously plain white face.
Mickey was originally voiced by Walt Disney from his inception up to 1947. He was then followed by Jimmy MacDonald until 1977 and Wayne Allwine until his death in 2009. At present, Mickey is being voiced by Bret Iwan for Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Chris Diamantopoulos for the new Mickey Mouse shorts.
As for Mickey’s clothes, the red color of his shorts could not be easily seen during the black and white era of film and television. But his red shorts were always obvious in print versions of the character. Today, even if Mickey is not always seen with his trademark clothes, he is still always portrayed in red clothes in all of his costume changes.
Evil Mickey Mouse
Evil Mickey Mouse
Mickey’s target market has always been children, which is the reason why he had a squeaky clean image. However, this image was somewhat tarnished with the release of Runaway Brain, a 7-minute short animated film released in April 1995 and nominated in the Academy Awards.
In the story, Mickey’s brain was switched with Julius’, a monster portrayed by Mickey’s perennial nemesis, Pete. Because of this, the evil Mickey Mouse character was born. The two characters battle it out and finally get switched back to their own bodies at the end of the film.
A slightly evil Mickey also appeared in Epic Mickey, a video game released for Wii in 2010. This was done by the Walt Disney Company in the efforts of showing the mischievous side of Mickey, rather than continuing the perpetuation of his squeaky clean image.
Mickey Mouse Characters
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
Mickey has always been shown as interacting with other characters. The character most closely associated with him is Minnie Mouse. In fact, during Mickey’s early film in 1929, he was characterized as a suitor to Minnie Mouse.
Aside from Minnie Mouse, Mickey also intermingled with other popular cartoon characters during the course of his lifetime. Here are some of the characters from one of Mickey’s latest animated series, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Characters
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is an animated television series that premiered on May 5, 2006 at Disney Channel. Originally, it was shown as a part of Playhouse Disney, but later on was moved to the Disney Junior time block. The main audience of this cartoon is preschoolers.
In this cartoon series, a lot of Mickey’s popular friends were cast as characters. Here is a list of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse characters.
Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse
Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse
As previously mentioned, Mickey’s love interest, Minnie Mouse, has always been part of his story. Minerva Mouse, nicknamed Minnie, was also created by Iwerks in 1928 just like Mickey. She also appeared in Plane Crazy, where Mickey invited her to join him in the first flight of his aircraft.
In Mickey’s debut short, Steamboat Willie, the rivalry between Mickey and Pete for the heart of Minnie was established. Pete was depicted as the steamboat’s captain, Mickey was the only crew, and Minnie was the only passenger. The two male characters vied for the attention of Minnie Mouse while music blared in the background.
Mickey and Minnie were established as a couple in June 1929 in a short film titled, Mickey’s Follies. In this film, the song, Minnie’s Yoo-Hoo was first performed. The song was basically praising Minnie with the use of animal sounds. It eventually became the couple’s theme song to all their series.
Minnie’s appearance was inspired by the “flapper” fashion era, with her short polka-dotted red dress, matching bow, white gloves, and high-heeled pumps. She was originally voiced by Walt Disney in 1928, followed by Marjorie Ralson in 1929 and Marcellite Garner from 1930 to 1938. At present, she is being voiced by Russi Taylor, Allwine’s wife, for Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
Sidekicks
Aside from appearing alongside Minnie Mouse, Mickey also forms part of the trio composed of himself, Donald Duck, and Goofy.
Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Duck is famous for two things: being Mickey’s sidekick and having an almost unintelligible speech. In fact, he has a very distinct voice, and was voiced by Clarence Nash for 50 years until his death. Donald is also ranked as one of the most popular cartoon characters of all time.
He is often characterized as a white duck with yellow feet and yellow beak, wearing a sailor outfit with a cap and a red or black bowtie. He is quite irritable, short-tempered, and partly mischievous, in contrast to Mickey’s adventurous and good-natured spirit. He can be a prankster and bully at times, although there is no malice in his pranks and he does not intend to hurt anyone. Whenever his pranks go too far, he is shown to be remorseful for his actions.
Donald’s love interest is Daisy Duck, characterized by her glamorous and sophisticated personality. But in spite of being high maintenance, Daisy is devoted to Donald. She often helps Donald get through his temper tantrums. In some cartoons, Daisy is even portrayed as Minnie Mouse’s best friend.
Donald also has three nephews—Huey, Dewey, and Louie—who are portrayed as unruly kids who often get their Uncle Donald into trouble.
Goofy
Goofy
Goofy is the clumsy and dim-witted sidekick of Mickey. He is portrayed as a tall dog wearing a turtleneck, vest, pants, shoes, white gloves, and tall hat. Even though he is sometimes shown to have a lack of common sense, Goofy still displays bouts of cleverness and intuition in his own special way.
Although Goofy started as out as part of the trio, he eventually had his own solo series, such as Goofy and Wilbur in 1939, and the How To cartoon series in the 1940s. He even starred in his solo movies together with his son Max in 1995 for A Goofy Movie, and in 2000 for An Extremely Goofy Movie.
Just like Donald and Mickey, Goofy is regarded as one of Disney’s most popular characters.
Pet Dog
Pluto
Pluto is Mickey’s pet dog. Since he is a pet, he does not display the same human-like qualities that the other characters have. Instead, he is characterized as a golden-colored dog with black ears and a green neck collar. Together with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, and Goofy, Pluto completes the “Sensational Six” cartoon characters—a term used to describe six of Disney’s biggest stars.
Supporting Characters
Other characters of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse include:
Pete the Cat – He is a huge black cat that appears as the main antagonist of Mickey. He actually debuted three years before Mickey as a bear in Alice Solves the Puzzle, making him the oldest Disney character that is still being shown until today. Even though he is primarily an antagonist, Pete has been portrayed as a friendly yet annoying character in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
Clarabelle Cow – She is one of Minnie Mouse’s best friends and is depicted in most cartoons as either the girlfriend of Horace Horsecollar or the love interest of Goofy. However, Horace does not appear in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse series.
Professor Ludwig Von Drake – He is the uncle of Donald Duck and is characterized as being an expert on many things. He has several occupations, such as a scientist, psychologist, lecturer, and traveler. He is often depicted as wearing a pink shirt, red vest, lab coat, and black tie.
Chip and Dale – These are two chipmunks that often appear as guest stars in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. They also frequently appear in other cartoons as an antagonist to either Donald Duck or Pluto.
Mickey Mouse Cartoon
A lot of Mickey Mouse cartoons have been produced since 1928. They can generally be categorized as those shown through film, and those shown on television.
Films
Mickey in Black and White
Mickey’s first films were done during the black and white era of film. These early short films have a similar premise, and that is Mickey courting Minnie, which sometimes ends up with Minnie favoring another suitor over Mickey.
In March 1929, Mickey was first seen to wear his trademark white gloves in the short film, The Opry House. Before that, viewers were having a difficult time distinguishing Mickey’s hands from his body when his hands appeared against his body. The addition of the gloves paved the way for other characters to follow suit, hence the trademark costume of the Mickey and Minnie that we know today.
It was only in a 1929 film that Mickey first spoke. This was in the short film Karnival Kid, where he was depicted as a storeowner trying to sell hotdogs at the carnival. Hence, his first words were, “Hotdogs! Hotdogs!”
As previously mentioned, the June 1929 short film titled Mickey’s Follies introduced Mickey and Minnie as a couple with the debut of the song, Minnie’s Yoo-Hoo. That song became the theme song of succeeding Mickey Mouse shorts in the years to come.
Pluto was added to the Mickey Mouse films in 1931, when he first appeared as Mickey’s pet in The Moose Hunt. However, a year before, Pluto already appeared as Minnie’s dog named Rover in The Picnic short film. As for Donald Duck, he appeared alongside Mickey in Orphan’s Benefit, released in August 1934. This started the Mickey and Donald tandem, which would delight viewers in the years to come.
Mickey’s first official color film was released in 1935 with The Band Concert. This propelled Mickey’s popularity to greater heights, as this particular cartoon was hailed as one of the greatest cartoons of all time. It was also around the second half of the 1930s that Mickey was redesigned and Goofy was introduced as a series regular, joining Mickey and Donald in their adventures.
Mickey’s first feature length film was 1940’s Fantasia, in which he played a sorcerer’s apprentice and was depicted wearing a blue sorcerer’s hat and red robe. In 1953, the Mickey Mouse short film series concluded with The Simple Things. Mickey would then return to film 30 years later with Mickey’s Christmas Carol, a Mickey Mouse Christmas adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol.
Television
The 1950s saw Mickey appear on television, as many of his cartoon shorts were released on TV. Perhaps the most popular television series during the 1950s was The Mickey Mouse Club, which ran on TV intermittently from 1955 to 1996.
Bobby Burgess
Tony Lucca
Nikki DeLoach
Aside from The Mickey Mouse Club, other television series featuring Mickey include Mickey Mouse Works, Disney’s House of Mouse, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, which features the Mickey Mouse Hotdog song and dance.
There have also been numerous parodies of Mickey through the years, such as the one made by Mad Magazine titled Mickey Rodent, Bart Simpson’s mimicking of Mickey in The Simpsons Movie, and the South Park Mickey Mouse in which Mickey was depicted as the greedy and sadistic boss of the Walt Disney Company.
Mickey Mouse and Friends
Mickey Mouse and Friends
Aside from appearing on film and in television, Mickey also had his own comic book series titled Mickey Mouse and Friends. It all started with Dell Publishing creating Four Color one-shot magazines in 1941, and then progressing to a regular series simply titled Mickey Mouse in December 1952. Dell Publishing’s series lasted until September 1962.
The series was picked up by Gold key Comics until 1980, and then by Whitman from 1980 to 1984. Gladstone Publishing developed the succeeding comic books from 1986 to 1990. From 1990 to 1991, Disney Comics created the short-lived comic book series titled, Mickey Mouse Adventures.
After a long hiatus, Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Friends was adapted as the title of the comic book series when Gemstone Publishing took over production in 2003 up to 2006. Finally, BOOM! Studios reduced the title to Mickey Mouse and Friends from 2009 until the last issue in October 2011.
h2>Mickey Mouse in Other Media
Due to Mickey’s popularity, he had been licensed by Disney to appear in countless types of merchandise, from plush toys to lunch boxes for kids. There have been many different depictions of Mickey in these merchandise, starting from the popular original Mickey Mouse design down to the baby Mickey portrayal for kids’ merchandise.
Baby Mickey Mouse
Baby Mickey Mouse
Many baby Mickey toys and products are being sold for infants and toddlers. These include baby clothes, sandals, plush toys, costumes, cribs, party supplies, toy cars, and even potty chairs.
Aside from baby Mickey, other depictions of Mickey that became popular include Dance Star Mickey and Rock Star Mickey, which have been created by Fisher-Price’s line of talking Mickey Mouse dolls.
Mickey Video Games
Just like any other popular cartoon character, Mickey did not escape the video game genre, as he has been featured in many different games and gaming devices. For instance, Nintendo produced video games like Mickey Mousecapade, Disney’s Magical Quest, Mickey’s Ultimate Challenge, and Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse. Game Boy has also produced Mickey Mouse: Magic Wands! and Disney’s Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse.
Aside from all these video game titles, other Disney games also feature Donald Duck and the Disney princesses.
Mickey Mouse Quotes
Here are some of the most famous quotes of Mickey, including one from his creator, Walt Disney:
“Now I want to remind everybody of the House of Mouse rules: No smoking. No villainous schemes. And no guests eating other guests.” – from The House of Mouse TV series
“Well, everybody, that’s our show. Thank you for spending Christmas Eve at the House of Mouse. Here’s wishing everybody a Merry Christmas and a safe trip ho-home!” – from Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse
“No, no! I won’t sell him to you, he’s my pal!” – from Mickey’s Good Deed, referring to Pluto
“Oh, Minnie. You’re all the music I’ll ever need.” – from Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas
“Girls bored me, they still do. I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I’ve ever known.” – Walt Disney
The Walt Disney Company continues to introduce newer characters with its films and television series. However, Mickey Mouse will remain to be the famous animation company’s symbol, as he propelled the company to unimaginable heights during a time when Disney was down in the dumps and everything was seemingly lost and obscure.
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According to Old West Legend (and a Bob Dylan song), who shot Billy the Kid? | Mickey Mouse | Disney Fan Fiction Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
― Walt Disney [src]
Mickey Mouse is an animated anthropomorphic mouse created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in the year 1928 . Arguably by far its most famous character, Mickey serves as the mascot for The Walt Disney Company and the leader of The Sensational Six .
Fancifully estimated as standing 2 ft. 3 in. (69 cm) and weighing 23 pounds (10 kg), Mickey rapidly rose to the pinnacle of American culture, being more widely recognized overseas than any other American icon but the U.S. flag. For over 80 years, he has signified The Walt Disney Company , animation, goodwill, fun, laughter and most of all Walt Disney himself. It was said by Lillian Disney, his wife, that over the years, Mickey and Walt grew together and were mirrors of each other's personality. They both started off mischievous and cheeky, but as they grew older preferred to step out of the spotlight and observe others work their magic. President Jimmy Carter once said; "Mickey Mouse is the symbol of goodwill, surpassing all languages and cultures. When one sees Mickey Mouse, they see happiness". Mickey also shares the same birthday with Minnie Mouse , his girlfriend.
Mickey's 3-circle silhouette serves as the logo for most of Disney's subsidiaries, save for the ones that don't carry the 'Disney' or 'Walt Disney' label. Andy Warhol's portrait The Art of Mickey Mouse used Warhol's famous pop art techniques on the classic mouse. Mickey is often cited as the world's most famous cartoon character of all time.
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Personality
Mickey is easily recognized by his red shorts with white (sometimes yellow or golden) buttons on it, white gloves and large yellow shoes as well as his round mouse ears. He often gets himself into trouble as a result of his mischief and the fact that he can be forgetful and extremely imaginative.
Mickey sometimes chooses fun and adventure over working, a trait disliked by Minnie Mouse. While usually always having the better amount of luck, when teamed with his pals Donald and Goofy , he and his friends often end their day in failure and all three are the faults. Even so, Mickey has, on many occasions, proven to be the most reliable of the three being that, he has far better control over his temper than Donald, and more common sense than Goofy.
Mickey stands as a father figure for Pluto and has grounded him on many occasions as if he is a young boy. He also counts Pluto as his best pal and usually puts him before nearly everything else. Mickey describes himself as a good sport but on occasion has lost his temper on both enemies and friends. He is usually dumbstruck by the mere sight of Minnie Mouse giving her many titles such as "his best girl" and constantly goes out of his way to impress her. Mickey loves her with all his heart and Minnie loves him in return. From experience, Mickey believes there is at least a small dose of kindness in everyone's heart, resulting in him being quite forgiving. He is also understanding and sympathetic.
Mickey is very brave. Many cartoons begin with Mickey and Minnie enjoying each other's company until a villain (usually his nemesis Pete ) kidnaps her and the takes her away, resulting to Mickey battling the villain and proclaiming his love. Mickey can be competitive and never backs down even when his opponent is twice his size. In many situations, Mickey has shown to be a trickster and enjoys pranking his enemies to get the better of them. Despite being very heroic, Mickey prefers to lay back and relax. He is optimistic and hardworking during harsh times and often encourages his friends to keep going, but on rare events has given up hope and even doubted himself. Its times like these when Mickey's friends, such as Donald and Goofy are optimistic and encourage him in return. Mickey is incredibly noble and generally puts the people he loves in front of his own well being. He has even been able to set aside differences with his foes when necessary.
In spite of being an anthropomorphic mouse, Mickey has the tendencies to act with his animal nature including the fact that, being a mouse, he loves cheese. In the television series House of Mouse , Mickey being a mouse is made fun of when he is shown to exercise on a hamster wheel and drink from a rodent drinking bottle (like the ones found in a hamster cage). These particular facts seem to only exist in the House of Mouse .
Creation and debut
Mickey through the years.
Mickey was originally created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit , an earlier star created by the Disney studio. Oswald had been created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Charles Mintz of Universal Studios. In fact, Mickey closely resembled Oswald in his early appearances. However, Disney received an unpleasant lesson when he asked Mintz for a larger budget for his popular Oswald series: in reply, Mintz fired Disney and Iwerks and taken all of Disney's artists to draw Oswald, to which Mintz and Universal owned the rights. From that point on, Disney made sure that he owned all rights to the characters produced by his company. Oswald would eventually return to the Disney fold in 2006 as part of a trade between NBC Universal and Disney, with NBC getting the contract of sports announcer Al Michaels as compensation.
In order for Walt and his older brother and business partner Roy to keep their company active, new characters had to be created to star in their subsequent animated shorts. One day, during a train ride, Walt desperately wanted to come up with a money-making character to replace the one he lost, Oswald, whom he loved dearly. He had visions of a mouse in the back of his head (he had previously made silent cartoon shorts with animated mice). He wanted to name his new creation Mortimer Mouse , but his wife Lillian Marie Bounds thought the name was too pretentious, so she suggested he change it to Mickey Mouse which he did. The name Mortimer would later be used for a character in a Mickey cartoon, that oddly enough, became a new rival for Mickey. It has been suggested that Walt Disney was influenced by an actual mouse that he almost tamed by feeding it crumbs on his desk at the Laugh-O-Gram Studio .
Mickey and Minnie Mouse (Mickey's flapper girlfriend) debuted in the cartoon short Plane Crazy , first released on May 15, 1928 . The short was co-directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Iwerks was also the main animator for this short, and reportedly spent six weeks working on it. Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were credited for assisting him; these two had already signed their contracts with Charles Mintz, but he was still in the process of forming his new studio and so for the time being they were still employed by Disney. This short would be the last they animated under this somewhat awkward situation.
Mickey in his first appearance, Steamboat Willie in 1928
The plot of Plane Crazy was fairly simple. Mickey is apparently trying to become an aviator in emulation of Charles Lindbergh. After building his own aircraft, he proceeds to ask Minnie to join him for its first flight, during which he repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempts to kiss her, eventually resorting to force. Minnie then parachutes out of the plane. While distracted by her, Mickey loses control of the plane. This becomes the beginning of an out-of-control flight that results in a series of humorous situations and eventually in the crash-landing of the aircraft. A non-anthropomorphic cow that briefly becomes a passenger in the aircraft is believed to be Caroline Cow making her debut.
Plane Crazy apparently failed to impress audiences, and to add insult to injury, Walt could not find a distributor. Though understandably disappointed, Walt went on to produce a second Mickey short: The Gallopin' Gaucho . It would not be until Mickey's third, probably most famous, and first sound cartoon Steamboat Willie , that Mickey began to gain the popularity that he has today. The short's original release date - November 18, 1928 - was later declared to be Mickey's official birthday in the early 1970s.
Mouse in Transition
Mickey Mouse entering Depression Era
The twelfth and last Mickey short released during the year was Jungle Rhythm , first released on November 15, 1929. Mickey is seen in a safari somewhere in Africa. He rides on an elephant and is armed with a shotgun. But the later proves to be problematic soon after Mickey finds himself standing in between of a lion and a bear. Mickey proceeds to play music to calm them down. During the rest of the short, various jungle animals dance to Mickey's tunes. The tunes vary from the previously mentioned "Yankee Doodle" and "Turkey in the Straw" to Robert Burns' "Auld Lang Syne" (1788), Johann Strauss' "The Blue Danube" (An der schönen, blauen Donau - 1867) and Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii's Aloha `Oe - 1878. This was the first Mickey short to be released during the Great Depression. Mickey's efforts as an entertainer to the jungle can be seen as representative of a function often credited to him. To provide relatively cheap but much needed entertainment to the audiences of the period of Jimmy Durante .
Mickey's World of Color
Main article: Sorcerer Mickey
Mickey's most famous role (alongside Steamboat Willie) is in the 1940 film Fantasia. In the film Mickey appears in a segment called The Sorcerer's Apprentice .
In the film's sequel, Fantasia 2000 , Mickey starred in the same short, as well as a brief live-action/animation scene with James Levine to introduce Donald and Daisy's segment, Pomp and Circumstance.
Canceled Anchors Aweigh appearance
In 1945, the producers of the MGM musical Anchors Aweigh wanted Mickey to do a dance number with Gene Kelly and for Walt Disney to animate it. There were several theories why it never happened:
Walt was willing to accept this offer but his brother Roy declined saying that they were in debt after World War II.
Walt declined the offer.
Walt and Roy agreed with the offer but MGM received a counter offer from Will Hanna and Joe Barbera to use Jerry Mouse instead since Hanna and Barbera were still working at MGM studios at the time.
Regardless of which theory was correct, the role and dance number ended up going to Jerry Mouse of Tom & Jerry fame and was animated by Will Hanna and Joe Barbera, who were still making Tom & Jerry cartoons at the time.
A Goofy Movie
Mickey made a cameo appearance hitchhiking with Donald Duck during the song On the Open Road. A Mickey Mouse phone was also seen in Max's room in the film's opening. At the end of the film, Mickey was seen in the crowd at the Power Line concert.
Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas
Mickey in Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas.
In this film, Mickey is lacking in money, preventing him from easily purchasing a chain for Minnie's watch as a Christmas gift. To gain money faster, he and Pluto work extra hard at their job at "Crazy Pete's Tree Lot". However, after ruining Pete's scheme to sell an overpriced tree to a struggling family, Mickey's tip money is stolen by Pete, and the mouse is fired.
With no money, Mickey and Pluto think of a way to make more money, whilst Mickey plays his beloved harmonica. The beauty of Mickey's harmonica playing catches the attention of the Chief of Police who is having a toy drive. However, the band for the drive was unable to perform at the time. The Chief asks Mickey to play at the drive, but Mickey tries to explain that he has no time. Upon seeing the sad face of a child who donates a toy, Mickey decides to play.
Even after his stellar performance, Mickey still has no way to get Minnie her gift. Before Mickey departs, the Chief congratulates Mickey on his performance and tells him that he and his harmonica are something special. This gives Mickey the idea to trade in his harmonica for Minnie's chain. The store owner doesn't accept the offer however, until he hears Mickey's harmonica playing. Feeling sympathy for the mouse, the store owner goes through with the trade.
At Minnie's, the couple exchanges gift and it turns out that Minnie traded her watch for a case for Mickey's harmonica. The couple then realize that each other are all the gifts they'll ever need. In the finale, Mickey and Minnie join the other characters for Christmas carols.
Bonkers
Mickey was given a guest spot on Bonkers in "I Oughta be in Toons". Mickey was kidnapped and was rescued by Bonkers and Lucky Piquel . Throughout the episode, Mickey was never actually seen (except as a silhouette in the first scene of the episode) and only referred to as "The Mouse".
Mickey in Mickey Mouse Works .
Mickey was the star of the series similar to his classic cartoons. Mickey usually got into problems out of his own mischievous attitude. Mickey had his own 90-second cartoon segments entitled "Mickey to the Rescue" in which he would break into Pete's trap-laden hideout to rescue Minnie.
In some episodes, Mickey would be involved in the Ajax business with Donald and Goofy having various jobs often ending in complete failure while in other cartoons might involve him in trying to impress Minnie by going over the top and modern. Some episodes involved Mickey competing with his much hated rival Mortimer Mouse.
Mickey was shown to be a trickster in the show, in such shorts as Mickey's Mountain and Mickey's Cabin, usually having Mickey outwit his nemesis Pete as they battle each other. Mickey was able to trick the dim-witted Pete on many occasions.
Mickey as the host of House of Mouse .
Mickey is the owner of the popular night club in downtown Main Street. Mickey strives to keep the club profitable to keep safe from the landlord, Pete, while making sure himself is entertaining. Like his previous series, Mickey is mischievous and often gets the club in hot water because of that, such as in the episode " Rent Day ", where he spent the club's rent on a large order of cheese.
In Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse , Mickey and the guests are trapped inside the club on Christmas Eve. Mickey suggests they throw a Christmas party at the club. While the guests enjoy themselves by watching cartoons and socializing, Mickey and the employees try to get Donald into the Christmas spirit. With the guidance of Jiminy Cricket , Mickey is able to shed light on Donald, making it a merry Christmas for everyone.
In Mickey's House of Villains , Mickey tries to give his guests a good-spirited spooky Halloween. However, things take a turn for the worse when Jafar rallies the villains together at midnight and kicks him out along with the rest of the staff (trapping non-evil guests in the kitchen) and rename the club the "House of Villains". Mickey tries reasoning with Jafar to get the club back to normal, but to no avail. This forces Mickey to sneak backstage and don his sorcerer robes and hat from his time as Yen Sid 's apprentice and take Jafar on in a magical duel. However, he soon loses his hat and becomes disadvantaged as the villains gang up on him, but Aladdin provides a lamp to imprison Jafar, scaring the other villains away and returning the House to normal.
Mickey as he appears in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse .
Mickey is the host of the CG animated series in which he uses brains and teamwork to solve problems. Mickey is the leader of the clubhouse gang and often going on various adventures to help and/or save his friends.
Mickey was voiced by official voice actor Wayne Allwine for the first three seasons until his death. The role was then taken over by Bret Iwan . However, Allwine's Mickey voice was a tad bit too low at some point. Iwan's Mickey voice is staying in the lighter high range close to how Allwine would used to normally perform it.
In the show, Mickey and the clubhouse gang solve various problems using the viewers help. Aside from leaving on adventures and solving puzzles, Mickey and his friends also go through other problems such as stopping Goofy's Goofbot and Mickey and Pluto spending the day trying to return to solid grown after being trapped in a bubble. Mickey is also the host of the spin-off television series: Mickey Mousekersize . In these shorts, Mickey, accompanied by Toodles , help his friends stay in shape by using exercises to solve their daily problems.
Mickey Mouse
Mickey and his friends are set to star in an upcoming animated series that is set to premiere on Disney Channel. In the series, Mickey and the gang will partake in a series of new adventures around the world such as Paris, New York, and many more.
Later popularity
On November 18 , 1978 , in honor of his 50th anniversary, he became the first cartoon character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The star is located on 6925 Hollywood Blvd.
Only four people have regularly provided the voice for Mickey (not including theme park attractions and parades in the 1970s and 1980's). His first three official voice actors were Walt Disney (regularly from 1928 to 1947, occasionally from 1947 to 1966), James MacDonald (from 1947 to 1977) and Wayne Allwine (from 1977 until his death in 2009). After Allwine's passing, Hallmark greeting card illustrator Bret Iwan was chosen to be the new voice of Mickey, starting with a Mickey toy.
Mickey battles Julius in Runaway Brain .
Mickey's most recent theatrical cartoon was 1995 's short Runaway Brain , a short focusing on Mickey's brain and body being switched with that of a monster, who falls in love with Minnie, named Julius .
Mickey Mouse has received nine nominations for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. These are Mickey's Orphans (1931), Building a Building (1933), Brave Little Tailor (1938), The Pointer (1939), Lend a Paw (1941), Squatter's Rights (1946), Mickey and the Seal (1948), Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983), and Runaway Brain (1995). Among these, Lend a Paw was the only film to actually win the award. Additionally, in 1932, Walt Disney received an honorary Academy Award in recognition of Mickey's creation and popularity.
In 1994 , four of Mickey's cartoons were included in the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, which listed the greatest cartoons of all time as voted by members of the animation field. The films were The Band Concert (#3), Steamboat Willie (#13), Brave Little Tailor (#26), and Clock Cleaners (#27).
Mickey served as the Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day 2005, as part of the kickoff of the "Happiest Homecoming on Earth", celebrating Disneyland's 50th Anniversary. In 2009, Mickey has reappeared in balloon form in the famous Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade , dressed as the captain of the Disney Cruise Line. That same year, Disney Channel premiered a short-series known as Have a Laugh! which is a collection of remastered shorts starring Mickey and friends.
In 2010, three dozen Mickey statues were used to promote the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which was played in Anaheim, California, adorned with insignias of the teams.
In 2011 , Mickey and Minnie were given the honors as Grand Marshals of the 20th Annual Festival of Lights Parade in Chicago. Mickey would also be featured in the short series A Poem Is... on Disney Junior . In 2012, Mickey and the gang starred in the animated short, Electric Holiday .Mickey will star in 19 cartoon shorts staring June 28 2013
Disney Parks
Mickey poses for a photo at Hong Kong Disneyland.
Since Disneyland first opened in 1955, Mickey and the gang have been an important part of the Disney theme park experience. Today, they can be seen everyday in shows, parades, and meet-and-greet opportunities at all 11 Disney theme parks worldwide. Mickey is the most requested character in the parks. Classic cartoons staring the beloved characters are also screened in the Main Street Cinema at Disneyland and the Town Square Exposition Hall at Walt Disney World 's Magic Kingdom . Back in Disneyland's old Adventure Thru Inner Space , most of the molecules were shaped around Mickey heads.
Disneyland
In Disneyland Park, Mickey can often be found in Mickey's Toontown in the Movie Barn. For entertainment, Mickey is seen in nearly all parades and every showing including Mickey's Soundsational Parade and the popular Fantasmic! Mickey can often be found with the Disneyland Band. Over at Disney California Adventure , Mickey is found at Paradise Pier for meet-and-greets, and was also included on some billboards with characters like Goofy , Donald Duck , Oswald the Lucky Rabbit , Horace Horsecollar , and more . Mickey, in his sorcerer outfit, can be seen at the end of World of Color .
Walt Disney World
At the Magic Kingdom, Mickey is found in Main Street, U.S.A. with Minnie inside the Town Square Theater. Mickey is sometimes found in Fantasyland. For entertainment, Mickey can be seen in Mickey's PhilharMagic , Dream Along with Mickey , Celebrate A Dreams Come True Parade , Main Street Electrical Parade and far more. Over at Disney's Hollywood Studios , Mickey has the starring role in Fantasmic! . Mickey also makes a cameo in Muppet*Vision 3D . In Animal Kingdom , Mickey and friends can be found in Camp Minnie Mickey for meet-and-greets as well as being featured in Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Parade. Mickey also appears at Disney's Contemporary Resort in the Chef Mickey's restaurant for breakfast meet-and-greets. Mickey has two spell cards in the attraction Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom known as "Apprentice Mickey's Broomsticks" and "Mickey's Magic Beans".
Disney Cruise Line
Mickey is apart of the Oceaneer Lab with the younger children on board and for shows, Mickey is found in " The Golden Mickeys " and "Believe". On the Disney Fantasy, Mickey is the leader of a detective agency in " Midship Detective Agency ". Mickey, along with Donald and Goofy, teams up with different Disney characters to help solve a case. On the Disney Magic cruise, Mickey can be seen flying Minnie around in The Toon Plane in the Magical Porthole. Mickey also joins on on the Sail Away Parties when the ships sail from their ports.
In video games
Main article: Mickey Mouse in video games
Mickey with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in promotional artwork for Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two.
Mickey has starred in many video games, including Mickey Mousecapade on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse and the Magical Quest trilogy on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse on the Sega Genesis, and many others. Mickey made his sixth generation era debut in Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse , a Nintendo GameCube title aimed at younger audiences. A costume of Mickey is playable in the video game Disney Universe , released in 2011 . In Kinect Disneyland Adventures , Mickey is one of the many characters available for meet-and-greets and gives several tasks to the player(s).
The first game in Epic Mickey series , featuring a darker version of the Disney universe, was released in 2010 for the Wii. It centers around Mickey's adventures in Wasteland , a world where forgotten and rejected Disney elements reside, including the character and Mickey's half-brother Oswald the Lucky Rabbit . The sequel, Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two , was released in 2012.
Kingdom Hearts series
Mickey also plays a major recurring role in the Kingdom Hearts video game series , known as King Mickey. In the series, he is the king of Disney Castle , and he sets off to battle the forces of Darkness . He is an incredibly powerful character in the Kingdom Hearts universe , as shown when he defeated three Darkside Heartless in a single blow whilst inside the Realm of Darkness . First studying under Yen Sid , Mickey is possibly the inventor of Gummi Ships . He is the first to realize the threat of darkness spreading between worlds, and one of the characters most strongly affiliated with light, including Sora .
Kingdom Keepers
Mickey hasn't made yet an appereance on the Kingdom Keepers books, but it's known he is the leader of the Disney characters and is mentioned by Minnie and Ariel in the fourth book. Here, they say Mickey disappeared since an event called the night, when strange noises and some kind of struggle were heard from his house at Mickey's ToonTown Fair (this is the "reason" why they closed the land). They also say, there's the possibility that he is in hiding, but the most possible thing is that he has been taken by The Overtakers .
Relationships with other characters
Main article: Mickey Mouse's Relationships
Catchphrases
Mickey, like Donald and Goofy has many catchphrases. Some of Mickey's most famous catchphrases are: Oh boy!, Hi folks!, Hey Everybody, See ya Real Soon and Hot Dog. Some of his other well known catchphrases are Golly and Oh my gosh!. His trademark laugh is among one of his catchphrases.
Filmography
Main article: Mickey Mouse's Filmography
Trivia
Mickey's full name was said to be Michael Mouse in the cartoon Symphony Hour and again in House of Mouse .
Mickey Mouse was listed #50 in Empire Magazine's The 50 Best Animated Movie Characters; a list for characters from animated features. The low listing was due to Mickey's lack of critically acclaimed theatrical feature films with the exception of Fantasia. However, the list refers to Mickey as "the world's most famous cartoon character of all time" to make up.
Many variations of Mickey's silhouette logo have been made, see: List of Mickey Mouse Head Formed by Circles, these are called hidden mickeys.
According to Walt Disney, Mickey and Minnie Mouse have never been married on screen. But, in 1933, during an interview with Film Pictorial, Walt said, “In private life, Mickey is married to Minnie... What it really amounts to is that Minnie is, for screen purposes, his leading lady.”
Mickey was used along with Minnie in a 1930 Aesop's Fables cartoon called "The Office Boy" after Walt Disney admitted influence from this cartoon series which had been around even before Mickey was even created. But Walt sued its creator Paul Terry for "plagiarizing" his character which lead to Aesop's Fables ending in 1933.
Wayne Allwine's final performance of Mickey Mouse before his death was in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. Because of this, there is a dedication to him in the credits of the English version of the game.
Steamboat Willie 's Mickey makes a cameo appearance as a transformation of Genie 's in Aladdin and the King of Thieves.
Although Mickey is usually shown to have magic powers with the Sorcerer Hat of Yen Sid , it is shown that Mickey can control magic without aid.
Mickey's first-ever spoken line was "Hot Dogs!" in The Karnival Kid (1929). This is a very similar line to one of his catchphrases, "Hot dog!"
In the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Mickey is often referred to by the Cast Members as the boss or Mr. Mouse.
In the 2011 Disney / Pixar film Cars 2 , two characters named Mama Topolino and Uncle Topolino are tributes to Mickey, as Topolino (meaning "little mouse") is Mickey's name in Italian.
In 1933, Mickey Mouse received 800,000 pieces of fan mail.
In Aladdin , Rajah's face turned into Mickey's for a split second when he transformed from a kitten to a tiger again.
In 101 Dalmatians: The Series , Mickey makes numerous appearances. When the Pups are riding on top of a Subway Train in the first episode; "Home is Where the Bark Is", Mickey's silhouette can be seen as one of the passengers. In "Roll Out the Pork Barrell"; Rolly has a stuffed animal of Mickey Mouse. And in "On The Lamb", One of the Trees in the Gruteley Nursery is in the shape of a Mickey Mouse Head.
In the anime series Stitch! , Hidden Mickeys are a common running gag being seen in many episodes.
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According to E. L. James, how many shades of grey are there? | E.L. James announces new book ‘Grey,’ told from Christian Grey’s point of view – EW.com
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Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James announced Monday that she will publish a new version of her bestselling novel from S&M-happy billionaire Christian Grey’s point of view. Fans won’t have long to wait for Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian—the book comes out on June 18, the character’s birthday.
According to a press release, the opening page of Grey reads: “This book is dedicated to those readers who asked… and asked… and asked… and asked for this.”
“Christian is a complex character,” James said, “and readers have always been fascinated by his desires and motivations, and his troubled past. Also, as anyone who has ever been in a relationship knows, there are two sides to every story. It’s been a great pleasure to return to my happy place—writing, being with Christian and Ana in their universe, and working with the fantastic team at Vintage.”
The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy has sold over 125 million copies, making it one of the most successful publications in history.
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In Greek mythology, who was condemned to the eternal task of rolling a large stone up to the top of a hill each day, only to have it roll down again each night? | E L James' Grey Hits Stores, Twitter Wildly Reacts to Raunchiest Lines - Us Weekly
By Madeline Boardman
The new book Grey is told from Christian Grey's standpoint Credit: Universal Pictures
Upping the ante! E L James released her latest book on Thursday, June 18, debuting a Fifty Shades of Grey novel told from male lead Christian Grey's standpoint, titled simply, Grey.
Fans and readers whipped through the erotic fiction in the early hours of Thursday morning, creating instant buzz about the BDSM story. Early takes on Grey mark the book as even raunchier and more boundary-pushing than the predecessors Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed.
PHOTOS: 50 Shades of Grey Movie: The Sexiest Stills and Photos of the Cast
James, 52, chose the June 18 release date in honor of her character Christian's birthday, and appeared on the Today show in recognition of her latest effort's debut.
"Christian is a fantasy figure and how we think we'd like men to be, but we just want someone to do the washing up, really," she said of her leading man, whose tale of lust with female lead Anastasia Steele made her a millionaire many times over and gave her the opportunity to nab lucrative book deals. "I'm halfway through something else, which has nothing to do with this, which I may or may not finish. It's sort of a love story. It's really good fun, it's set in England."
Author E.L. James' Grey hits stores Danny Martindale/WireImage.com
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Asked by Today's Erica Hill if Grey is, in fact, "naughtier" than the Fifty Shades trilogy, James hesitated, finally answering, "I dunno! It's difficult to... It was interesting to write from a man's point of view. You'll have to be the judges of that!"
And judge readers did, taking to Twitter on Thursday to weigh in on Grey and its most out-there passages. Tweeting with the hashtag of #Grey , fans and critics alike shared the raunchiest quotes and their reactions to the book. Check out the very NSFW tweets below!
— Bryony Gordon (@bryony_gordon) June 18, 2015
"He suddenly awoke, and thought to himself: I want to insert my P into her V." - #Grey
— Emma Gannon (@girllostincity) June 18, 2015
This book is the worst. I'm so sorry. #Grey pic.twitter.com/KiQ3qFJ7Sg
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) June 18, 2015
Caught glimpses of #Grey ...I can't...I just can't. Whoever gave the go ahead to publish that ****, shame on you. #SoBad #Cringe
— Aoife Lawlor (@Aoife_Lawlor) June 18, 2015
So turns out #Grey is a tad judgy: "His handshake is limp, like his hair." #GreyDay
— kassia st clair (@kassiastclair) June 18, 2015
There's only so much chaining and spanking and flogging a girl can take before 10.30 am #grey
— Bryony Gordon (@bryony_gordon) June 18, 2015
#grey "I like my women in skirts. I like them accessible." Those are words. in the book.
— Sarah Wendell (@SmartBitches) June 18, 2015
'Suddenly her pelvis flexes...' CALL 911. This is either childbirth, advanced tetanus, or rickets. #Grey
| i don't know |
Which hypocritical, ignorant Sarah Palin spawn recently shot their mouth off, claiming "We know that in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home."? | Sarah Palin Just Yelled ‘Hoohah!’ And Now Our Week Is Complete
we think that word means something different ...
Sarah Palin Just Yelled ‘Hoohah!’ And Now Our Week Is Complete
By
HOOHAH!
HOOHAH!
So what’s gotten Sarah Palin all splodey sploding “HOOHAH!” everywhere? Oh, just this article about Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of Defense, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, that lists some typical shouty man Marine quotes from the man. They make Palin ‘scited enough to say “HOOHAH!”, you know, like Marines always say. HOOHAH!
Here’s one of those quotes:
“When you men get home and face an anti-war protester, look at him in the eyes and shake his hand. Then, wink at his girlfriend because she knows she’s dating a p****” (Ed. — the word with the asterisks is “pussy,” which is the thing Donald Trump grabs, probably while he says “HOOHAH!”)
Marines are always such Marines about everything.
Beverly Hills surgeon explains at home fix for crepey skin around the arms, legs, and stomach.
Here’s another quote:
“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.”
The guy is definitely quotable! HOOHAH!
This is a good time to note that Marines do not say “HOOHAH!” actually. They say “OOH RAH!” In the Army, they say “HOOAH!” There is no branch of the American armed forces that yells vaginal euphemisms as a battle cry, and when Hillary Clinton told those Navy SEALs to kill Bin Laden, not even one of them yelled “WIZARD SLEEVE!” or “FUN TUNNEL!” (OR DID THEY?)
But Sarah Palin does, we guess.
While we’re quoting Mattis, who, yes, says fighty shit like that (but not “HOOHAH!”), we should note that he’s also said a few things in his time Trump and his idiot supporters would do well to listen to. Like how about this?
“You cannot allow any of your people to avoid the brutal facts. If they start living in a dream world, it’s going to be bad.”
Hear that, fuckers? You LOST the popular vote, like really fucking bad, three million illegals did NOT vote in California, and the majority of Americans think you’re a bunch of embarrassing morons. You cannot avoid those brutal facts.
“A country that armed Stalin to defeat Hitler can certainly work alongside enemies of Al Qaeda to defeat Al Qaeda.”
Guess it’s a bit more complicated than BOMB THE SHIT OUT OF ‘EM, Donald!
“The most important 6 inches on the battlefield is between your ears.”
HAHAHAHAHA, we like that one. Trump would do well to note that he shouldn’t be intimidated by talk of “6 inches,” and also that it happens to all guys, honest.
Anyway, everybody have a great weekend, and remember to be like Sarah Palin and yell “HOOHAH!” at stuff, because that’s normal.
His real name was Marion Morrison.
data_ninja
I’ve also heard it as “My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment”.
Also: NAVY – Never Again Volunteer Yourself
nastymagyar
“HUBBA” has always worked for me.
Moebym of the Rebel Alliance
Vomit.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bbdf0d716199cf066a01f5c5afe5ab569ae7a9790bfef100e47d3635f0b6820f.gif
elviouslyqueer
Y’all calm down. That’s just the name she came up with for Bristol’s newest spawn. #facts
Spotts1701, Resistance Pilot
So earlier this week Trump took a whiz on India-Pakistan relations. So what does he do for an encore? Decides “Hey, why don’t I talk to the guys in Taiwan even though no President or President-elect has done that since we cut ties in 1979?”
I’m sure the Chinese are just thrilled.
data_ninja
They will come up with another one for Trump.
willi0000000
it’s always nice to get the program guide in time to make popcorn.
WWIII will apparently be US, Russia and Pakistan v.s. China and India.
[ just put the bag of unpopped on the windowsill . . . there will be a bright flash and it will all be popped ]
TheoLib
Better late than never to upvote? I got a good chuckle out of your comment!
WiscoJoe
Tonight on Fox News: The Marines have always said “Hoohah.” Here’s a clip from “Scent of a Woman” that proves it. Also, why do liberals have to take things so literally?
tehbaddr
“WIZARD SLEEVE!” Now there’s a euphemism I’ve never heard before!
therblig
Nope. Just happy to see you.
snark-lurker
iz A UFOmizzum for “uncut”(?)
tehbaddr
For Va-jay-jay given the diction of the article.
mrFawkes
Hoohah
Shoto
I thought “HOOHAH!” was the term Governor Grifterella used to educate Brisket about Teh Sexx. “You let the man wiggle his wing-want inside of your HOOHAH! and a babby pops out of your butt nine months later, just the way Jeezuz planned it.”
Blacktop Cadence
Lies. We all know Palins reproduce by budding off from Sarah like an Oxy and meth fueled gremlin.
goonemeritus
HOOA or ” Head Out Of Ass ” seems to be an appropriate personal mantra for Sarah. Who knows if she repeats it to herself enough one day she may get there.
data_ninja
Sarah Palin probably thinks that Semper Fidelis is a brand of foreign car.
Blacktop Cadence
I honestly just prefer “coot-coot and poop chute.” That you Kate McKinnon for introducing me to that wonderful saying for being bare ass nakey.
tehbaddr
The Man From H.O.O.H.A.H.
Tio_Doidinho
Aren’t those nether regions more commonly referred to as a “hoohoo”? Granted my direct experience with hoohoos isn’t that much; still.
Bill Slider
You have been hiding. Hope you are OK.
Tio_Doidinho
Hi there….not as much hiding as processing our new reality. Roughly in the same emotional space as every other lefty in this country. Thanks for the kinds thoughts.
Daisy
I’d rather not be like Sarah Palin, so I’ll refrain from yelling out hoohah.
borninatrailer
New Heights Of Lubricity!
memzilla (Maquis Uni)
Caribou Barbie commits another malpalinism on the English language, proving again that the blades in her word salad spinner are none too sharp.
elviouslyqueer
XtremeFeministRodeoQueen MLG
I love it when white men justify
killing/hating men from other cultures because those other men treat women so badly. It’s one of my favorite hypocritical things.
YoNastyBunny
“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years…
I honestly thought they were talking about the Marines first… Not that I have anything against Marines…
shastakoala
I thought hoohah was how someone with a speech impediment said yeehaw.
gullywompr
Boy, she really got schlonged on this one.
Cogswell – User of the wheel
In the byline of the link I clicked on to get to this article, it said, and I quote, “Sarah Palin Thinks…”
Ha! Haha!!! Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Stop it!!! Just stop it!!! You’re killin’ me again, Wonkette!
Cousin Itt de La Résistance
“The most important 6 inches on the battlefield is between your ears.”
It’s the 10 between my pacifist legs that wins in the foxholes.
Bill D. Burger
Reminds me of the old joke
Why are women bad with measurements?
Cause men keep telling them six inches is a foot.
Jukesgrrl
Mattis’ nickname isn’t “Mad Dog” for no reason.
Nyumbu
It’s BOOYAH, Sarah, not HOOHAH.
Maddogjohn
I thought it was Sweet Sassy Molassy!
TJ Barke
Actually it’s oorah. For the marines.
Jamoche
Aw, Donnie, no: https://www.ft.com/content/fd19907e-b8d4-11e6-961e-a1acd97f622d
Donald Trump risks opening up a major diplomatic dispute with China before he has even been inaugurated after speaking on the phone on Friday with Tsai Ying-wen, the president of Taiwan.
The telephone call, confirmed by three people, is believed to be the first between a US president or president-elect and a leader of Taiwan since diplomatic relations between the two were cut in 1979.
Though I suppose it should say another major diplomatic dispute…
Cogswell – User of the wheel
I’m sure he just fat short fingered his cellf-important phone.
Marceline
It’s like he’s trying to hand this to Hillary.
Jamoche
He really is acting like every underperformer who’d rather be fired than quit.
Objectifer
If you quit you don’t get unemployment.
data_ninja
If a miracle occurs, he will use that phrase forever.
SayItWithWookies
Good for Donald — there’s no reason he should restrict himself to just pissing off his fellow countrymen.
mancityRed6
there is a whole wide world out there, just waiting to burn him in effigy
boyblue123
RichNRecalcitrant
“There is no land for us beyond the Vulva”
Russian soldiers during the battle of Stalingrad in 1942 were familiar with the vaginal references called forth in warfare. The famous “no land beyond the Volga” battle cry was later inscribed on a monument to the defenders of Stalingrad.
Shucky Ducky
ONCE MORE INTO THE BEEF CURTAINS!
Bill D. Burger
Sarah’s givin shout outs to whisker biscuits, huh? Ya, ya…you betcha. (*Note how i got “ya-ya” in there?)
tehbaddr
Whisker Biscuit is one of my all time faves!
Resistance Fighter MausFeet
How have I, in my 38 years, never heard that term before? Holy cats, that’s the best.
ZangoCrudmonger
It was the one I was looking for, I think I posted the Pussyriot one.
Cogswell – User of the wheel
Always happy to help to further the cause.
Cousin Itt de La Résistance
Nice time news about our military: Groups of U.S. military veterans are descending on the Standing Rock oil pipeline protest, vowing to act as “human shields” against possible clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement.
Hopefully, Ms. Itt and I can up there over winter solstice break.
Cogswell – User of the wheel
It actually made into the mainstream media after how many weeks?
Bill D. Burger
Must have been during a fallow few moments when Trump didn’t post a tweet they could spend the entire fucking day discussing.
Cogswell – User of the wheel
Probably a mental lapse as the Mental Stream Media is fickle like that.
Shan
I’ve been seeing it all over my FB feed.
Cogswell – User of the wheel
Just recently or for a while?
I don’t have FB because I just have absolutely no interest in it.
I have this opinion that FB is for drama queens who have absolutely no life, so they post everything they do to live a life vicariously through it.
I know this really doesn’t apply to everyone there, but it applies to a large number of it’s users and abusers.
Shan
Been seeing it for a while. I’ve also been using FB for some time, mainly to keep tabs on the far-flungs. And also my dad, who can’t figure out how to message me on his smrt-phone. I’ve tried to tweak it over the years to hide/prioritize certain people and things so I’m guessing whatever algorithm they use has partially figured out what I do and don’t want to see.
Except the notices for events I might want to attend that happened several days ago. They still suck at that.
C4TWOMAN
This reminds me of my old phone that would notify me of messages…a couple days to a week after they were left. Good thing no one had a life or death emergency.
Cousin Itt de La Résistance
Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC has been following it since about from the start.
C4TWOMAN
It may not have been front paged, but yeah, it’s been covered pretty consistently. Fringe sources were screaming about a MSM black out–and that’s so annoying. I wish those people would stop “helping”.
Shoto
O’Donnell is about the only thing I can even begin to watch on that infotainment channel these days.
msanthropesmr
Not even as an intellectual curiosity as far as even wondering whether it actually exists.
tehbaddr
You might be surprised at the twisted perversions that lurk in men’s minds!
C4TWOMAN
Don’t be so sexist. Lesbian and bi women can also too have perversions!
Shan
But not str8ts. Everything WE do is perfectly “natural” dontcha know!
*gak*
tehbaddr
I was just thinking that after typing it. I’m certain there’s some ladies would like to grudge rub the Sarah and do things to her.
mancityRed6
why do you think Cindy asked John to put her on the ticket?
Maddogjohn
Really? Let’s hear some!
C4TWOMAN
I’m str8 so I wouldn’t know, but I’ll see if I can IM some gay-BLT friends of mine….
Wait, here’s a reply:
“EWWWWWWWW!”
Guess that’s not a thing.
Daisy
I’d rather not know.
nastymagyar
I don’t think there’s much that hasn’t been discussed here in the Wonket non-comments
C4TWOMAN
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bb39a47566285d6f64b73186e52ebb1268a12937ee8da8c23c0a628f49e55aa0.jpg
C4TWOMAN
Dammit Wonkette! That Palin thumbnail made me jump when I reloaded the front page! I’ll be scarred for life…. and send you the therapy bills!
Shan
At least the rotten avocado pics are gone.
Bill D. Burger
“rotten avocado” is another euphemism for Sarah Palin’s hoo hah ___ or that was her Secret Service code name. I fergit’!
Shan
There’s probably a website for that.
Bill D. Burger
On it! (not literally) :)
Shan
I don’t know why, though. Rotten avocados are seriously mushy and would offer absolutely zero friction.
Jennifer R
I remember being in middle school and some kids would just yell Penis! as loudly as they dared during lunch. Just to see who could yell it the loudest without being caught.
mancityRed6
Middle school?
Bah, these kids today.
In my day, I had a kid threaten to rat on me to the teachers for saying “boobytrap”, second grade.
Jennifer R
These days? This was the mid 90s.
mancityRed6
mine would have been halfway through Reagan’s first term.
Jeff Mc Donald
Quick! Someone find the Grizzly Granny and yell, TEAM AMERICA…you know, just to see what happens.
Bill D. Burger
You’re saying you are insufficiently tarted now? For shame!
Shan
I can always get tartier. This isn’t a “clear plastic strippper stilettos” event, though, so I’ll have to dial it back a bit.
Ah, okay. So kinda shootin’ for the “medium tartness” quotient.
Shan
Yeah. I usually wear jeans and boots so it’s not unpleasant to have the opportunity to dress slightly sluttier than normal.
Beanz&Berryz
Oh my…. Shan’s a fun one…
Finn the Human
The Office Christmas Party is a classic.
puredog
I highly recommend inappropriate sexual liaisons and/or flirtations with your coworkers. It always worked for me. ‘Course, that was back when fun was allowed, instead of being buzzkillingly called a “cause of action.”
Shan
Yeah, BTDT and I agree. It’s not an option with this group, which is actually really nice because nobody is trying to screw anyone else. We’re all just doing our jobs and that’s all we expect of each other.
Finn the Human
And do tell your boss what you really think of him.
Shan
Oh, he already knows. We are the only 2 actual real live liberals in the office. The card he gave me that had my Xmas bonus check in it said “YOU ARE MY FAVORITE LIBERAL” on it, so…yeah. We’re already all good.
Finn the Human
I had this creepy boss that would snort a bunch of coke prior to the Christmas party then kiss all the young women (we were all young then) smack on their mouths.
It was revolting.
Shan
Ew. My boss doesn’t drink or do any other recreational substances so that’s not a risk.
Gross.
efoveks
Obnoxious, but funny because I was not the one being harassed.
I WAS however, accused by a very drunken alcoholic wife of a co- worker, of having an affair with that co-worker, at the company Christmas party. (Years ago, when I was young & hot and just strting to date Mr. efoveks, who thought it was flat out hilarious.)
Malatov! :)
Finn the Human
Or her!
(Full disclosure: that is what my now spouse and I would say prior to our office parties: let’s get drunk and tell our bosses what we really think of them. In fact, I am stealing Mr. Finn’s line. Hoowah! Or is it Boyah? Howah? Vagina? Confusion reigns)
Shan
Oh, I did that on a company sponsored cruise a few years ago. The guy wasn’t my boss, but I was unexpectedly drunk one ONE DRINK and told him that everybody thought he was a jackass. But it’s his own fault for talking shop.
Beanz&Berryz
But it was OK you told him cuz it was true… One drink… THAT sounds fishy!
Objectifer
My second favorite office party ritual. My #1 favorite is the drunken make out session in the janitor’s closet.
TJ Barke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCOaQ41GwzM
Beanz&Berryz
I just like all this tartin’-up talk… Our work group’s holiday drinking gig is in a couple hours. The respectable whole-firm thing is next week… So tonight is just regular casual Friday working duds.
Objectifer
Time to warm up the copier!
Shan
Hee! It’s not at the office!
efoveks
Ah, so they have EXPERIENCE with these sorts of shenanigans…. :)
Have a good time, and a drink for me.I Iike tequila…. just sayin’
Shan
Soz, still in the turgid love muscle phase.
Msgr_Moment
“Just the fax, Ma’am.”
snark-lurker
“…and a cry arose: ‘Huzza!'”
—Moses Smith of The Constitution (the ship Old Iron Sides) during engagement with HMS Guerriere, Aug 19, 1812
Finn the Human
That guy has Renfest written all over him.
Finn the Human
In the film ‘Whiskey Tango Foxtrot’, Billy Bob Thorton fucks with the Tina Fey character by correcting but mispronouncing the Marine cheer everytime she tries to say it.
TX Taco Truck Brigade
Our cadre of vets could tell you for certain, but I once heard the Army also uses “HUA” – pronounced like hoo-ah, but it means Heard. Understood. Acknowledged.
E.G.:
Sgt: You will run five miles and like it, soldier!
Soldier: HUA
tehbaddr
Old friend of mine who did time in gulf war Papa Bush said HUA stand for Head Up Ass, as in I’ll get right on it it, or I understand.
puredog
Like.
Bill Diaz
For paratroopers, the affirmative is ‘Airborne!’. The whole noise thing sounds really stupid to me and am glad we never did that.
In the airborne, we dont care if you run the 10 miles. If you dont, you arent one of us. We dont even care if you like it, if you arent committed to what paratroopers are and do with every fiber of your being, we have little use for you.
If you have never had to run 10 miles on Monday morning, hung over and still crusty from the night before, throwing up at mile 7 (Area J gates) and eating 2 kilos of cream chipped beef after, you probably havent been in a jump qualified infantry unit.
Have a great day!
I get tired driving five miles. I just used that number arbitrarily, lol. :)
efoveks
I’m with you…
nastymagyar
One of our local pot dispensaries just started offering home delivery. I never have to get dressed again.
efoveks
Only when waving an oversized roasted turkey leg!
Daisy
The weather’s nice enough here that I can wear a skirt and a tshirt. I like that.
Beanz&Berryz
It’s like that here in Portland too, except you’d be hypothermic after 2 hours outside…
Daisy
It’s 65 degrees Fahrenheit here right now.
Beanz&Berryz
Pfft.. So then what do you do with the fleece jacket and the rain shell part of your ensemble?
efoveks
Dude, it’s California, not fucking OREGON.
idiotboy
It is 29 F hear and the warmest day expected for the foreseeable future. But the house is warm and it is quite beautiful. I am getting colder as I age though. In many ways.
Beanz&Berryz
I too was thinking Hooah! was the way to say it… HooHah is just Bristol-speak for “c’mon in,” (as in “welcome”), or some similar thing…
TJ Barke
Hooah is what Army dogs say.
Beanz&Berryz
Ahhhh…. I gotta keep ’em straight better… thank you
nastymagyar
The best lyric in the classic Frankie Goes To Hollywood hit “Relax” also, too
Bill D. Burger
Im sure Donnie can keep his business interests separate from the interests of the country ;)
mml1996
Trade war with China before *gags* inauguration – check!
XtremeFeministRodeoQueen MLG
He knows -5 things about China, and he made all of them up.
GHERKINS OF RESTIVENESS!
Google doesn’t even correct your search if you spell it “Jynah,” so it’s not his fault.
XtremeFeministRodeoQueen MLG
I like all the Hoohah and Jynahs in this post. Woman-centric!
mancityRed6
he knows he likes #15 and #43, but he’ll still go for a bucket of redneck chicken first.
boyblue123
China doesnt like Taiwan cant be true….we live in a post-fact world dontchaknow
nastymagyar
Senator: “Mrs. Palin what do you know about red China?”
Palin: “It looks lovely with yellow napkins!”
nastymagyar
That woman has no clue what china is. Chinette, maybe
Pinkham’s Law
war with China before *gags* inauguration – check!
FTFY!
efoveks
Merriam Webster wants us to stop looking up and searching “fascism” over concern that it will become the word of the year. These are the same people who put “conversate” into the dictionary.
Beanz&Berryz
They clearly haven’t learned that they can just change the fact of what the word of the year is… or that now some of us are gonna have to keep checking it to see if it changes. What other wordz are in the running?
Msgr_Moment
What are these ‘facts’ of which you speak/ I thought we had gotten rid of that curious notion once and for all.
efoveks
Yah, call me a throwback, but I kinda like ’em. (And I know you do too :) )
efoveks
They are campaigning for people to search other things, to boost the hits for other searches. One person even posted ‘OMG, I’ve searched puppies 532 times!’ to rig the results.
My thinking is, if ‘fascism’ is the word of the year, what happened to such a thing ‘opening dialogue’ or ‘getting people talking’ as opposed to ‘oh, what will the neighhbors think?’
mancityRed6
Holy crap. When did she turn into Sally Jesse Raphael?
nastymagyar
Uncanny resemblance
TX Taco Truck Brigade
OT: if you didn’t see the news, apparently there’s a new feature on the netflix mobile apps that allows you download a movie/show so you can watch it without an internet connection! (I’m excited).
I’l trying it out now.
nastymagyar
Why would you want to drag your TV all over?
TX Taco Truck Brigade
There’s exactly 2 reasons I’ve had for wanting this.
1. When I was doing data entry last year, I would get bored shitless typing up license plates, so first I listened to my music, then I’d put on my nano stuff movies or tv shows I had paid for so I could listen to them. But I owned those. Now I can watch Netflix exploding my data limits. My coworker to the left had some sweet ass grandfathered limitless data plan so she used to listen to episodes of Supernatural.
2. TJ and I both agreed the hardest part about exercising was being bored. My gym allegedly had wi-fi but I could never connect. So this would be nice for long stretches of treadmill/stationary bike time.
mancityRed6
I slack off enough at work as it is. I’m trying so very hard to get back into actual reading.
Msgr_Moment
So Palin is saying she thinks Mad Dog is a hoohah? Or has one?
nastymagyar
Prosecutors do that all the time.
mancityRed6
but he (the cop) was pants shittingly scared. which is why he shot the guy in the back. and then moved evidence (taser) and just maybe screwed up any fingerprints.
Beanz&Berryz
The legal definition of a justified shooting by cop…
boyblue123
even video evidence is not clear enough i guess from what weve learned in the Bundy case…some jurors have their mind made up that some people cant do anything wrong
Ahh good ol’ jury trials…
raypc800
Wow once trump reads this article he is sure to pick Sarah Palin as head of VA. She knows as much about the military as Trump does. We all know Trump cannot stand true competent competition. Thus he is save with Sarah.
shaar dula
talking of hoohahs.
had a curious little episode during the morning commute.
so i’m sitting in one of the aisle facing seats near the door, heads down, pencil in hand, doing some reading/editing for work, right? suddenly i see a blob of green in my field of view. i look up to see a damsel standing in front me like less than 2 ft from my face. in form fitting green pants. nice wide birthing hips. she herself is reading the local rag, can’t see her face or eyes, but her hoohah is in my face. at eye level.
other times when a hoohah has been in my face, its always been in the privacy of a room, car, or office and its always been the same hoohah.
a stranger’s hoohah in my face, swaying hips on swinging train created some situation. there was even the ignominy of an gramma type staring at me. but i think i did ok overall, because the gramma gave me an accepting smile as we got down at the final stop.
Beanz&Berryz
Oogling’s OK if gramma says it’s ok…
shaar dula
mostly had my head down. didn’t look as intently after the first time. but I knew what was there. can’t unsee what had been seen.
Beanz&Berryz
no no. good job son type.
mancityRed6
you really need to learn how to read the signals better. she wanted you.
shaar dula
I wish. smiling was the hawkish gramma.
mancityRed6
experience is nothing to turn down
SnarkON
“Wide birthing hips”? Oh FFS.
sw19womble
Hips you’d want to give a wide birth to?
mancityRed6
handles, I call them handles
Beanz&Berryz
And.. well.. “got down?”
shaar dula
all right smart guys I said “we” got down. its only interesting if one gets down.
OneYieldRegular
I can’t wait to hear some Democratic Senator ask General Mattis about his idea of “fun.”
msanthropesmr
Down at the Swindon multiplex?
msanthropesmr
Why do parents never listen to you, even when you are 46 years old?
nastymagyar
Because: parents
msanthropesmr
Please do not ask me my advice on what car to buy and then not take my advice, thank you in advance.
nastymagyar
My dad refused to listen too me when I tried telling him marshmallow peeps were not, in fact, “roast chicken” if you put them in the microwave for 15 seconds (stale). He was diabetic. And a navy corpsman.
msanthropesmr
Hmmm.. Fascinating. Does he watch Fox News too? Or is willful fact ignoring only with the peeps?
nastymagyar
Just the Peeps. He was a raging liberal until the day he died. Of diabetic complications. (I wish I was kidding.)
msanthropesmr
Damn. The things we humans do for processed sugar.
And pop, if you’re listening, YOU BETTER BE EATING SEMI GOOD.
nastymagyar
He knew, he was just so sick he stopped giving a fuck.
Pinkham’s Law
I actually got somebody to change his mind about what car to get, once. ONCE. After he bought it. heheheh.
19 y.o. guy, making good $$ as a codemonkey, late 90s. Goes out and buys First New Car, brags about it the next day.
Asks me what I think. (don’t do that unless you want the truth.). I gave him a paragraph of praise for choosing a Toyota – reliable, resale value, blahblahblah. THEN!!! “But I’m kinda surprised you picked a Camry. I would have expected someone your age to pick something more, I dunno, fun, instead of a 4 door family car. I mean, by the time you get rid of it, you’ll likely be married with a kid or two, and after that, it’s family cars for the next 20 years.”
That was a Friday. On Monday, he shows up with a Solara convertible.
Objectifer
LOL. I know! More fun than a 4 door, at least!
msanthropesmr
WITH HORRIBLE DRIVER VISIBILITY. THE WORST OF ANY CAR I’VE DRIVEN.
Objectifer
Ever drive the new Camaro? Can’t see dick out of those things.
msanthropesmr
Nope. But they do look pretty bad.
msanthropesmr
She is in her mid sixties, living in Upstate NY. About 6 years ago, she asked me what car to buy when she was living in VA. I said, buy a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry – just don’t buy anything VAG. She said “Those are boring”. So she bought some POS VW, which was in the shop constantly. And then, she asked again about 4 years ago. I said, buy a honda accord or toyota Camry. She said, those are boring, and bought a POS diesel VW, which she just got her settlement on. So, now she asks me what to buy that is 4WD with enough room for her big dogs. I told her used Subaru Forester.
She bought a Mazda 3. Which is much better than it could have been, but it’s small, 2WD, and has wind and road noise out the yazoo.
Fuck. Some people.
shaar dula
first car used 1990 camry. second car 1989 maxima (my fav ever), third car 2001 civic (crapola, but still drive it). the other family car actually bought when working 2013 forester.
a friend had a crx civic coupe manual. loved driving it around a lot. plus old acura’s very nice.
Pinkham’s Law
3 strikes, she’s out. Next time, it would be, “That really needs to be your decision – you know better than anyone else what’s going to suit your needs.” That’s the nicest way I can think of to say, “Why should I bother? You’ll do the opposite anyway!”
shaar dula
oh. see I was doing it all wrong. I always tend to sedans because in my head, for lesser cost I’m getting 4 doors, a full metallic hood.
UncleTravelingMatt
Why would they listen to some punk kid?
BadWolfGirl
To get to the other side.
msanthropesmr
They’re under my bucking hat.
BadWolfGirl
Thank you Evan! I needed this laugh. The mystery machine’s been in the shop since yesterday (NOT that they’ve bothered to even try to figure out why it won’t start). They promise to figure it out & fix it tomorrow. I’ve got shit to do & no way to do it :(
Thankfully I have twisted tea & smokes.
Nothing like Caribou Barbie to make me laugh!!
msanthropesmr
Well, if Gary Johnson had won, he’d be wondering where this mythical “Taiwan” is.
TJ Barke
No, he’d say “Yes, I’d love to tie one on.”
msanthropesmr
“Is that like a Thai Stick?”
mancityRed6
“can I call you sharin’?”
Objectifer
“It’s mostly Maui Wowie with a little Labrador mixed in.”
sw19womble
He probably came across it once or twice, while chasing the dragon.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
Show me a Republican, or a Marine, and I will show you a stoopid Asshole.
mancityRed6
I hesitated to say, but I have seen graffiti in Navy PX bathrooms of a guy on a toilet saying, “where’s my marine?”
Also the fact that I just today read the Dr. Thompson article where he opined that the 101st Airborne could whip the Marines and still have the afternoon for volleyball.
(Generation of Swine)
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
Honestly, between the military people that call me vile slurs, and the military members that have dissed me when I turned down the chance for LTRs with them, I’ve been kinda not too interested in military guys lately.
mancityRed6
I answered honestly at Chicago (Great Lakes) when they asked if anyone had asthma.
From a long line of Navy people though.
Dad has a story of eating cold rations in San Diego, while the SEALS ate grilled steaks on the beach.
Resistinceisnotfutile
Well if he was in San Diego, the rations weren’t that cold. Although, when it gets below 50 here, I start dressing for the Iditarod.
mancityRed6
cold as in unheated.
I’ve been to San Diego (Chula Vista) a few times, xmas there in ’91 was wonderful compared to the weather back in Missouri
msanthropesmr
I have a limited set of them, but all the Marines I know are stand up guys and gals. Particularly the leadership – I work with their kids at Quantico. YMMV.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
I used to know some Marines I thought were good guys. Until I came out.
My perspective on many things changed after I came out.
msanthropesmr
Marine O.D.: [in bathroom at bus station] Sailor looks like he’s lost something.
Marine: Probably has trouble finding it with those thirteen buttons.
Buddusky: If I was a Marine, I wouldn’t have to fuck with no thirteen buttons. I’d just take my hat off.
Objectifer
Further in said bathroom:
Sailor finishes, buttons up and starts to head out. Marine says “In the Corps they teach us to wash our hands after using the head.”
“In the Navy they teach us not to piss on our hands.”
msanthropesmr
Mine’s from “The last detail”
Objectifer
Oh, yeah. Young and not yet crazy Randy Quaid. Great movie!
boyblue123
What is this world coming to? Is Sarah Palin making some sense now? Weighing in on the Carrier deal
*hiccup *
Villago Delenda Est
Shit, that’s all there is to Drumpf’s entire economic plan. Plunder and loot every aspect of the economy for personal gain. Emoulment clause? WTF is that?
JoeChristmas
Haha, crony capitalism is just capitalism.
therblig
somebody told her that “crony” means “good”
Doug Langley
It’s the kid’s show: My Little Crony.
Daisy
NO! Sarah fucking Palin isn’t allowed to make sense!
OrG
I,for one,would welcome sarah to our side.It would be Clayton Bigsby on steroids!
shaar dula
I think SP is mere parroting talking points and she prolly has no understanding of what she is saying. laissez faire is not what it’s cracked out to be.
Msgr_Moment
OT: Just occurred to me. After this fact-averse election season, we should pepper the intertubes with rumors about Trump’s health before the Electoral College meets. Might make a big difference.
Jamoche
“Don’t you think he looks tired?”
BadWolfGirl
Dang! You beat me to it!
OrG
I heard he’s a member of NAMBLA.
Objectifer
I saw that on the Google too!
sw19womble
It’s where I get all my news.
OrG
Syphilis is known to cause trouble reading, and other mental health problems. Just saying.
Resistinceisnotfutile
I think it causes the face to turn an odd color, also as well, too. Plus, he’s fugly.
Dazza
I read it on Facebook, so it must be true. Wait, let me confirm this with the other 150 idiots on my feed.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
Or: if you have a Texan that attended Notre Dame, joined the Marines, and votes Republican, you have the greatest bore on the planet.
sw19womble
Soooo… checking my twitter feed, seeing Trump’s already sabre-rattling with Giayna. Does Trump have shares in Uranium mines or something?
boyblue123
He is trying to get a building and/or golf course project green-lit in Taiwan even if it means a trade war with gyina
Resistinceisnotfutile
Guyana? Do they have anything down there?
mancityRed6
kool-aid?
sw19womble
Amazingly, on trying to discover their main export, I just discovered they’re part of the EU.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
sw19womble
“A thriving rice production, developed on polders near Mana from the early 1980s to the late 2000s, has almost completely disappeared since 2011 due to marine erosion and new EU plant health rules which forbid the use of many pesticides and fertilizers.”
I post without further comment.
UncleTravelingMatt
Wait, French Guiana? Which is part of France?
sw19womble
I’m sort of disappointed that Great Britain gave away almost all their empire to home rule now. That would be hilarious.
Dazza
Um…speaking as a Canadian and an Australian …we don’t want to be colonies again. Kthanx
Six inches between your ears??!? Isn’t that a skullfu…??
Watch it Joe, that’s a banhammer word in these parts.
OrG
You mean skullfuck?
JoeChristmas
For sure, in these pussy grabbing is perfectly acceptable times, maybe we could dispense with Wonkette Rules For Commenting Radicals?
La Resistance O’hontas
She’s a cunning linguist, that one.
3FingerPete
Sarah is just reliving the esprit de corps from her days in…in what branch did she serve, again?
UncleTravelingMatt
Deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want her on that wall; you need her on that wall.
msanthropesmr
War on war on christmas 25 of Dec division.
Zippy W Pinhead
You really have to marvel at someone who can start WWIII before he even takes office.
Rachel Book Harlot
Let’s see how long it will be before he accidentally triggers WWIII.
SayItWithWookies
I might give that some credence if Trump had any experience in foreign policy whatsoever. Another possibility is that he’s just too fucking ignorant to know what to do, which would be consistent with someone who went to the White House figuring the staff there was permanent and not going to get the hell out of there at the end of Obama’s administration.
sw19womble
I suppose if he smashes everything to bits – not only does he get to pick at the juiciest bits of the carcass, but he doesn’t have to do any of that fancy learnin’ and readin’ up about current trade deals (although obviously he has Ivanka & co to read for him). I seriously don’t know.
Is he living out old WWF/WCW ‘heel’ story arcs?
But more importantly, does this seem like a man with a plan? And what’s actually the scarier answer to that question.
cat cafe
Man making catastrophically inappropriate anti-diplomatic phone call on unsecured cell phone = great leader, no one tells HIM what to do, what an American! Woman using highly secured private server to avoid hacking = CROOK! LOCK HER UP!
Dazza
Never assume planning and intent, when sheer dumbfuck will do.
An Outhouse for the Resistance
What does she think a out him refusing to provide aid to a wounded unit in Afghanistan? Wounded by friendly fire with no enemy around? I call him lazy so she’s good with that.
And yetthen when Howard Deen does it, it’s a bad thing….
alwayspunkindrublic
And when Paula Deen does it, it’s a REALLY bad thing.
Zippy W Pinhead
when James Deen does it, it’s usually right at the money shot
alwayspunkindrublic
Don’t make me tell about what happens when Dizzy Deen does it.
therblig
I was on my phone. The typos were inevitable.
alwayspunkindrublic
Just joshin’ ya’. I expect no less in return next time I put myself on the receiving end.
Oh! Sorry. That wasn’t meant as a petulant defense. You made me giggle with that comment. But, I really was on my phone. Stupid autocorrect. . .
alwayspunkindrublic
How many cabinet posts are there these days? It seems like at least 2,000 of the most deranged, incompetent people imaginable have been paraded before us in the last week alone. We could staff every fucking tin horn banana republic on the planet with zealots and goons.
Nounverb911
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2016/12/02/donald-trumps-cabinet-assembly-instructions/?utm_term=.6d50b5a3bf96
Daisy
Apparently, my guy friend’s shirt has been delivered. Let’s see how long it takes my unit mail system to notify me that it’s in.
Resistance Fighter Callyson
What’s the latest brutal fact, NYT linky ?
Trump Speaks With Taiwan’s Leader, an Affront to China
He is believed to be the first president or president-elect who has spoken to a Taiwanese leader since 1979, when the United States severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan after its recognition of the People’s Republic of China.
The White House was not told about Mr. Trump’s call until after it happened, according to a senior administration official. The official spoke on ground rules of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic relations.
This is going to get even worse before it gets better…
UncleTravelingMatt
Looking for a new place to get all his merchandise manufactured?
cat cafe
That’s all it ever is about. He’s running the worst, corrupt con right in front of everyone, and the MSM is all “La di da I guess this man is President now so we’ll report on him just like he’s a normal person lalalal!”
Duke
Can’t wait to see the transcript. “Simply amazing people…” blah, blah, drivel, drivel…
Jamoche
Fred Clark on how to tell when Trump is covering for being ignorant (other than “sounds are coming out of his mouth”):
That’s why Pakistan’s readout of this phone call reads so much like a penny-stock salesman chatting up a potential customer on a cold call
….
This is a pattern with Trump — a recognizable tell. “Terrific,” “fantastic,” and “amazing” are the words he always uses when he’s forced to talk about something he doesn’t have the first clue about. Whenever he says “terrific” or “fantastic” or “amazing” we know he’s bluffing his way through a subject he doesn’t understand and doesn’t care to know anything about.
Rachel Book Harlot
Don’t even try to suggest that any of this is HRC’s fault.
jowgajen
Blame Hillary’s election loss on ….. the people who didn’t vote for her. That’s it. Everyone looking for someone else to blame can STFU now.
sw19womble
Farm subsidies is like, math and stuff. Pfft.
UncleTravelingMatt
As someone who lives in a state that shares an ocean with China, I’ve been wondering what happens when all those Rust Belt jobs are back. Does everyone in Long Beach, Tacoma, Portland, Oakland, etc. currently employed in the import/export trades have to move to Ohio? Will Trump put them to work building a giant fucking canal from the midwest to the west coast?
TJ Barke
It’s almost like global capitalism is the real enemy…
Longstreet63
So, as I mentioned on an earlier thread a few days ago, tonight I met with a friend of 20+ years who, two years ago suddenly cut off contact. Early this week, she texted me asking why I never asked her what was wrong.
So we had dinner. Meatballs. It was nice.
I was quite worried about there being some awkwardness about the whole thing, what with her going to tell me what was the problem.
Happily, though, it comes down to my Not Being Good At Human again.
Turns out she found I was an awful negative person and she was afraid she was becoming like me.
Also, if I was truly a friend, I should have called (not texted, mind you, because “an effort must be made”) and demanded to know what was wrong. This is apparently What It Means To Be A Friend.
And while all that sounds horrible, the problem is that recent events have shown me that she is not the only one who feels this way.
The problem is, in fact, me.
It is possible that a lifetime of disappointment and humiliation may have affected me in this regard. I’m not sure that actually matters, though. It never has before.
I made a good run of the evening at being…normal? I want to say things like “shallow” or “inconsequential”, but the fact is, she seemed to enjoy herself, and I guess that’s consequential. At least she suggested she’d be willing to do it again.
Assuming I want to.
To know that, I’d have to give some thought to what I want and frankly, that’s never really seemed important to anyone before. It’s never about me, ever.
Sorry to dump all this out here in public. I did promise I’d relay the details. Whatever they actually are. I’ve apparently been wrong about that sort of thing lately, too.
sw19womble
Hmm… I don’t do passive aggressive. In fact, I loathe it.
So, her guilt-tripping you like it’s your fault you didn’t call, nah she can go fuck herself on that score.
She may or may not have a point about the rest, I don’t know, but that’s just your normal developing-as-a-human-being stuff.
Sounds like your standard crappy awkward situation that two humans get themselves into. At least you’re now talking again. :)
Peace out.
Do you need this passive aggressive nonsense in your life?
sw19womble
True story:-
Former friend: “I think you’re bad for me. It’s a poisonous situation. I can’t have you in my life any more.”
Womble: “Welp, okay then, I hope you’ll reconsider soon, I’ll leave the door open. In the meantime, good luck, I wish you all the best!”
….
….
A year or so later, I hear through the grapevine that I’m a terrible person who just stopped talking to her and didn’t come running after or something?
So, fuck knows. I can totally relate to Longstreet, but I have no answer, apart from IMHO it’s the other person’s problem. I’m just doing what you told me you wanted.
Life is short.
jowgajen
Swombles passive-aggressive gossip whore seems terrible at being a good person.
Long’s person sounded like they needed a break. Note that she initiated re-contact and then seems to have been honest but also chill and focused on having a good friend-date.
sw19womble
Absolutely – All’s Well That Ends Well is a far better outcome than Othello.
Longstreet63
A wedding or a funeral. Raise a glass to the concept of clear indicators.
Oh, damn it. That sort of comment may be why people dislike me. Who says that?
What use is wit if it’s received as well as a dagger?
sw19womble
Longstreet63
That’s one of the options on offer, of course.
Thing is, I do have to sometimes interact with people in my job, and some of them too are reporting that I am Bad At Human.
So for them, no, it’s not actually an option.
Practice, perhaps? Go to Meetup.com and find people with similar interests to practice on? She suggested that, actually. I have rather esoteric interests, however. I should check, though, just in case.
Longstreet63
Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?
I do value her insight, mostly.
The fact is, this isn’t just her, and it fits as part of a lifelong pattern for me. I’ve always wondered why people don’t want to keep me around. This is, in the end, useful input. Maybe, I do, indeed, need this passive-aggressive nonsense, if that’s how people behave in life.
It may be good practice.
Yr. Gma
You and I are different, I guess. I’d be telling the bitch to stick it up her self-righteous, passive-aggressive ass. I’m just negative that way. I also don’t need anyone else defining me to myself.
Longstreet63
If it was just her, sure. It’s really not.
People react to me badly much of the time, despite my efforts.
Given my demonstrated cluelessness, I will nevertheless put forth an idea:
What you read here is not an affectation. It’s how I talk.
And what sounds clear (I hope) in print sounds in person like, well, condescension. Even contempt.
jowgajen
I think you’ve gotten some amazing take aways here.
1. Your lifelong friend still loves you and values your friendship.
2. Open negativity has been harmful to your friendships. An interesting thing about being negative. It’s a habit, and a bad one at that. Habits are breakable, with sufficient practice.
3. People you’ve fallen out of touch with may very well be glad to hear from you.
Longstreet63
Spotts1701, Resistance Pilot
I’m not sure the problem is, in fact, you. Take it from someone who has been browbeat multiple times from friends who say I often taken way too much of the share of the blame for my last relationship blowing up.
You may have negativity (I don’t know you well enough to say yes or no on that score), but no one should place an expectation upon you to repair damage that you weren’t aware of. And especially to say “it is only acceptable if you try in this manner”. If you want me to ask if something’s wrong, allow me the dignity of trying in a manner that makes me comfortable before you place conditions.
Longstreet63
That sounds reasonable, but I’m not sure people work that way. I kind of thought they might, but the data I’m experiencing suggests otherwise.
TJ Barke
That sounds fairly familiar…
Longstreet63
I’m sorry for that. I really wish it was more unique. I certainly wish it didn’t sound familiar to me.
TJ Barke
Well, except for the friend getting back in touch part. The whole, being negative and driving friends away things part though…
sw19womble
I have to say, personally-speaking and * insert disclaimer here*, therapy and counselling worked really well for me. Got to the bottom of some deep underlying issues and stuff from the past. And that gave me room to finally put all the other pieces into place.
I’m still a grumpy twat who doesn’t suffer fools gladly, but I have also honed my very black sense of humor into a finely-tuned fencing sword, for funsies only, and I very, very rarely draw blood (in case of emergency and self-defense)
I think you have to find a place where you’re happy being you, and forget everyone else for the time-being. Certainly don’t try to please other people, or “fit-in” unless it’s a matter of life and death…. but also give yourself recovery time afterwards and don’t blame yourself.
Of course, results may vary on therapy, etc… All I can say is to just find your own path, what makes you happy, and you’ll slowly find that you gravitate towards people who appreciate you-being-you. And vice versa.
But then I’m an introvert and very happy being one.
Peace out https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9be821ac8d7fdf8bc67bc966327179dead52c3487d53dc0ff23004731abd2036.png and brohoof.
TJ Barke
If I could just find a meatspace version of wonkette…
sw19womble
Get into a local sportsball team. Or theatre. Or volunteer at a food bank. Or take up juggling (no clowns tho) Or anything you like. If you enjoy the pastime, just for what it is, then like I say, things will gravitate and there’s no pressure in meeting people.
I volunteer as a steward at my soccerball club, and also some wonky ‘Working Groups’ for the club. Plus the fanzine/forum. So many people say hi to me at games and I have no idea who they are. I’ve been given gifts of bread pudding the last two home games too.
And as someone on the asexual spectrum, that is comparable to a couple of dates :p
Score!
TJ Barke
See, that sounds like a positive way to improve my life and mental well being, so that’s a big not gonna happen.
Longstreet63
The feedback loop of being uncomfortable with the way people receive you does tend to end up as a distaste for people generally, if not individually.
I’m finding being around people more uncomfortable lately. I know where that ends, but what to do about it?
Courser
Being an apocalypse person, I started by joining a Community Emergency Response team. I like it because we’re working together toward a common goal. I get to know people and have a fair number of acquaintances without much social obligation for follow up. That led to my membership in a non-profit group that provides a lot of services including SAR to the community.
Longstreet63
Thank you. I’m a particularly self-contained person myself. My sense of humor is both black and dry. It is very sharp, but not, I’m being made aware, sharp enough to be painless.
My voice seems to be a weapon, and like a weapon, when used properly, it hurts people.
I’m sure I used to know how to communicate, but maybe I never really did, except in writing, free of the carrier wave of human interchange.
sw19womble
No probs, I definitely have a sharp tongue, and in my younger days, I certainly hurt some people more than I intended. I’ve learned to be more diplomatic, or simply not respond (counting to twenty or even a hundred works well for me).
The fact you feel bad that you might have cut people unintentionally seems to indicate that you’re just being taken the worng way. You can’t help that, you can only learn to soften and adapt -… the rest is up to the other party.
But again, I’m an eedjit, and realising that is always the first step towards reconciliation.
But if they still can’t deal with it, well, you know, they can just go fuck themselves. :)
Longstreet63
See, that’s the thing that bothers me most: I thought I HAD learned to temper it.
sw19womble
Nah, people have sensitive fee-fees regardless. They have to learn to up their sensitivity meter around you, just as much as one has to learn not to be quite such a dick.
FSM knows I’m a work in progress too! ;)
Longstreet63
As noted below, there are work considerations. And a lot of them are millennials.
Most of them.
Courser
Meh, I’m way less likely to suffer fools gladly now that I’m an oldz. Well, and my skills are rusty now that I’ve been telecommuting for over a year.
Longstreet63
Regrettably, the sufferance of fools is one of my job functions. Even worse, the fools are internal customers.
shaar dula
sir,
no place to give advice. will share personal experience. when there is an issue its possible to go into a shell thinking oh man I messed up again, and the other person also to go into a shell thinking he is such a mess up. objectively its very possible he did not infact mess up.
Longstreet63
Oh, my, yes. I have a very good memory for bad things I’ve said to other people. It stretches back decades.
I’m not sure about the shell. What does it feel like not to have one? I’d think it would hurt.
Jenny
Well it’s a good thing you found Wonkette! We can be pessimistic buzz kills together!
mml1996
I’m a bit late to this convo – but there’s some hugs here if you want it! :)
Longstreet63
If that’s what real people do, I will take them.
I think it’s good that typing this makes me a bit onion-eyes. Maybe. Emotions have teeth and I keep them on a thick chain where they only bite me when I want.
But thank you.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a86a4669582417aca3fbd21519ef0f5983f3f99cc9779117d779c258bfcb5e0.png
Courser
Huh. Like you, there are significant ways in which I know I am not normal. I too let people slip away from me. I try once or twice to maintain contact, but if I feel in any way brushed off, I’m done. And I’m not mad or anything, which other people don’t seem to understand. I usually feel some level of hurt but it’s not crippling or anything.
So I think that’s interesting, but I’m useless at helping with interpretation.
Longstreet63
Yes, I know what you mean.
I don’t feel exactly as thought there’s anything wrong with me. I’m just aware that other people aren’t the same and seem to read in me things I don’t think are there.
But if no one else is going to adjust this, it is up to me if I want it done.
Courser
I had a really weird family situation. My parents were both only children who had 3 kids. I’m pretty sure my dad as Asperger’s; he’s a chemist and engineer. To put it kindly, us kids were ‘free range’. My ex-boyfriend put it less kindly – I raised myself among wolves. So I’m not sure there’s anything organic wrong with me, just an unsocialized childhood.
Longstreet63
I was just dragged out into the country in sixth grade literally miles from anyone my age. (Had to get away from Integration, you know.) I seem to remember being on a normal track back then. But my late Grandmother’s final words to me (her mind long gone) were that I was always too smart for my own good. So maybe not.
Still don’t appreciate being removed from the city, though.
Longstreet63
Thank you all for your responses and advice/hugs/non-advice/rewiring diagrams.
I do very much appreciate it. Wonketteers are, I have found Good People.
And while it is possible that if you got to know me, you’d find me intolerable, I am grateful for the period of time before that happens, and value each and every word.
Gosala
For what is worth (not much probably)
There could be projection here. Often when people describe you, their describing themselves. Does everyone say you are negative? Probably not
There can also be displacement. Often a person identifies one thing as the problem when it’s really something else. That’s why family therapists refer to the “identified” patient, who is often not the source of the strain.
I agree with wombles, her reaction to your perceived negativity is her problem. She has no right, no has the right to demand a personality change as a condition of friendship. Who would she be friends with then?
Finally if you really feel you have a problem with negativity, found a competent professional. Friends and family can be good support, but they do bit have the training and distance needed to make real changes like this.
Best wishes and many purrs
azeyote
maybe Palin has a yeast infection and needs to shout about it –
janecita
Or maybe she is just horny.
nastymagyar
And you know, you didn’t have someone to tell you who it was BEFORE you picked up? This is why the White House has a switchboard!
YoNastyBunny
OT, but it deals with Marines, so not really: My most favoritest part of the Holiday Season is next week: the USMC Toys for Tots Drive at Union Station–SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
This will be the only time I look forward to my commute!! I just love seeing those glorious strapping young lads in those lovely dress uniforms… They make me feel so… ahem… generous. I give them All The Donations, Katie!
They should do toy drives more often…
Courser
My nephew is a brand spanking new Marine as of October.
Dazza
That idea might just make me rich.
nastymagyar
Dirk Yates beat you to it
TX Taco Truck Brigade
I have no idea who that is, but I’ll trust you. ;)
I actually like a woman who can kick my ass…punk rock chicks and military gals are okay by me.
nastymagyar
Yeah, these are all men; so you still may be able to make money off your idea.
TX Taco Truck Brigade
No I was thinking dude-dude too…I’m so poor these days. Lol. I knew a guy years okay who did freelance erotic style photos. I said, I need work, I’ll work on your shoots. He was like, yeah, I really don’t think you’d be interested in what we do.
I bumped into him and his partner a few weeks later at Best Buy. (He introduced him as partner, so I use that phrase. I find boyfriend is fine, but who am I to say.)
Land Shark
Marines …. but, Navy class As FTW! (So says Mrs Land Shark) (Not sure why she knows that, though …)
Courser
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/175e1e77c84fac0c22e46dcc585f1f8032ede1fba1d71e9fe99a1c3e787b95db.jpg
The original ad offers this helpful hint:
Kimmy at scrambledpegs offers wooden figurines of famous people from history, and she’ll be glad to add a hook and ribbon so that you can hang them on your Christmas tree.
To be clear: Hanging Martin Luther King Jr. in effigy from a tree is a questionable at best way to celebrate Christmas.
Beanz&Berryz
It’s even worse than the Starbucks polar bear cookies with slit throats…
Jenny
For a second I thought that was 2016 Election Results Obama. I guess that’s a mustache and not a frown. Oops.
Begin Anew Day
Frowning is now FASHIONABLE.
Forget all that nonsense about putting on a happy face…frowning is where it is at!
unclejeems
Say, do they have any of those neat-o Trump butt plugs?
alwayspunkindrublic
OK, I’m off in a few to go see one Henry fuckin’ Rollins, bitches. Spoken word show, so I’m figuring some serious shade Trump’s direction.
Jamoche
Report back with the highlights!
TJ Barke
Pics or it didn’t happen!
sw19womble
Pecs or it didn’t happen!
alwayspunkindrublic
Henry’s definitely got those.
nastymagyar
Lick him from me!
TX Taco Truck Brigade
I’ve seen video of those – they’re pretty awesome. I don’t agree with everything that dude believes, but they are intelligent and entertaining.
Have fun!
I’ve got a six-pack and nothin to do.
I’ve got a six-pack and I DON’T NEED YOU!!!
Objectifer
O man, he’s in Old Pueblo? Damn, wish I knew that.
alwayspunkindrublic
Oh man. Blown away. Henry is a force of nature. I’m speechless.
Jenny
I don’t think she’s actually met a Marine…maybe she should ask Bristol?!
Land Shark
“Mama! Grab a six pack of Bartles and I’ll show you some fine Marines,” Bristol shouted.
Apple Scruff
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/308255-this-presidential-elector-will-vote-her-conscience
These two electors, both from states that Hillary won (Washington and Colorado) who also don’t think Trump is fit to be president, are going to FLIP THEIR VOTES, denying Hillary their votes, to someone who is (I guess?) not-Trump because… why?
mml1996
I sincerely hope they can go jump off the nearest cliff (with votes and bricks, but mostly votes)
Apple Scruff
The logic is escaping me.
mml1996
Hence, I’m going with pure rage instead.
Begin Anew Day
Electoral politics has finally entered the realm of Quantum Mechanics! At last!
We could end up with a dead Danish physicist as President. I cannot see any downside to that. I’ll take Dead Niels Bohr any day over boring Donnie T.
Political wonks will like him because he managed to spin his theories all the way to a Nobel Prize.
OrdinaryJoe
What they seem to be thinking (and I confess there does not seem to be a deep pool of that) is since the Repturdian did win, if “real Republican” electors will get behind a real Republican alternative, then as Dems they will help them with some cover against the Stormtrumpers and move the electoral vote away from Repturd Chump to a Real Republican, a la the list of names in the column. Why that makes for a viable possible alternative is a mystery.
Apple Scruff
Why not try to convince Democratic electors in red states to flip to Clinton instead of trying to convince Republicans to go rogue? Wouldn’t they rather see Clinton as President then, say, Kasich or Bush?
Moebym of the Rebel Alliance
Because butthurt.
They are A Idiots.
Yr. Gma
OT: remember last year when mooslins were going to get all of us in our sleep? Today is the first anniversary of the Great Terrorist Attack in San Bernardino, and just about no one is even mentioning it.
alwayspunkindrublic
That’s because we’re all so happy that we’re in safe hands now.
Nounverb911
President Allstate?
Daisy
I didn’t get a political science class for next semester, which means I won’t be declaring until sophomore year. But oh well.
Land Shark
I would think that active politikal non-commenting on Wonkette would be worth at least one credit ….
TX Taco Truck Brigade
She’d definitely test out of Snark 101.
Land Shark
Fine snark waxes poetic.
TX Taco Truck Brigade
I have to fucking take an intro to Lit class next semester as part of my degree plan. Never mind that I took the AP test for lit in high school and scored well. Fuckers. The credit lady at school said I’d have to take it up with the dean, but I’ve never bothered to. I like reading and stuff, but between (hopefully) working, writing papers for this class, legal writing class, and drafting stuff for civil lit class – I’m going to be doing a lot of writing next semester.
Land Shark
Well, between the grunt work for the legal classes, you can polish your fine wit by snarking on all the Lit papers. Think of the snark-filled prose you can deliver in an analysis of Mark Twain or Walt Whitman.
TX Taco Truck Brigade
Lol yep. And I actually like writing. Hopefully I’ll get back into fighting shape. I was fast and good in my journalism days because it was high volume of do or die. It’s been kind of frustrating this year to know I can write better than I am…it’s like any other skill – gotta keep in shape. I’ve been relearning all the tricks and best practices I used in the old days. On the whole, I suppose it’ll be a good thing.
Land Shark
“One score and three days ago, our wingnuts brought forth upon this nation a hilarious, spray-tanned man-baby, conceived in stupidity, and dedicated to the proposition that all his followers could be fleeced repeatedly.”
TX Taco Truck Brigade
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acrostic
TX Taco Truck Brigade
Heh, if I had that kind of time and effort, I would TOTALLY do that. I still might.
;)
not even wait list? how ’bout speaking to the prof?
Daisy
I refuse to wait list when I don’t need the class at that moment. Particularly as I have other requirements.
shaar dula
oh ok, I misread your original post.
in anycase given the courses you are taking, when you get into the thinking tanks, don’t forget us plebs. :)
TX Taco Truck Brigade
I’m not sure if it flies at university, or even if it’s a class size thing or a schedule thing, but you can sometimes get a prof to open up an extra seat. I go to community college, but maybe worth a try.
FWIW, when I was at U of Texas Austin there was no web registration. You had to have your preferred schedule preplanned and then had to do phone registration, “Enter your social security number. Now enter the 4 digit code of your class…sorry that class is full”. You had to have back up plans and everything.
It was like trying to win a radio show call in contest.
shaar dula
ya that’s how it used to be. and profs were usually accommodative.
TX Taco Truck Brigade
That was my experience this fall and last summer. If you were sincere and a decent human being, the prof seemed pretty cool with it.
One guy in my government class this summer registered for the same class at a different time but attended our class. He didn’t officially get “in” the class till most of the way through.
katkelly57
I think she likes HOOHAH, ‘cos it’s her way of reminding herself she has one.
bookish
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/harvard-trump-clinton-campaigns-fight-232109
In Washington winning is everything — but it’s not permanent.
And Clinton’s vast network of supporters, staffers and operatives is now looking for a way to fight back — without their standard-bearer — modeled on the resistance movement organized by the GOP in the wake of President Barack Obama’s victory in 2008, the Republicans’ “Party of No” period.
Clinton allies like David Brock have been actively recruiting Democratic donors to fund an anti-Trump movement modeled on the armada of organizations that sued, flacked, opposition-researched and insulted Clinton into a 55 percent disapproval rating. Trump is already there, but Brock and other Democratic operatives are contemplating a Freedom of Information Act barrage against the president-elect comparable to the one undertaken against Clinton by the conservative group Judicial Watch. Other left-leaning groups, including the Center for American Progress, are looking into ways of holding Trump accountable for his job-creating campaign promises — possibly by disseminating reports on the president’s record directly to voters and media into swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan that swung surprisingly to Trump.
“We’re going to throw everything at him that he threw at us,” said one longtime Democratic operative active in the effort.
Jenny
FINALLY!
Resistance Fighter Callyson
“We’re going to throw everything at him that he threw at us,” said one longtime Democratic operative active in the effort.
Gaslight the fuckers and set it on fire (with easily-flammable votes!)
Land Shark
I prefer to vote with my feet …. like a fine, uplifting vote right to the truck nutz.
Pinkham’s Law
We’re discussing the political real world, so no, actually.
therblig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOvH-7lcjb0
Serai 1
It’s time for liberals to give up on the whole “nice” thing and go back to being the kickass warriors we were a hundred years ago, when NOBODY in power gave a shit about real people.
Apple Scruff
How do I sign up for this?
Pinkham’s Law
At the bottom of your letters to your congresscritters. And the National DNC. And your State DNC officials. On paper. Repeatedly.
mml1996
TELL THE DNC TO DO A BETTER JOB OF SCREAMING REPEATEDLY. IN THE PRESENCE OF CAMERAS.
Land Shark
Needs moar fuck.
Moebym of the Rebel Alliance
TELL THE FUCKING DNC TO DO A BETTER FUCKING JOB OF FUCKING SCREAMING REPEATEDLY. IN THE FUCKING PRESENCE OF FUCKING CAMERAS. FUCK FUCK FUCK
Better?
Almost there.
Pinkham’s Law
TELL THE GODDAMN MUTHERFUCKING LAZY ASSED FUCKERS ON THE FUCKING DN FUCKING C TO SCREAM THEIR OTHERWISE USELESS FUCKING HEADS OFF EVERY MOTHERFUCKING TIME THE FUCKING BASTARDS EVEN FUCKING SEE A FUCKING GODDAMN CAMERA!
sw19womble
Just the right amount of sugar-coating.
Moebym of the Rebel Alliance
I clearly need to up my game.
mml1996
Needs moar vibrating fury.
Pinkham’s Law
In “print,” that just comes across as stuttering. Or a really, really sticky keyboard. Look: “TTTEEELLLLLL TTTHHHEEE GGGOOODDDAAAMMMNNN MMMUUUTTTHHHEEERRRFFFUUCCCKKKIIINNNGGG LLLAAAZZZYYY AAASSSSSSEEEDDD FFUFUUCCCKKKEEERRRSSS . . . “
Land Shark
Much, much better. I do believe that DGAF Obama should give these wussy Democrats in Congress a strong lesson in GETTING SOME COJONES AND SHOVING THIS BULLSHIT RIGHT BACK AT THESE ASSCLOWNS.
Pinkham’s Law
“We’re going to throw everything at him that he threw at us,”
That’s a good start. THEN, they need to get creative.
Dazza
I am an outsider but it seems that the right wing types are outraged that the snark, laughter and satire continues – even though their candidate won. The flying monkeys who swing by Wonkette desperately want the laughter (and fact-checking) to stop. So, my American Wonkette friends, keep being snarky, keep laughing, and keep on pointing out that their guy LOST the popular vote (and screen shot the proof, before it ‘disappears’). Cheap and cheerful is the way to go – they can’t handle it and it won’t cost you a dime.
ltmcdies
and since international Wonketeers can post from where ever…(just like Julian) we can also snark and laugh and point.
If right wing international alt right assholes can do it….so can the world’s sane
Serai 1
Oh, I’m still laughing. Whenever one of them starts chest-beating, I point out that the fucker hasn’t even gotten into OFFICE yet and he’s already breaking all his promises. Honestly, it’s beyond me how anyone ever believed a word he said.
arundel
Creative: Barack dons a wig and fake mustache and a Groucho Marx schnozz (which comes with extra mustache), runs in 2020 under an assumed identity, wins in a landslide, and we get 4-8 years of awesome Prez again. He could even run as a Republican, because then the media would be cowed out of asking him any questions and give him glorious coverage.
I would like that to happen.
Pinkham’s Law
Oddly enough, there is something weird about the link to this story. You can’t share it on FB. It goes to another story – about KellyAnne (dear, sweet KellyAnne) taking the racism accusations personally.
bookish
Oops, sorry. The Politico article is from early this morning, if that helps.
Pinkham’s Law
Naw, not your fault. I even went to their front page and tracked it down from there. The “share” links don’t work. Even cut-n-paste the actual url doesn’t work. *shrug* I guess the NSA doesn’t want it shared.
Courser
(Twitters seem to be working again).
nastymagyar
That hardly seems shady at all…
mancityRed6
did anyone think any different?
Sally
Some must have. They are gullible “Hillary is the most corrupt politician EVER! I will drain the swamp in DC!” but had they had any help form the media about Trump’s true business acumen and had they forced him to show those tax returns, we would not be here now.
boyblue123
of course he was….hes only wants to prez to line his pockets
Land Shark
And this will be how he is impeached.
Blacktop Cadence
Good fucking lord, the dude ain’t even finishing installing his absurd security apparatus at his city disrupting tower of shit in NYC, and he’s already abusing the presidency.
Rachel Book Harlot
The corruption from this new administration is going to be unprecedented.
Pinkham’s Law
It probably already is, and he hasn’t even been sworn in.
Rachel Book Harlot
And the rubes will just say it means he’s a good businessman.
Sally
His whole life is corrupt. Why would he change at 70? And his kids are just as bad. Give an interview, then hack your jewelry or Chinese-made dress right after. How crass. After the classy Obama family, this crew looks as clueless as the Beverly Hillbillies in LA.
bookish
Hey, that thing really works!
Apple Scruff
Awe fuck. He’s going to have another 3am Twitter rant and I am going to totally miss it.
Pinkham’s Law
Dok, Evan, or Rebecca will gallantly give up their Saturday to write it up.
Sally
Oh he will. The recounts are all going forward, and he is MAD. I can’t imagine what the King is afraid of. After all, he was the one assuring us the thing was rigged. Shouldn’t we check to be sure?
President CLINTON for Christmas!
Apple Scruff
Yeah, he’s being VERY combative about the recounts. And supporters tried to stop it in Wisconsin and the judge was all, “Nah”.
Pinkham’s Law
It’s a good thing the Prez can’t have any conflicts of interest.
Shoto
Gangsta Gubmint…
mancityRed6
OT: if (and it’s kind of a big IF seeing as how no one got raises this year), IF I get my xmas bonus this year, I’ll be able to buy a bed.
Yea! No more folding and unfolding the futon!
I know, baby steps.
Grown ups like jumping on the bed, also too.
mancityRed6
I’m looking at mattress reviews online, “sex” is one of the things rated
mml1996
Got a lot of shock absorbers?
mancityRed6
the spring mattresses get better reviews than the foam mattresses, but after sleeping on this ( http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S49089425/ ) for the last 2 and a half months, I’ll be good with just getting out of the living room and having something in the bedroom other than just empty space.
/rant
Anna Rompage
Personally I like a nice futon mattress for sex, it’s better not to have a big spongy mattress that half swallows your partner
TX Taco Truck Brigade
You have to tie the bastard down though. During one, ahem…this one time, me, her, and the futon fell off the frame onto the floor.
Anna Rompage
Now that’s an accomplishment!
TX Taco Truck Brigade
Technically it was more like we sliiiide off onto the floor. Needless to say we were particularly…unrestrained that evening. (Dude, I’m such a prude. I really really am).
mancityRed6
on the one in a million chance I’ll be having it again, I’ll keep that in mind.
looking at this: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00272208/
also, because I can get it home and upstairs to the apartment (bed and mattress, too) by myself and in my own car
sw19womble
That sucker would have never gotten folded at my house. So congrats on that achievement too!
mancityRed6
I have to unfold it, both the cats and me don’t fit on it otherwise.
Daisy
Here’s to hoping!
TX Taco Truck Brigade
Beds (mattress, base, and frame) are fucking expensive. I actually found futon’s more comfortable, but I’m lazy so I never folded them up (or made the bed for that matter).
YoNastyBunny
Fuck yeah! I’m still sleeping on my sorry ass ikea bed and foam mattress that I bought when i was in college in 2006. I got the mattress for cheap from the as-is department because it was 4″ or 5″ too short. I’m only 5′ tall so it didn’t really matter… But one day, I’ll get a real mattress.
mancityRed6
how did you know where I’ll be shopping?
Nasty Granny
Check out Tuft & Needle if you haven’t already. You can even buy through Amazon so Trix gets a few whore diamonds out of the deal! If you don’t have Prime, be sure to check for a free intro month before you check out.
Also too, some Salvation Army stores sell good, new mattresses. We bought the exact same mattress for the guest room as the one we bought a year before for Nasty Teen’s room, for less than half the price, because I just happened to wander into Salvation Army. I always assumed they only had used mattresses but I was wrong (again).
mancityRed6
right now, I’m just looking at getting out from the living room and actually making something of the bedroom.
site bookmarked for when I need it, though. thanks.
TX Taco Truck Brigade
If you’re desperate and broke you can allows just chuck the mattress on the floor. Any “special guests” wont’ think much of you, but it probably saves, what, $500 at least?
sw19womble
I had a topper from IKEA which gave another five years to a gnarly old 20 year-old mattress (and pine bed frame) which I bought way back when.
I only just treated myself to a new mattress and divan earlier this year.
But of course, I just put the IKEA topper straight back on top anyway – but at least the bottom section doesn’t squeak any more ;)
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
*crossing fingers*
Here’s hoping. I sleep on a futon, but that is my choice, my back loves it.
mancityRed6
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
Yeah, I hear you. :)
I actually just have a futon mat on my bedroom floor, but it suits me. Good Luck, and Good Hunting, getting yourself a bed. :)
shaar dula
but why? construction lumber, bit of elbow grease, paint/stain per taste, you can make a really good custom height bed. there are some great tutorials on instructables, including very elegant Japanese styles.
400$ ikea (queen) mattress firm fully serviceable for a night’s sleep and other associated activities.
sw19womble
Absolutely, I built a really nice ‘lowrider’ bedframe for the cottage. It’s not that complicated if I can manage it. :)
shaar dula
I made one taller than 18 inches queen size with 2×6. finish is inverse negoro nuri. looks nice. and is quite as a mouse. last year during relo the guy gave compliments before I told him I built it.
mancityRed6
yeah, no. I’m in an apartment with carpeting. there’s no way I’ll be able to do any sort of construction in this place.
plus, all my tools are back with the ex.
mml1996
Seriously though, fuck you Missouri for not sending this guy to the Senate.
Shoto
Jeezuz Christ, is Drumpf a fucking moron. If we make it through the next four years without a major international conflagration (or several), it’ll be a fucking miracle. On the positive side, maybe it’ll be a full-on nuclear exchange, and we’ll be instantly vaporized. We might never know what hit us…
mml1996
“I’ll take the asteroid please”
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
I live between 10-50 miles of 10+ strategic targets. I don’t need to plan for the Aftermath.
XD
BMW
He ran a good campaign, but was ultimately undone by not having an (R) next to his name and the deep pockets of the NRA.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
OT – that works. I just found a reference book I’ve wanted for years, and it’s on it’s way. Tankograd book about the TUSK upgrade to M1A1/A2 Abrams tanks.
It’s not an expensive book, but it’s been impossible to track down, like in 4 years. But I just found one on eBay from a top bookstore. :)
I have 2 kits ready to build as TUSK I and TUSK II sets, and this will really be good.
Nounverb911
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
No, but I just bookmarked that, thank you. :)
I found this at Aberdeen bookstore, a place in Denver with many, many lovely books for a history & military geek like me.
Daisy
Yay, I’m so happy for you Anna!
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
Thanx, Daisy. :) It’s a find, and it helps me enjoy model kits that are already paid for.
Win-win. :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWDP9-FpVMo
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
I love GuP. I have the Platz kit of the Tiger I with the girl figure, plus a kit of the 2 girls and the add-on parts sets.
sw19womble
Dammit, I want to get my hands on one of the kits, but so much choices! Mmmm….
Might go for a trawl through Amazon this weekend…
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
I got the Tiger for a great price on Amazon.
Apple Scruff
Chris Hayes has a guest on now who voted for Drumpf because he said he was going to “drain the swamp”. Then she realized that Steven Mnuchin is the guy who foreclosed on her home.
On the smallest violin that ever been made by Nano robots
Nounverb911
http://p.fod4.com/p/media/d44f4cf0e5/Eaf01rewQWuqR05un3jK_Cat%20Maestro.gif
Land Shark
OMFG … that is hilarious! I shouldn’t be laughing, but damn! A nasty producer couldn’t have planned that better!
Daisy
Is it wrong that I laughed?
Land Shark
No. Laugh away … it is good for the soul.
Apple Scruff
Not at all. Trump-induced schadenfreude is all we’re going to have for the next four years. Enjoy!
Nounverb911
I love the smell of schadenfreude foreclosing in the morning.
DahBoner
I’m also pretty sure the Trumpbillies won’t be doing this when the shit blows up in their faces…
Well, I did mention downthread just how dark my sense of humor is…
shivaskeeper
Why would it be wrong? She voted for Trump without doing any due diligence despite the fact that he is doing exactly what he said he was going to do. She voted for someone woefully unqualified for the job, so fuck her.
Cogswell – User of the wheel
I saw this story elsewhere much earlier today and made a comment about it on another thread. Yes, I guffawed loudly and felt not even a tinge of guilt.
You reap what you sow.
Serai 1
No. It would be wrong if anyone had lied. But Trump is doing exactly what he said he’d do. It’s her fucking fault if she decided not to believe him.
sw19womble
Try just smiling at him more. :)
Daisy
That won’t be hard. You know, one of my favorite moments was this time I was headed out, had my headphones in, and saw him as I got down the stairs. He just smiled at me, like I was the one person he wanted to see. Made my damn week.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
:) I hope you two keep getting closer. You already know my opinion.
If I were physically there, I would grab the two of you and take care of things for you. ~hugs~
IOnlyLikeCats
Probably because you were. Everyone is waiting for you to make your move, including him.
Daisy
Thing was, that was the first decent day of the week. And he had indirectly affected my emotions, so our last conversation hadn’t ended on the most positive of notes. Not the worst, either
mml1996
I’d be shoving the two of you and saying “NOW KISS GODDAMIT”
Daisy
Thing is, IRL, I don’t think anyone sees it. Then again, roommate has gone from thinking my crush on him is a bad thing to that it’s cute, and Floridian friend observed that his present was the largest.
mml1996
There’s always room for mistletoe! :D
BadWolfGirl
Yes! mml, we think alike!
sw19womble
XD
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
Daisy – just a thought. What if you said to Guy Friend – “hey, I know this Queer girl, and her opinion is that people should tell each other how they feel. So…”
And see what happens?
you two. get a room already.
Anna Rompage
Yay! Happy Friday, post finals!
Daisy
Pre finals, for me actually. The one I had already was an odd exception.
IOnlyLikeCats
Hope it goes great! You won’t regret the movie. (:
Daisy
Good, because it looks adorable, and it’s Floridian friend’s birthday!
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
~What if I let you in?
~What if I make it right?
“You either believe in yourself, or you don’t.” James T. Kirk, “Mudd’s Women”.
Cogswell – User of the wheel
You are a woman after my own heart, Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet.
I can watch reruns of Star Trek – TOS ’til doomsday and never get enough. I’m all ate up that way. In fact, I’m watching it right now on BBC America.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
Nice! And call me Anna, we’re friends. :)
I’ve been a Trekkie since I was 4, my big brother bought me a Mego Spock doll, and I got Kirk later too. I love TOS, TNG, and DS9. You should see my books, kits, toys, and such.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/642eef2276a8db9c2766a8047f8e0293c317d4122e6c8a0c30c6fccc492cc46e.jpg
I made this photo for my Mom while she was so ill. She had bought me boots and such to do a TOS Cosplay. I wasn’t able to finish it before she passed, but she saw me as TOS Bikini Girl. :)
Cogswell – User of the wheel
I was 7 when TOS debuted. I remember laying on the wood floor in the living room (we had radiating heat in the floors) watching it with my rather large family. 7 brothers and 3 sisters. I think it was only 5 brothers at the time. Two had yet to be hatched.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
Excellent. :) My big brother watched it first run with Granpa, and I grew up as a Syndication fan.
My dad was uh, not a good role model, so I latechd on to Kirk and later Picard as my examples of how to be an adult.
Anna Rompage
Mattis IS the reason why we should have civilian leadership for the Pentagon…
MynameisBlarney
The best!!
IOnlyLikeCats
OT I just got back from a lovely movie (Moana was amazing) and dinner (ex-roommate paid for, was super sweet of her). And her new roommate (an old friend of hers) got on my bad side very quickly when he decided slapping my behind and saying “Move your butt” was hilarious and playful. I have PTSD, didn’t originally realize who was behind me, and almost [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] but instead went easy on him and [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]. I chewed into him, told him it was sexual harassment, and I wouldn’t be so forgiving next time. He apologized but didn’t quite understand that is not cool without prior consent. My ex-roommate is going to chew into him some more for me later.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
Nicely done. :) I have PTSD myself. You did very well to hold your temper and deal so calmly.
IOnlyLikeCats
He kept insisting it was meant to be funny. That is never funny unless it is a same gendered friend you have had for like 30 years and you still got prior consent. I was not that calm (and if he ever tries that again I will be less so) but I also didn’t seriously injure him so small victories.
Alan
At least he didn’t grab your cat.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
I hear that, all of it.
I might have come completely unglued. A longtime friend or a bed-partner has those privileges, a stranger does not.
BrianW
Good for you! We’re not back to the 1950s yet.
BadWolfGirl
BWK & I have a friend who likes to jump out at people to scare them. She has PTSD (as do BWK & I) but doesn’t quite understand why we go off when she purposely startles us. I almost punched her face the last time it happened & I can’t seem to control or change that reaction.
TBH, I have never understood why people think that shit is funny.
boyblue123
CNN reporting that the current administration is trying to clean up the China mess after China contacted them a little while ago.
Cant even imagine whats going to happen when the inmates are running the asylum
Nounverb911
This bumbling incompetence is what scares me most.
boyblue123
Yeah, every move the Drumpster fire makes (even a simple phone call) will make ripples around the world. Scary prospect
Rachel Book Harlot
It’s amazing how intricate all these relationships are. He is woefully unprepared for this job.
Rachel Book Harlot
Me, too. And the thing is, why is he not utilizing the State Dept. That’s what they are there for. FFS. Time to start building my bunker and collecting canned goods.
Objectifer
And in a few short weeks he won’t have Obama or anybody else to backstop him, We are so fucked.
Rachel Book Harlot
I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when Obama was informed about this latest fiasco.
boyblue123
At least this happened on a friday so the news networks have all weekend to talk about it. Maybe the electors will take notice
Rachel Book Harlot
The irony is that now he’s faced with the same wall of criticism he heaped on Obama for the last 8 years. Except he actually deserves it. Not sure how his thin skin will withstand this for the next 4 years.
yyyaz
It won’t and I can’t allow myself to contemplate the consequences.
Rachel Book Harlot
Obama cleaning up after another moron yet again. Frakking awful.
Pinkham’s Law
This . . this was BRILLIANT on Don the Con’s part. If diplomatic relations break down before he takes office, he can swear forever that it’s Obama’s fault. AND HIS FOLLOWERS WILL EAT IT UP!
http://orig12.deviantart.net/fe9d/f/2012/204/e/0/e0d2b81c467ef068864f4e4153f437f4-d57qtyx.jpg
Rachel Book Harlot
We should keep a running list of how many countries he’s pissed off so far due to this bungling.
Biel_ze_Bubba
His followers will eat whatever shit he drops down their throats.
Rachel Book Harlot
So this interesting: on top of the fact that he was considering building hotels there: “Trump’s growing team of national-security and foreign-policy advisers includes several people who have been strong supporters of Taiwan in Republican administrations. They include Stephen Yates, deputy national security adviser under Vice President Richard B. Cheney, who was reported to be visiting Taiwan when the call occurred.”
To a Marine, probably yes.
IOnlyLikeCats
I meant to us civvies. She already ruined it, do we need to know what the correct way is?
Anna Rompage
These folks do the nasty business that our govt asks them to do..
Anna Rompage
We’ve become a lazy bunch, in that for most of those who have been against the endless wars, we don’t really do our part to end them, me included…
I’ve been to a few rallies in Portland, and marched against the Iraq war, and what not, but until 10s of millions march on Washington and demand change, and stay until we get our way, our warring ways will never end.
shivaskeeper
Good on you for going to the rallies and marches. In my opinion, another effective route that gets overlooked is holding elected officials responsible for taking care of the troops when they come home hurt or broken. There is no real accountability for promises made after a war so there are no long term consequences as far as most normal people or elected officials are concerned.
The VA people I’ve dealt with have been professional and will bend over backwards to help if you can get through, but the help, funding, and systems aren’t there a lot of the time.
yyyaz
Few things chap my ass more than looking at all the C&W rich assholes who vote straight R and then sling the pity pitch at us to pay for all the men and women who come home broken.
shivaskeeper
But prayer is free, so it’s got that going for it. Politicians do the same thing, pray for us instead of funding promised programs. Or even better, tell us to suck it up because we’ve already made sacrifices, so what’s a bit more sacrifice.
boyblue123
The real question is, can Sarah hear a marine in Russia shout Hoohah from her front porch
Husband Of Mrs God
Yes, the cold is very stimulating and you wouldn’t believe how the sound carries across the Strait.
In that part of Russia, there may be no hoohah for miles so you really have to belt out that call.
boyblue123
haha…the Palin mating call
Anna Rompage
I’d think she’d have a fined tuned ear for that as I’d imagine that could very well be the rut calls that she’s most drawn to…
shivaskeeper
‘Ooh Rah.
BMW
Shorter Palin: “I never served in the military, but I know all their catch phrases so I’m a real patriot.”
TJ Barke
Except, she doesn’t know their catchphrases, because that’s not the correct marine catchphrase.
BMW
Are you trying to contradict my paraphrasing of her idiocy with an explanation of her idiocy?
Nounverb911
He blathering again that he doesn’t know how to do his job and everyone is mean to him.
Caviar. Jesus christ. The healing properties of expensiveness.
clairence
another multi-purpose product. skin care cream that you can eat in a pinch.
Msgr_Moment
Caviar? I simply rub truffles on my genitals.
Dazza
Hilarious, in a painful, ‘please don’t let there be a war’ way.
Yr. Gma
This is the way of the narcissist.
mml1996
I’m frankly getting tired of reminding folks with this fact.
Land Shark
Hey Donnie, you lying sack of shit, I’ve got some news for you. All these stupid tweets are being recorded for posterity. Even after you’ve deleted them, there are copies of your dumbass, whiney tweets stored away for when you’re impeached. The internet never forgets.
Laugh it up, shitgibbon, your whiney, petulant, self-serving bullshit will come back to haunt you. Printing up signs with all your twitters will make for great TV when the marches start on Washington.
Keep pissing on the voters … those signs have sharp points.
Rachel Book Harlot
Oh God. Make it stop! Please, make it stop!
Msgr_Moment
“Interesting” as in: go fuck yourself in the ear, you smug little, ignorant, fucking trump.
Land Shark
What a self-serving, little twatwaffle. It’s going to get a lot worse, as the real journalists (what few are left) call out every, single lie you tell.
(whispering in the House lunch room) “So, if he keeps lying on that twitter thing, can we impeach him?” “Not sure.” “Let’s ask …”
Alan
Usually my reaction to hoohah also.
Nounverb911
Anna Rompage
It’s been a home improvement Friday around the urban homestead…
I spent the afternoon changing the drum rollers in my clothes dryer… Thank you YouTube, your videos tuned a $300+ service call into a $43 purchase, and a hour and a half of my time, and I didn’t need anything other than a Phillips head screw driver
I also switched out 30 incandescent bulbs that used a combined 1900 watts, for LED bulbs and now my total combined lighting watt usage comes to a whopping 135 watts.
I like house projects, as it means a nice long time to sip on some nice beers…
Did I mention that I’m a little buzzed now… No worries, all the power tools and bladed instruments have been put away…
sw19womble
LED lighting has really come on leaps and bounds the past few years. I’ve slowly been swapping them out and changing fittings. The housemate didn’t like them at first, but she’s come around, slowly.
sw19womble
White goods I still leave to the professionals (except changing seals in front-loading washing machines and swap-outs like that), I’ma skeered!
Anna Rompage
I have a background in commercial and industrial mtc and basic engineering…
I like to take things apart to see how they work, and have gotten to a point to where I can get most stuff back together without an incident…
Anna Rompage
Yeah, the ealry bulbs were pretty harsh in color, but I’ve found that GE & Philips now both make nice colored bulbs, and the prices have come down enough to where I made the leap!
boyblue123
LED seems unnaturally bright sometimes. The bulbs dont use up much wattage but having one of those bulbs is like looking into the sun
Anna Rompage
It’s best to find the warm colored bulbs, around 2900 in color, and I find it best to ave a dimmer on most fixtures…
I’m kind of a lighting and ambiance freak…
boyblue123
ah, i see..good advice
Anna Rompage
Yeah, it’s best to avoid the cheap Chinese LEDs, the color rendition is awful, much like looking into the center of a welders arc.. Most of those will have a color rating of 3200+
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
I put LEDs in my bathroom as a start a couple of years ago. They are harsh.
But – if I put on my makeup under them, I look better in every other lighting condition. :D
Courser
I have Ikea LEDs in my bathroom. They’re maybe a teensy bit harsh, but they’re behind a glass shade, so it’s liveable. Good to know that my face probably doesn’t look as bad as I think it is.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
Yeah, don’t worry. If you fix your face under harsh light, you’re golden in anything else. :)
sw19womble
Mmmm so many pretty lights….
shivaskeeper
Don’t stare directly into the light.
shaar dula
they are a bit more technical than old incandescents. but they also have more fidelity.
half my cricket team works on bulbs. and based on the discussions/debates I have had with them about spectra, control systems etc. they have literally reinvented the bulb. these guys worry about things I didn’t even know had to be thought off.
shaar dula
I’m replacing burnt oldies with LED. replacing frequently used outlets with LEDs. But I cant bring myself to throw perfectly working oldies. saving them in a box. using them in less frequently used areas.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
Well done on all. :) It’s amazing what you can learn on youTube.
Anna Rompage
Yes, I think so. Can I join?
Suddenly I remembered the last line of “The Owl And The Pussycat”.
calliecallie
Dammit! I read that as “What’s New Pussycat?” and just sang the whole song in my head to get to the last line, which is, I believe, “you and your pussycat nose.” Which left me confused. And then I realized you were referring to the poem. Which I will have to google, because I do not have it memorized.
In the meantime, Tom Jones earworm continues. “WHAT’S new, pussycat? Whoa-whoa-whoa…”
Husband Of Mrs God
The whole poem is just wonderful.
I just checked though, and found out I meant the last line of the first stanza.
Notreelyhelping
Und it has been rumored that you do not own a Chicago Manual of Style. This must not be true, no? No? ANSWER ZIE QUESTION!
Naytch
Ein noun, ein verb, ein predicate!!!
Dazza
Welp, that’s it for me for a while, fellow flying monkeys of liberalism. I’m off to the gym, lunch and then an afternoon/evening of tabletop gaming. We are currently playing an All Flesh Must Be Eaten/White Wolf universe epic of my Spousal Unit’s creation. I seriously asked the other players if they wanted to continue the game on 9 November because my oh-so-clever SU’s universe had now become reality – complete with a Trump presidency and the RWNJ takeover of the levers of power. I love my SU – but am truly weirded out by the prophecy aspect of the game.
So what is in your future? A theocracy which leaves the world woefully unprepared and outgunned when the Elder Gods return. May all your critical rolls be 20s.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
Roll high as needed, my friend. :)
We need to figure something out, I’d love to run Delta Green for a group. :)
Wild Cat
Blue State money had to pay that Alaska leech’s political salary. Mooching white murderous hoohah, she.
Husband Of Mrs God
Fump’s ears are obviously more than 6 inches apart, too much fat in there.
The Marines say OOH RAH and lay waste to our enemies, to defend the hoohah safe at home.
Wild Cat
But no one ever defends Bristol’s hoohah.
Anna Rompage
Bartles and James lays waste to the protectors of BarStools hoohah…
Wild Cat
One thing I can say: BarStool is the only halfway attractive gal half my age I wouldn’t even want to see nekkid, let alone spawn with.
Is her younger sister—the facebook racist— Banged-Up-for-Jesus yet?
Msgr_Moment
I hear there’s a welcome mat.
Wild Cat
Yeah, knitted from what she shaves . . . .
Celtic_Gnome
I yell Hoohah! at the moment of orgasm. It has gotten me a few weird looks over the years. It goes well with the most important six inches of— What were we talking about again?
Msgr_Moment
Does it also lead to embarrassing moments in line at the Post Office?
Or maybe that’s just me.
Land Shark
When at the post office, maybe you shouldn’t be gazing at the wanted posters so closely ….
Biel_ze_Bubba
When you’re waiting in line at the post office, even six inches is a big deal.
Meanie-meanie, tickle a person
In Putin’s Russia*, hoohah shouts at you!
*Coming soon to a former British colony near you…
borninatrailer
“I yell Hoohah! at the moment of orgasm.”
Me too! Well, not my orgasms, other people’s. ..yeah, I’m kind of an asshole.
Courser
You must be a fun neighbor…
Rachel Book Harlot
I wonder if the Hair Ferret™ needs a separate security clearance ….
mml1996
Wishing for a bag of massive votes to drop on some of these dickturds.
shaar dula
I mean, amen
Rachel Book Harlot
That was great. Someone also made an interesting comment about the US needing China to help with N. Korea — but Trump is too fucking stupid and greedy to understand all this. This is horrible. He’s not even in the WH yet. JFC. I can’t even.
Msgr_Moment
Technically another violation of the Logan Act, but who’s going to prosecute him?
Land Shark
All his “friends” in the House and the Senate?
Rachel Book Harlot
I think the Dems have a good opportunity right now, before it all slips through their fingers in January, of making a big stink about this. They should be shouting these things from the rooftops.
cmd
I am still hoping for some righteous smiting from above.
Land Shark
I know, I’m now regretting the American revolution…
Me The People
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/sarah-palin-donald-trump-carrier-deal-crony-capitalism-232139
Sarah Palin apparently made a criticism of Trump. She probably just wants something. It’s like The Sopranos, when Carmela affects to have conniptions about Tony’s ‘business’ and is mysteriously fine with everything once again after Tony gives her a fur coat, new house or whatever. Kinda like Romney too.
Biel_ze_Bubba
Taiwan must be looking at China, shrugging their shoulders, and saying, “Hey, it wasn’t our idea.”
Our only hope is that the rest of the world (the sane part of it – not N. Korea, and for now, I guess, not the Philipines) figures out quickly that Trump is a fucking idiot, and ignores him to the extent it’s possible to do so — basically, just tread water for four years until the USA regains its sanity, or at least puts a rational adult in charge.
Actually, Congress and the state governments would do well to take the same approach.
boyblue123
I fear most foreign governments will take what he says literally because of language barriers.
Resistance Engineer Red Bird
I fear foreign governments will take advantage of him because he is gullible and easily flattered.
Land Shark
I fear foreign governments have just stopped laughing and saying “what the fuck?” over and over.
Dazza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zou2V-e0zo&index=93&list=PLgA_QpnjZQyy6LAbGAB11g3AXcjVAK_8K
JD Mulvey
Do war protesters wait around at airports to face down returning vets? I don’t think that actually happens, with or without a girlfriend.
Latverian Diplomat
It never even happened back in the Vietnam era. There are no contemporaneous accounts of hippies spitting on returning veterans, for example. People started “remembering” that years later.
Toomush_Inferesistance
No, it was a deliberate deception by the CIA, who, years later, admitted in a paper trail that they had hired bearded folks to act on Nixon’s orders, as provacateurs to spit on returning G.I.s.
Scrofula
Feminists never burned bras either.
Toomush_Inferesistance
Well, now….ummmm….about that…..ummmm…
Scrofula
No sarcasm; there WAS a protest on some campus with a barrel into which some women gently placed objects like high-heels and a bra or two. But the angry bra-burning feminazi narrative was also invented.
yyyaz
People Chickenhawks started “remembering” that years later. FTFY
Yr. Gma
The vets were the hippies. As fast as the hair grew back.
JH Marx, Resister
I became anti-war whilst still in the USAF.
Land Shark
In my recent travels across the US, I’ve only ever seen respect shown to those in uniform in the airports. That bullshit is another fever dream of the dumbasses who never actually have been in an airport.
dshwa
I don’t know many war protesters who yelled at anyone other than policy makers
shaar dula
remember McLaughlin and Shankar are playing these notes on strings.
Anna Rompage
Wanna connect up with someone… Just imagine walking to this song as you’re walking up to them….
Why ya gotta do me like that, Land Shark?
Land Shark
I adjust my comment, then. When I listen to that song (Merry Go Round) the words allow me to step into someone else’s shoes, and understand the circumstance that makes them feel alone and trapped. It’s a tiny, little perspective on a life that I have been lucky to not have lived.
Meanie-meanie, tickle a person
This one?
TundraGrifter
Remember when that young celebrity lady of no discernible talent or ability showed up on the red carpet not wearing any underwear and her dress had a “thigh cut” up to her armpit and she apologized if anybody was offended by her exposed Hoohan?
Land Shark
Bristol, is that you?
TundraGrifter
If we live in a nation where a young lady can’t flash her hoohah then, indeed, the terrorists have won!
I Am Helpy
no but go on
TundraGrifter
“Leave it to Chrissy Teigen, 30, to flash some SERIOUS leg in the middle of a downpour! It rained cats and dogs in Los Angeles during the American Music Awards on Nov. 20, and while the change in weather was completely unexpected, Chrissy didn’t even seem to notice (or care). The supermodel wore a peek-a-boo black dress, with extremely high slits that exposed her…ya know. The next day, Chrissy made a joke about the whole thing, and apologized on Instagram to anyone who was offended by her risqué outfit. ‘Apologizes to anyone harmed mentally or physically by my hooha,’ she wrote.”
Apple Scruff
Well, I guess the Drumpf ‘I SAVED JOBS’ victory lap was short-lived. And isn’t Carrier still sending 800 jobs to Mexico, also too?
His “Pussy grabber” or “Druggie & Criminal” line of suits?
Apple Scruff
I imagine Donald trying to pay off more companies to stay in the US will look sort of like this. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/54db636b5d65247496234a9a92812ca4e69c0f18de7164b4e082fbc811429cdf.gif
Jamoche
Or this http://9to5animations.com/whack-a-mole-with-cat/
TJ Barke
All the corporations will now be like “Nice jobs you got there, be a shame if anything happened to ’em…”
Delu
“Nice jobs WE’VE got here, be a shame if anything happened to ’em…”
Yes, it would be a shame if anything happens to their OWN jobs….get’s Trump going on the bribes though.
Nounverb911
Trump presidency + threat to move to Mexico = TRUMPTORSION.
I Am Helpy
It’s sending 1300 to Mexico. 800 jobs are staying, for one year.
This “victory” – them doing what they already planned to do – was achieved by giving this multi-billion dollar company ten years of tax breaks.
dshwa
Donald you dumb fuck, you showed multinationals that they can threaten to leave and you’ll bribe them to stay. Four years of this shit thanks to your Carrier intervention
I Am Helpy
fun fact – Obama’s TARP saved 3 million jobs and ran at a profit of $15 billion dollars. Even if we took his imaginary victory as being real, at this rate it would take Trump two and a half centuries to compete.
Lambsendbeds
1300 jobs are going to Mexico. 800 jobs are staying in Indiana. So, VICTORY ! What?
shaar dula
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQBSkESiuZI
IOnlyLikeCats
OK I know Sarah is crazy but “Trumpeters” is pretty much perfect for his campaign staff and most virulent supporters.
bookish
Politico on Trump overture to Taiwan.
“What has happened in the last 48 hours is not a shift. These are major pivots in foreign policy w/out any plan. That’s how wars start,” Murphy said on Twitter. “And if they aren’t pivots – just radical temporary deviations – allies will walk if they have no clue what we stand for. Just as bad.”
But Bill Bishop, a longtime China hand, questioned the instant consensus that Chinese leader Xi Jinping would respond with blind fury — rather than calculated opportunism. “Xi may be angry over the Trump-Tsai call but he may also be happy with the opportunity it presents,” he tweeted. “Beijing loves being given pretexts.”
“Strategy involves thinking more than one move ahead. No evidence of that here,” wrote Aaron Friedberg, an Asia expert who worked in the Bush White House under Vice President Dick Cheney. “Whatever the truth Beijing much more likely to read this as deliberate provocation/test than a blunder.”
boyblue123
Well, Politco, you Merry Bunch of worthless Boneheads, you wanted him.
Fuck you, and fuck Donald.
yyyaz
China has 5,000 years of recorded history, tradition and culture. Its leaders play xiangqi. The Ugly Orange Combover thinks Chow Mein is the People’s Army mess tent.
Moebym of the Rebel Alliance
The Art of War was written by a Chinese man.
yyyaz
Don’t tell Herr Scheisskopf.
Pinkham’s Law
I did not think of it, but Freidberg has a good point. Usually, “questionable” countries do something to poke the new POTUS soon after he takes office. They will likely view this as a preemptive poke at them.
Delu
Well Trump is the opponent that every strategist dreams of.
No opponent is a better one than one who will do everything you want and expect them to.
Getting Trump to do a thing isn’t all that hard at all.
bookish
Just mention the word hotel, and he’s on it.
Delu
Nah just get under his skin.
Not hard at all considering how many times it happened in his campaign….and even now.
Those skilled at mind games would have a field day with Trump.
bookish
WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE!
TJ Barke
I’ve made millions of jobs.
mml1996
I moved on her like a bitch
TJ Barke
I’ve got yooge hands.
mml1996
Melania said this was okay
Delu
Thousands of Muslims celebrating in the streets of New Jersey on 9/11.
Obama yelled at a Trump protestor.
I Am Helpy
how did I make all this happen with only one word?
Pinkham’s Law
Fantabulous!
Me not sure
There are a number of soldiers, I’ve been told, who are quite fond of the hoohah. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2bf7dd7411846f590722a50420be2e99af8a4087852af4f0fdaf1bdb4121f186.jpg
Delu
Weirdly enough, “Hoo hah” is also used to describe a big commotion or fuss….usually over something trivial.
Me not sure
It was also a big early Mad Magazine catch word. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d6e944323073c870fad25503ddd4b16b533727887b07dc25dc07bdd85320dcc9.jpg
Nounverb911
HAPPY WAR ON CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
Trump can’t make up his tiny little mind if it’s Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays…
https://twitter.com/cafedotcom/status/804889969970073600
Johnnymoreno
I don’t expect that the rest of the world will be as charmed by Trump’s antics, as a minority of Americans were.
Anna Elizabeth, of Starfleet
No. I do not look good in a body stocking.
mml1996
Carly Rae Jepsen is to blame for Trump’s calls.
Blacktop Cadence
OT: So, I wanted to relate this experience because it has been super awesome for me. On a side note, one of my favorite students from student teaching is now a regular “pass deliverer” which mean she delivers passes an hour a day to various classrooms where students need to be pulled for whatever reason. I see her a lot, and doing so makes my day.
Maybe one day I’ll grow cynical, but seeing some amazing people just sends me over the moon as a teacher!
More mushy stuff from my FB too:
“So, one of the things I really like about being a teacher is that I get to interact and get to know my kids. It’s something I really feel I’m lacking as a sub, but volunteering with Spectrum has brought that back a little.
I ran into one of the transkiddos from the group today, he gave me a little wave, and I went over to talk to him. I know he’s painfully quiet, so I started off by apologizing given the one time he was in one of my classes and I misgendered and used the wrong name. Yeah, as a sub all I usually have is a roster, and I didn’t know at all, but I felt it was a good in for a kid who is painfully shy. He’s not exactly out or anything, but I wanted to be sure, and I asked him what to call him and what pronouns to use. He kind of stumbled and shrugged with a grin so I excused myself and told him I’d see him Wednesday.
So, I know I’m new to this kiddo, but I do hope he gets so he can trust me. And, honestly, that’s pretty cool. The way you interact with kids is different based on the student, but I have to say that in coming back to the district I’ve really, really liked seeing them again.”
Baby steps. Is it bad I want to hug him soooo bad?
mml1996
You’re incredible. I really wish I had someone like you in my school – who would’ve told me it was okay to be me :)
Blacktop Cadence
Haha, well, to be fair, I just enjoy this. I like to tell the story of a kid I “pink slipped” for being a talkative ass to girls in my class. He even bothered the aforementioned pass giver! I came down on him, he got smart, and down he went. The next hour I met with him, the assistant principal, and his concerned mother via phone. I honestly tried to argue I liked him (I do dislike very few of my kids) and I was hoping this encounter would result in a reset in our relationship.
He was mad at me, but we worked it out too. He even asked to seat himself next to my desk for the rest of the semester so he wouldn’t get in trouble. He’s now in a friend’s class, and while he’s up to his old antics, he’s friendly to me as a sub, and even told a class we were in to “be respectful.”
That goes so far, to be honest. I’m still learning to be a good sub (but I hoe I won’t be for long given next week’s interview), but I just love seeing my kids make academic and social progress, period.
Mayor_Mayor_Mayor
In honor of the snowbilly and her love of the hoohah, a bluegrass cover of modest mouse. Also likely the last pictures of our forests before they are sold off to the ranch stupidians. https://youtu.be/ZZYgsMXHY_w
Jamoche
I hate every ape I see
Pinkham’s Law
Yeah. Ha Ha. WHAT U GONNA DO? lol
msanthropesmr
HAsn’t she ever heard the parable of snake on somebodies head?
Delu
If Trump sells out it’s not your fault?
Coulter, you cheerleaded for Trump all the way knowing that he was exactly the sort of capitalist that he said he would get rid of from government.
That makes it your fault.
And yes, everyone’s fault.
You guys VOTED for Trump.
If anything this only shows just how blame adverse Trumpians like you are….
BTW, Trump has lied over 70% of the time when campaigning, you Trumpians kept saying no, don’t take him LITERALLY take him SERIOUSLY.
That was your excuse and this is the result. If he lied that much, why should anyone have taken him SERIOUSLY?
The problemthe boy who cried wolf had evidently was that the people around him were not Trumpians.
msanthropesmr
Have we reached peak 2 year old? I mean, blaming someone for your own actions?
TJ Barke
She really deserves to be first up against the wall.
msanthropesmr
No, that’s the marketing department at Cybernetics, Inc.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
Lotta competition for that honor, man…
shivaskeeper
Oh well. That about just puts the cherry on the shit sundae. Oh well, I deliberately lied and twisted reality. I was cheerleader for an unqualified shit head. Now he’s going to shit on everyone else’s head. But I made some more bucks off it, and got my name in lights again. Oh fucking well.
Yr. Gma
Hahaha. Told you so, ancient cunt.
BloviateMe
Oh Ann, you should have read Volume 2 – The Fart of the Deal.
mml1996
*laughs then cries*
msanthropesmr
so – if yu r a RVA (Capital of COnfederduncery) denizen – the ANthropes are having a shindig – and you can get deets
Reply with what Baked Alaska sez when asked what paper she reads.
Pinkham’s Law
Wood luv 2 attend, but has to be at RWnJ fambly thang on the elventyth, early, sxo no can doo. mai be d3ed to deth by then N E wai!
mml1996
My brain circuits have fried.
msanthropesmr
Hey man – you broke the president!
msanthropesmr
Hey – ours in on the tenth! Get smashed before the RMNJ fest!
Pinkham’s Law
U thank not I gettting smushed AT RWNJ famibly thang? u does not no me!!11@1
mml1996
whyYu do D1s teh me stop i neeD yagermushter &-&/
Pinkham’s Law
Lets do something coastal elite on this side.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
Get the Oregonians together again? Sister Artemis wants to do something along those lines.
TJ Barke
Preferably something in Eugene or thereabouts and on a friday or saturday.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
Hm. Maybe this is when I should step up and offer to host, as I live somewhere between Portland and Eugene, and a little way towards the mountains. I’ll float the idea with my housemates and see if they’re down with it.
TJ Barke
Eugene is still a 4 hour drive from me, Portland is a 6 hour drive.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
Where the heck are you, TJ?
TJ Barke
Down near the very tip of the southwest coast. About 45 min from the Cali border.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
Okay, that’s why we didn’t meet at the last drinkie thingie in PDX.
I had the idea that you had to work or something.
I have Sister’s email, I can ask what she thinks. The Portland crew might be disappointed, but we have geography to think about.
TJ Barke
I did have to work. If it had been on a friday or saturday I may have endeavored to make the trip.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
Okay, you are prepared to drive farther to a party than me.
TJ Barke
Willing to drive to meet the only people I can really relate to anymore.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
I know what you mean, all too well!
cynmac will never surrender
OT – this video on Barron Trump has not been banned. It is basically a recap of things his parents have said about him in the press. The best parts – the monotone voice used for Melania and the planned manga featuring Barron, with a cover of him crying and saying “the nice quiet life I had planned is ruined”.
Jamoche
You’ve only got 6 more weeks, honey – let the anger translator go and do it yourself :)
Rachel Book Harlot
He should let him have free reign at this point. You know deep down he wants to! :)
yyyaz
Yeah, but being an actual adult with children that are more than mere ego-displays proscribes what he can or will do.
bookish
Bamz already warned The Dumpster to be careful with what he says. So of course Trump was his usual impulsive, entitled, ignorant self.
Rick Hill
Does this mean China’s lerv affair with trump is overs?
Rachel Book Harlot
Looks like the honeymoon’s over – at least for now. Word on the street is that China has called Bamz: “By Friday night, China had already reached out to the Obama administration. White House officials declined to comment on diplomatic discussions.”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/02/politics/donald-trump-taiwan/
Shoto
China should call the loans that Drumpf has with the Bank of China. That would get his attention.
TJ Barke
Probably to say “Hey, you know those conspiracies the nuts have about you taking over with FEMA camps? You should do it. It may be the only way to save your country…”
Shoto
Maybe. And since it’s been asserted that he owes $100’s of Millions to The Bank of China (which is essentially the Chinese Government), this could get even more interesting.
Jeezuz, he’s so far out of his depth that it would be comical if it weren’t utterly terrifying. If we make it through the next four years without a major international conflagration (including nuclear), it will be a miracle.
Bill D. Burger
I just wish Obama had said: “You won doing things your way. I’m not going to try to tell you what to do as you approach January. Just wing it. They’ll love you for it.”
Trump’s already made a fucking mess, and that’s WITH people trying their best to help him. The President has gone out of his way. Left on his own and with only his wretched crew with him, it could have been a hundred times worse.
http://upload.uschinapress.com/2016/1114/1479175373360.gif
Rachel Book Harlot
We are in deep trouble once Obama leaves officially. Trump has surrounded himself with cronies, and will have a Congress led by a large group of Republicans that don’t know their ass from the elbow. As an example, someone below posted a comment from Tom Cotton praising what Trump did tonight.
Mayor_Mayor_Mayor
Not true at all, they know the elbow is the part you wipe after taking a shyte, or is that the knee. Fuck, anatomy is hard.
SayItWithWookies
The most baffling and incredible part of this is that the major debate in terms of what this means centers on interpreting this call on the basis of whether Trump did it on purpose or whether it was just some first-timer fuckup. Never in my lifetime has a president’s causing an international incident been waved off with the excuse of “Oh, he probably just doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.” That’s soooo reassuring.
Jamoche
That Is. Awesome. Thank you.
Anna Rompage
It’s one of my favorites from the vault…
Kooolest G
My son was born in Taiwan, when we had to go do the paperwork to get him back to America we went to the American “institute” in taipei, it’s called an institute instead of an embassy because if we called it an embassy the Chinese would think that we thought of Taiwan as its own country and they would freak the fuck out. When the athletes from Taiwan did the opening ceremony at the olympics in rio, they had to be introduced as “Chinese Taipei” even on American tv. China takes this shit really seriously you spray tanned dipshit. Can’t reince hire a body man who actually pays attention to politics to sit next to trump at all times and tell him not to do stupid shit like this
yyyaz
Anything less than a shock collar, stun gun or cattle prod would be useless.
shivaskeeper
AOT,K
MilwaukeeKent
“Can’t reince hire a body man who actually pays attention to politics to sit next to trump at all times and tell him not to do stupid shit like this”
That’s what Steve Bannon is for…oh, wait.
OMG. We’re fucked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP5Xv7QqXiM
yyyaz
I am not optimistic that lawyers or money are going to very useful. Maple Leafs/Krugerrands, C4/Semtek, assault rifles, RPGs and copper wire will be in great demand.
Pinkham’s Law
You may wish to delete this post. May I have your contact information?
old_redneck
Here are a few facts Sarah doesn’t know about General Mattis.
1. His personal library consists of around 7,000 volumes, mostly history. (Sarah’s personal library consists of two books, one of which has not yet been colored in.)
2. Before he first deployed to Iraq, he brought in Arab specialists to conduct sensitivity training for the Marine division he was commanding.
3. He was death on Marine officers and NCO’s whose troops abused Iraqi civilians.
4. He told his troops, every time you abuse or insult an Iraqi civilian, you make a recruit for Al Qaeda.
5. He carries with him, in combat, a well-read copy of “Marcus Aurelius: Meditations” which he reads to relax.
Not exactly a “mad dog.”
Kooolest G
Sarah’s library does not consist of two books!!!! Only one book, her edited version of the bibble
I Am Helpy
but it’s only partly been colored in. that bit is accurate.
Kooolest G
Definitely, but it’s just because she highlighted all the stuff about hating the homos and crossed out the stuff about being nice to the poors
Meanie-meanie, tickle a person
Watch Trump retract the nom when he realizes he fucked up…
Jamoche
“when he realizes he fucked up…”
That’ll be a first.
Anna Rompage
There’s a reason why the pentagon has traditionally been lead by civilians for some time now…
Not that I’m saying he’s a bad guy, but…
shivaskeeper
And they are extremely good reasons. Not just the Pentagon. The entirety of the senior chain of command is civilian.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a48ad12af0577fb34158fbe3ede3745706ce4dee86a869c54816c70eed7842c8.png
Mayor_Mayor_Mayor
Mr. President, respectfully, but when the fuck did you proceed from SNAFU directly to FUBAR without even a head nod to TARFU. I’ve met some REMFs in my day, but you are without a doubt the one person least able to unfuck yourself.- Mad Dog Mathis on day 1.0001
bookish
Trump thinks he’s a big swinging dick. He’s about to meet the real deal.
Mayor_Mayor_Mayor
To be a fly on the wall when Dingleberry Donny says some totally stupid shit directly to him.
yyyaz
He might have been nicknamed “Mad Dog” only because Pit Bull is so declasse. IOW, the name derives from him grabbing on to a point he was making like a Rottweiler on a pork chop and not letting it go.
georgiaburning
Yeah, I’m conflicted about this pick, too. He’s an intelligent and competent man. I think Trump just likes the Mad Dog nickname
Serai 1
You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five
years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t
got no manhood left anyway.
Yeah, LOTS more manly to slap them around because they DO wear a veil!
Lori
Or because they didn’t fetch your sammich fast enough.
Pinkham’s Law
(via http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/12/did-trump-win-because-swing-state-voters-preferred-him-on-the-economy )
But that’s not what exit polling shows in those states, to Southpaw’s point. Exit polls show Hillary Clinton winning a majority of the vote from people who told pollsters that the economy was the most important issue facing the country. What’s more, in each state, a majority of voters said that was the case.
In fact, if we extend that out to every state for which we have exit polling, in 22 of those 27 states a majority of people said that the economy was the most important issue. And in 20 of those states, voters who said so preferred Hillary Clinton. In 17, in fact, a majority of those voters backed Clinton.
[…]
In nearly every state, Clinton did better (and Trump worse) with voters worried about the economy than with the overall pool of voters. (Notice how the blue slices in the smaller circles extend further than the blue slices in the larger ones.)
[…]
On average, voters who said the economy was most important preferred Clinton by 7.3. But on terrorism, rated most important by a fifth of voters, on average, Trump led by an average of 21.8 points. On immigration (most important to an average of 12.2 percent of respondents)? A huge 42.1 percentage point lead for Trump.
But we can’t call them racist, oh no!
Meanie-meanie, tickle a person
TPM Hed:
Police: Men Screaming ‘Trump’ Try To Rip Off Woman’s Hijab In NYC
Usually incoherent rage comes out as “Aaaarrrgggghhhhh!!!”. I guess this is the Trumpanzee equivalent, screaming out the only word they know by heart…
Pinkham’s Law
Serai 1
So, OT ’cause I’ma talk about food.
Those mashed taters I made for Tday were really awesome. Tyler Florence came up with the idea of dispensing with the water and cooking the potatoes directly in a mix of milk and cream. HEAVEN. A lot of flavor is retained, and the results are effortlessly creamy and rich.
And then you have a bunch of milk and cream flavored with potato left over.
I’ve had a quart container of it in the fridge until today, when I came home with a big bag of baby spinach. I sauteed some onion, added broth and spices, and then dumped in the milk/cream. A chopped up Russet and a few cloves of garlic to cook slowly, which it’s doing now. When that’s tender, I’ll dump in the bag of spinach, let it cook down, season and then whirl with my stick blender. Voila! Lovely winter soup made with twice-cooked cream. Mmmm… yum.
Pinkham’s Law
That sounds very nice. I’d suggest a clove or two of garlic and the juice of a lemon, to make things interesting.
Serai 1
There’s already some garlic in there, lemon sounds good too! I may toss some rice in, as well.
Pinkham’s Law
Then again: my speelig is goig to sh9t, ow you night want to be cautious.;.
Serai 1
LOL. Oh, just ducked out and picked a lemon off the tree outside my kitchen door. Fresh is always best! ;p
Maddogjohn
How bout some a them ole fried taters?
Serai 1
I rarely do any kind of deep frying because the oil is inevitably wasted.
Maddogjohn
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4pz2kXoDo_s
Courser
Same here. I’ve got a small deep fryer but I’ve never used it. I just can’t commit to blowing that much peanut oil on one or two things. I’m not big into fried things. Well, I am, but don’t want to get into the habit of making them at home. I’m not young anymore and need to at least make an attempt at healthy eating.
BigBoppa pour la résistance
Your soup is similar to one my family recipes. Ours also has some grated carrot cooked until al dente and at the end, after it’s off the heat, a handful of shredded sharp provolone stirred in until it melts. We don’t use the blender though. I like it with some chewy bits.
Serai 1
Mm, that sounds really nice. I think I’ll grate in a little carrot, come to think of it. :)
Resistinceisnotfutile
Croutons
Courser
I just use a potato masher for my potato leek soup. Still leaves some chewy bits. I can mash as much or as little as I want.
bookish
That’s similar to how I make my potato soup when it’s just me. Peel the potatoes, chop them up, chop onions, simmer in milk until tender. Add a little butter and seasoning. All done.
Biel_ze_Bubba
Needz moar smoked ham.
I Am Helpy
I love that people – including military! – still think Republicans care about the military enough to (e.g) care what Marines say. Where have you been since the 1960s you dickheads?
I Am Helpy
I just want to add that basically my entire family, going back centuries – in fact, nearly a thousand years – is military. It’s literally in our surname. I grew up on army bases, and it is so maddening to see how blind they are.
Jen B of the Resistance
People like lip service. It is sad, but still a true thing. They like to be “honored” and they like to feel “special” and well, libtards ain’t quite the lip servicing types for the most part. They don’t buy bulk support our troops merch (1% of the proceeds of which go to actually supporting our troops!) they don’t wear cut up pieces of the American Flag, except maybe to be ironic, and they don’t support war. In the average soldier’s mind, that is trying to put them out of a job I guess.
Never mind that Republicans repeatedly vote no to expand vet benefits. Never mind that at the start of W’s war, our service people were buying their own protective gear because W was too busy spending those billions of war bucks on pipelines for his pals. Never mind that returning service members with their possible mental and or physical problems, with being out of the work force and having no job as of yet, are the “takers” the right keeps yammering about.
Lip service. They do lip service and it makes em feel good.
I Am Helpy
Trump spent a large part of his campaign abusing the family of a veteran. How much more explicit can we be?
Jen B of the Resistance
One family. Who said something “mean” about him AND were Muslims also, too. SURELY he does not mean us Why I saw him hug and kiss a flag and he says we’re awesome!
No, really. Consider who the military tends to recruit (through no fault of the recruitee’s I assure you) then consider hearing over and over from Mr. X how awesomely wonderful you are.
Courser
I just have to add that a number of our recruits are immigrants. My nephew finished Marine boot camp with about a dozen guys who became citizens as part of their program. One of them had a wife and two kids. My nephew was so impressed with those guys.
shivaskeeper
From this vets point of view, I don’t think there would be too many who were upset if we were out of jobs because war was obsolete. Most of us did see the irony of slapping a support the troops magnet on a gas guzzler too.
One minor point about buying protective gear. Wasn’t true. The kit we were issued with the plate carrier and plates was heavy, bulky, uncomfortable, and pretty restrictive of movement. There was a competing startup that tried to sell a lighter, less bulky, and less restrictive kit. It was called Dragonskin. Instead of big ceramic/composite plates it was smaller ceramic/composite discs in something like a flexible epoxy. In theory that armor had more stopping power than the original SAPI plates until we switched to E-SAPI’s
They didn’t get the contract, because the epoxy they used tended to melt at about 135 degrees and shed the armor discs.
The armor did hit the civilian market, and it had pretty good advertising, especially since it was in the running for a actual big army contract. Of course there were some who believed that it was all a conspiracy, so they tried to go with the rejected armor.
It was true that we were armoring up HMMWV’s and other cargo trucks with whatever pig iron or steel we could find and weld into place.
Jen B of the Resistance
Huh. I knewed a guy who told a story about his mom sending him over a Kevlar vest. Said most the guys did that or went without, too, also. Dude was straight up lying to me?
Gonna kick him on Monday. My fault, I should have looked it up before believing it, but it seemed so plausible, eye witness account and all.
shivaskeeper
Possibly some National Guard units? A few of them might have been fucked by their state on the way out.
It is possible to leave stateside without gear, because there is a major issue point in Kuwait.
The ones who were buying their own gear were trying to buy better stuff than the issue gear on the active side.
ETA: It’s common knowledge that military gear is made by the lowest bidder, therefore it is shit.
He might have been, I always thought he was Army, but it coulda been guard. Will give the benefit of the doubt, but, it emphasizes the lesson to look stuff up before accepting it ^.^ Yes, even on something like this.
shivaskeeper
True. There were a few support units I know of that got older armor while they were still ramping up production. Then there was the original plates were rated for a straight on 7.62×39 impact which was great, until the bad guys broke out the 7.62×39 AP rounds. So we got re-engineered plates eventually. But that’s standard logistics and supply chain bullshit.
Jen B of the Resistance
GUG. No. MOAR. Supply chain *flails in terror*
DUDE….new job, I go in there and you know me, all perky and optimistic and gonna do a good job! And no shit, day 1 and I am like…why is this stuff from 1975?
shivaskeeper
We let the GOPers claim the patriot, strong on defense, and support the troops positions. Dems didn’t do a thing to stop that now it’s just common knowledge that the Dems are squishy unamerican lieberals that hate all the troops forever and always.
Jen B of the Resistance
Well, also, libs protest war, and during/after Vietnam DID take those protests out on the service members themselves, sometimes. Not a lot, but enough to become a thing.
Even now you’ll hear a lefty yell “baby killer” because the right does not have a solid grip on the poor understanding of nuance as of yet.
I Am Helpy
Those are no more liberals than Jill Stein.
Fuck those assholes, we got to make it clear they are nothing to do with us.
Jen B of the Resistance
Eh? When we want the same things, but disagree on how to get them, they sort of do have something to do with us.
TJ got me thinkin the other day that maybe it is better to try and be instructional rather than dismissive. I know for a facty fact it is damn near impossible to actually teach a know it all, but it might be worth the attempt XD
I Am Helpy
Jill Stein and her anti-science crew are so far left that she’s genuinely right wing.
I mean, her VP pick was an anti-Semite and she & her staff were attending Putin dinners with Trump staff. She advocated voting for Trump over Clinton and gloated when this actually happened.
We have to stop pretending they are allies.
Hm. You have a point.
shivaskeeper
That is not the current generation of protesters or the military though. That’s just stories from the dawn of time. I have personally been called mindless, a drone, a murderer and worse by people on my side but also told I should have died in combat so I wouldn’t be collecting any disability by the other side. Assholes can be on both sides.
I see problems with elected officials saying to jail people for burning flags, or taking a knee during the anthem. I see problems with people threatening what will happen if a vet sees them doing it, basically giving authorization to go kick someones ass for exercising a freedom. I see huge problems when politicians and priests use my service as a hammer to beat someone else, ie if you don’t do xxxxx, you’re disrespecting the troops; or if you protest your disrespecting the troops.
Jen B of the Resistance
I am not saying assholes are not on both sides, but I am saying the stories from the dawn of time tend to stick with people XD Especially if something was more the exception, it seems to prove the rule.
Lots of our service people are from conservative backgrounds. They are recruited fresh outta highschool in many cases, and have never experienced the other. They’re going to believe the stories their dad’s told them about liberals treating troops badly, and they are going to be more prone to turn to people who tell them they are great heroes.
However, I did find it interesting in this here election that most the polls I saw had the Libertarians gaining a lot of ground in their service. Which makes sense, since the Libertarians were the only ones saying we should not be sending people to die in other countries right now. Hillz could not say that, even if she wanted to so much, because Bamz I am thinkin
shivaskeeper
I was one of the ones you describe. Conservative background, dad was a ‘Nam Marine vet, recruited long before I got out of high school. Being in the Army and traveling the world is what woke me up really.
And honestly I liked being in better pre 9/11 when for the most part I was looked as a necessary evil. The post 9/11 hero worship makes me and a lot of the older vets I know extremely uncomfortable.
MizzMazz
First off, thank you for your service. I don’t often say that, because it’s the knee-jerk reaction of most of my co-workers to drool and worship every service person who comes through. I’ve seen it make some of the soldiers genuinely uncomfortable. I’m more inclined to offer apologies for them having to fight in an unjust war, be put in danger’s way without adequate armor and supplies, and then treated like shit when they come back.
shivaskeeper
You’re welcome. I’m not sure about the apology though. It’s not a draft military anymore, so no one is forced in against their will. After the 1st year of the war, anyone joining should have had a good idea of what they were getting into. Someone doing 3 or more deployments most likely would have had to re-enlist unless they were on a 6 or 8 year initial enlistment which are few and far between. That’s my opinion on it.
As for the gear, we adapt. That’s been a problem since the Revolutionary War. This time around we weren’t treated like shit by the population at large coming home, that was the ‘Nam era more than now. PTSD and TBI are better understood so there is slightly less stigma attached. But we still deal with the deliberate under funding of the VA and broken promises by the politicians. But that is also nothing new.
Just war or not, the military does not get to choose were and when to fight. The civilian leadership decides. We probably haven’t been in a just war since WWII.
Jen B of the Resistance
It would drive me ape shit insane myself, so I can see why it would. :hugs: Guess it is not good enough to be tolded that we’re glad you’re alive. Gotta go that extra mile and put you on parade.
Ever get the feeling it is to make THEM feel better about the whole thing?
shivaskeeper
I wasn’t clear with what I was trying to say. I don’t so much mind the individual Thank You’s. I take them as they’re meant. The only exception being the ones who do the thank you thing and then explain why they never served. That’s just annoying to me because we all serve or not for our own reasons and I don’t need and explanation nor should anyone else.
I am beyond done with people claiming we’re all heroes, or all need to be bowed down to, or putting service on a pedestal. It seriously creeps me out when someone says everyone in the military is a hero, and not just because it cheapens the word and take away from actual heroes. If you really want to see me with my blood boiling tell me something has to be done or not done because it’s disrespectful of vets. Using my service as your club to beat someone else is beyond unacceptable.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
Okay gangsters, the next meetup of the People’s Socialist State of Oregon Wonketariat is now in the planning stage. Eugene this time. Date TBA. Right now, I’d just like everypony who could possibly make it there to raise their forelegs.
TJ Barke
Yo.
yyyaz
Still have relatives up there I’d like to see. Is Lacey’s Bomber still making breakfast?
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
The restaurant is still in operation, but I see the B-17 itself has been taken down for restoration.
yyyaz
Well, cool! I first saw The Bomber when it was a gas station and I was but a wee lad (I was born in Eugene), and last ate there six or seven years ago. Lemme know the date cuz I really want to do this.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
But where’s Fat Freddy’s cat, man?
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
He’s the one who ate Freddy’s hash stash. Conked out under the bed: he’ll be there for a while.
Laffing Crow
Of course. Then he’ll wake up and crap in FF’s shoe. I know the drill, just forgot it there for a moment. Man.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dd95368f018748fbda0d07d0205f43feccaa852ec9cb2364910157d512b2ee32.jpg
Villago Delenda Est
My foreleg has been raised. More details, plz! Falling Sky or The Bier Stein might be good venues!
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
Details will be forthcoming. Thanks for your input!
Anna Rompage
Jen B of the Resistance
Well, it also tended to eat tapes now and again, but I think they all did that. But yep, good deal I thought! Those suckers were like 30 bucks! Back then, that was the phone bill, or groceries for a week (for one person, who eats cheap crap).
Courser
Cripes, I remember sitting with a bottle of alcohol and Q-tips cleaning the heads and rollers hoping to stop it from eating tapes. But yeah, they all do it.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
*venerates the ancient one in proper Confucian manner*
Serai 1
I still have one of those. It plays 5% slow, though. Still, it’s useful for transferring old tapes to digital.
shivaskeeper
Cousin Itt de La Résistance
You kids and your fancy gizmos.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11366706e598d6bd95714b680820bcfc15f9dceedf1e5874428ff0a4fbce9487.jpg
Courser
Actually, I used one of those old CD players when I drove the airport shuttle van. Velcro’d the thing to the dashboard with the old cassette transfer jobby in the tape deck. I played holiday music during the season. It was hella old school, but it worked if I didn’t crank the volume up too loud.
Nounverb911
These are the ‘punch cards’ of portable music, everyone at the beach had one set on either WMCA (home of the good guys) or WABC77, and they came AM or AM.
Video of schlobbing the bafoon’s cocktail wiener or GTFO, Snow Whitetrash.
Cousin Itt de La Résistance
Fox News could do worse than to rehabilitate her. If Trump is perceived to be backsliding and not delivering, sad to say, Sarah could be a tool to hold the Tea Party/GOP together. She might even pull off a Nixon comeback.
lol. the part of the GOP that is not the tea party can’t stand her XD
Cousin Itt de La Résistance
Exactly. And that is one of the hopeful outcomes of this hideous time. The GOP stands a very real chance of completely imploding.
Jen B of the Resistance
I would be surprisingly ok with that. Ideally, a few splinter parties would take its place center-rights being the main BIG one, and then a coupla fringes that siphon off votes.
We need a strong, actually conservative voice, we do. We have not had one in ever so long however, so not sure what that would even sound like anymore.
TJ Barke
It really makes suicide seem logical.
Just kidding, you’ve got to have guts to do that…
yyyaz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-BtquTKw78
Courser
My folks *always* took us kids to ‘M’ (M for Mature was the rating in the 60’s) movies at the drive-in all summer long when we were grade schoolers. I make my dad explain this song from the original MASH movie. But he also explained that MASH units didn’t really exist during the Korean ‘Conflict’.
ROFL No, Ann, it is PRECISELY your fault because we fucking told you so you ignorant dipshit. Hell, was your humiliation at your book signing NOT ENOUGH for you?
Biel_ze_Bubba
I almost wish I had a Twatter account, just to see the bricks and flaming bags of shit being flung her way.
I can usually read the comments though I do not tweet myself. Though the time thing is WEIRD. It seems to jump around a bit XD
I Am Helpy
you can see replies – at least the first 100 or so? – without an account.
I actually forgot my twitter password and have never bothered to recover it, and yet somehow my life goes on.
Mayor_Mayor_Mayor
It were the demoncrap libtarts fault fer nomernatin’ killary shillary kkklinten whose the reel racialister, not hours. No weigh
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
“Disingenuous Skank” is a great stage name for a punk rock bassist.
yyyaz
“Not our fault we let an infamous con man con us. Let’s just grab our ankles and pray for lube. LOL.”
Resistance Fighter Callyson
Obama, natch.
MilwaukeeKent
Ann, honey,you KNEW he was a snake when you picked him up. The man drained the swamp, took out all the alligators, filled it back up and released the largest crocodiles he could find.
MilwaukeeKent
Also Ann, just watch the Cincinnati victory lap speech with the targetting of the press and the chants of “lock her up!” and the unnecessary gloating so unbecoming of the President-Elect. He’s still the same scaly, orange creature you fell in love with during the campaign. It scares the hell out of the rest of us, but it should reassure you.
ltmcdies
right…because the man’s record wasn’t enough evidence of his flakiness.
Why is this woman still a thing
Msgr_Moment
No, no, no. Voting for a man whom the factcheckers documented as a baldfaced liar, and expecting him to keep his word: that shit’s gonna work out well 99% of the time.
boyblue122
Self-awareness, you can’t explain it.
bookish
What a news night. Rachel is sputtering in disbelief over Trump’s China gaffe, and her guest US Senator Chris Murphy looks like he’s trying to pass a gallstone.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
Bub the Mad Zombie
Just send Xi Jinping a copy of the Firesign Theater’s classic album “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus.” He’ll understand.
yyyaz
“Papoon for President, Not Insane.” Good times.
Cousin Itt de La Résistance
The grandfathers of MST3K and way ahead of their time.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
Still relevant. Everything we knew was wrong!
Cousin Itt de La Résistance
Let’s eat!
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
And this is why it’s not a good idea to put a complete foreign-policy ignoramus in charge of what is still (arguably) the world’s only superpower.
I really wish my fellow citizens paid more attention to this sort of thing, the stallion said through gritted teeth…
Maybe once he utterly embarasses us, destroys our trade details, wrecks our allies and submarines our economy, people will quit with the “A business man should run the country!” BS once and for all.
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
Jen B of the Resistance
Part of me is going….well, least the Dems will be around to put out the fires.
The other part is going….I hope the Dems just sit out and let him fucking destroy the GOP forever and ever.
The bit that wants people to not get hurt are torn between which to follow.
Gosala
They own it. Every bit of it.
And since there is little or nothing the Democrats can do about it, it matters not what we think or hope.
Eh. They might be in control, but we can still make enough noise to count, one way or the other.
At the moment, I am waffling as to which direction we should go with it XD
bookish
Rachel’s second guest tonight, a gentleman law professor from Harvard, said private citizens and corporations might be able to attack Trump legally for exerting unfair influence, as US President, in competing as a businessman. The professor stated there was case law in support of that position, but noted that Trump would immediately attack anyone who opposed his business interests. The professor also said there were lawyers ready to mount a pro bono defense of those who might try to bring such action against Trump.
It seems we are not the only ones struggling to find a way forward. Even the experts are improvising.
Gosala
Yes, we can make noise.
We should make noise.
And the noise we should make is
Liberté : Roosevelt’s four freedoms: freedom of expression, everywhere in the world; freedom of worship, everywhere in the world; freedom from want, everywhere in tbe world; and freedom from fear anywhere in the world.
Egalité : There should not be a 1%, much less a 1% of 1%. Of course there will be differences among people, but the basic attitude should be “we’re in got together,” not “I got mine, screw you.”
Fraterinité : Better, solidarity. Or as Martin Luther King put it, “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ” We’re all connected, ultimately we are all one, even though we are not tbe same.
ltmcdies
yeh it’s a toughie…I sit up here in Canuckistan part me thinking…Trumpfucks and Bernie/Jillfucks deserve every bloody embarrassment they get and part of me thinking there are a lot of wonderful people USA and they do not deserve to embarrassed and threatened like this.
Gosala
They’ll just put it down to people being bad people and very unfair.
The power of denial is not to be trifled with
boyblue122
“its not the great leader’s fault, its everyone else he interacts with that is the problem”
is that where we are headed
Gosala
Jen B of the Resistance
Yeah pretty sure we are heading for a hurt that will rival the 1930’s here. I would be happy to be wrong, but there are indicators, including the ballooning stock market and the probable stripping of all regulations, and the fact that those jerbs are not coming back, and the climatic disturbances we are facing (droughts, fires, storms, etc…..) I figure we’re right on track to rival the great depression.
There will be some denialists who insist it is not der leader’s fault, always, but I am thinking the bulk will do as they did then and try anything else.
Gosala
It will be much worse.
Climate change alone is enough to destroy what passes for civilization.
And there will be no second chance as all the easily available sources of energy have been consumed.
Either we we move on to the future now or we remain permanently in a neolithic culture, and the Vulcans will never make first contact
boyblue122
Maybe Because Obama and his cabinet make diplomacy look so easy, some people just took it for granted that any joe schmoe could do it
Kiri the Resistant Unicorn
Maybe, but I think more of the problem lies in our people tending to be incurious and ignorant about world history, especially the Not-Euro-American parts. Sun Yat-who?
Resistance Fighter Callyson
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ce1946dd2de5fc1ace7b1da6b9dd943035ddf7b956290cb8f0a5c0a8d84cfe28.gif
ltmcdies
god …. I go to one movie…turn my phone off…..a couple of hours make the mistake of wondering…so what’s happening ….and fucking Trump is fucking taking calls from Taiwan…
then tweeting like a the immature toddler he is when taken out to the foreign policy woodshed. Christ even Ari Fleischer has made a “comment”
Could somebody remind the Great Orange Toddler that only country with a shock collar on Kim Dong whoever …IS CHINA.
Yr. Gma
He’s gonna piss off so many of his own, the Republicans will be impeaching him before 2017 is out.
LifelongLurker
Or, with real luck, getting word to their electors sometime in the next two weeks..
Bub the Mad Zombie
So…will the initial nuclear exchange be between India/Pakistan or will North Korea launch nuclear missiles at South Korea and/or Japan, leading to a U.S. response?
ltmcdies
South Korea…it’s the closest for a NK strike and Kim Dong’s been rattling nuclear “sabres”.
And since Trump can’t be bothered to get security briefings … how the hell would he know if there are NK troops massing near the Demilitarized Zone.
I wonder how many diplomatic all nighters Kerry and Obama are going to pulling between now and Jan 21.
VagendeanceIsBestServedCold
From the “Take Your Joy Where You Can Find It” Files:
I have a very good rapport with one of my regular customers, a lovely recent college grad and transplant from Kentucky. Today, she was fiddling on her phone and announced that a chat channel she shares with some friends was blowing up, because one of her friends had started texting one of his ex-professors, who was a precocious graduate and not much older than her friend. Her friend had always had a crush on this guy, and now that he had been out of school for a few years, felt it might be appropriate to confess his feelings. And she reported the exchange was something like this:
Prof: Are you suggesting anything specific?
Friend: Specifically, I’d like to hold you and watch Muriel’s Wedding.
At which point, she opined that this would be the gayest text exchange possible. My response was to the tune of, “I don’t know. He could have suggested Mermaids, Beaches or Grey Gardens. . . ”
We then tried to decide what movies might have been gayer, and got into a wonderful conversation about gay movies and why they are “gay”. At which point, we decided that neither of us quite understood why ABBA is such a gay thing.
And then, she exited the bus without having received a response from her friend as to what was happening with the cute Prof guy. I will have to wait until Monday to find out if they snuggled to her friend’s suggestion or to Cabaret, or what. It is nice to think that there might be some nice, gay snuggling going on, even now, though.
Also, if you don’t have great conversations about gay movies with your bus driver, you are riding the wrong bus.
Vienna Woods
I married my bus driver!
JH Marx, Resister
Reminds me of the time, I tried to hijack a bus to Cuba.
Gosala
It is time, and past time to me to go beddy bye.
I’ve been trying to think of a nice time parting gift, but the best I have isn’t very sleepy time making,
But it’s where I am, and its a nice song
the Chinese know how to do “diplomatic burn”…they’ve practiced for centuries.
Jamoche
“President-elect Trump is fully briefed and fully knowledgeable about these issues on an ongoing basis, regardless of who is on the other end of the phone,” Conway told CNN Friday.
I know Donnie has a narcissist’s relationship with truth, but what’s her excuse?
Msgr_Moment
“Fully briefed”? The asshole refuses his daily security briefings. Is Kellyanne the one who “fully briefs” him? Or is “fully briefed” a euphemism for getting wedgied?
Grokenstein
It means he has his underwear on correctly today, just like a real grown-up.
Yr. Gma
He’ll be falling for more tricks, unfortunately. If the caller wants to praise him, he’ll talk to anybody. Narcissist.
HooverVilles
Is there still no way Hillary can be prez.. this shit is torture
Courser
OMG! I just saw John Goodman on Seth and he’s about 1/4 of the size he was the last time I saw him (which was probably Flight with Denzel Washington) or Argo. He looks *fabulous*! Not freaky thin and he’s probably had some work done but it looks really natural.
Also, I am quite lit having just gotten home from my dinner thing where I drank 2 huge glasses of Merlot and ate very little. I brought my burger home to eat for breakfast. Then I smoked a bowl. So even though it’s waaaaayyyy past my bedtime I don’t want to go to bed until I sober up a bit.
ltmcdies
well hubby got us wine…so I think we’ll finish it…
good night lovelies……The Arrival is a nice film, by the way..
Courser
I had two glasses of wine with a late dinner. Now I’m completely lit and 3 hours past normal bedtime. I’m consuming as much water as I can before I asplode. And probably have to get up 472 times to pee. This is why I generally don’t drink anymore.
yyyaz
Small prices to pay when you get oldz like me.
Courser
True, I’m an oldz too. Apparently enough fluids were consumed to forego an actual hangover, so I feel fine as frog hair this morning. Also 2 glasses of wine isn’t exactly a ton of alcohol, which I didn’t remember last night.
Long gone are the days when I could put away 1/2 of a bottle of gin in an evening. Don’t miss them at all.
JHan
I just woke up from a dream where I stole an SUV. It became my fav drive. What does this mean folks?
Yr. Gma
You are not an environmentalist.
JHan
Gonna shop Whole Foods for penance, and that feel good feeling.
Jamoche
Oh, if you’re driving an SUV you’ll fit right in at Whole Foods. Well, not fit right in a parking space so much.
Sheepshagger
It means you’re in love with your mother. Now that’s fifty minutes, see you next week
JHan
thanks sheepshagger, for putting it in context.
Mary Sandoras
A vehicle is symbolic of the human body, since your body is contained in the vehicle (SUV), I would think your having problems with too much gas. Send 2 cents to Marys Dream Analysis Consult.
JHan
Send him to Alpha Centauri for a perennial orbit around the star
Msgr_Moment
Then nuke it in orbit. Only way to be sure.
Good_Gawd_Yall
Thank you – that made me laugh bigly.
Mary Sandoras
Nah, his tweeting may ultimately expedite his undoing.
Jamoche
If he finds out about the petition he’ll get annoyed. Win!
Rasilom
My Katana is sharp, it is honed and I know how to use it. If you come for the browns or the Muslims I know how to use it and I will. This shit has gone on way too long and will no longer be tollerated. with votes of cource, but in all seriousnes as I already step in in cases of DV or a racial issue. It aint much of a streach. You fuck with someone in public as an entitled Trumpkin and I see it. You aint walkin away. This is from a 225lb Norqegian berserker, who is a proud true Usa citizen. For 3 generations. 1 grandad hit the beach of Normandy the day beforr D day. The other flew B-25’s over Germany and completed all his missions. Fuck with my my friends you fuck with me. Me? I welcome it. Trump and all his trash can kiss my balls if .they think they can survive the contact with real manhood.
yyyaz
Dude, I’m one of those “peace-loving” Swedes: the ones who gave Russia its name. But, I’ve had my ancestry traced to Rollo/Rolf, the Norwegian Viking who took over and provided the name for Normandy, as well. Skol.
Msgr_Moment
Couisine!Q!
Rasilom
YYYAZ I think you must be related. Damn you make me laught my ass off, in the besr way possible.
yyyaz
Got his name “Hrólf the Walker”(Ganger-Hrólf), from being too big to ride on any horse. I don’t think Chris Christie will ever be able to claim that mantle.
Rasilom
Then I call you Brother. And I am sure you know what I mean when I tell you that the Red Rages are a part of who I am. Always have been Its taken 47 years to get them under controll. Having a hard time keeping it supressed right now.
tehbaddr
I often loudly proclaim “Hoohah!” when going down.
mml1996
I scream Hoohah! when finished
Msgr_Moment
https://twitter.com/WalshFreedom/status/804540233463177216
nastymagyar
My penis has a lot of thoughts, most of them dirty; but I had no idea he thought about gender identity. Good boy!!!!
I Am Helpy
Look the important thing is that his sister only likes to pee on real women, or something.
nastymagyar
For the life of me I have never understood where they got the zany idea that you have any fucking choice over who pisses next to you in a public bathroom.
Good_Gawd_Yall
Well, I know that even if I’m in the middle of taking a long piss, I always stop and open my stall door to check that the person who just came in is correctly gendered. It’s even easier with a long line; everyone drops trou or lifts their skirts and we all check each other, and then we appoint the person at the end of the line to check anyone who comes in before we can get out. In that way we effectively mobilize to prevent the awful eventuality of possibly having someone in the next stall we would like to discriminate against.
nastymagyar
Good plan. I shall implement it immediately in all of my future visits to public restrooms. (I like seeing strange men’s junk anyhow, so win/win.)
Msgr_Moment
My penis sees bad-Joe-Walsh’s name and wants to check to make sure he’s not on fire.
For me to piss on.
Msgr_Moment
Are you saying that I can’t use the Ladies’ Room urinal, Joe?
ALSO TOO: why aren’t libs also free? Free to piss where they want.
JHan
Their tears are so delicious!
Apple Scruff
Rachel Maddow was all, “I guess she wasn’t offered a job in the Trump administration!”
Grokenstein
All I know is Barstool got a lot more done with less than 6 inches.
mml1996
Sarah’s something. There’s a consequences from using too much crude oil for huffing.
nastymagyar
I’ve never seen Levi’s porn, so I’ll take your word for it
Land Shark
Donald Trump is skipping intelligence briefings but has time to block people on Twitter
Donald Trump, a man who has tweeted more than 34,000 times, loves making time for Twitter — despite any other obligations he now has as the president-elect. But he’s not a fan of everyone he meets on Twitter. As Mashable reported earlier today, it looks like Trump is blocking people without explanation, leaving them confused, amused, and dismayed.
mml1996
That headline. If you asked me this two months ago, I would’ve been howling with laughter.
Now its just tears of sadness.
Good_Gawd_Yall
Do you think he even realizes that it’s time to stop playing and get serious? Because I don’t. I doubt he’ll pay attention to anything at all, for more than a few seconds, that doesn’t directly affect his fortune, his massive ego, or his ability to exact revenge on anyone who displeases him. I would bet all the money in my bank account that he has either been given, or has at his disposal, massive reams of paper that he should be reading that detail the most crucial things he should be focusing on, and he hasn’t done more than flip back the covers and read the titles, then tossed them in a pile and gone back to twitter.
Apple Scruff
He knows that if you’re logged out of Twitter, you can still look at his Tweets, right?
DahBoner
The holidays are going to be awkward this year…
Zyxomma
Wasn’t she Lori’s roommate?
Land Shark
House Science Committee’s Breitbart tweet sets off alarm bells for liberals
On Thursday, the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology shared an article from so-called alt-right news and opinion site Breitbart News. According to the article, climate change is driven entirely by weather events like El Niño and La Niña. Reports of extreme temperatures, the author concluded, were simply “propaganda.”
mml1996
This is not satire, you Green voters – this is what we’ll deal with for the next 4 years.
Continue to feel mighty satisfied.
Mary Sandoras
I thought climate change was is the result of cow farts. How could Breitbart miss that one?
Land Shark
Jen B of the Resistance
Jesus fuck, REALLY????
The reason, Congress dear, that the lame stream media does not run with that is because it is fucking fake and stupid and fakely stupid.
Rachel Book Harlot
Not surprising as they’ll do anything to keep the sweet, sweet cash from the oil industry. Incidentally, Trumpenstein has millions in investments in that industry as well:
“Trump’s stock holdings, as of his most recent disclosure in May, included millions of dollars worth of shares in financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo, which have seen their stock prices rise with his promises to roll back regulations imposed after the 2008 financial crash. He has held substantial numbers of shares in Apple and a unit of Ford, companies whose executives he has spoken with since the election as part of his efforts to press corporations not to ship jobs overseas.
Trump’s portfolio also has been dotted with millions of dollars worth of shares in oil and other energy companies that could stand to gain if he follows through on promises to loosen environmental regulations and pursue more drilling — including Halliburton, ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum and Phillips 66.”
“Trump’s stock holdings may give him a personal stake in rules on banks and oil firms”: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-complex-stock-portfolio-could-create-yet-more-conflicts/2016/12/01/25ec0e88-b663-11e6-959c-172c82123976_story.html?utm_term=.2838740f6498
Land Shark
Thanks for posting.
bookish
In contrast, the Trump phone call serves no obvious purpose. He has no power to act for another seven weeks. There are no critical issues to be settled by the two countries. And his phone conversations with foreign leaders almost uniformly have been vacuous, even embarrassing—just read the transcript of his chat with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. His aides said that he and Tsai talked about “the close economic, political, and security ties” between the two governments, which sounds like the usual boilerplate. For that Trump is adding more turbulence to U.S.-China relations?
Mary Sandoras
Here’ a happy time story to go with your morning cup of joe.
Martin Shkreli goes on a raging tweetstorm in response to high school students recreating his $750 drug for $2
Is that brush connected to a vacuum cleaner?
Asking for a friend.
medcannabis1
I work with suffering Veterans as our project at Veterans for Compassionate Care is developing altnernative treatment programs for PTSD and opiate secession. For Mr Trump to consider Ms Palin for VA secretary brings sanity to the mind of all of my Veteran friends. This position requires deep thinking and an ability to handle stress while administrating 350,000+ employees.
We have hundreds of qualified citizens to administer the VA from both sides of the political isle… and this position for the care of our Veterans SHOULD NOT BE POLITICAL PATRONAGE .
Our Veterans are suffering and committing suicide at rates greater than 22 a day….
I am a lost at this consideration by Mr Trump.
Please help your local Veteran programs and make a difference in your communities
An indication of the Kleptocracy to come.
Rachel Book Harlot
And now he’s supposedly working on another deal for yet another Indiana company. Notice he’s only focused on Indiana because it’s the only State he and Pence has some sort of sway in at the moment.
Something tells me he is not working on “deals” Mike is using him to hammer down Indiana Policy that he could not get past Indiana’s ledge.
For serious, how can a president elect make a “deal” with a company that costs state taxes?
Rachel Book Harlot
Agreed. It’s a win-win for Trump and Pence: Pence gets to do this and Trump gets good PR so he can impress the rubes. And it can also be used later to hurt Dems should they try this in state with a Dem gov. If the gov is like, nope, then they can say the Dems don’t care about the white working class.
nastymagyar
Pence can also go back to his old job after the inevitable impeachment
SayItWithWookies
Hey Donald — I’m thinking of laying off my two cats and getting some cheaper ones in Mexico. Let’s make a deal.
Nounverb911
“The Poles fired first.” — Ibid.
IdiokraticRepublikTrumpistan
That was Hitler’s favorite radio station that they attacked.
IdiokraticRepublikTrumpistan
The Sudetens were getting uppity.
SayItWithWookies
There are worse governments to piss off than China. Problem is, Trump’s not gonna admit it was a faux pas, and is now going to have to continue as though it were a purposeful snub. Which means he’s going to have to negotiate or build a new China-Taiwan-US relationship. So — learn Chinese, so we can communicate with our new overlords.
Msgr_Moment
Good thing there are no crazy leaders in the region with nukes and missiles who might be as thin-skinned as the Ferret-wearing Shitgibbon.
alwayspunkindrublic
I can’t wait until he pisses on Pakistan…threatens to smear pork fat on the nukes he has pointed at them or some shit.
SayItWithWookies
China’s not going to war over a diplomatic snub. But they’ll definitely do everything they can to fuck up the Taiwanese government and will probably resume building bases on atolls in the China Sea.
Which will make Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un happy, since we’ll be distracted fixing this.
alwayspunkindrublic
I’m sure Trump, with his vast arsenal of geopolitical knowledge and skill, knows exactly what he is doing. Where IS that Taiwan place, btw?
SayItWithWookies
Trump’s advisors will have to phrase it in terms he can understand: “Mr. Trump, it’s east of your Trump Hotel and Casino in Macau, and north of your Trump Tower in the Philippines.”
Msgr_Moment
Near Allepo?
alwayspunkindrublic
Yeah, I guess he can always just ask Gary Johnson if he has any questions in the next few years.
nastymagyar
Leave Gary Alone!!!!!!!
Pissed de Résistance
Hey, you’re not really the ruler of China, are you? Formosa the Chinese live on the mainland.
LifelongLurker
No kidding—I’m slack-jawed at the doubling-down he’s already done:
“Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call,” Trump said in another tweet.
Apple Scruff
“Speaking earlier, hours after Friday’s telephone call, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pointedly blamed Taiwan for the exchange, rather than Trump, a billionaire businessman with little foreign policy experience.”
So are we going to keep excusing him for all his fuck ups because he’s inexperienced?
Rachel Book Harlot
I agree with you 100%, but I think in the case of the Chinese Foreign Minister it’s about belittling Taiwan.
Logic of Color
Any president-elect willing to listen to protocol advisers would not let this situation come about. Assuming the protocol advisor isn’t Pee Wee Herman nemesis Francis.
nastymagyar
We should send him a copy of the Goldie Hawn movie.
alwayspunkindrublic
“I know he’s a bigot and a sexual predator, but that will change as he gets his feet wet in his new job as Leader of the Free World.”
Rick Hill
Instead of staying at his hotels to curry his favor they’ll bring him high class escorts. No pay for play, though. (trump world “no homo”)
Pissed de Résistance
They blamed Clinton for 911…
nastymagyar
And Obama as well.
Nounverb911
Trump later admitted that his dog ate the list of countries he’s not allowed to talk to.
Me The People
To me this can only mean that Trump is preparing to smash the legal cannabis trade in the USA, and do so with extreme prejudice, ie the more shocking and bloodier the better.
Msgr_Moment
…and then jump into it himself, being a genius businessman?
Rachel Book Harlot
And then take credit for legalizing marijuana.
Mary Sandoras
Those states where it’s legal would probably succeed.
Rachel Book Harlot
It wouldn’t surprise me if we found out later that Duterte likes to hold parties with hookers and blow.
Pissed de Résistance
You need to make sure his fingers are taped as well. Fuck almighty, his tweeting…..
alwayspunkindrublic
OT, but Henry Rollins totally blew me away last night. Starting at 8 on the dot (Henry put the punk back in “punctual”), 2 hours and 45 minutes of non-stop, intense, rapid-fire monologue. Not a sip of water the whole time, and scarcely a breath taken.
The overtly political stuff was actually the least compelling…it was the great stories about his friendships with people like RuPaul and Lemmy from Motorhead, and his insights on life in general that really hit. Henry is a very engaging mix of intensity, vulnerability, aggression, sweetness, self-deprecation, motivational speaker, intimidation, wit, and skewed wisdom. 55 (and 1/2!) years old, and hardcore as ever.
nastymagyar
He’s also usually sweaty and fun to look at.
alwayspunkindrublic
You woulda loved his RuPaul story.
Nounverb911
Pissed de Résistance
ROSEANN SORRENTINO @RocknRollinRo 1m1 minute ago
@VanityFair when you play golf, you’re not ruining the environment, you’re quite preserving it…
Maybe preserving the part that’s off in the distance, past the rough. You know the part where they put the massive water wells to keep a course that green.
alwayspunkindrublic
Ask those pissed off Scots about his fucking course. They were really thrilled about how he “preserved” the ancient, unspoiled sand dunes there.
Pissed de Résistance
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/26/meet-a-92-year-old-woman-whose-life-was-ruined-by-donald-trump.html
Zyxomma
Of course, the fertilizer and pesticide runoff from golf greens is just TERRIFIC for the surrounding waterways. YOOOOGE.
alwayspunkindrublic
But we have to balance that damage with the massive benefits to wealthy white people. It’s not even close.
Bozilingus
Al Czervik: Country Clubs and Cemeteries are the biggest wasters of prime real estate.
TJ Barke
Aot,k.
Vienna Woods
OT, I love Xmas with all my pagan heart. Spent an hour baking fruitcake and watching the first half of Love, Actually. Missing Alan Rickman all over again, dammit, but this scene NEVER gets old!
My favorite Xmas movie, for sure.
Zyxomma
I’ve never seen Love, Actually. I miss Alan Rickman terribly. Opinions, Wonketteers, is it worth my getting it from the library?
Bozilingus
Yes
Mintie
It’s a series of different people’s stories. If you don’t like a few of the characters, the film switches up pretty quickly.
Personally, I prefer Lion in Winter for my Christmas viewing, but that’s because I’m one of those annoying people who likes to watch holiday films with dysfunctional families.
Vienna Woods
Do you love self-deprecating Englishmen falling in love? If so, go for it. Rickman, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Bill Nighy, Liam Neeson, etc, etc. I watch it every year.
kareemachan
One of the storylines pisses me off BIG TIME. Other than that, it’s a good movie.
Nounverb911
Hey, let’s elect some dumb fucking rich kid as president. What could possibly go wrong?
alwayspunkindrublic
‘Cause it went so well when we tried it with Dubya…
Pissed de Résistance
As fucked up as W was, he was at least in the Air National Guard (for an undetermined amount of time), and a (shitty) governor (of a shitty state), and maybe some of his dad’s experience as a national leader rubbed off on him (maybe not).
Trump doesn’t even have that going for him.
alwayspunkindrublic
I know…this is how far we’ve sunk. Looking back at Dubya as an able statesman in comparison.
TJ Barke
FSM help us all. Also, did you get pics with Henry Rollins?
alwayspunkindrublic
Nah…dude worked so hard on stage, I didn’t have the heart to hang around and ask him to stand for a pic with my dead ass. Great show though…see post below.
Odd Jørgensen
Rollins rocks. He absolutely killed in that “biblical” movie He never died.
kareemachan
And how damned depressing is that….. :-(
nastymagyar
W at least had the benefit of some of his dad’s advisors.
Mintie
W also had the excuse of being a recovering cocaine addict. Trump doesn’t even drink.
Ducksworthy
Which suggests that he is a not recovering cocaine addict.
nastymagyar
I would have preferred Paris Hilton if we had to go that route
Msgr_Moment
Old Man Yells at Cloud
No need. I’m sure Paris has it.
Ducksworthy
Gonorrhea for all! Oh, wait.
Walter Wellstone
And what exactly was that? Closing a deal for a new hotel? Do they even know the context behind all this? I don’t think they understand what Taiwan means to the Chinese Government and to the Communist Party. This is a major broadside to them and they won’t take it lightly. Moreover, the rest of the world is watching, they sure as shit do understand what this means and they will adjust accordingly.
kev
as a matter of fact, it’s been reported that a Trump rep was in Taiwan recently scouting business deals. One report said it was September, another said it was in October,
Msgr_Moment
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6da173b27643d34624163f95ae6d756c7f667cfd04000c96ac2fabf5eab82c89.jpg
kev
it also contradicts the official Trumpsplanation that the Taiwan bitch called him! What, is he not supposed to take her call?
Nounverb911
I’m just glad Ann Coulter is unhappy.
Carpe Vagenda
Are you sure she is? She got her entire legislative agenda within reach all at once, with only the part that she knows perfectly well as a lawyer she wasn’t going to get taken away. And she already sold the books, so now she gets to be relevant to the few Trump supporters who actually cared about something other than liberals losing (even if it was ignorance and xenophobia). Besides, now Bill Maher can position her as a Trump critic in his newly defanged nihilist freakshow. I imagine fig leaf is in her skill set
Sounds like an AnnCoulter win.
alwayspunkindrublic
I’m always on the lookout for people who dislike Bill Maher even more than I do. Looks like I’ve hit paydirt. The smirking….dear God, the smirking…
Carpe Vagenda
I think he’s the middle brow Seth MacFarlane. And wow, that pivot on Trump (and not even then so much on message as on packaging) was cringeworthy.
Although I have to admit that there is a certain visceral satisfaction in knowing that there’s somewhere both Cornel West and Ann Coulter can let their hair down and self-serve where the faithful aren’t likely to find them.
Walter Wellstone
I just wanted to revel in the thought of old Ann being unhappy. You had to come in with your “analysis” and your “logic” to ruin it for me. Why can’t you just let me have this? Thanks a lot.
Carpe Vagenda
Oh, I also think she’s a hollow, isolated, anhedonic woman whose own father destroyed her so thoroughly that she sees Trump as a step up, and it pretty much crushed her when she realized that even the B-list demi-celebrities on Comedy Central think she’s a contemptible joke. Does that help?
Walter Wellstone
Yes, it does. I heard she complained that no one gets outraged when people call her a cunt. That’s a good thing.
Msgr_Moment
Sounded better in the original German.
TheFamilyThalamusQuits
We should start referring to any Republican dumbass as a KKKunt.
Walter Wellstone
Nah… she just saw Bristol walk in.
cessnadriver
Or she knew Brisket was on her way in by the squishing noise.
Carpe Vagenda
As ever, keeping it out of the baby thread. Anyway, you know that Rove/spousal abuser/sociopath thing where you accuse your opponent of stuff you do? Like Chaffetz and the emails, or Michael Flynn and the illegal internet hookup, or Trump and essentially everything he ever did? Well, irony is now officially dead, defiled, burnt and scattered, and its ashes have been pissed on, and also too I guess we know why they’re all so fixated on Benghazi.
A green beret war hero says that Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, James Mattis, left his men to die after they were hit by friendly fire in Afghanistan.
While the selection of “Mad Dog” Mattis garnered praise from both sides of the aisle, retired Lt. Col. Jason Amerine blasted the former general as “indecisive.”
Amerine was in charge of U.S. special forces protecting future Afghan president Hamid Karzai when his troops were hit by a U.S. smart bomb on Dec. 5, 2001.
Three American soldiers and dozens of Afghanis died. Help from other military units came late because the closest forces, Mattis’ Marine contingent, were not sent.
“He was indecisive and betrayed his duty to us, leaving my men to die during the golden hour when he could have reached us,” Amerine said in a Facebook post Friday morning.
Mattis, who was 45 minutes away at Camp Rhino, repeatedly refused requests to send rescue helicopters, unidentified sources told NBC News, which first reported on Amerine’s Friday comments.
In other news, Sean Smith’s mom has no comment at this time.
Msgr_Moment
IOKIYAR, right?
Carpe Vagenda
Yeah. One of my few forms of satisfaction these days, along with MacFarlane, Parker and Stone whining about why the american people didn’t take Trump’s manifest grossness more seriously, and the exceedingly polite centrist villager blue bloodbath where they’re trying to make not-them responsible for validating the worst elements in our society by normalizing them. Although I have to admit, Sanders’ manifest discomfort at interrupting his victory lap to salvage his reputation by pretending to give a damn about minority voter suppression has had its moments.
Paperless Tiger
Up next: Trump seeks Secretary of Hoohah. Is Sarah up for grabs? Stay tuned!
TundraGrifter
ISWYDT
cessnadriver
Every repig skkkum male I know wants to do doggy with the talibunny. They wanted her for president, but they took the next best thing.
Maree Martin
Next best thing? Hell they hit the jackpot! They managed to elect someone who is even DUMBER!
TundraGrifter
Ha ! Good One !
DQKennard
One can, I suppose, profile the typical Marine as being interested in grabbing some hoohah. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as long as the seeking isn’t creepy and the grabbing consensual, and not that there’s anything wrong with not being interested in the hoohah at all, or even if they feel they personally should have a hoohah. We won’t judge.
in the name of the moon
random anecdote: first niece calls me Hufu (no i don’t know why at all. is just a thing). second niece cannot say Hufu yet and calls me Hoohoo. Loudly. In public.
Resistance Engineer Red Bird
Hoohah!
Dean
Semper Fi, My Wife who been in my life for 20 years. We married right out of high school. When 9/11 happen we just have been married a little more than a year. As a devildoc I had orders to Marines reporting in October of 2001. With all the uncertainty in the world we decided she should go back to her Mother to be able to be safe. We pack up our house. As we were leaving my duty station I had to go through the Naval Hospital to check on my wife lab works she done a few earlier. We found out that we are having a baby. We are afraid but we had to be strong. My wife is a strong woman who has been Handling business for our family when I couldn’t. My feelings were locked up and my mind was not focused on my family. It was with my Marines. I push the best person ever out of my life. My life spiraled down from there to the point where I had lost all purpose. For the love of our son she showed me kindness. With time she forgave me for the hardass I had been. Slowly she started opening up herself to to let me back in her life. After two years she remarried me. I respect her more than Anyone I know. Her love is my inspiration. She gave me something to believe in again. We bought our first home. She has faught just as much as I did. She is my life and my best friend. She has honored the her vows even more when she didn’t have to. I’m forever her’s
cessnadriver
Welcome Home.
Karenrperez
Google is paying 97$ per hour! Work for few hours and have longer with friends & family! !sg21c:
On tuesday I got a great new Land Rover Range Rover from having earned $8752 this last four weeks.. Its the most-financialy rewarding I’ve had.. It sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it
!sg21c:
➽➽;➽➽ http://GoogleFinancialJobsCash509HomeGadgetGetPay$97Hour … ★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★::::::!sg219c:….,……..
jen
I think I will require my husband to yell hoohah when I enter a room. I like it. Thanks , Sarah.
| Bristol |
What is the name for a large, slow moving, persistent body of ice that forms when the accumulation of snow exceeds its' rate of melting? | PostPartisan - A Story Palin Should Tell
Post Opinions
A Story Palin Should Tell
A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about the problem of teen pregnancy and the tragic impact it has had on so many aspects of life in the nation's capital. Reader response was heavy and, in some ways, disturbing. While I never used the terms "black or "African American" in the column, many readers saw the teen pregnancy problem in only racial terms.
What brings this to mind is today's statement from Sarah and Todd Palin disclosing that their unmarried 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant. The presumptive Republican vice presidential nominee and her husband expressed their pride in becoming grandparents. As a grandparent of six, I can appreciate their feelings, and extend to them a hearty welcome into the enviable grandparents' club.
I'm also happy to learn that their daughter will have the unconditional love and support of the entire family as she and her husband-to-be raise their baby.
I only wish the angry readers who weighed in on my column showed similar understanding and, if not love, then at least a little respect for the young women I wrote about.
Instead, this is some of what I got:
"How long has this 'problem' been going on in the black community? Since the dark ages, er, the 60's, say. From day one they should be held accountable for their behavior…Remove the kid if necessary and establish some kind of homes for them. Better the state rear them instead of the current crop. The girls have so little self-love they long for getting knocked up or just believing they're being loved." 7/19/2008 3:12 PM.
"One often reads, hears or sees profiles of young men who grow up poor in gang infested areas and try to understand the tough choices they make that lead them astray. Stories of young women who fail to keep their knees together until a man fit to be a father comes along are rare." 7/19/2008 5:59 PM
"What children see they will do and what they do they will become." 7/19/2008 5:46 PM.
"Stop handing out welfare and housing to teen mothers and teen pregnancy will be cut by ½ in a few years." 7/19/2008 10:59 AM.
Sarah Palin, husband Todd, and daughter Bristol are well suited to tell the rest of America that there is more to the problem than that.
2008
| i don't know |
Which cable station is home to Dirty Jobs, American Chopper, and Man vs. Wild, among many others? | Discovery Videos | Discovery
Discovery Videos
Bear Grylls: Escape From Hell
Bering Sea Gold
Billy Bob's Gags to Riches
Blue Collar Backers
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod
Dual Survival
Ice Age: Last of the Giants
Jungle Gold
Rise: The Promise of My Brother's Keeper
Rusted Development
Skyscraper Live with Nik Wallenda
Skywire Live with Nik Wallenda
Sons of Winter
Stonehenge: Secrets of the Stones
Street Outlaws
Bear Grylls: Escape From Hell
Bering Sea Gold
Billy Bob's Gags to Riches
Blue Collar Backers
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod
Dual Survival
Ice Age: Last of the Giants
Jungle Gold
Rise: The Promise of My Brother's Keeper
Rusted Development
Skyscraper Live with Nik Wallenda
Skywire Live with Nik Wallenda
Sons of Winter
Stonehenge: Secrets of the Stones
Street Outlaws
| Discovery |
What is the name for the biology discipline that deals with the science of plant life? | Coolfire Media Brings Reality TV Close to Home - St. Louis Magazine
Coolfire Media Brings Reality TV Close to Home
Get real
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
×
Next
Have you ever done an interview on a bed, with two beautiful women?” Kate Frisina-White asks me. The fortysomething mother of two works at a grocery store and lives on a quiet residential street in Creve Coeur. Quiet, that is, except for Frisina-White.
We are lying on her bed, along with Judi Diamond, a DJ for local country-music station 92.3 WIL-FM. “This is where we do our best work!” Frisina-White howls, more or less setting the tone for the day.
“Watch TV and come up with ideas,” Diamond clarifies.
Frisina-White ignores that comment entirely. “Once a month, if Jack’s a nice boy,” she quips, referring to how often her husband gets lucky.
We’re in bed together because, for today, this isn’t a bedroom at all. It’s a dressing room. Out in the kitchen, which is presently serving as the set, a film crew sets up cameras, sound equipment, and lights. Production manager J. Gibson arranges some discount Thanksgiving decorations.
Diamond, a petite, blue-eyed redhead, and Frisina-White, a tall, brown-eyed brunette with blonde highlights, knew of one another before they actually met. They both moved to Missouri after working as actors in Los Angeles, both drove white minivans, both had two kids. As Diamond puts it, people kept telling them “that we would just…” “…love each other,” Frisina-White chimes in. They tend to finish each other’s sentences, in a way that manages to be both cute and a bit creepy.
When they finally met, the women became fast friends, eventually starting a vlog (that’s video blog, for you Luddites) called Lipstick n’ Laundry. With help from Coolfire Originals , a TV development-and-production company based in St. Louis, they’ve spun that website into a reality show, MFF: Mom Friends Forever, airing as part of the new NickMom block of late-night programming on Nick Jr. (It’s a bit like Adult Swim on Cartoon Network; the slogan is “motherfunny.”)
Tim Breitbach, Coolfire’s vice president of original programming, serves as the show’s executive producer. He comes into the bedroom just as the ladies are wrapping up their back story. Today, they’ll be shooting a special Thanksgiving video for the NickMom website, rather than a full-blown episode. Breitbach runs through the game plan, listing off the topics that he thinks the women should cover.
Once they’re ready, the ladies make their way into the kitchen, taking their customary seats on stools behind the breakfast bar. To seem taller, Diamond sits on a phone book. A member of the crew claps his hands and says, “Mark, wave two.” Cameras roll.
After a bit of profane small talk, just to clear their throats, the women launch into a rollicking 20-minute conversation (which will eventually be edited down to a couple of minutes) about what they’re thankful for (mostly each other), canned cranberry sauce (Diamond prefers it), and the tryptophan in turkey (as a vegetarian, Diamond avoids its alleged soporific powers).
They exaggerate the emotion in their voices, laugh way too hard at their own jokes, and make theatrical hand gestures to accent their mostly ordinary stories. But it just works. As Breitbach says, “They have the thing together. There’s an alchemy that happens between Judi and Kate.”
He shouts “cut” occasionally to nudge the banter back on track, and the ladies use the lulls between takes to make suggestive jokes about the shapes of the plastic gourds sitting on the bar. Eventually, the conversation turns to pot brownies. When Diamond was a kid, one of her cousins brought some to Thanksgiving dinner, giving them to the adults as a prank. But while she and Frisina-White have no problem using countless sexual double-entendres, they awkwardly avoid the word “marijuana,” calling them “California brownies” instead.
“About two hours later, my mom was eating everything in sight. She was giggling like crazy,” Diamond says, giggling herself.
When they’ve finished, Breitbach gives them some feedback, and they start the entire conversation again, from the top.
Spend five minutes at Coolfire Media ’s downtown offices, and you’ll be ready to submit an application. It’s like the hippest of Washington Avenue lofts, with concrete pillars and exposed brick bordering an expansive open space filled with couches. Employees lounge with their laptops. Across the room from a pool table, a trophy case holds dozens of regional Emmy and Telly awards. Along the walls are offices and editing suites full of high-tech equipment.
The coolest office of all belongs to president and CEO Jeff Keane. A warm man with spiked salt-and-pepper hair and a bit of scruff, Keane works from a large easy chair, a set of poker chips and a few decanters of liquor nearby. He founded Coolfire Media in 2002 as a commercial-production company, making videos, TV commercials, and websites. In 2009, he added two ventures: Coolfire Solutions, which specializes in mobile apps, and Coolfire Originals, which makes TV shows.
Coolfire shepherds those shows from beginning to end, developing the ideas, selling them to networks, and producing the episodes. “We’ve had pretty good success over the last couple years doing that,” Keane says modestly.
It’s a major understatement.
As of this fall, Coolfire had three shows on-air: Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s, Oprah Winfrey Network’s popular series about St. Louisan Robbie Montgomery and her family’s soul-food restaurants; Fast N’ Loud, Discovery Channel’s program about a couple of Texans who turn old cars into hot rods; and MFF. With three more shows currently in production, the company will have at least six on-air this year, with five featuring St. Louis. “We’re shining a really positive and interesting spotlight on the city of St. Louis,” says Keane, who grew up here. “It’s something that we take a lot of pride in.”
When you consider that Coolfire Originals is still a young company and is far removed from the entertainment capitals of L.A. and New York, its rate of ascent is truly remarkable. In essence, it’s building a new industry in St. Louis.
How did Keane pull it off?
It started with a pair of blue-chip recruits: Breitbach and vice president of development Steve Luebbert, Midwest natives who worked in film and TV on the West Coast before moving back home. Early on, they signed with prominent Hollywood talent agency William Morris Endeavor and enlisted Pilgrim Studios—the company behind such reality hits as Survivor, Dirty Jobs, and American Chopper—as co-producers of their first couple of shows. They also collaborated with NoCoast Originals, a fellow St. Louis company, on show ideas.
The Coolfire guys see their Midwest location as an advantage. After all, many of the people who watch cable TV live in the so-called flyover states, and they don’t just want to watch shows about crazies from the coasts. “Being in the middle of the country, we can find characters and stories that really resonate with the people who are watching those networks,” Keane says.
Shows with Midwestern stars can infuse a badly needed dose of reality into an industry that seems to continually veer further toward the absurd. “It’s not farcical,” Luebbert says. “We’re telling real stories about real people.”
Another advantage: Coolfire’s pitch tapes. Long before filming a pilot, companies have to sell a network on an idea with what’s called a sizzle reel. “The thing is, we’re really good at those,” Breitbach says. When Coolfire started sending its sizzle reels to networks, “They were like, ‘Holy shit, what a tape!’” The secret is Coolfire’s background in video production for advertising, in knowing how to sell concisely. “We’re starting to do half hours well and hours well,” Breitbach says, “but we really know how to deliver a hot five or six minutes.”
Those sizzle reels helped make up for Coolfire’s initial lack of TV credits and made the company a hot commodity among cable executives. “L.A. is a very bright, shiny object,” says Luebbert, who used to work for ABC in comedy development. “If we’re the bright, shiny object right now, then terrific.”
Reality TV ain’t easy. “There is a huge gap between an idea for a TV show and a TV show,” Luebbert says. “We are the gap.”
You don’t just show up at somebody’s house and turn on a camera. To use the mom friends as an example, it took more than two years from the time the Coolfire guys met Frisina-White and Diamond until the first episode aired.
That process started with a lot of talking. Coolfire needed to figure out what was going on in the women’s lives and how to create story-lines from those events. This is the specialty of Breitbach, who co-wrote Dopamine, an indie film that won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2003. “I’m a story guy,” he says. He wants to learn his characters so well that he can predict how they’ll react in a certain situation and how others will respond. In that sense, mapping out an episode of reality TV is like screenwriting—only the actors don’t have to listen to you.
Filming presents an entirely new set of challenges. The biggest is what insiders call “managing the talent.” It takes a lot of shooting, sometimes a full week of eight-hour days, to produce a half-hour episode. Even for people who volunteered, the intrusion can grow tiresome. “You also have to respect the fact that they have no idea what they signed up for,” Breitbach says. “Until you’ve done it, you have no idea, and it’s not easy.”
It’s a situation that requires empathy, patience, and quite a bit of gentle prodding. This is where it’s fair to question just how much reality is involved in reality TV. The guys at Coolfire think of their shows as falling toward the real end of the reality spectrum, but that doesn’t mean they don’t play an active role in shaping how things play out on screen.
For instance, in MFF, Frisina-White was having trouble relating to her son Max, who was shutting her out. But a kid and his mom stewing at opposite ends of a house doesn’t make for great TV. So Breitbach encouraged them to talk it out. For him, the difference between reality TV (he prefers the terms “nonscripted” and “docuseries” because of the genre’s less-appealing associations) and less-than-reality TV comes down to “authenticity.” He doesn’t ask his characters to do anything they wouldn’t normally do, per se. He just puts them in situations where they can be themselves, amplified.
These lines are especially blurry with the mom friends. They’re former actors who decided to turn their vlog into a reality show. If it seems like they’re acting phony on camera, well, that’s fairly natural for them. And in the end, who cares? If the show entertains a few moms winding down after a long day, does it really matter whether the crew asked one of the kids to put on the same shirt he was wearing yesterday to refilm a conversation?
For MFF’s Thanksgiving video, Frisina-White heckles Diamond about celebrating the holiday with tofurkey. In response, Diamond challenges Frisina-White to an impromptu blind taste test. (Given the fact that the producers already had turkey and tofurkey in the oven, I have my doubts about the challenge’s spontaneity.) They decide to use the scene as an alternate ending.
One of the show’s running gags is that its leading ladies, especially Diamond, are not particularly gifted cooks. As it turns out, neither is Gibson, the production manager; her turkey and tofurkey are inedible. But the women improvise, turning this misfortune into comedic gold. After making a few bondage jokes while blindfolding her partner, Diamond feeds Frisina-White a piece of the turkey.
“I can already tell that’s that tofurkey,” Frisina-White exclaims. She refuses to swallow. “Get it out of my mouth. I mean it. I refuse to eat that, Judi. I don’t know how you think that’s food. That is not food, Judi. I don’t even need to taste the other one.”
Then Diamond gives her a bite of the actual tofurkey. “What is that, bark?” Frisina-White yells.
“We’ve established something,” Diamond responds. “We’ve established that A. I can’t cook turkey, and B. I can’t cook tofurkey.”
Breitbach calls “cut,” then they all take a few laugh-filled moments to reflect on the horrible food. “I’ve never been around as many women that don’t know how to cook as you guys,” Breitbach says. He checks with the crew to make sure they got enough close-ups of the repulsive cuisine. Then he says every actor’s three favorite words: “That’s a wrap.”
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| i don't know |
If a cow is bovine and a horse equine, what is porcine? | Could Bovine, Porcine Rotavirus Affect Horses? | TheHorse.com
Could Bovine, Porcine Rotavirus Affect Horses?
Genomic research suggests that horses could also be susceptible to rotavirus from both cows and pigs.
Photo: Photos.com
We know that rotavirus—which causes severe diarrhea in foals—is a highly contagious virus that can spread rapidly through your foaling barn. But results of new genomic research from Asian scientists suggests that horses are also susceptible to rotavirus from both cows and pigs.
“Our study, based on whole genomic analysis, has provided the first conclusive evidence that bovine and porcine rotavirus can be transmitted to horses,” said Souvik Ghosh, BVSc, AH, MVSc, PhD, lecturer in the department of hygiene at Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine in Japan.
Rotavirus is made up of 11 gene segments that can “reassert,” meaning they can blend with other rotavirus strains to create a new, mixed strain, Ghosh said. For example, previous study results have shown that a rotavirus from cattle could mix with a rotavirus from a horse to create a new rotavirus strain that has nine bovine gene segments and two equine segments.
However, Ghosh’s study is the first to show that horses can be infected with rotavirus strains in which all 11 gene segments are bovinelike, meaning they are 100% bovine rotavirus strains. In other words, the disease can no longer be considered species-specific.
In a pioneering study, Ghosh and colleagues carried out whole genomic analysis of rotavirus strains found in horses. These included three “common” strains and one “unusual” strain, found in diarrheic foals in Japan. The common strains turned out to be genomically very similar to other common equine rotavirus strains throughout the world. The unusual one, however, had 11 out of 11 bovine gene segments.
In a previous study, Ghosh’s team analyzed the whole genome of another unusual strain of rotavirus in a foal and found it to have at least nine piglike segments. They could not definitively identify the other two segments, but they appeared to be either from pig or human rotaviruses, he said.
Ghosh said he hopes his research will lead to better treatment and prevention of the highly contagious disease. “Information on whole genomes are essential to study the exact origin and evolution of viruses, interspecies transmission, and reassortment events,” he said. “Moreover, information on whole genomes may provide vital leads to the development of effective prophylactic or therapeutic strategies, and aid in monitoring vaccine efficacy.”
| Pig |
On May 14, 1804, the Corp of Discovery, led by whom, departed Camp Dubois to start their journey by heading down the Missouri River? | Canine, Feline, Bovine etc
Canine, Feline, Bovine etc
803
Canine, Feline, Bovine etc
We're having a bit of a brainstorming evening and have got onto the subject of animal families(?) or whatever you would call them. So far we have the following:
Dogs = Canine
Pigs = Porcine
Bears = Ursine
Anybody know any others? Also does anbody know what the proper name for these type of names are, i.e is it a classification or something like that?
Re: Canine, Feline, Bovine etc
Horse = Equine
Re: Canine, Feline, Bovine etc
Women = Whine
Re: Canine, Feline, Bovine etc
Originally posted by DsK
Re: Canine, Feline, Bovine etc
Originally posted by DsK
Re: Canine, Feline, Bovine etc
Originally posted by Goliath
Thanks Goliath, that's another one to add to the list [thumbup]
Originally posted by DsK
Sapphire RX 480 Nitro+ OC, Intel Iris Pro 6200
PSU:
Crucial M4 256GB, Intel 530 120GB
Operating System:
Re: Canine, Feline, Bovine etc
Alligator- Eusuchian
Bird- Avian, Muscicapine, Oscine, Passerine, Pendeline, Volucrine, Ornithic
Bison- Bisontine
Snake- Anguine, Elapine, Colubrine, Ophidian, Reptilian, Serpentine, Viperine
Snipe- Charadrine
Re: Canine, Feline, Bovine etc
well that solves this thread
Re: Canine, Feline, Bovine etc
Lapine = Rabbit, or at least the rabbit language in Watership Down.
Sapphire RX 480 Nitro+ OC, Intel Iris Pro 6200
PSU:
Crucial M4 256GB, Intel 530 120GB
Operating System:
Re: Canine, Feline, Bovine etc
Originally posted by TheReallyCoolGuy
well that solves this thread
Well, one question, WTF is an X-Ray fish...
Also, Asinine is a common expression on most forums...
Last edited by powerarmour; October 6, 2006 at 19:41.
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| i don't know |
What kind of animals are Old Major (an allegory of Marx and Lenin) and Napoleon (an allegory of Stalin), in George Orwell's classic 1945 novella Animal Farm? | SparkNotes: Animal Farm: Analysis of Major Characters
Analysis of Major Characters
Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Napoleon
From the very beginning of the novella, Napoleon emerges as an utterly corrupt opportunist. Though always present at the early meetings of the new state, Napoleon never makes a single contribution to the revolution—not to the formulation of its ideology, not to the bloody struggle that it necessitates, not to the new society’s initial attempts to establish itself. He never shows interest in the strength of Animal Farm itself, only in the strength of his power over it. Thus, the only project he undertakes with enthusiasm is the training of a litter of puppies. He doesn’t educate them for their own good or for the good of all, however, but rather for his own good: they become his own private army or secret police, a violent means by which he imposes his will on others.
Although he is most directly modeled on the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Napoleon represents, in a more general sense, the political tyrants that have emerged throughout human history and with particular frequency during the twentieth century. His namesake is not any communist leader but the early-eighteenth-century French general Napoleon, who betrayed the democratic principles on which he rode to power, arguably becoming as great a despot as the aristocrats whom he supplanted. It is a testament to Orwell’s acute political intelligence and to the universality of his fable that Napoleon can easily stand for any of the great dictators and political schemers in world history, even those who arose after Animal Farm was written. In the behavior of Napoleon and his henchmen, one can detect the lying and bullying tactics of totalitarian leaders such as Josip Tito, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot, Augusto Pinochet, and Slobodan Milosevic treated in sharply critical terms.
Snowball
Orwell’s stint in a Trotskyist battalion in the Spanish Civil War—during which he first began plans for a critique of totalitarian communism—influenced his relatively positive portrayal of Snowball. As a parallel for Leon Trotsky, Snowball emerges as a fervent ideologue who throws himself heart and soul into the attempt to spread Animalism worldwide and to improve Animal Farm’s infrastructure. His idealism, however, leads to his downfall. Relying only on the force of his own logic and rhetorical skill to gain his influence, he proves no match for Napoleon’s show of brute force.
Although Orwell depicts Snowball in a relatively appealing light, he refrains from idealizing his character, making sure to endow him with certain moral flaws. For example, Snowball basically accepts the superiority of the pigs over the rest of the animals. Moreover, his fervent, single-minded enthusiasm for grand projects such as the windmill might have erupted into full-blown megalomaniac despotism had he not been chased from Animal Farm. Indeed, Orwell suggests that we cannot eliminate government corruption by electing principled individuals to roles of power; he reminds us throughout the novella that it is power itself that corrupts.
Boxer
The most sympathetically drawn character in the novel, Boxer epitomizes all of the best qualities of the exploited working classes: dedication, loyalty, and a huge capacity for labor. He also, however, suffers from what Orwell saw as the working class’s major weaknesses: a naïve trust in the good intentions of the intelligentsia and an inability to recognize even the most blatant forms of political corruption. Exploited by the pigs as much or more than he had been by Mr. Jones, Boxer represents all of the invisible labor that undergirds the political drama being carried out by the elites. Boxer’s pitiful death at a glue factory dramatically illustrates the extent of the pigs’ betrayal. It may also, however, speak to the specific significance of Boxer himself: before being carted off, he serves as the force that holds Animal Farm together.
Squealer
Throughout his career, Orwell explored how politicians manipulate language in an age of mass media. In Animal Farm, the silver-tongued pig Squealer abuses language to justify Napoleon’s actions and policies to the proletariat by whatever means seem necessary. By radically simplifying language—as when he teaches the sheep to bleat “Four legs good, two legs better!”—he limits the terms of debate. By complicating language unnecessarily, he confuses and intimidates the uneducated, as when he explains that pigs, who are the “brainworkers” of the farm, consume milk and apples not for pleasure, but for the good of their comrades. In this latter strategy, he also employs jargon (“tactics, tactics”) as well as a baffling vocabulary of false and impenetrable statistics, engendering in the other animals both self-doubt and a sense of hopelessness about ever accessing the truth without the pigs’ mediation. Squealer’s lack of conscience and unwavering loyalty to his leader, alongside his rhetorical skills, make him the perfect propagandist for any tyranny. Squealer’s name also fits him well: squealing, of course, refers to a pig’s typical form of vocalization, and Squealer’s speech defines him. At the same time, to squeal also means to betray, aptly evoking Squealer’s behavior with regard to his fellow animals.
Old Major
As a democratic socialist, Orwell had a great deal of respect for Karl Marx, the German political economist, and even for Vladimir Ilych Lenin, the Russian revolutionary leader. His critique of Animal Farm has little to do with the Marxist ideology underlying the Rebellion but rather with the perversion of that ideology by later leaders. Major, who represents both Marx and Lenin, serves as the source of the ideals that the animals continue to uphold even after their pig leaders have betrayed them.
Though his portrayal of Old Major is largely positive, Orwell does include a few small ironies that allow the reader to question the venerable pig’s motives. For instance, in the midst of his long litany of complaints about how the animals have been treated by human beings, Old Major is forced to concede that his own life has been long, full, and free from the terrors he has vividly sketched for his rapt audience. He seems to have claimed a false brotherhood with the other animals in order to garner their support for his vision.
| Pig |
In what century did the Renaissance begin? | Animal Farm: George Orwell: Trade Paperback: 9780451526342: Powell's Books
Average customer rating 4.9 (14 comments)
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matthejna , April 01, 2014
George Orwell’s Animal Farm remains a prominent and powerful allegory about Soviet Communism. In Orwell’s Animal Farm the story opens on a farm run by the farmer Mr. Jones. One night an older pig(pigs are the wisest of the animals) tells the group about a dream he had about a utopia run by animals and centered upon equality. However, Old Major dies soon after he speaks about his dream and his vision is never realized in his lifetime. After his death, all the animals rejoice at the prospect of Old Major’s dream and eventually drive Mr. Jones from the Farm. Led by pigs such as Napolean, Snowball, and Squealer, the animals form a government based on equality and form the principles in the Seven Commandments of Animal Farm. As time goes on, Napolean grows more and more power hungry and eventually drives out Snowball from the farm. With the help of Squealer, Napolean is able to convince the rest of the farm of Snowball’s “evil” nature and maintain rigorous work hours for the rest of the animals. In the end, Napolean and the rest of the pigs begin walking on two feet like the humans they once loathed. In the final scene play cards with the humans they once fought so valiantly against. The true cleverness of the novel comes from the correlation with true historical events in Russia. In the late 1910s, Russia overthrew the final Tsar Nicholas II and became a communist nation. The revolution was led by Vladimir Lenin who truly believed in the original principles of Karl Marx communism. Soon after the revolution concluded however, Lenin died and Joseph Stalin and Trotsky fought for political control over the nation. Stalin’s brutal and ruthless principles eventually resulted in becoming the leader of the Soviet Union. Stalin betrayed communist doctrine ruled with an iron fist. Stalin’s totalitarian rule continued for decades as he drove millions of his own people to starvation because of the outrageous work requirements and low rations. After researching the historical background of the Soviet communism, the allegory of Animal Farm becomes much clearer. Animal Farm is known for it’s incredibly clever allegory of the Russian Revolution. Animal Farm ultimately explains the true dystopian nature of the nation. The first symbolic character is Old Major as Karl Marx. Old Major is described by Orwell (...so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour’s sleep in order to hear what he had to say”(25). His principles were noble, his character was strong, and he was respected by all of the animals on the farm. Old Major had the benefit of not placing this policies into existence however. While his dream is grand and perfect, it’s a highly romanticized ideal. Creating equality is a difficult task since the animals cannot contribute to the farm equally. Even with difficult problems inevitably arising, life for the animals is at first happy, largely because of another pig named Snowball. Snowball is representative of the Russian politician Leon Trotsky. Like Trotsky, Snowball tried to stay true to the original views of the philosophy of his predecessor. Snowball is described by Orwell as “...vivacious pig...quicker in speech and more inventive”(35). He is the leader of the revolution and creates a moral and pleasant society, despite the pigs taking more than their share of their food. However, Trotsky’s rival, Joseph Stalin was eventually able to retain control of the Soviet Union, and is represented by Napolean. Napolean according to Orwell is “a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar”. He is a far more rugged and ruthless pig who eventually takes complete control over the farm. However, without knowing who the character symbolizes at the start, the reader does not experience the story with pre-conceived notions. The allegory point of view allows for the novel to be a reflection of an entire culture rather than a single individual. The perspective is from 3rd person subjective. From this point of view the trials and struggles are seen in the horses, donkeys and, goats. The pigs deceit is shown in a manner emphasizing the slow accumulation of power before turning on the original Seven Commandments all together. The pigs also constantly utilize fear to gain legitimacy from the rest of the animals. By allowing fear to influence their lives, the common animals gave up their equality to ensure their safety, instead of having faith in themselves. By keeping too much faith in the pigs to keep them safe, the pigs ultimately abuse this power for their benefit. Much like McCarthyism swept the nation during the 1950s, a deep fear of Mr Jones or Snowball returning kept the animals obliging to the will of the pigs. However when the responsibility of reporting the news becomes an opportunity for propaganda, the pigs quickly take advantage. In this regard the major theme could be considered the importance of empowerment and freedom of expression. Even Boxer who is rather gullible begins to deny facts spouted by Squealer. If some of the animals were confident rather than panic-stricken, the pigs would have to be more dignified in their principles. Instead the culture declines into starvation and misery while the pigs show no consideration for anyone else. The overall value of the story is rested upon strength of the allegory. The story on it’s own is a strong representation of the easy corruption of power. Without knowledge of Joseph Stalin, and Leon Trotsky, the cautionary tale remains powerful and effective. The struggle between Snowball and Napolean is a legitimate dispute and can be applied to politics outside of Soviet Russia. While the story on it’s own is far more bizarre and abstract, it still captures the theme of the power corrupting a strong ethical society. The allegory allows the reader to truly grasp the perspective of the Russian people during this time as their society deteriorates.
rocky-o , March 03, 2012 (view all comments by rocky-o)
"...some are more equal than others..."...that is a line from George Orwell's brilliant social commentary, "Animal Farm"... The basic story involves the animals on a farm who want to run the farmer out of town, so that they can run the farm, equally, and fairly... but, as time moves on, all is not right in the animal kingdom, and, like humans, they begin to show their true colors... with an exceptional thread to our own behvior, such as his equally brilliant "1984", once again Mr. Orwell proves to be a keen storyteller with one eye on his pages, and one eye on the world...
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Tmackyt , March 09, 2011
This is Why I Read Animal farm is Georges Orwell’s interpretation of the Soviet Union pre and during Stalin. Instead of wring a history book with his thoughts of communism he tells the same story with animals and ties it all up with a message. The best part is he is simplifying the whole story not to dumb it down but to make it more understandable. The premise is that animals rebel against their farmer and make the first farm run and operated by animals. George Orwell’s Animal Farm is pure genius. I have never experienced a better way of communicating a complex idea and translating it better than George Orwell did in Animal Farm. This book is a joy to read I can honestly say that I have never been so hooked on a book more than Animal Farm. The only problems I had with the book came from me. The biggest problem I had with this book was that there are so many loose ends. Through many situations I didn’t know if someone was actually a bad guy or as an example if Napoleon was just lying. I still feel like I got the gist of it but I’m still unsure. Most of that comes from me not knowing the history. I don’t know the context of the book, but that was minimal compared to how much I loved the book. Plus through all that I still got the message. As much as the book confused me (which was minimal) I still understood more than 90% of it. The way he described it I feel pretty informed about what happened. I can’t get over the way George decided to write the book. It’s just so smart the way he used animals to represent certain characteristics. It just blows me away how smart the whole thing is. I really want to give him credit for the story but it’s not really his. The way he interpreted it and made it relevant to a farm is just great. The best part to me is I can see all this playing out in the real world. This is the first book I feel I’m going to re-read.
NTN , March 05, 2011 (view all comments by NTN)
I read this book last year in my english 2 class. This is a great book if you guys like to watch any movie that goes with the book because this is one of them. In this book the animals are a little bit crazy. This book is not too long for those of you like to read short books. The way that he wrote the book was very easy to read. I would suggest people to read this book and watch the movie. The animals in this book each of them has a different personality and they act like humans
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Charlie.Crea , May 04, 2010
The novel Animal Farm is a political satire written by George Orwell in 1945, exposing the political corruption of the USSR, and other communistic nations of that time. The purpose of the book is to warn the general population about the dangers of utopias, communism, and totalitarian governments. Personally, I enjoyed reading this book, as it helped open my eyes to extreme levels of government control and poor living conditions that I, as a white male in America, have never experienced firsthand. This book was written right at the end of World War II, at the beginning of the Cold War. During that time, the USSR was experiencing political debates and rebellions (primarily between Stalin and Trotsky), and radical government control over the citizens. Orwell chooses to represent all of the ruling class as literal pigs in his book. There are a number of main points throughout the book which all tie together in the end. The first is a speech that the animal’s current leader, Old Major, gives to the animals. Old Major talks about a dream he had, stimulating the animals imaginations of a farm ruled by animals, and not people. It was at this point that the song “Beasts of England” is originally sung. After the Old Major dies, the next big plot development is the rebellion. After forgetting to feed the animals for an extended period of time (due to a long night of drinking and a brutal hangover the next morning), Mr. Jones is finally driven out of his farm by the animals. Not too long after however, Mr. Jones and the neighboring farmers come back, fighting to regain control of the farm. Later calling the skirmish the Battle of the Cowshed, the animals are able to thwart the human’s efforts. As time goes by, the two main leaders of the animal utopia, Snowball and Napoleon, continue to butt heads on major decisions. Snowball, being a much more liberal leader in his politics, wants to construct a windmill for power. Napoleon however, being a stubborn conservative-ideological leader, gets sick of Snowball’s suggestions and finally banishes Snowball from Animal Farm. It is not long after Snowball’s expulsion that Napoleon holds the first interactions with humans since the rebellion, contracting with a guy by the name of Mr. Whymper for supplies. This connection with humans breaks one of the original commandments, yet Napoleon is never tried nor found guilty. Under Napoleon’s leadership, the animals proceeded to build the windmill after all. Partially through completion, a storm comes and tears down what is already constructed. This pushes the animals to make the windmill even thicker and stronger, ever giving into the political rulings of Napoleon. Soon after the windmill is completed, Mr. Jones and his men decide to attack the farm once again. This action can be compared to a military move, taking an enemy out just after they invent a new major weapon or technological advancement. After a large explosion, there is nothing left of the windmill. Working harder than ever to accomplish what Napoleon ordered, the animals continue to gather stone to rebuild. Boxer, the workhorse of the farm, finally wears himself out, blowing a lung. As he is taken away to the hospital, some of the animals realized that he is really being taken to be killed. This exposes the corrupt government of totalitarianisms, addressing the issue of Euthanasia. Under the same leadership, Napoleon and the other leaders (pigs) learn to talk on two legs, carrying whips and ordering the animals around. Within days the pigs are meeting with the local farmers to address treaties, revealing that rulers of any sort, pigs or humans, can all be corrupt. I believe the main purpose of this book is to warn the readers, preferably all readers and not just the elite and well-educated, about the dangers of utopias, communism, and totalitarians. After comparing the book’s fairy tale characters to historical figures of the time, I feel that the book does a really good job of revealing these political issues, without making it too overly confusing for the average reader. It is able to take a serious topic, push deep opinions into the discussion, and come out understandable. Some of the ideas that are suggested by the book are to be wary of over controlling governments, and governments promising equality, yet providing an elitist ruling. There are a number of points in the book that stand out as very convincing to me. One of the biggest is the commandments. The pigs, the ones who instituted the commandments, break them and cover it up by painting a small little amendment to each one. The commandments were even ditched all together at the end of the novel, being replaced by one: “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS” (133). I noticed that Orwell uses an interesting word choice for his dialogue. Old Major starts the trend of calling the fellow animals Comrade (which at the time often referenced the soviets). Orwell also depicts all the different elements of a national struggle within the plot, including war, poverty, rebellion, famine, foreign affairs, economics, and more. All the characters represent direct metaphors of the time period. For example, Napoleon represents Stalin; Snowball represents Trotsky; and Boxer represents any underpaid, maltreated, working-class Soviet. This is all portrayed through a fairly objective and informative tone. The novel Animal Farm by George Orwell is a great political satire exposing the tyrannical and corrupt government of the USSR and other Communist countries during the Cold War. It is a quick read, and well worth digging into if you have a fascination of politics and human corruption.
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leesha2010 , May 03, 2010
George Orwell writes Animal Farm to convey the Russian Revolution in simpler terms. The story takes place on a farm taken over by animals that ran off their owner, Mr. Jones. The leaders of this revolution were two pigs, Napoleon and Snowball. Napoleon and the other pigs start to crave more power and causes them to manipulate the other animals. This leads to corruption and soon enough Napoleon slowly becomes what they drove out, a human! Orwell did not decide to write this book on a whim; his political views helped develop Animal Farm. In his essay, “Why I Write”, Orwell states “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects”. Orwell did not avoid the subject and wrote his views of totalitarianism during the Russian Revolution and incorporated it into Animal Farm. He believed Stalin was leaning towards totalitarianism rather than socialism in the U.S.S.R. One main idea Animal Farm conveys is the effects of exploitation. On the farm, the pigs manipulate the other animals into working harder and getting smaller rations. A pig named Squealer becomes the speaker for Napoleon and convinces the others that Napoleon is helping the common good and blames Snowball (the other pig who led the rebellion) for any misfortunes the farm experiences. For example, Squealer says, “No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal…but sometimes you might make the wrong decisions…Suppose you had decided to follow Snowball…who, as we now know, was no better than a criminal” (59-60). The reader can notice how Squealer makes Snowball a pariah and anyone associated to him. It also sounds ridiculous when Squealer says “you might make the wrong decisions”. There will always be the chance of an unfortunate event but this is Squealers reasoning for Napoleon to make decisions for the other animals. The misuse of power leads to an aristocracy where the very few (the pigs) rule the rest of the farm. Overall, Animal Farm is very effective with conveying Orwell’s political thoughts of the Russian Revolution. By the author simplifying the Revolution and having animals as characters, the ideas become universal. The ideas of the Revolution are no longer moot because the outcome of the story is now possible anywhere and just Russia in the 1900s. This idea is similar to fairytales. Morals are brought to simple terms and stay relevant no matter the time period. Orwell does an excellent job in making his story a living document and still has relevancy in the 21st century. The greatest lesson learned from this story is the possible outcome of sitting back and doing nothing not only in politics, but in all aspects of life. The animals in the story let pigs take control even though they disagree and they do not try to fix the problems. For example, in the beginning the animals created seven commandments to abide by. The last commandment said, “All animals are created equal” (33). Slowly, the pigs started to manipulate the commandments. By the end of the story there was only one commandment left that read “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others” (123). The animals let time pass and were no longer equal to the pigs. By letting the pigs get away with their actions, the pigs gained total control over the farm. The importance of standing up for your beliefs is a lesson anyone can understand. If one takes no action, they will not experience any success. Animal Farm is meant for anyone to read. The word choice is simplistic enough for middle school students to read and enjoy the story for its plot. If one looks deeper into the story, high school students to senior citizens can experience the thrill of seeking out the historical background and the parallels between the characters and real people during the Russian Revolution. Animal Farm by George Orwell is a favorite and highly recommend for anyone to read.
| i don't know |
What color are the helmets worn by UN peacekeeping troops? | Military beret | Military Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
Berets are in some countries particularly associated with elite units, who often wear berets in more unusual colours. Examples include the grey of the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps , maroon of Commonwealth parachute troops and the Danish Jægerkorpset , the green of the Royal Marines Commandos , Finnish Marine Commandos (Coastal Jaegers), French Commandos (Bérets verts), French Foreign Legion , Irish Army Ranger Wing , Rhodesian Light Infantry and United States Army's Special Forces (Green Berets); the scarlet of the elite Soviet Internal Troops ( Spetsnaz ); the beige or tan of Commonwealth special forces units ( SAS ) and United States Army Rangers ; the grey of the new Polish GROM ; or the wide black of French Chasseurs alpins , the first military unit to have worn berets.
History
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Carlist forces in Spain, 1838
The informal use of berets by the military of Europe dates back hundreds of years, one example being the Blue Bonnet, that became a defacto symbol of Scottish forces in the 16th and 17th centuries. As an officially required military headdress, its use dates back to the Carlist Wars of Succession for the Spanish Crown in the 1830s by order of General Tomás de Zumalacárregui who wanted a local and non-costly way to make headgear that was resistant to the mountain weather and easy to care for and be used on formal occasions. Other countries followed suit after the creation of the French Chasseurs alpins in the early 1880s. These mountain troops were issued with a uniform which included several features which were innovative for the time, notably the large and floppy blue beret which they still retain. This was so unfamiliar a fashion outside France that it had to be described in the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911 as "a soft cap or tam o'shanter ." [1]
Berets have features that make them very attractive to the military: they are cheap, easy to make in large numbers, can be manufactured in a wide range of colors, can be rolled up and stuffed into a pocket or beneath the shirt epaulette without damage, and can be worn with headphones (this is one of the reasons why tank crews adopted the beret). The beret is not so useful in field conditions for the modern infantryman, who requires protective helmets, and is usually not seen worn by infantry on operations.
The beret was found particularly useful as a uniform for armored-vehicle crews, and the British Tank Corps (later Royal Tank Corps) adopted the headdress as early as 1918, despite complaints that the beret was "too foreign and feminine". German AFV crews in the late 1930s also adopted a beret with the addition of a padded crash helmet inside. The color black became popular as a tank-crew headdress, since it did not show oil stains picked up inside the interior of a vehicle. Black berets continue to be worn by armoured regiments throughout the Commonwealth.
Berets have become the default military headdress of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, just as the morion , tricorne , shako , kepi , and peaked cap were each common headgear in their own respective eras. The beret is now worn by many military personnel of the majority of nations across the world.
Military berets by country
Dark blue — other personnel
Navy Blue Berets are issued head-dress in the Royal Australian Navy ; however, they are most commonly worn by Clearance Divers and qualified Submariners - that said, they are still a regulation uniform item for any naval personnel. Blue berets in the Royal Australian Air Force , but only by qualified Airfield Defence Guards and Ground Defence Officers. Terracotta berets are worn by Multinational Force and Observers contingents. In all cases, the beret is pushed over to the right, and a badge (a.k.a. "flash" insignia) worn above the left eye.
Austria
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Austrian green beret.
Berets are common in most parts of the Army , and are usually worn for special occasions, but also regularly by certain forces.
Grass green — Infantry, all troops that do not wear another color
Royal Blue — Engineers, Service corps
Dark Blue — Education corps, Electrical and mechanical engineers, Ordnance, Artillery, Signals, Army Dental corps
Belgium
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Initially, the only unit of the Belgian military to wear berets were the Chasseurs Ardennais from the 1930s. Since World War II they have been adopted by all units. Berets vary in colour according to the regiment, and carry a badge (sometimes on a coloured shield-shaped patch) which is of gilt for officers, silver for non-commissioned officers and bronze for other ranks. Members of cavalry units all wear silver coloured badges.
A Belgian UN peacekeeper in Somalia, wearing a standard UN blue beret and badge, 1993.
Maroon — Paracommando Immediate Reaction Cell (HQ), 1 Para , 3 Para , Special Forces Group, Parachute Training Centre
Green — 2 Commando , Paracommando Field Artillery and the Commando Training Centre
Olive Green (large-brimmed, basque type with folded-in brim and wild boar's head badge ) — Chasseurs Ardennais
Brown — Infantry, Chasseurs à Pieds and Belgian United Nations Command (during the Korean War)
Black — Armoured troops, Guides (Scouts), Chasseurs à Cheval and some engineer units
Dark blue — Artillery and Royal Military Academy
Since May 5, 2000, the People's Liberation Army has adopted woolen berets for all its personnel, [4] along with the traditional peaked caps . Type 99 beret
Olive green — Ground Force and Second artillery force
Dark blue — Navy
Black - Marine corps
Blue-grey — Air Force (including Airborne troops)
Berets were not officially adopted by the CAPF, but some of the forces issued their own types NOT OFFICIAL:
Red—CAPF Provincial Women Special Police Corps
Dark blue—Public Security Police SWAT
During the 80s, camo berets were issued to some of the recon forces of PLA. It has no badge on it.
Type 07 uniform is being issued to both PLA and CAPF on August 1, 2007. Colours of 07 berets are changed to the same colours with the service uniform. And several changes in designs were made from type 99 beret. The berets were not being issued until summer of 2009 to most of the troops.
Other than colours of the berets, the most significant difference between type 99 and type 07 is the type 99 beret badge is cloth, while type 07 is plastic.
Colombia
Berets are worn by all personnel of the Colombian Army (Ejército) and certain members of the Navy (Armada), with distinctive colors for some units or functions. The beret colors are:
Black — Lancero Instructors; Naval Infantry (Infantería de Marina)
Green — Counterguerrilla Units
Sky Blue — Airborne School Instructors
Dark Blue — Brigada Especial Contra el Narcotráfico (BRECNA), the Special Brigade Against Narcotrafficking)
Croatia
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In the Croatian Army berets are used in special forces and guard brigades.
During Croatian War of Independence , Croatian Army consisted of seven professional brigades—guard brigades, each having its beret colour. During the army reforms number of guard brigades was cut to two, but the battalions kept the names and insignia (colour of beret also) of ex brigades.
Joint staff:
Berets are worn by all personnel of the Ecuadorian Army (Ejército) and certain members of the Navy (Armada) and Air Force (Fuerza Aérea), with distinctive colours for some units or functions. The beret colours are:
Black — Military Police; Naval Infantry (Infantería de Marina)
Red — Paratroopers and Special Operations Forces
Dark blue — Army Aviation (Aviación del Ejército); Air Force Aerial Infantry (Infantería Aérea)
Dark green — all other Army units; National Police GIR (Intervention & Rescue Unit)
Gray — for use with the dress uniform (4-B) for those forces using the dark green beret
Camouflage — IWIA (indigenous tribal members unit) forces
Royal blue - Air Force Security Police
Egypt
The Finnish general Ensio Siilasvuo .
The Finnish Defence Force uses berets with cap badges for the Army , Navy and the Air Force . The berets are worn in "clean" garrison duties such as roll calls and with the walking-out uniform, but not with the battle dress. Until the mid-1990s, the beret was reserved for troops with special status, such as the armoured troops, coastal jägers and the parachute jägers, but is nowadays used by all units. In the winter, berets are replaced by winter headgear.
Berets are also used by the Finnish Frontier Guard , which is a military organization under the aegis of Ministry of Interior during peacetime.
Olive-green (Badge: silver lion's head) — Army
Olive-green (Badge: golden lion's head with a crown) — Finnish Rapid Deployment Force and units abroad
Blue (Badge: Air Force insignia) — Air Force
Blue (Badge: silver griffin ) — Army aviation
Blue (Badge: Harp and sword) — Military bands
Dark blue (Badge: Anchor and Lion) — Navy (including coastal troops, but with the exception of coastal jägers)
Black (Badge: Armored head) — Armoured Brigade
Dark green (Badge: Golden fish eagle's head) — Coastal jägers
Maroon (Badge: Arrow and parachute) — Parachute Jägers or Special Jägers (Utti Jäger Regiment)
Olive-green (Badge: Golden bear's head, sword and fir tree twig) — Frontier Jägers
Brown (Badge: Golden bear's head, sword and fir tree twig) — Special Frontier Jägers
France
French marines paratroopers in Rwanda.
The military beret originated in the French Army , in the form of the wide and floppy headdress worn by the Chasseurs Alpins (mountain light infantry) from their foundation in the early 1880s. A tight-fitting version was subsequently adopted by French armoured troops towards the end of World War I. Between the wars, special fortress units raised to garrison the Maginot Line wore khaki berets as did the 13th DBLE of the French Foreign Legion when it was created in 1940. The Vichy Milice of the War period wore a blue beret.
The beret in red, blue or green was a distinction of the Metropolitan, Colonial and Foreign Legion paratroop units during the Indochina and Algerian wars. After 1962 the beret in either light khaki or the colours specified above became the standard French Army headdress for ordinary use.
With the exception of the Naval Commandos (Commandos Marine) and the Naval Infantry (Fusiliers Marins) whose berets are worn pulled to the right, all other French military berets (Army, Airforce & Gendarmerie) are pulled to the left with the badge worn over the right eye or temple. Gendarmerie personnel serving with the European Gendarmerie Force - an EU crisis response & intervention force - wear the standard EUROGENDFOR royal blue beret & badge when so assigned.
Colour
Dark red — Army Medical Corps
Dark blue — other Army units
Germany
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The German Heer uses berets with cap badges for every branch of service. The Luftwaffe and the Marine issue dark blue berets only to their ground or land combat units (called Luftwaffensicherungstruppe and Marineschutzkräfte)respectively. Berets are usually worn at special ceremonies and roll calls, although units with a special esprit de corps, especially armoured and mechanized infantry (Panzergrenadiere) battalions, wear their berets all the time. German berets are always pulled to the right, with the badge visible over the left temple.
First Sergeant of the Panzerjäger with black beret 1989
Black — armoured units, including armoured reconnaissance
Maroon — special units, including airborne troops, army aviation , Airmobile Operations Division (DLO; Division Luftbewegliche Operationen), and Division Special Operations (DSO; Division Spezielle Operationen), including the KSK (Kommando Spezialkräfte)
Red — support units, including artillery, engineers, intelligence, psychological operations (Operative Information), anti-aircraft, supply, NBC protection, signals, electronic warfare, transport, topography, and military police ( Feldjäger ), 'Instandssetzung' Vehicle Maintenance
Moss green — infantry units, including Jägertruppe, Panzergrenadiere (armoured infantry), and ceremonial guards (Wachbataillon des Heeres) and the now disbanded Panzerjäger (anti-tank);
Blue — medical units
Dark blue — Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Deutsche Marine (Navy) infantry and ceremonial guards; Offizieranwärterbataillon (Officer Candidate Battalions of the Army) multinational units (e.g. Eurocorps )
Light Blue — Troops in UN units
military bands wear the beret colour of their respective division (e.g. black in the 1. Panzerdivision)
Note: The Panzerjäger started off with black berets but were moved into the Panzergrenadier branch. The last Panzerjägers wore green berets.
Ghana
The beret colours worn by the Ghana Army are as follows:
Black — Armoured Corps
Dark Blue - Air Force and Naval Forces
Latvia
The beret colours worn by the Latvian Army are as follows:
Olive-green — Parliament and President's Security Service Unit
Red — Military police
Black - All other Arms and Corps
Lebanon
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All units, in the Lebanese Armed Forces wear berets when not in combat mode (Helmet), training camp (cap) or formal uniform (formal hat).
The Lebanese Army, unlike most militaries, wears the beret slanted (pulled down) on the left side as the Army embelm is positioned to the right aligned with the right eyebrow.
Pigment Green - The Fast Intervention Battalions (SF)(5)
Brown - Airborne Bettalion (SF)(1).
Black - Republican Guard Brigade (Presidential Guard).
Bordeaux red/Maroon - Rangers Bettalion (SF), Navy Rangers Bettalion (SF)(Seals).
Black - Anti-terrorism Unit (SF)(Military Intelligence pronounced in Arabic 'MOKAFAHA' and Strike Force).
Dark Blue — The 11 Bregades, Cadets and the rest of the Army.
Lithuania
Black — Paratroopers, Navy Special Forces.
Mongolia
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In 2002, new army uniforms were introduced to the Mongolian armed forces and along with new uniform design, dark green berets were issued to all personnel. According to the rules, all military berets are pushed to the right and displays "Soyombo" symbol in middle of golden oak leafs in the right side. Berets are worn by Mongolian Police since 1994. Police berets are deferent from the army beret in color and in shape, while it is pushed to the left while army berets are pushed to the right.
Mongolian army soldiers in dark green beret
Dark green - All branches of Armed forces
Red - Internal troops.
Dark blue - National emergency troops (rescuers)
Black - Police unit (pushed to the left)
Light blue - UN peacekeepers (pushed to the right)
Morocco
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When the Royal Netherlands Armed Forces acquired new modernised uniforms (designed by the Dutch couturier Frans Molenaar ) in 2000, the berets changed as well. Since 2004, soldiers of the Royal Netherlands Army have worn a petrol (blue-green) beret, whereas previously they wore brown.
The following colours are also used (before and after the modernisation):
Navy:
Dark navy blue with a bronze metal crown & anchor on a red flash — Royal Netherlands Marine Corps
Dark navy blue with a gold color metal anchor on a black flash — Royal Netherlands Navy
Dark navy blue with a silver color metal anchor on a Blue flash — (Civilian base security for the Royal Netherlands Navy )
Army:
Green (The Green Beret) — Commandos of the Korps Commandotroepen
Maroon (The Red Beret) — Airmobile troops of the 11 Air Manoeuvre Brigade " 11 Luchtmobiele Brigade " (Air Assault)
Black — Armour and Cavalry
Bright blue — with emblem Koninklijke Marechaussee (Royal Gendarmerie)
Other:
Brick red — All military members of the Multinational Force and Observers
Dark blue — 1(GE/NL)Corps (Eerste Duits-Nederlandse Legerkorps)
All regiments and services have their own distinctive colours. There are quite a lot, but the number of colours in the logistic services was reduced in 2001. This colour is shown in a patch of cloth behind the beret flash. The intendance (maroon), transport troops (blue), military administration (pink; hence the nickname 'Pink Mafia'), technical service (black), and medical troops and service (green) lost their colours and all now wear yellow patches. In 2010, the components recovered their color, except the administration they got the crimson color.
Infantry — Red, except:
Grenadier Guards — Red with blue border
Rifle Guards — Green with yellow border
Fusilier Guards — Orange with blue border
Regiment van Heutsz — Black with orange border
Limburg Rifles Regiment — Green with maroon border
Korps Commandotroepen — Black with dark green border
Cavalry (Armour) — Blue with white, red or orange border
Cavalry (Reconnaissance) — Blue with black border
Artillery — Black with red border
Engineers — Brown
Signals — Blue with white border
Logistics — Yellow
Legal Affairs — Black with white border
Psychological and Sociological Service — Red
Protestant Chaplains — Black
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Norwegian soldier wearing an olive green beret
The Norwegian armed forces use the beret as a garrison cap, but some units (mostly armored vehicle personnel) also use it in the field. The Norwegian beret and all other headwear except those of the Navy and His Majesty The King's Guard always have the current king's cipher as a badge in gold (most of the army) or silver (the air force); currently this is a numeral 5 inside an H, for "Harald V" . The navy has a crowned gold anchor for their enlisted personnel, a crowned gold anchor surrounded by a circle of rope for their petty officers, and a crowned golden anchor surrounded by leaved branches for officers. The colours used are:
Royal blue — Brigade Nord (except cavalry troops, intelligence troops and military police)
Umbra green — Intelligence Battalion and Border Guards
Black — Cavalry
Green with Red Plume - Pakistan Military Academy Cadets
Dark Blue - Worn by the General Staff officers (rank of Colonel and above) irrespective of their Regimental association.
Paraguay
The Paraguayan Armed Forces wear berets in the following colours: [6]
Berets in Paraguayan Army:
Dark Blue - Presidential Guard [7]
Berets in Paraguayan Navy:
Berets in Paraguayan Air Force:
Red - Air Force Infantry personnel
Panama
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Berets were widely worn by many units in the Panamanian Defense Force (PDF) under Manuel Noriega. The PDF was abolished in February 1990, and with it all of the old military units stood down. Unique beret insignia were never approved, so units authorized to wear berets wore a combination of the approved shoulder insignia, as well as rank and qualification insignia (e.g. parachutist wings) on the berets. The following were being worn at the time of the 1989 invasion:
Black - 7th Infantry Company "Macho de Monte"; Comando Operacional de Fuerzas Expeciales (COFFEE - Special Forces Command)
Maroon - Battalion 2000; 2nd Airborne Infantry Company "Puma"; 3rd Infantry Company "Diablo Rojo"
Lime Green - 4th Infantry Company "Urraca"
Camouflage - 7th Infantry Company "Macho de Monte"; Comando Operacional de Fuerzas Expeciales (Cadre)
Philippines
Black with SPOW flash - Philippine Air Force 710th Special Operations Wing
Black with PSG flash - Philippine Air Force units assigned to the Presidential Security Group
UN blue - AFP personnel assigned to UN Peacekeeping Operations and cadets of the Peacekeeping Operations Center
Poland
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Black berets were introduced before World War II for tank and armoured car crews. During World War II, berets were widely adopted in the Polish Army on the Western Front , armored troops - black, airborne - grey, commando - green. After the war in the communist era, berets were worn only by armoured units (black), navy for field and work uniform (black), paratroopers (maroon), and marines (light blue). After 1990, the beret became the standard headgear in the Armed Forces of Republic of Poland. Around the year 2000 the design of the Polish Army Beret changed, the beret sewn together from three pieces of material with four air holes, two at each side was changed to a smaller beret molded from one piece of material with no air holes. The following colours are in use:
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In 2011, the Russian Defence Ministry issued berets to all non-naval military personnel for field uniforms. However, just a few months after they were issued, they were withdrawn from service in favor of the field cap and the traditional parade visor cap. Berets have been implemented on a smaller scale as parade headgear for troops who parade in field uniforms. These too have been dropped. Units that currently wear the beret are the paratroopers, marines (naval infantry), troops of the MVD special forces, and Ministry for Emergency Situations, and certain special forces units of the GRU and other branches of the armed forces. All other units wear the visor cap on parade and the field cap in the field and on exercise. As of the former 2011 regulations, each branch had a color for their beret.
Light Blue — Russian Airborne Troops general issue berets (formerly maroon)
Light Grey — TransCom
The berets are all adorned with the Singapore Armed Forces coat of arms, with the exception of the Air Force beret, Military Police beret, navy beret and police beret which are adorned with their respective cap-badge. Officers in the navy have a different cap-badge from the enlisted men. Officers of the rank of colonel and above have a different cap-badge.
National Cadet Corps (Land)- Green
National Cadet Corps (Air)- Blue
National Cadet Corps (Sea)- Black
National Police Cadet Corps- Dark Blue
All berets have the National Cadet Corps or National Police Cadet Corps crest on the front.
Slovakia
Light Orange — Personnel, Legal Service
Beige - SA Corps of Signals
The berets are all adorned with the unit's insignia. Some of the traditional units wear other headgear - for example, the Cape Town Highlanders Regiment and the band of the South African Military Health Service .
Outside of Army, the South African Military Health Service wear red berets. The South African Special Forces Brigade which is a separate entity, not part of the army, also wear the Maroon beret which is traditional for elite units in the western world.
South Korea
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Berets are mostly limited to the elite units of the South Korean Military , including:
Black — Army Special Warfare Command (adorned with the Airborne badge), Reserve Officer Training Corps , KATUSA (Korean Augmentation to the United States Army)
Red — Air Force Combat Control Team (CCT)
Maroon — Air Force Special Air Rescue Team (SART)
Camouflage — Army and Marine Corps armoured units
Other than these units, several secret commando units (mostly disbanded in the mid-1990s, among them the " Unit 684 " which became infamous for its mutiny) formed to infiltrate North Korea during the Cold War days wore black berets and adorned them with the badges of individual units. Korean liaison soldiers serving in the U.S. Eighth Army (KATUSA) have also been wearing black berets along with American uniforms since that beret became a standard headgear of the U.S. Army in 2001.
As of 2006, there have been several proposals within the Korean Ministry of Defense to replace the current field cap with a dark-coloured beret as the standard army headgear.
South Vietnam
American advisers assigned to these units wore the berets. [8]
Red — paratroopers,
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Bermuda Regiment recruits wear generic Dark blue berets.
The British Army beret dates back to 1918 when the French 70th Chasseurs alpins were training with the British Tank Corps . The Chasseurs alpins wore a distinctive large beret (see above) and Major-General Sir Hugh Elles , the TC's Colonel, realised this style of headdress would be a practical option for his tank crews, forced to work in a reduced space. He thought, however, that the Chasseur beret was "too sloppy" and the Basque-style beret of the French tank crews was "too skimpy", so a compromise based on the Scottish tam o'shanter was designed and submitted for the approval of George V in November 1923. It was adopted in March 1924.
During the Second World War the beret was also adopted by the Commandos and Parachute Regiment . Later in the war, a rather baggier beret-like hat, called a General Service Cap, was issued to all ranks of the British Army (with RAC, parachute, commando, Scottish and Irish units excepted), to replace the earlier Field Service Cap. The GS Cap was not popular, and after the war was replaced with a true beret. [12]
Today, every British military unit wears a beret, with the exception of the Royal Regiment of Scotland and Royal Irish Regiment , who wear the tam o'shanter and the caubeen respectively (the Scots Guards and Irish Guards , however, wear berets, as frequently do the Royal Irish Regiment on operations). Many of these berets are in distinctive colours and all are worn with the cap badge of the service, regiment or corps . The cap badge for all services in the UK is usually worn directly over the left eye.
Beret Colours
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The colours are as follows:
RAF blue grey — Royal Air Force (including RAF Regiment ) and Air Cadets ( Combined Cadet Force and Air Training Corps [14] )
UN Blue - personnel serving with the United Nations on peacekeeping missions (with UN Cap Badge)
White - When the Special Air Service was initially created white berets where authorised but were soon replaced by beige ones. In 2004 the Royal Air Force Police were denied permission to wear a white beret. [15]
General rule for wearing a British Army berets taught at training depots is to shape the head dress back and to the right for the matereal and to have the leather band level around the head with the cap badge two fingers above the left eye. Scottish Infantry have different rules for the Tamo'shanter with the cap badge worn on the left side of the head.
Other Adornments
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Some Regiments and Corps wear a coloured backing behind the capbadge. These include:
Foot Guards - Blue Red Blue patch (less the officers of the Scots Guards, who wear a patch of Royal Stewart tartan)
King's Royal Hussars - Red Patch
The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers , the only remaining independent fusilier regiment, wears a feather hackle on the beret. Other ranks of the Royal Welsh also wear hackles.
Members of the Royal Tank Regiment, 4/73 (Sphinx) Special OP Battery Royal Artillery , [16] Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, Army Air Corps, Parachute Regiment, SAS and Intelligence Corps wear berets in Nos 1, 2, 3 and 6, Dress . Other English and Welsh Regiments and Corps wear peaked caps in these orders of dress. [17] Troops from other services, regiments or corps on attachment to units with distinctive coloured berets often wear those berets (with their own cap badge). Colonels , brigadiers and generals usually continue to wear the beret of the regiment or corps to which they used to belong with the cap badge distinctive to their rank.
Old Units
Army Special Forces with Green Berets
Army Ranger with tan beret
Army Airborne General with Maroon beret
Berets were originally worn by select forces in the United States Army . The first were worn during World War II, when a battalion of the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment were presented maroon berets by their British counterparts. [18] Though unofficial at first, the green beret of the US Army Special Forces was formally adopted in 1961. Maroon airborne and black US Army Ranger berets were formally authorized in the 1970s.
"D" Troop 17th Cavalry were authorised a maroon beret in Vietnam. [19]
In the post-Vietnam era, morale in the US Army waned. In response, from 1973 through 1979 HQDA permitted local commanders to encourage morale-enhancing uniform distinctions. Consequently, many units embraced various colored berets, for example Armor and Armored Cavalry units often adopted the black beret. Similarly many other units embraced various colored berets in an attempt to improve dwindling morale. In particular, the First Cavalry Division assigned various colored berets to it's three pronged TRICAP approach. In this implementation, Armored Cavalry, Airmobile Infantry units, Air Cavalry units, Division Artillery units, and Division Support units all wore different colored berets, including black, light blue, kelly green, and red.
In 1975 all female soldiers of the Women's Army Corps were authorized to wear a black beret variant as standard headgear for the service uniform. [20]
In 1975 the 172nd light Infantry Brg. out of Ft. Richarderson, Alaska were wearing the Black Berets.
In 2001, Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki ordered the black beret worn as standard headgear army-wide, a controversial decision because it was previously reserved for the Rangers. Although once the standard head gear of the United States Army, in June 2011, Army Secretary John McHugh, acting on the recommendations made by Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey and Sergeant Major of the Army Raymond F. Chandler proposed that the Army ditch the Black Beret in favor of the traditional Patrol Cap to be worn with the ACU. The original decision in 2001 to allow non-specialized troops to wear the coveted beret was implemented in hopes of boosting morale among regular units. This backfired however, when regular troops began complaining that the new Black Beret, taken from the US Army Rangers, was too difficult to put on with one hand, and caused excessive heat.
United States Army berets now use the following distinctive colors:
Tan 'Buckskin' — 75th Ranger Regiment , Ranger Training Brigade
Maroon — Airborne-designated units (the maroon beret is an organizational item, so it is worn by all assigned soldiers whether airborne-qualified or not)
Black — All other Army units. Worn with Class A uniform and Army Service Uniform as standard headgear, with ACUs and other utility uniforms at commander's discretion. [21]
Special Forces, Ranger, and Airborne unit berets sport distinctive organizational flashes . All other units use a standard pale blue flash bordered with 13 white stars. Officers wear their rank insignia within the flash, while enlisted ranks wear their distinctive unit insignia .
US Navy
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In the United States Navy , female servicemembers may wear a black beret (of a different style than most military berets) instead of a combination hat or garrison cap while in service uniforms.
During the Vietnam War, the US Navy created special boat teams, unofficially dubbed the brown-water navy , to patrol coastlines, estuaries and rivers. Naval personnel assigned to these teams wore Republic of Vietnam Navy black berets as part of their uniform, as portrayed in the movie "Apocalypse Now". [22] US Navy SEAL teams serving in Vietnam wore camouflage berets in the field, the only beret somewhat standardized in the SEALs.
US Air Force
Dark Blue — All other units
International forces
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United Nations
Light Blue – All United Nations Peacekeeping forces wear a light blue beret or helmet in lieu of their normal headgear.
Multinational Force and Observers
Terracotta - All military members of the Multinational Force and Observers wear a terracotta-colored beret or bush hat in lieu of their normal headgear.
African Union
Lime or Light Green – African Union (AU) peacekeeping forces wear a lime or light green beret. AU troops were recently seen wearing the green berets in Sudan but only for a short while. The AU peacekeeping forces were later turned over to UN administration and swapped out their green berets for UN light blue ones. [23]
See also
Uniform beret , for the use of berets as uniform headgear outside the military
Military berets by color:
| Light blue |
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Berets are in some countries particularly associated with elite units, who often wear berets in more unusual colours. Examples include the grey of the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps , maroon of Commonwealth parachute troops and the Danish Jægerkorpset , the green of the Royal Marines Commandos , Finnish Marine Commandos (Coastal Jaegers), French Commandos (Bérets verts), French Foreign Legion , Irish Army Ranger Wing , Rhodesian Light Infantry and United States Army's Special Forces (Green Berets); the scarlet of the elite Soviet Internal Troops ( Spetsnaz ); the beige or tan of Commonwealth special forces units ( SAS ) and United States Army Rangers ; the grey of the new Polish GROM ; or the wide black of French Chasseurs alpins , the first military unit to have worn berets.
History
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Carlist forces in Spain, 1838
The informal use of berets by the military of Europe dates back hundreds of years, one example being the Blue Bonnet, that became a defacto symbol of Scottish forces in the 16th and 17th centuries. As an officially required military headdress, its use dates back to the Carlist Wars of Succession for the Spanish Crown in the 1830s by order of General Tomás de Zumalacárregui who wanted a local and non-costly way to make headgear that was resistant to the mountain weather and easy to care for and be used on formal occasions. Other countries followed suit after the creation of the French Chasseurs alpins in the early 1880s. These mountain troops were issued with a uniform which included several features which were innovative for the time, notably the large and floppy blue beret which they still retain. This was so unfamiliar a fashion outside France that it had to be described in the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911 as "a soft cap or tam o'shanter ." [1]
Berets have features that make them very attractive to the military: they are cheap, easy to make in large numbers, can be manufactured in a wide range of colors, can be rolled up and stuffed into a pocket or beneath the shirt epaulette without damage, and can be worn with headphones (this is one of the reasons why tank crews adopted the beret). The beret is not so useful in field conditions for the modern infantryman, who requires protective helmets, and is usually not seen worn by infantry on operations.
The beret was found particularly useful as a uniform for armored-vehicle crews, and the British Tank Corps (later Royal Tank Corps) adopted the headdress as early as 1918, despite complaints that the beret was "too foreign and feminine". German AFV crews in the late 1930s also adopted a beret with the addition of a padded crash helmet inside. The color black became popular as a tank-crew headdress, since it did not show oil stains picked up inside the interior of a vehicle. Black berets continue to be worn by armoured regiments throughout the Commonwealth.
Berets have become the default military headdress of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, just as the morion , tricorne , shako , kepi , and peaked cap were each common headgear in their own respective eras. The beret is now worn by many military personnel of the majority of nations across the world.
Military berets by country
Dark blue — other personnel
Navy Blue Berets are issued head-dress in the Royal Australian Navy ; however, they are most commonly worn by Clearance Divers and qualified Submariners - that said, they are still a regulation uniform item for any naval personnel. Blue berets in the Royal Australian Air Force , but only by qualified Airfield Defence Guards and Ground Defence Officers. Terracotta berets are worn by Multinational Force and Observers contingents. In all cases, the beret is pushed over to the right, and a badge (a.k.a. "flash" insignia) worn above the left eye.
Austria
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Austrian green beret.
Berets are common in most parts of the Army , and are usually worn for special occasions, but also regularly by certain forces.
Grass green — Infantry, all troops that do not wear another color
Royal Blue — Engineers, Service corps
Dark Blue — Education corps, Electrical and mechanical engineers, Ordnance, Artillery, Signals, Army Dental corps
Belgium
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Initially, the only unit of the Belgian military to wear berets were the Chasseurs Ardennais from the 1930s. Since World War II they have been adopted by all units. Berets vary in colour according to the regiment, and carry a badge (sometimes on a coloured shield-shaped patch) which is of gilt for officers, silver for non-commissioned officers and bronze for other ranks. Members of cavalry units all wear silver coloured badges.
A Belgian UN peacekeeper in Somalia, wearing a standard UN blue beret and badge, 1993.
Maroon — Paracommando Immediate Reaction Cell (HQ), 1 Para , 3 Para , Special Forces Group, Parachute Training Centre
Green — 2 Commando , Paracommando Field Artillery and the Commando Training Centre
Olive Green (large-brimmed, basque type with folded-in brim and wild boar's head badge ) — Chasseurs Ardennais
Brown — Infantry, Chasseurs à Pieds and Belgian United Nations Command (during the Korean War)
Black — Armoured troops, Guides (Scouts), Chasseurs à Cheval and some engineer units
Dark blue — Artillery and Royal Military Academy
Since May 5, 2000, the People's Liberation Army has adopted woolen berets for all its personnel, [4] along with the traditional peaked caps . Type 99 beret
Olive green — Ground Force and Second artillery force
Dark blue — Navy
Black - Marine corps
Blue-grey — Air Force (including Airborne troops)
Berets were not officially adopted by the CAPF, but some of the forces issued their own types NOT OFFICIAL:
Red—CAPF Provincial Women Special Police Corps
Dark blue—Public Security Police SWAT
During the 80s, camo berets were issued to some of the recon forces of PLA. It has no badge on it.
Type 07 uniform is being issued to both PLA and CAPF on August 1, 2007. Colours of 07 berets are changed to the same colours with the service uniform. And several changes in designs were made from type 99 beret. The berets were not being issued until summer of 2009 to most of the troops.
Other than colours of the berets, the most significant difference between type 99 and type 07 is the type 99 beret badge is cloth, while type 07 is plastic.
Colombia
Berets are worn by all personnel of the Colombian Army (Ejército) and certain members of the Navy (Armada), with distinctive colors for some units or functions. The beret colors are:
Black — Lancero Instructors; Naval Infantry (Infantería de Marina)
Green — Counterguerrilla Units
Sky Blue — Airborne School Instructors
Dark Blue — Brigada Especial Contra el Narcotráfico (BRECNA), the Special Brigade Against Narcotrafficking)
Croatia
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In the Croatian Army berets are used in special forces and guard brigades.
During Croatian War of Independence , Croatian Army consisted of seven professional brigades—guard brigades, each having its beret colour. During the army reforms number of guard brigades was cut to two, but the battalions kept the names and insignia (colour of beret also) of ex brigades.
Joint staff:
Berets are worn by all personnel of the Ecuadorian Army (Ejército) and certain members of the Navy (Armada) and Air Force (Fuerza Aérea), with distinctive colours for some units or functions. The beret colours are:
Black — Military Police; Naval Infantry (Infantería de Marina)
Red — Paratroopers and Special Operations Forces
Dark blue — Army Aviation (Aviación del Ejército); Air Force Aerial Infantry (Infantería Aérea)
Dark green — all other Army units; National Police GIR (Intervention & Rescue Unit)
Gray — for use with the dress uniform (4-B) for those forces using the dark green beret
Camouflage — IWIA (indigenous tribal members unit) forces
Royal blue - Air Force Security Police
Egypt
The Finnish general Ensio Siilasvuo .
The Finnish Defence Force uses berets with cap badges for the Army , Navy and the Air Force . The berets are worn in "clean" garrison duties such as roll calls and with the walking-out uniform, but not with the battle dress. Until the mid-1990s, the beret was reserved for troops with special status, such as the armoured troops, coastal jägers and the parachute jägers, but is nowadays used by all units. In the winter, berets are replaced by winter headgear.
Berets are also used by the Finnish Frontier Guard , which is a military organization under the aegis of Ministry of Interior during peacetime.
Olive-green (Badge: silver lion's head) — Army
Olive-green (Badge: golden lion's head with a crown) — Finnish Rapid Deployment Force and units abroad
Blue (Badge: Air Force insignia) — Air Force
Blue (Badge: silver griffin ) — Army aviation
Blue (Badge: Harp and sword) — Military bands
Dark blue (Badge: Anchor and Lion) — Navy (including coastal troops, but with the exception of coastal jägers)
Black (Badge: Armored head) — Armoured Brigade
Dark green (Badge: Golden fish eagle's head) — Coastal jägers
Maroon (Badge: Arrow and parachute) — Parachute Jägers or Special Jägers (Utti Jäger Regiment)
Olive-green (Badge: Golden bear's head, sword and fir tree twig) — Frontier Jägers
Brown (Badge: Golden bear's head, sword and fir tree twig) — Special Frontier Jägers
France
French marines paratroopers in Rwanda.
The military beret originated in the French Army , in the form of the wide and floppy headdress worn by the Chasseurs Alpins (mountain light infantry) from their foundation in the early 1880s. A tight-fitting version was subsequently adopted by French armoured troops towards the end of World War I. Between the wars, special fortress units raised to garrison the Maginot Line wore khaki berets as did the 13th DBLE of the French Foreign Legion when it was created in 1940. The Vichy Milice of the War period wore a blue beret.
The beret in red, blue or green was a distinction of the Metropolitan, Colonial and Foreign Legion paratroop units during the Indochina and Algerian wars. After 1962 the beret in either light khaki or the colours specified above became the standard French Army headdress for ordinary use.
With the exception of the Naval Commandos (Commandos Marine) and the Naval Infantry (Fusiliers Marins) whose berets are worn pulled to the right, all other French military berets (Army, Airforce & Gendarmerie) are pulled to the left with the badge worn over the right eye or temple. Gendarmerie personnel serving with the European Gendarmerie Force - an EU crisis response & intervention force - wear the standard EUROGENDFOR royal blue beret & badge when so assigned.
Colour
Dark red — Army Medical Corps
Dark blue — other Army units
Germany
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The German Heer uses berets with cap badges for every branch of service. The Luftwaffe and the Marine issue dark blue berets only to their ground or land combat units (called Luftwaffensicherungstruppe and Marineschutzkräfte)respectively. Berets are usually worn at special ceremonies and roll calls, although units with a special esprit de corps, especially armoured and mechanized infantry (Panzergrenadiere) battalions, wear their berets all the time. German berets are always pulled to the right, with the badge visible over the left temple.
First Sergeant of the Panzerjäger with black beret 1989
Black — armoured units, including armoured reconnaissance
Maroon — special units, including airborne troops, army aviation , Airmobile Operations Division (DLO; Division Luftbewegliche Operationen), and Division Special Operations (DSO; Division Spezielle Operationen), including the KSK (Kommando Spezialkräfte)
Red — support units, including artillery, engineers, intelligence, psychological operations (Operative Information), anti-aircraft, supply, NBC protection, signals, electronic warfare, transport, topography, and military police ( Feldjäger ), 'Instandssetzung' Vehicle Maintenance
Moss green — infantry units, including Jägertruppe, Panzergrenadiere (armoured infantry), and ceremonial guards (Wachbataillon des Heeres) and the now disbanded Panzerjäger (anti-tank);
Blue — medical units
Dark blue — Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Deutsche Marine (Navy) infantry and ceremonial guards; Offizieranwärterbataillon (Officer Candidate Battalions of the Army) multinational units (e.g. Eurocorps )
Light Blue — Troops in UN units
military bands wear the beret colour of their respective division (e.g. black in the 1. Panzerdivision)
Note: The Panzerjäger started off with black berets but were moved into the Panzergrenadier branch. The last Panzerjägers wore green berets.
Ghana
The beret colours worn by the Ghana Army are as follows:
Black — Armoured Corps
Dark Blue - Air Force and Naval Forces
Latvia
The beret colours worn by the Latvian Army are as follows:
Olive-green — Parliament and President's Security Service Unit
Red — Military police
Black - All other Arms and Corps
Lebanon
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All units, in the Lebanese Armed Forces wear berets when not in combat mode (Helmet), training camp (cap) or formal uniform (formal hat).
The Lebanese Army, unlike most militaries, wears the beret slanted (pulled down) on the left side as the Army embelm is positioned to the right aligned with the right eyebrow.
Pigment Green - The Fast Intervention Battalions (SF)(5)
Brown - Airborne Bettalion (SF)(1).
Black - Republican Guard Brigade (Presidential Guard).
Bordeaux red/Maroon - Rangers Bettalion (SF), Navy Rangers Bettalion (SF)(Seals).
Black - Anti-terrorism Unit (SF)(Military Intelligence pronounced in Arabic 'MOKAFAHA' and Strike Force).
Dark Blue — The 11 Bregades, Cadets and the rest of the Army.
Lithuania
Black — Paratroopers, Navy Special Forces.
Mongolia
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In 2002, new army uniforms were introduced to the Mongolian armed forces and along with new uniform design, dark green berets were issued to all personnel. According to the rules, all military berets are pushed to the right and displays "Soyombo" symbol in middle of golden oak leafs in the right side. Berets are worn by Mongolian Police since 1994. Police berets are deferent from the army beret in color and in shape, while it is pushed to the left while army berets are pushed to the right.
Mongolian army soldiers in dark green beret
Dark green - All branches of Armed forces
Red - Internal troops.
Dark blue - National emergency troops (rescuers)
Black - Police unit (pushed to the left)
Light blue - UN peacekeepers (pushed to the right)
Morocco
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When the Royal Netherlands Armed Forces acquired new modernised uniforms (designed by the Dutch couturier Frans Molenaar ) in 2000, the berets changed as well. Since 2004, soldiers of the Royal Netherlands Army have worn a petrol (blue-green) beret, whereas previously they wore brown.
The following colours are also used (before and after the modernisation):
Navy:
Dark navy blue with a bronze metal crown & anchor on a red flash — Royal Netherlands Marine Corps
Dark navy blue with a gold color metal anchor on a black flash — Royal Netherlands Navy
Dark navy blue with a silver color metal anchor on a Blue flash — (Civilian base security for the Royal Netherlands Navy )
Army:
Green (The Green Beret) — Commandos of the Korps Commandotroepen
Maroon (The Red Beret) — Airmobile troops of the 11 Air Manoeuvre Brigade " 11 Luchtmobiele Brigade " (Air Assault)
Black — Armour and Cavalry
Bright blue — with emblem Koninklijke Marechaussee (Royal Gendarmerie)
Other:
Brick red — All military members of the Multinational Force and Observers
Dark blue — 1(GE/NL)Corps (Eerste Duits-Nederlandse Legerkorps)
All regiments and services have their own distinctive colours. There are quite a lot, but the number of colours in the logistic services was reduced in 2001. This colour is shown in a patch of cloth behind the beret flash. The intendance (maroon), transport troops (blue), military administration (pink; hence the nickname 'Pink Mafia'), technical service (black), and medical troops and service (green) lost their colours and all now wear yellow patches. In 2010, the components recovered their color, except the administration they got the crimson color.
Infantry — Red, except:
Grenadier Guards — Red with blue border
Rifle Guards — Green with yellow border
Fusilier Guards — Orange with blue border
Regiment van Heutsz — Black with orange border
Limburg Rifles Regiment — Green with maroon border
Korps Commandotroepen — Black with dark green border
Cavalry (Armour) — Blue with white, red or orange border
Cavalry (Reconnaissance) — Blue with black border
Artillery — Black with red border
Engineers — Brown
Signals — Blue with white border
Logistics — Yellow
Legal Affairs — Black with white border
Psychological and Sociological Service — Red
Protestant Chaplains — Black
Edit
Norwegian soldier wearing an olive green beret
The Norwegian armed forces use the beret as a garrison cap, but some units (mostly armored vehicle personnel) also use it in the field. The Norwegian beret and all other headwear except those of the Navy and His Majesty The King's Guard always have the current king's cipher as a badge in gold (most of the army) or silver (the air force); currently this is a numeral 5 inside an H, for "Harald V" . The navy has a crowned gold anchor for their enlisted personnel, a crowned gold anchor surrounded by a circle of rope for their petty officers, and a crowned golden anchor surrounded by leaved branches for officers. The colours used are:
Royal blue — Brigade Nord (except cavalry troops, intelligence troops and military police)
Umbra green — Intelligence Battalion and Border Guards
Black — Cavalry
Green with Red Plume - Pakistan Military Academy Cadets
Dark Blue - Worn by the General Staff officers (rank of Colonel and above) irrespective of their Regimental association.
Paraguay
The Paraguayan Armed Forces wear berets in the following colours: [6]
Berets in Paraguayan Army:
Dark Blue - Presidential Guard [7]
Berets in Paraguayan Navy:
Berets in Paraguayan Air Force:
Red - Air Force Infantry personnel
Panama
Edit
Berets were widely worn by many units in the Panamanian Defense Force (PDF) under Manuel Noriega. The PDF was abolished in February 1990, and with it all of the old military units stood down. Unique beret insignia were never approved, so units authorized to wear berets wore a combination of the approved shoulder insignia, as well as rank and qualification insignia (e.g. parachutist wings) on the berets. The following were being worn at the time of the 1989 invasion:
Black - 7th Infantry Company "Macho de Monte"; Comando Operacional de Fuerzas Expeciales (COFFEE - Special Forces Command)
Maroon - Battalion 2000; 2nd Airborne Infantry Company "Puma"; 3rd Infantry Company "Diablo Rojo"
Lime Green - 4th Infantry Company "Urraca"
Camouflage - 7th Infantry Company "Macho de Monte"; Comando Operacional de Fuerzas Expeciales (Cadre)
Philippines
Black with SPOW flash - Philippine Air Force 710th Special Operations Wing
Black with PSG flash - Philippine Air Force units assigned to the Presidential Security Group
UN blue - AFP personnel assigned to UN Peacekeeping Operations and cadets of the Peacekeeping Operations Center
Poland
Edit
Black berets were introduced before World War II for tank and armoured car crews. During World War II, berets were widely adopted in the Polish Army on the Western Front , armored troops - black, airborne - grey, commando - green. After the war in the communist era, berets were worn only by armoured units (black), navy for field and work uniform (black), paratroopers (maroon), and marines (light blue). After 1990, the beret became the standard headgear in the Armed Forces of Republic of Poland. Around the year 2000 the design of the Polish Army Beret changed, the beret sewn together from three pieces of material with four air holes, two at each side was changed to a smaller beret molded from one piece of material with no air holes. The following colours are in use:
Edit
In 2011, the Russian Defence Ministry issued berets to all non-naval military personnel for field uniforms. However, just a few months after they were issued, they were withdrawn from service in favor of the field cap and the traditional parade visor cap. Berets have been implemented on a smaller scale as parade headgear for troops who parade in field uniforms. These too have been dropped. Units that currently wear the beret are the paratroopers, marines (naval infantry), troops of the MVD special forces, and Ministry for Emergency Situations, and certain special forces units of the GRU and other branches of the armed forces. All other units wear the visor cap on parade and the field cap in the field and on exercise. As of the former 2011 regulations, each branch had a color for their beret.
Light Blue — Russian Airborne Troops general issue berets (formerly maroon)
Light Grey — TransCom
The berets are all adorned with the Singapore Armed Forces coat of arms, with the exception of the Air Force beret, Military Police beret, navy beret and police beret which are adorned with their respective cap-badge. Officers in the navy have a different cap-badge from the enlisted men. Officers of the rank of colonel and above have a different cap-badge.
National Cadet Corps (Land)- Green
National Cadet Corps (Air)- Blue
National Cadet Corps (Sea)- Black
National Police Cadet Corps- Dark Blue
All berets have the National Cadet Corps or National Police Cadet Corps crest on the front.
Slovakia
Light Orange — Personnel, Legal Service
Beige - SA Corps of Signals
The berets are all adorned with the unit's insignia. Some of the traditional units wear other headgear - for example, the Cape Town Highlanders Regiment and the band of the South African Military Health Service .
Outside of Army, the South African Military Health Service wear red berets. The South African Special Forces Brigade which is a separate entity, not part of the army, also wear the Maroon beret which is traditional for elite units in the western world.
South Korea
Edit
Berets are mostly limited to the elite units of the South Korean Military , including:
Black — Army Special Warfare Command (adorned with the Airborne badge), Reserve Officer Training Corps , KATUSA (Korean Augmentation to the United States Army)
Red — Air Force Combat Control Team (CCT)
Maroon — Air Force Special Air Rescue Team (SART)
Camouflage — Army and Marine Corps armoured units
Other than these units, several secret commando units (mostly disbanded in the mid-1990s, among them the " Unit 684 " which became infamous for its mutiny) formed to infiltrate North Korea during the Cold War days wore black berets and adorned them with the badges of individual units. Korean liaison soldiers serving in the U.S. Eighth Army (KATUSA) have also been wearing black berets along with American uniforms since that beret became a standard headgear of the U.S. Army in 2001.
As of 2006, there have been several proposals within the Korean Ministry of Defense to replace the current field cap with a dark-coloured beret as the standard army headgear.
South Vietnam
American advisers assigned to these units wore the berets. [8]
Red — paratroopers,
Edit
Bermuda Regiment recruits wear generic Dark blue berets.
The British Army beret dates back to 1918 when the French 70th Chasseurs alpins were training with the British Tank Corps . The Chasseurs alpins wore a distinctive large beret (see above) and Major-General Sir Hugh Elles , the TC's Colonel, realised this style of headdress would be a practical option for his tank crews, forced to work in a reduced space. He thought, however, that the Chasseur beret was "too sloppy" and the Basque-style beret of the French tank crews was "too skimpy", so a compromise based on the Scottish tam o'shanter was designed and submitted for the approval of George V in November 1923. It was adopted in March 1924.
During the Second World War the beret was also adopted by the Commandos and Parachute Regiment . Later in the war, a rather baggier beret-like hat, called a General Service Cap, was issued to all ranks of the British Army (with RAC, parachute, commando, Scottish and Irish units excepted), to replace the earlier Field Service Cap. The GS Cap was not popular, and after the war was replaced with a true beret. [12]
Today, every British military unit wears a beret, with the exception of the Royal Regiment of Scotland and Royal Irish Regiment , who wear the tam o'shanter and the caubeen respectively (the Scots Guards and Irish Guards , however, wear berets, as frequently do the Royal Irish Regiment on operations). Many of these berets are in distinctive colours and all are worn with the cap badge of the service, regiment or corps . The cap badge for all services in the UK is usually worn directly over the left eye.
Beret Colours
Edit
The colours are as follows:
RAF blue grey — Royal Air Force (including RAF Regiment ) and Air Cadets ( Combined Cadet Force and Air Training Corps [14] )
UN Blue - personnel serving with the United Nations on peacekeeping missions (with UN Cap Badge)
White - When the Special Air Service was initially created white berets where authorised but were soon replaced by beige ones. In 2004 the Royal Air Force Police were denied permission to wear a white beret. [15]
General rule for wearing a British Army berets taught at training depots is to shape the head dress back and to the right for the matereal and to have the leather band level around the head with the cap badge two fingers above the left eye. Scottish Infantry have different rules for the Tamo'shanter with the cap badge worn on the left side of the head.
Other Adornments
Edit
Some Regiments and Corps wear a coloured backing behind the capbadge. These include:
Foot Guards - Blue Red Blue patch (less the officers of the Scots Guards, who wear a patch of Royal Stewart tartan)
King's Royal Hussars - Red Patch
The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers , the only remaining independent fusilier regiment, wears a feather hackle on the beret. Other ranks of the Royal Welsh also wear hackles.
Members of the Royal Tank Regiment, 4/73 (Sphinx) Special OP Battery Royal Artillery , [16] Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, Army Air Corps, Parachute Regiment, SAS and Intelligence Corps wear berets in Nos 1, 2, 3 and 6, Dress . Other English and Welsh Regiments and Corps wear peaked caps in these orders of dress. [17] Troops from other services, regiments or corps on attachment to units with distinctive coloured berets often wear those berets (with their own cap badge). Colonels , brigadiers and generals usually continue to wear the beret of the regiment or corps to which they used to belong with the cap badge distinctive to their rank.
Old Units
Army Special Forces with Green Berets
Army Ranger with tan beret
Army Airborne General with Maroon beret
Berets were originally worn by select forces in the United States Army . The first were worn during World War II, when a battalion of the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment were presented maroon berets by their British counterparts. [18] Though unofficial at first, the green beret of the US Army Special Forces was formally adopted in 1961. Maroon airborne and black US Army Ranger berets were formally authorized in the 1970s.
"D" Troop 17th Cavalry were authorised a maroon beret in Vietnam. [19]
In the post-Vietnam era, morale in the US Army waned. In response, from 1973 through 1979 HQDA permitted local commanders to encourage morale-enhancing uniform distinctions. Consequently, many units embraced various colored berets, for example Armor and Armored Cavalry units often adopted the black beret. Similarly many other units embraced various colored berets in an attempt to improve dwindling morale. In particular, the First Cavalry Division assigned various colored berets to it's three pronged TRICAP approach. In this implementation, Armored Cavalry, Airmobile Infantry units, Air Cavalry units, Division Artillery units, and Division Support units all wore different colored berets, including black, light blue, kelly green, and red.
In 1975 all female soldiers of the Women's Army Corps were authorized to wear a black beret variant as standard headgear for the service uniform. [20]
In 1975 the 172nd light Infantry Brg. out of Ft. Richarderson, Alaska were wearing the Black Berets.
In 2001, Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki ordered the black beret worn as standard headgear army-wide, a controversial decision because it was previously reserved for the Rangers. Although once the standard head gear of the United States Army, in June 2011, Army Secretary John McHugh, acting on the recommendations made by Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey and Sergeant Major of the Army Raymond F. Chandler proposed that the Army ditch the Black Beret in favor of the traditional Patrol Cap to be worn with the ACU. The original decision in 2001 to allow non-specialized troops to wear the coveted beret was implemented in hopes of boosting morale among regular units. This backfired however, when regular troops began complaining that the new Black Beret, taken from the US Army Rangers, was too difficult to put on with one hand, and caused excessive heat.
United States Army berets now use the following distinctive colors:
Tan 'Buckskin' — 75th Ranger Regiment , Ranger Training Brigade
Maroon — Airborne-designated units (the maroon beret is an organizational item, so it is worn by all assigned soldiers whether airborne-qualified or not)
Black — All other Army units. Worn with Class A uniform and Army Service Uniform as standard headgear, with ACUs and other utility uniforms at commander's discretion. [21]
Special Forces, Ranger, and Airborne unit berets sport distinctive organizational flashes . All other units use a standard pale blue flash bordered with 13 white stars. Officers wear their rank insignia within the flash, while enlisted ranks wear their distinctive unit insignia .
US Navy
Edit
In the United States Navy , female servicemembers may wear a black beret (of a different style than most military berets) instead of a combination hat or garrison cap while in service uniforms.
During the Vietnam War, the US Navy created special boat teams, unofficially dubbed the brown-water navy , to patrol coastlines, estuaries and rivers. Naval personnel assigned to these teams wore Republic of Vietnam Navy black berets as part of their uniform, as portrayed in the movie "Apocalypse Now". [22] US Navy SEAL teams serving in Vietnam wore camouflage berets in the field, the only beret somewhat standardized in the SEALs.
US Air Force
Dark Blue — All other units
International forces
Edit
United Nations
Light Blue – All United Nations Peacekeeping forces wear a light blue beret or helmet in lieu of their normal headgear.
Multinational Force and Observers
Terracotta - All military members of the Multinational Force and Observers wear a terracotta-colored beret or bush hat in lieu of their normal headgear.
African Union
Lime or Light Green – African Union (AU) peacekeeping forces wear a lime or light green beret. AU troops were recently seen wearing the green berets in Sudan but only for a short while. The AU peacekeeping forces were later turned over to UN administration and swapped out their green berets for UN light blue ones. [23]
See also
Uniform beret , for the use of berets as uniform headgear outside the military
Military berets by color:
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May 15, 1940 saw brothers Richard and Maurice open their first restaurant in San Bernadino, CA, which later became what moderately famous fast food chain? | Comox Valley Record, May 15, 2014 by Black Press - issuu
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THURSDAY May 15, 2014 Vol. 29• No. 39 ••• $1.25 inc. G.S.T.
THIS PUBLICATION AVAILABLE ONLINE AT comoxvalley record.com
COMOX VALLEY
Woodland Gardens hosts the 12th annual Art & Bloom Festival page B1
Chimo’s Lauren Carr wins gold medal at Western Canadian championships page B9
RECORD A division of
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Seminar addresses pertinent issues to Valley teens
Girls’ Seminar. “You have the right to say no (to sex) without consequence. If there is coercion, manipulation, or pressure, you do not have the respect that you deserve. And young Renee Andor women, at your age, boyfriends are like Record Staff buses; there’s another You have the one right around the “You have the right to say no corner,” Vanston said, right to be unique. bringing laughs from You have the right without consethe audience. “You to be true to you. You quence. don’t have to put up have the right to be Dr. Claire Vanston with them if that’s yourself.” not what you want.” Nine hunThe seminar ran dred Grade 9 and 10 Comox Valley girls loudly from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monapplauded when they heard these day at Mark R. Isfeld Secondary final words from sexual health School, though it was organized educator Dr. Claire Vanston’s by Cumberland Junior School speech during the Be You Be True teacher Jina Taylor and her leadership class. Similar, but smaller events were held in Cumberland the past two years, and they featured FearlesslyGiRL’s leadership and empowerment speaker Kate Whitfield. About 250 students attended the first event at Cumberland Junior, and 450 attended the second. But, this year, because all Grade 9 and 10 girls in the district attended — about 900 girls — the seminar was moved to Isfeld’s gym. Taylor decided to change the format, too, and the seminar featured six presentations — including a video about the Comox Valley Girls Group, a talk about Internet safety and a presentation about the SafeTeen program — plus an introduction by Comox PHOTO BY RENEE ANDOR Valley School District superintendent Sherry Elwood. SEXUAL HEALTH educator During the break after the first Dr. Claire Vanston speaks to few presentations, Grade 9 Isfeld Grade 9 and 10 girls during student Alex Kramer said hearthe Be You Be True Girls’ ing Elwood’s story was inspiring.
❝
Seminar at Mark R. Isfeld Secondary School.
... see SEMINAR ■ A6
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Players representing Cameroon (green) and United Arab Emirates (orange) square off in the U-11 boys’ division at the Mini World Cup 2014 Comox Valley Sunday morning. A total of 105 teams, some from as far away as the Yukon Territories, played 210 games over the course of two days at Valley View and Isfeld fields.
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Fifty-two Navigate students, (including a couple of staff members), play Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’ with robo-axes, (robotic guitars made with Lego), setting a world record for the most people to play this song at once video-online on robo-axes. A short video of the record-setting rock-out, featuring Principal Jeff “Ritchie www.comoxvalleyrecord.com Blackmore” Stewart, can be seen at www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
Quote of the Day
And young women, at your age, ❝ boyfriends are like buses; there’s another one right around the corner. ❞ Dr. Clair Vanston
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: e-mail to [email protected] or Mail to: 765 McPhee Ave., Courtenay, B.C. V9N 2Z7 Be sure your letter includes a signature and phone number
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Pastor celebrates 20 years in the Valley What started as a fill-in turned into two decades of service at Grace Baptist Church Renee Andor Record Staff
Helping others is “just part of living” for Pastor Paul Johnson and his wife Cindy. From dropping off home-baked cookies or a warm meal at the home of a church member, to driving to Nanaimo to visit another who’s sick, Paul and Cindy regularly go out of their way to help those in their church community. When asked about helping others, they immediately say everyone in their church does the same. “It’s not just about us doing it,” says Paul. “It’s about everybody catching that interest in ministry. The people in the pews, the chairs, are not here just to be in the chairs, they’re here to minister, too. “That’s why we’re here, to minister to them but also to show them and encourage them to do likewise, and it’s been great to watch that.” Paul and Cindy have now served the Comox Valley’s Grace Baptist Church for 20 years. Although he first thought of becoming a pastor when he was in university, Paul wasn’t ordained into the Christian ministry until 1994. He grew up in Alberta, and while obtaining a degree in accounting at a university in
photo by Renee Andor
Pastor Paul Johnson and his wife Cindy have served at the Comox Valley’s Grace Baptist Church for 20 years. South Carolina, he met Cindy, who was from Ohio. The newlyweds moved to Ohio and stayed there for about 10 years while Paul worked as a certified public accountant. They then moved to Victoria in the early 1990s, where Paul again worked as an accountant. But, the main reason for this move was
so they could help Paul’s brother — who is a pastor, too — establish the Grace Baptist Church of Victoria. A couple years later, a friend in Manitoba, who was planning to move to the Comox Valley to pastor the church here, asked Paul if he would fill in as pastor once a month until he could get his affairs in order for
the move out west. “We started doing that in probably May of ’93,” recalls Paul. “We did that until about October of ’93 and got another call from my friend in Manitoba and he said, ‘It doesn’t look like my house is going to sell, I’m taking it that the Lord doesn’t want me to be out there.’
“So, he asked if I would consider, at that point, becoming a pastor. And so, (Cindy and I) talked about it and, short story I guess is, we’re here.” The Johnson family — which includes five children, the majority of whom are now in their 20s — moved to the Valley in March, 1994 and Paul was ordained on May 6. Since then, the church has doubled in size to about 55 people. Bud Tarling, 93, has been a member of the church for about 25 years, and says Paul’s “dedication and his excellent spiritual guidance” has helped the congregation grow. “He’s just a real nice family man,” Tarling says of Paul. “And, his wife Cindy is just a delightful lady who just can’t seem to do enough for people in the congregation. She’s a great helpmate to him and they’re constantly helping people. “I mean, nothing seems to be too troubling, and anybody that’s ill or away, or anybody that asks for prayers, he never forgets. “It’s just a real loving church.” Besides his various duties as church pastor, Paul has continued working as an accountant, and puts in about 30 hours per week wearing his “other hat.” Cindy and Paul say they’ve loved the Valley ever since they first moved here 20 years ago, and they have no plans to leave. “We’re both very thankful to be here and for the opportunity to enjoy the Valley and to enjoy the people and, hopefully, be a part of making it a better place,” says Paul.
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Four local riders among team named for 2014 Tour de Rock Erin Haluschak Record Staff
With four riders from the Comox Valley prepared to tackle 1,200 kilometres of Vancouver Island roads to raise money for pediatric cancer research, the 2014 Tour de Rock team has chosen its 24 mem-
bers. After receiving 32 applications, the team was finalized last week and will begin fundraising from now until Oct. 3 when it wraps up its ride of the Island in Victoria. Matthew Pidgeon of CFB Comox, Cst. Colleen Henry, Aux. Cst. Chris Kip-
pel and Cst. Andrea Folk of the Comox Valley RCMP are representing the Valley on the team, which will see riders pass through more than 50 schools on their way from Port Alice, west to Tofino and south to Victoria. Since 1998, Cops for Cancer Tour de Rock has
raised close to $20 million dollars, which has gone towards research and enabling kids to attend Camp Goodtimes on the Lower Mainland. Last year, 53 schools participated in fundraising for the Tour and raised $280,000.
The 2013 Tour de Rock provided many emotional moments, like this one at Valley View Elementary School.
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The provincial government has granted a licence to Compliance Energy Corp. for a tenure near Anderson Lake, but the company says it has no intention of exploring the 1,448 hectares north of Comox Lake. Compliance had applied for the licence in 2007 when it was still in the exploration phase. However, the company has since concentrated its resources on the Raven underground coal mine proposal near Baynes Sound, according to president/chief operations officer Steve Ellis. “That licence lasts a year,” he said in reference to Anderson Lake. “If we want to renew at the end of that year, we’d have to pay again. No, I don’t think so. We’ve no intention of doing anything with it.” CoalWatch Comox Valley says the company’s coal tenure now exceeds 30,000 hectares including the Raven proposal and the Bear deposit above Cumberland, which Ellis confirms is true. Part of the Anderson tenure is in the Tsolum River watershed, CoalWatch notes. But even if Compliance intended to explore, Ellis doubts the energy ministry would approve drilling near a sensitive environmental area. “All a coal licence allows you to do is to start to explore,” he said. “You would still have to go through the whole environmental application process once again. Do you think you’d get that if
Council adopts tax rates
Courtenay Council adopted Monday the 2014 tax rates and a five-year financial plan bylaw. The general tax revenue increase is 1.7 per cent. The average impact to a residential property owner is $12, or one per cent. The average commercial property’s increase for the city portion of taxes is $255. Total impact is a 1.93 per cent increase over 2013. For more information, visit www.courtenay.ca.
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Get $2,250/$2,500/$3,000/$3,500/$2,250/$6,250/$12,250 cash discount on the purchase of any new 2014 Versa Sedan models/2014 Versa Note models (except 1.6 S MT, B5RG54 AA00)/2014 Sentra models (except Sentra 1.8 S MT, C4LG54 AA00)/2014 Altima Sedan models (except Altima Sedan 2.5 CVT, T4LG14 AA00)/2014 Juke models (except Juke SV FWD M6, N5RT54 AA10)/2014 Murano models (except Murano S AWD CVT, L6RG14 AAA00)/2014 Titan models. The cash discount is based on non-stackable trading dollars when registered and delivered between May 15 – June 2, 2014. The cash discount is only available on the cash purchase, and will be deducted from the negotiated selling price before taxes and cannot be combined with special lease or finance rates. This offer cannot be combined with any other offer. Conditions apply. * Representative finance offer based on a new 2014 Altima 2.5 (T4LG14 AA00), CVT transmission. Selling Price is $25,273 financed at 0% APR equals 182 bi-weekly payments of $128 for an 84 month term. $1,999 down payment required. Cost of borrowing is $0 for a total obligation of $25,273. This offer cannot be combined with any other offer. Conditions apply. ≠Representative semi-monthly lease offer based on new 2014 Rogue S FWD (Y6RG14 AA00), CVT transmission. 2.99% lease APR for a 60 month term equals 120 semi-monthly payments of $134 with $0 down payment, and $0 security deposit. First semi-monthly payment, down payment and $0 security deposit are due at lease inception. Prices include freight and fees. Lease based on a maximum of 20,000 km/year with excess charged at $0.10/km. Total lease obligation is $16,042. $500 NF Lease Bonus Cash included in advertised price, applicable only on 2014 Rogue S FWD (Y6RG14 AA00), CVT transmission through subvented lease through Nissan Finance. This offer is only available on lease offers of an 60 month term only and cannot be combined with any other offer. Conditions apply. V Models shown $35,228 Selling Price for a new 2014 Rogue SL AWD Premium model (Y6DG14 BK00), CVT transmission. V ≠ * Freight and PDE charges ($1,575/$1,630), certain fees, manufacturer’s rebate and dealer participation where applicable are included. License, registration, air-conditioning levy ($100) where applicable, insurance and applicable taxes are extra. Finance and lease offers are available on approved credit through Nissan Finance for a limited time, may change without notice and cannot be combined with any other offers except stackable trading dollars. Retailers are free to set individual prices. Dealer order/trade may be necessary. Vehicles and accessories are for illustration purposes only. Offers, prices and features subject to change without notice. Offers valid between May 15 -June 2, 2014. ºNissan is the fastest growing brand in the non-luxury segment based on comparison of 12-month retail sales from April 2013 to March 2014 of all Canadian automotive brands and 12-month averages sales growth. ^Based on 2014 Canadian Residual Value Award in Subcompact Car/Compact Utility Vehicle segment. ALG is the industry benchmark for residual values and depreciation data, www.alg.com. +All information compiled from third-party sources including manufacturer websites. Not responsible for errors in data on third party websites. 12/17/2013. ∞Government 5-Star Safety Ratings are part of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA’s) New Car Assessment Program (www.safercar.gov). ×Global Automakers of Canada Entry Level Segmentation. MY14 Versa Note v. MY13/14 competitors. Offers subject to change, continuation or cancellation without notice. Offers have no cash alternative value. See your participating Nissan retailer for complete details. ©1998-2014 Nissan Canada Inc. and Nissan Financial Services Inc. a division of Nissan Canada Inc.
Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
††
A4 www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
No plans for Compliance to act on granted licence tificate. Ellis said the company hopes to meet with government later this month to re-apply for the certificate. [email protected]
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
Therapeutic barn dance
Worry for the wounded
Photos by Erin Haluschak
The distraught driver of a vehicle that struck a pedestrian at the intersection of Fifth Street and England Avenue Tuesday morning takes a seat while awaiting questioning from police. The pedestrian, inset, was examined on-site and the road was open to traffic shortly afterwards.
The Comox Valley Therapeutic Riding Society is having a barn dance June 14 to raise funds and awareness for the society, featuring the Victoria country band Montgomery Country. Dust off your boots and get out your cowboy hat and hit the dance floor to country hits from artists such as Garth Brooks, Blake Shelton, Dwight Yoakum, Brooks & Dunn and Luke Bryan as well as original songs penned by lead singer Wayne Montgomery. Therapeutic horseback riding has a long-standing history of being used to teach riding skills to children and adults who have cognitive, physical or emotional disabilities. The CVTRS has been offering its services and facilities for 29 years and in that time has grown from a clientele of five riders, to a program that services 130 clients every week. Funds raised from this barn dance will go towards the maintenance of the society’s 18 specially trained horses – a cost of roughly $2,400 per horse, per year. Tickets are $25 apiece and are available at Shar-Kare, South Country Feed and Supply, Tack ‘em Up Stables, Summerside Tack Shop, Black Country Farm and Feeds and the gate. For more info, go to the website at www.cvtrs.com
Scotch broom cleanup in full swing in Comox Valley That bright yellow flowery bush may look pretty, but looks can deceive. Scotch broom is one of the most invasive plants on Vancouver Island, and every
Scotch broom is in full bloom in the Comox Valley. The annual chore of cutting down the invasive brush is ongoing. Photo Submitted
That’s Ducky Environmentally friendly
• Residential • Con Construction • Mov Moving in/out • Spr Spring Cleaning • FFall all Cleaning • Gift Certificates • Dep Dependable • Affo Affordable
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spring, the yellow flowers serve as a reminder that there’s plenty of work to be done to reclaim the land. Community groups like the Broombusters and Comox Valley
Nature are out in full force, doing their part to rid the Island of Scotch broom and they need help. Join Broombusters Saturday morning at the train station off Cumberland Road as volunteers tackle the Rotary Trail, continuing the good work started by Comox Valley Nature. “Comox Valley Nature has done some great work pulling and cutting broom and planting some native trees and shrubs,” say
trhe Broombusters on their website. “We’ll take on the bigger broom along the rail line and see if we can get all of the broom cleared along the length of the trail going both north and south from the train station.” The Broombusters have been working the Northeast Woods all week and hope to have that area completed by Friday. To help there, show up at the parking lot at the end of Torrence Road, past the Public
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Works yard. Follow the signs past the yellow gate and you’ll find volunteeers in the big field of broom. Cutting goes from 9:30-noon both days. For instructions on proper cutting technique, visit the website at www.broombusters. org.
A5
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Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
Seminar: Students contributed Continued from A1
“When Sherry Elwood shared her back story, I thought that was really interesting because I never expected that from her being a woman in power,” said Kramer. “She talked about how she grew up in poverty and how she was excluded because she was a girl.” Grade 10 Isfeld student Odessa Gibson said she enjoyed all the presentations she had seen during the first portion of the event. “I think (the seminar is) an important thing,” she said. “And, I think this whole day is something that could be an example for other school districts.” Grade 11 G.P. Vanier student Josie Patterson received a standing ovation after reciting her poem, ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Women’ in which she spoke about the world’s view of women, and “the process of women shrinking to allow men more room to grow.” Taylor said she’s a bit surprised the event has grown so much in three years. “They all seem to love it, and I just keep running it and it just keeps getting bigger,” she said with a smile, noting Grade 9 and 10 is a good time for girls to hear presentations that make them feel empowered. “I think this age is super important because this is when they’re influenced the
Natural Flat Stonee
Festival
Bloom May 17, 18 & 19, 2014 Photo By Renee Andor
Grade 11 G.P. Vanier student Josie Patterson performs a piano version of Bon Iver’s ‘Skinny Love’ for the 900 girls attending the seminar. most to make decisions and become really involved with their friends,” said Taylor. “So, it’s really important they need to learn they are them — not just their friends.” [email protected]
WINNING NUMBERS FRI MAY 9 2014 LOTTO MAX
05 07 29 35 39 41 49 Bonus 14 EXTRA 31 48 68 96 Saturday MAY 10 2014
6/49 16 23 33 36 48 49 Bonus 37 BC/49 03 13 21 36 43 46 Bonus 12 EXTRA 08 33 92 96
FUTURE SHOP – Correction Notice
www.woodlandgardens.ca
In the May 9 flyer, page 22, the Paramount Propane Patio Heater (WebID: 10187355) is out of stock and not available for purchase. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our valued customers.
Sat. & Sun. 10 AM – 5 PM Monday 10 AM – 4 PM
FERRiEs schEdulE
Admission: Regular $10 Seniors $8
NANAIMO to VANCOUVER Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay
VANCOUVER to NANAIMO Horseshoe Bay to Departure Bay NANAIMO to VANCOUVER Duke Point to Tsawwassen
Effective Until June 24, 2014 6:20 am • 7:45 am May 17 & 19 only • 8:30 am • 10:40 am 12:00 pm May 15, 16, 20, 30, Jun 6, 13, 20 & 23 only 12:50 pm • 2:10 pm May 19, Jun 19 & 22 only • 3:10 pm 4:20 pm Jun 1, 8, 15 & 20 only • 5:20 pm 6:30 pm May 19 & Jun 22 only 7:30 pm • 9:30 pm
Painters
(250) 338-6901
6183 Whitaker Rd, Courtenay
Effective Until June 24, 2014 6:20 am • 8:30 am • 10:40 am • 12:00 pm May 17 & 19 only 12:50 pm • 2:10 pm May 20, 30, Jun 6, 13, 20 & 23 only 3:10 pm • 4:20 pm May 15, 16, 19, Jun 19 & 22 only 5:20 pm • 6:30 pm Jun 20 only • 7:30 pm 8:30 pm Jun 1, 8, 15 only • 9:30 pm • 10:40 pm Jun 22 only
Unique Art Forms Photography Garden Art
Effective Until June 24, 2014 5:15 am Daily except Sun • 7:45 am Daily except Sun 10:15 am • 12:45 pm • 3:15 pm • 5:45 pm 8:15 pm & 10:45 pm Daily except Sat
Wrought Iron
VANCOUVER to NANAIMO Tsawwassen to Duke Point
Effective Until June 24, 2014 5:15 am Daily except Sun • 7:45 am Daily except Sun 10:15 am • 12:45 pm • 3:15 pm • 5:45 pm 8:15 pm & 10:45 pm Daily except Sat
Sculptures
COMOX to POWELL RIVER Little River to Westview
Effective Until June 24, 2014 6:30 am • 10:10 am •3:15 pm Daily except Wed & Sat 6:30 pm - Wed and Sat only 7:15 pm Daily except Wed & Sat
Furniture
POWELL RIVER to COMOX Westview to Little River
Effective Until June 24, 2014 8:10 am • 12:00 am • 5:15 pm Daily except Wed & Sat 8:30 pm - Wed and Sat only 8:45 pm Daily except Wed & Sat
Jewellery Glass
office: 250-339-7200
Fax 250-335-1198
RCMP REPORT ~ May 6-May12 On the morning of May 7th police were called to a scene of a mischief that had just taken place at 3273 3rd street in Cumberland, the Caffeeclars coffee shop. The reports hearing noise in the front of the store and found that someone had thrown rocks through 2 plate glass windows, causing about $4000.00 damage. Two people were seen running East on Penrith. One person was wearing dark clothing and the second was wearing tan colored pants and what is described as a “Lumberjack “style jacket. (2014-5156)
Call Shirley
Police received a report of an indecent act that took place on May 8th on a foot trail in the Condensory road and Anderton avenue area of Courtenay. Three women were taking photos when a male walked past them totally nude. No conversation was initiated and the male was not identified. (2014-5209) On May 9th the Courtenay Canadian Tire store staff called police to report a theft of tools that had just occurred. A BC licence plate was obtained from the getaway vehicle and the owner was tracked down and arrested. This investigation is continuing for the vehicle owners accomplice. (2014-5256)
WA N T E D
WA N T E D Alicia Mercedes Falconer DOB:1982-07-28 Brown hair, Green eyes Warrant for: Criminal Harassment Comox Valley File # 2013-12479
Warrants as of 2014-05-13
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
A7
Funding for supportive housing complex still an issue through several neighbourhoods rather than creating a slum in one area. Another suggests housing a homeless The City of Courtenay first needs person in a rental unit in every condo in to determine if it can secure operating Courtenay. Jessup feels the site is not a bad funds before issuing a Request for Prochoice. It’s in a mixed use, posal to select a non-profit low- to moderate-household operator for a proposed supincome area, which has expeportive housing complex on rienced problems with drugs the east side of town. and alcohol. The City has retained To “soften the project the services of social planaround the edges of conning consultant John Jessup, cern,” he suggests restrictwho has met with approxiing occupancy to those over mately 30 residents at two 40, providing a ground-floor neighbourhood consultacommunity space where tions about the Braidwood neighbours would be welRoad project since he last come and including a van to addressed council in March. shuttle tenants downtown, Council has identified the among other measures. project as its top priority for John Jessup Another idea is to reduce 2014. the project size to 24 units, The 30-unit complex is though this would increase intended to assist homeless people, and those with social issues and capital and operating costs, and reduce rental revenue. challenges. Annual operating costs are estimated Attendees at the consultations harbour a number of concerns about home- between $550,000 and $575,000 in the less people living in the neighbourhood first year, depending on construction and lower market values of properties, costs and mortgage interest rates. Jessup recommends having two staff among other examples. One person suggests spreading low-income housing members working at all times, considScott Stanfield Record Staff
ering problems are likely to arise with some of the more acute clients. “It’s partly staff security and safety,” he said in response to a question from Coun. Doug Hillian at Monday’s meeting. To ensure supportive housing can be sustained on a long-term, financially viable basis, Jessup advocates the use of rent supplements, capital grants and public-private partnerships. BC Housing has made $50,000 available in the form of a loan but has indicated no operating subsidies will be available. Jessup feels it is critical to approach Rich Coleman, Minister Responsible for Housing. “The issue is the operating subsidy,” said Jessup, who would not recommend a supportive housing project without proper financial support. Aside from provincial capital grants, he said the City could apply to the Real Estate Foundation, which also has a capital program. Council approved a motion from Bill Anglin to meet with Comox Valley MLA Don McRae to communicate with Coleman about the need for operating funds before proceeding with an RFP. Council referred to staff information
Bench strength
about a program in Campbell River that provided 16 beds to homeless individuals in the winter. They were housed in shipping containers converted into suites. “I believe this was an innovative, cost-effective program,” Jessup said. “They never turned anybody away.” The program cost about $10,000 per month.
[email protected]
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Cassandra & Iain Haigh
250-897-3898 • 2480 Hardy Road
Photo by scott stanfield
casa loma residents Cecil Ward, left, and Richard Hilton are pictured with a gift from the Mid-Island branch of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. PPCLI Association member Fred Raven made the bench.
Have you been treated unfairly by a provincial or local government agency?
Community Information Session
The North Island Hospitals Project (NIHP) is hosting a community information session to provide an update on the new, 153-bed Comox Valley hospital slated for completion in late 2017. Date: Tuesday, May 27th, 2014 Time: 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Location: Stan Hagen Theatre Komoux Hall (K104) North Island College 2300 Ryan Road Courtenay, BC The meeting will start with a presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session related to the procurement, design and construction of the new facility. The NIHP team will be on hand to answer questions and gather input. For more information visit the new NIHP website at: nihp.viha.ca
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Port Hardy Port McNeill Campbell River Powell River Courtenay Comox
June 2 June 3 June 4 June 5 June 6
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A8
Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
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www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
Routine HIV-AIDS testing available to B.C. residents
A9
CA$H REWARDS
Crimestoppers will pay cash rewards for information leading to the arrest of persons involved in criminal activities in the Comox Valley.
CALL 1-800-222-TIPS(8477)
Effective pilot project convinces government to expand outreach efforts Tom Fletcher
N U R S E RY & G A R D E N
Black Press
Routine HIV-AIDS testing is being offered once every five years to all B.C. residents aged 18-70, building on infection control efforts that have been recognized around the world in reducing disease transmission and death. B.C.’s “Treatment as Prevention” strategy has proven so effective in pilot programs in Vancouver and Prince George that the government is extending its outreach efforts across the province. Routine testing of pregnant women has all but eliminated mother-child transmission, and antiviral therapies have cut the death toll of AIDS by 90 per cent since 1996. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall said going beyond identified risk groups has proven effective in finding infected people in time to provide effective drug treatment. The treatment not only extends life to nearly normal lifespan, it also prevents most transmission of the virus once the patient is being treated. “These guidelines hold the promise that by expanding HIV testing as we have done, we will be taking another great step towards potentially eliminating HIV in the province of British Columbia,” Kendall said. Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV-AIDS, said the United Nations continues to use B.C. as a model for its global effort to eliminate the disease. “Back in 1995 we used to have one person or more dying per day at St. Paul’s Hospital alone, every year because of HIV and AIDS,” Montaner said. “Today, my [physician] residents don’t know what that looks like. We virtually have eliminated death from HIV.” Health Minister Terry Lake said the program
The Plant Collector has officially sold her property THOUSANDS of Plants MUST GO! PHOTO BY TOM FLETCHER
Nurse Claire Madill prepares to take blood samples for HIV testing from Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall, Health Minister Terry Lake and Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV-AIDS. is funded with $19.9 million a year, and is recognized as an investment in prevention that saves the province money as well as improving individual well-being for patients. Information for health-care providers on the new testing guidelines is available at a new website, HIVguide.ca. Doctors will continue to offer HIV-AIDS tests to patients of any age who present with new or worsening medical conditions that require lab tests, show symptoms of HIV infection, are preg(MJHPTZY\JJPQ^Ć^JWX nant or if they request an HIV test.
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A10
Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
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www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
A11
Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
Programs and services for Veterans and their families
Programmes et services pour les vétérans et leurs familles
From career transition services to rehabilitation support and mental health services, there are programs and services to help Canada’s Veterans and their families as they transition to civilian life. Get started today.
Des services de transition de carrière à la réadaptation ou aux services psychologiques, divers programmes et services sont en place pour aider les vétérans canadiens et leurs familles en transition à la vie civile. Passez à l’action dès aujourd’hui.
Call 1.866.522.2122 Visit veterans.gc.ca/services
www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
Right - rhe Rotary Club of Cumberland Centennial and the Village of Cumberland partnered to create a family-friendly, fun-filled playground in the Village Park. A cheque for $110,000 was presented by Rotary Club President Kim Sleno to Cumberland Mayor Leslie Baird on Friday, 9 May, as the club’s share of the cost of the new facility. Funds provided by the Rotarians came from the proceeds of the club’s popular annual Extravaganza Italiana and with support from the Province of BC that provided $50,000 through the Community Gaming Grant program and Tire Stewardship BC - tsbc.ca who provided a grant of $30,000 because the surface covering used is made of recycled tires. L-R: Club President Elect (2014-15) Liz Phillipson, Club President Kim Sleno presented a cheque for $110,000 to Cumberland Mayor Leslie Baird with support from Club Treasurer John Jones.
A13
WE’VE BEEN EVERYWHERE! Take us along on your next vacation.... and send your vacation photos to
[email protected]
*subject line Take Us Along
FUTURE SHOP – Correction Notice
In the May 9 flyer, wrap page 1, the Tassimo T55 Single Serve Brewer - Red (WebID: 10199088) is limited in quantity until stock runs out. No rainchecks will be offered. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our valued customers.
Community Service What is your group up to?
KC’s
The Comox Valley Record wants to recognize the many events that make our community a better place to live. Email your photos and submissions, titled “Community Service” to [email protected].
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Above - the Comox Valley Small Business Association (SBA) hosted its annual awards reception last week to honour some of the association’s members in various categories. The recipients of the 2014 HBSBA awards include (in no particular order) - Angela Zumbo, The Mortgage Centre, Business of the Year; Nancy, The Mustard Lady, New Business of the Year; Donna Clairmont, Clairmont Custom Draperies & Décor, Members’ Choice Award; Janet Martyn, PartyLite, Lawrence Belfrage Memorial Award; Russell Ball, AudioXcellence DJ Systems, Merit Award; Nina Andersen, Orca Marketing Group, Inspiration Award; Sarah Brune, Inner Harmony Healing, Innovation Award; Steve and Carolyn Touhey, Two Eagles Lodge, Comox Valley Ambassador Award. Photo Submitted
Above - President 888 Wing RCAF Association Don Hogan presents a cheque from a recent fundraiser to 386 Air Cadet Squadron sponsoring committee chair Angela Kroemer. Photo Submitted
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THE TODAY N’ TOMORROW
Learning Society’s Easter Fundraiser raised just over $1,500 to help with their new roof and windows. A big Thank You goes to Hot Chocolates and Cake Bread Artisan Bakery for generously donating all the goodies and chocolate for the raffle. Congrats to the winners: Comox Branch, Elaine Allen; Courtenay Branch, Linda Winter; 4th St. Branch, Mike Smith.
WE, AT THE Comox Valley Food
Bank, extend our thank you, most sincerely, to the staff and management of Plates Restaurant for their thoughtfulness and generosity over the years. Our clients have benefited throughout this time from the bounty of freshmade food stuffs, including entrees, generous platters of sandwiches and desserts. It all looks so good. All treats for the client-families of the Comox Valley Food Bank are most appreciated.
THE LINC YOUTH Centre would
like to thank all the youth, volunteers and community partners that participated in the annual Youth Week celebrations, May 1-7. On May 3, eight teams participated in the 5th Annual Young Ones vs. Old Ones Road Hockey Tournament. After a competitive tournament, the Boyz of Bumder and Vanier Dirty 12, battled hard in the Youth Final. Vanier won and took on the Old Ones, winning by a score of 5-3 and continuing the five-year tradition of the “Young Ones” winning the coveted Waka Cup!The LINC staff would
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like to send out special thanks to their Youth Week sponsors, including Water Pure and Simple and Saputo for keeping everyone hydrated, Thrifty Foods, Onethirtythree Boardshop, Worksafe BC, Codes Country Lanes, Ethereal – Djs Adam and Cory, live bands – Abstract and Blind Amusement, Brent Craven and The Foto Booth, Comox Valley Regional District, The City of Courtenay, Courtenay Recreation, The LINC’s Youth Council, and Youth Unlimited, for contributing to all of the Youth Week festivities! The support for BC Youth Week 2014 and for celebrating the Comox Valley’s youth was tremendous and made this their biggest Youth Week yet!
A FEW MONTHS ago the Cycling Coalition approached the Comox Valley Accessibility Committee regarding an interest in providing and installing safety lights for mobility devices. The “Glow as You Go” concept was enthusiastically accepted. We got busy and contacted persons who might be interested by contacting disability organizations. It was a success and one Thursday morning over 30 devices were installed! We want to express our appreciation to the Cycling Coalition for their generosity, their caring and their support. Thank you very much. THE CARE-A-VAN RECENTLY
celebrated its fifth anniversary and would like to thank a few of those who made the worthwhile cause a reality. We wish to thank our pharmacist Greg Oksanen and the staff of Liv-
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ing Room Pharmacy for their ongoing donation of needed medications, and our optometrist Dr. Alex Kennedy and Jan Murphy for providing a weekly appointment for those we serve and providing them with much needed eyewear. Our heartfelt appreciation to our dentists Dr. Bill Armstrong, Dr. Chris Becir, Dr. Jana Lamb, Dr. Frank Foster who along with the dental staff members Shelley Woodrow, Krista Clark, Kourtney Thomas and Kaitlin Heynen of Cumberland Dental Clinic have taken on the challenge of providing the only dental care provided to this segment of the population at no cost. Our newest program just launched in January 2014 is offered thanks to denturist Jason Kirouac of Island Dentures. Our society is grateful to World Community Development for their donation of coffee to the Care-A-Van program. We thank manager Corrie Stoski of Serious Coffee for brewing the coffee for every evening shift, year round, including on statutory holidays. All of these people, as well as all the nurses on staff, are the compassionate members of the Care-A-Van community who are very deserving of our recognition.
ONCE AGAIN, HARPER’S “Reform Conservative Party” has done some political gymnastics to defy the demonstrated evidence about pensions for Canadians citizens. Canada has an efficient, no cost to taxpayers plan right now, called the Canada Pension Plan. What is more logical than using an existing pension plan to improve life for Canadians when we retire? The truck is there: get in and drive it!Harper’s “RFC” has demonstrated in the past its contempt for fact-based decision making in regard to the environment and the bankrupting of government through tax cuts. Now Harper is playing with the pension future of our children and grandchildren. Time to say STOP! One is reminded of the Martin Luther King Jr. quote: “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” In Harper’s case, we’re talking conscientious ideology trumping demonstrated and factual evidence. And follow the money: Who will benefit most from Harper’s demonstrated ideology?
TO THE PEOPLE who live on the Island Highway and insist on backing out of their driveways; may I remind you that you LIVE ON A HIGHWAY! I am coming at you going (at least) 80 kilometres an hour. It’s not my responsibility to yield to you. Of course, none of that will matter when we are both being tube-fed in hospital after
DO YOU HAVE somebody to praise or something you have to get off your chest? Have your say by submitting to [email protected]. Please focus on people’s ideas rather than speculating about their character. You can also get a written submission to 765 McPhee Ave., Courtenay, B.C. V9N 2Z7 or fax to 250-338-5568.
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COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
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Cumberland schools garage sale Cumberland Community Schools Society is hosting its sixth annual HUGE Garage Sale on Sunday, May 25 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Cumberland Elementary Gym. This great event is a key fundraiser for the after-school programs and hot lunch offered to students by the CCSS. Donations can be dropped off at the Cumberland Elementary Gym from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 24. There is a wide selection of goods, including tools, seasonal items, gardening supplies, books PHOTO BY MANDY LARADE
BERT HEERINGA of the Courtenay Canadian Tire store is excited about the accomplishments of the Canadian Tire Jumpstart program. Jumpstart has provided funding for children all across Canada to participate in extracurricular sports. Heeringa will be participating in the annual bike ride this year from Ottawa to Quebec City.
Jumpstart puts kids in sport
Record Staff
May is Jumpstart Month for Canadian Tire. The Canadian Tire Jumpstart program is a charity dedicated to helping financially underprivileged children participate in all kinds of sports. The program encompasses just about any sport out there - from hockey and football, to squash and yoga. Whether it’s a team sport, or an individual endeavour the sole purpose of the program is to give children the opportunity to participate. According to the Canadian Tire website, the program has helped over 540,000 children across 332 different chapters since their launch in 2005. Courtenay Canadian Tire store dealer Bert Heeringa said the key to the program is its anonimity, emphasizing the importance of making sure Jumpstart-funded kids aren’t identified. “The whole idea is that these kids don’t get singled out. We don’t want them to be identified as needy kids. We just want them to have fun,” Heeringa says. Heeringa participates in a Canadian Tire Corporate bike ride annually to raise money for the cause. This July, the ride will take place in Ontario and Quebec. “We’re going to ride
from Ottawa to Quebec “You’re investing in City- a 500-kilometre people. There’s no betbike ride,” Heeringa ter investment.” says. The Comox RecreHeeration Ceninga raises tre holds roughly an annual The whole $6,000 for spinathon, the Comox idea is that these with last V a l l e y kids don’t get y e a r ’ s each year singled out. We bringing he particiin $16,000 pates in don’t want them in a single the ride. day. to be identified T h e DonaJumpstart as needy kids. We tions are m o n e y just want them to welcomed t h a t ’ s have fun. at Canar a i s e d dian Tire Bert Heeringa s t o r e s within the C o m o x y e a r Valley stays in the round, with people Valley to help chil- often bringing in loose dren locally. Last year, change or converting approximately $30,000 their Canadian Tire was raised, helping 300 money. Customers are kids. also able to purchase
❝
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a ball from the Jumpstart Red Ball campaign, which started in 2007. Each year, a different ball is added to the collection. Mark’s Work Warehouse and Sport Chek, both owned by Canadian Tire Corporate Ltd., are participants in raising money for Jumpstart as well. All customer donations go directly to the children in need. The Canadian Tire Corporation Ltd. has been named one of ‘Canada’s Best Managed Companies’ for 2013. For more information on the Jumpstart program, visit www. jumpstart.canadiantire.ca
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Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
COMOX VALLEY RECORD
COMOX VALLEY’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER Publisher: Zena Williams : [email protected] Editor: Terry Farrell : [email protected] Sales Manager: Liz Royer : [email protected] Ph: 250-338-5811 / Fax: 250-338-5568 / Classified: 1-855-310-3535 A division of Black Press Ltd. 765 McPhee Avenue, Courtenay, B.C. V9N 2Z7 www.comoxvalleyrecord.com [email protected] The Comox Valley Record is a member of the British Columbia Press Council, a self-regulatory body governing the province’s newspaper industry. The council considers complaints from the public about the conduct of member newspapers. Directors oversee the mediation of complaints, with input from both the newspaper and the complaint holder. If talking with the editor or publisher does not resolve your complaint about coverage or story treatment, you may contact the B.C. Press Council. Your written concern, with documentation, should be sent to B.C. Press Council, 201 Selby St., Nanaimo, B.C. V9R 2R2. For information, phone 888-687-2213 or go to www.bcpresscouncil.org
J
Horgan has work to do
ohn Horgan is the new leader of the NDP. Unlike the situation in 2011, when there was a hard-fought battle for the NDP leadership, he won it by acclamation, and took over his new role on May 1. The lack of competition for the job isn’t surprising. In 2011, it looked like quite a prize. The BC Liberals were in disarray, Gordon Campbell had resigned, and winning the premiership after 12 years in opposition looked like a cakewalk. A year ago, during the election campaign, the polls said the NDP was far ahead. But on election day, the party lost — and quite decisively. Leader Adrian Dix pondered the situation for a short time, then announced he was stepping aside. Horgan knows B.C. intimately. This is one of his big strengths. Unlike Dix, who is a Vancouver guy, Horgan knows the province and the differences between regions and communities very well. The very fact that he represents a Vancouver Island riding (Malahat-Juan de Fuca) is a plus. His understanding of what makes the B.C. economy work is much better than that of many NDPers. He has been the energy and mines critic in the past, and both those issues are key to parts of B.C. outside the urban cores. The fact that he is keeping an open mind on Kinder Morgan’s application to twin its pipeline is a significant shift from Dix’s decision to oppose the project midway through the election campaign. That move likely cost the NDP the election. Dix is a decent man, but he was not the best choice in the 2011 leadership race. Horgan likely was — and now he can prove to voters that the NDP is a possible alternative. He will have to show working people that he isn’t anti-jobs, he isn’t anti-resources and he isn’t in the pocket of big public sector unions. The NDP’s biggest handicap is that many voters do not believe it understands how the economy works. Its other big challenge is a deep divide between private sector workers and the diehard environmentalists who oppose virtually anything that involves B.C. resources. Horgan has his work cut out for him. –Black Press Record Question of the Week This week: Do you enjoy the Snowbirds’ annual ‘spring training’ session over the Comox Valley? Final results: 79.4% say yes. Next week: Can John Horgan lead the NDP to power in British Columbia? Visit www.comoxvalleyrecord.com and vote in the Poll. Nearly $100,000 was granted by the Children’s Health Foundation to organizations in the Comox Valley and surrounding area
A long weekend increase in prices at the gas pumps is nearly as guaranteed as death and taxes.
Farmland holy war falls flat T
he NDP’s holy war against changes to the Agricultural Land Reserve got nastier last week, as it became clear it was defenders of the status quo who were being mowed down. Ever since legislation was tabled to divide the ALR into two zones, with greater emphasis on social and economic needs to help viability of farms in the Kootenay, Interior and North regions, almost all the protest has been from unaffected areas. And much of it depends on emotion rather than fact. In the legislature, Nanaimo MLA Leonard Krog rose to praise the late Dave Stupich, who birthed the ALR sacred cow as agriculture minister in 1973. Krog likened Stupich to the biblical Daniel for his bravery in preserving farmland for our children’s children. Cowichan Valley MLA Bill Routley did his signature “jiggery pokery” routine, this time accusing cabinet minister Bill Bennett of being “giddy” at the prospect of paying off his friends with development land. Before he gets too jiggery outside the protection of the legislative chamber, he would be well advised to find some evidence. Stikine MLA Doug Donaldson, who at least represents an area being given broader latitude for secondary uses on farmland, warned of drought in California. The history of this is currently a hot topic in the quasi-religious climate change debate.
Meanwhile in the real British Columbia, life and farming go on under the existing POLITICS farmland protection regime. The largest ALR exclusion in B.C. hisOM tory took a big step forward last week, as LETCHER a federal-provincial review panel issued its report on the Site C dam proposed for the Peace River. The panel noted that the dam would flood 2,775 hectares of farmland, representing all seven categories of soil quality. Opponents use a figure about twice that size, as if all the affected land was farmable. The panel accepted that this land, including the small amount of micro-climate bottom land, represents 0.2 per cent of the Peace region’s farm receipts. I would add that’s because what is farmed at all is mostly growing hay, which requires minimum capital and labour. “It has potential, to be sure, but its unique and irreplaceable contribution would be for those labour-intensive crops like vegetables, which are not remotely practical in a labour-short region,” the report states. We have to bring in Mexican guest workers to get vegetable and fruit crops off in the Fraser Valley and Okanagan. For a fivemonth growing season in the bush outside Fort St. John? This is a classic example of the religious fervor that replaces reason
F
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among the southern faithful of the ALR. And how is the status quo working? Summerland council just voted to swap 80 hectares of flat farmland for 90 hectares further away in the Summerland Hills. The town is on restricted lakeshore terrain and the council wants to increase its urban zone, using the community need provisions that are enhanced by the current legislative amendments. This was after a loud demonstration organized with the help of a fake grassroots protest machine called LeadNow, complete with slick signs and website. (LeadNow also helped round up anti-pipeline protesters this past weekend.) The media were fooled as usual, but not Summerland council. LeadNow has moved on to lining up people to flood the Agricultural Land Commission with form letters and petitions against Summerland’s plan. The B.C. Agriculture Council, whose board first supported and then objected to the ALR amendments, has clarified its objections. It wants flexibility for secondary uses extended to the prime farmland zones of the Okanagan, Fraser Valley and southern Vancouver Island.
Tom Fletcher is legislature reporter and columnist for Black Press. Twitter: @tomfletcherbc Email: [email protected]
Comox BIA encouraged by 2014 property tax rates Dear editor, Comox Business in Action (BIA) executive and members are encouraged by the 2014 property tax rates for the town of Comox. The current year establishes no commercial tax increase, and only applies a very modest 1.1 per cent increase to residential rates. The town council
has shown fiscal responsibility and recognized the importance of commercial businesses in the area. Comox businesses provide a significant proportion of town tax revenues due to the lack of industry and large commercial outlets in the area. Property taxes are a major commercial
expense. The local commercial tax rate is 3.5 times that for residential properties. The 2014 Comox tax rates show local businesses that the town council recognizes an historical imbalance, and that they are actively improving the fiscal situation. Vaughn Smith Comox BIA President
OPINIONS
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
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Citizen’s Bylaw could change the look of Comox council Dear editor, The Town Council of Comox has made it so effortless to strike down existing bylaws and create new ones that it now seems that any citizen of Comox must have the same privilege. As the first person to take advantage of this new freedom to rewrite the rules, I am creating a new Citizen’s Bylaw, hereafter known as Bylaw C-1, to become effective immediately. It reads as follows: Any councillor of the Town of Comox who belittles, chastises, defames or dismisses as unimportant any citizen of the Town of Comox is hereby consid-
ered to have overstepped the bounds of common decency and is no longer considered to be a fitting representative of said town, thereby becoming subject to instant dismissal. Upon obtaining the approval of 12 citizens of the Town of Comox, any resident of said town may call for the immediate curtailment of said councillor’s duties and that councillor shall be duly fired from the position of town councillor. The first application of this new Citizen’s Bylaw is being served to Tom Grant who, at the town council meeting on May 7, 2014 at which a letter from the Comox Town Residents Association
was brought forward, made the remark that it was merely “one gentleman” continuing to “rag on”. This remark belittles and dismisses as unimportant not only the opinion of one of the signers of this letter, but also the opinion of the entire CTRA membership on whose behalf this letter was written. As this remark by Tom Grant is clearly in contempt of the new Citizen’s Bylaw C-1, Councillor Tom Grant is hereby fired from Comox Town Council and is required to vacate his position effective immediately. Failure to comply with this execution of Bylaw C-1 will result in fines and annoying daily reminders.
The citizens of Comox are currently working on Bylaw C-2 which addresses the problem of possible Conflict of Interest within the Comox Town Council. Marilyn Machum Comox
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Education cuts will limit post-secondary options Dear editor; My name is Josh Burneau and I am a Grade 11 student in Courtenay, B.C. Recently, I learned that due to recent government budget cuts, school districts have had to find ways to save money. My school district has laid off over 270 teachers, all teachers hired from 2001-2014. They then posted approximately 150 jobs, meaning that next year, we will be short nearly 120 teachers. With fewer teachers, that means less courses and larger class sizes. Larger class sizes and fewer
Letters to the Editor Send your letter to [email protected], or drop it off at the Record office, 765 McPhee Ave. Please keep letters to a maximum of 300 words and sign with your name and hometown. We reserve the right to publish and to edit for space/clarity.
students mean less learning for the students of B.C. But, you have to remember that both the government and the BC Teachers Union have stated that they are “For the students”. With fewer classes, it means that it will be more difficult for students to get into postsecondary education. The youth of today
are fighting to get into required courses so that we can find careers in the future. With approximately 4,000 students in the Comox Valley, how can we all get into the required classes if we have less of them?? Rumours say that we will have to pay for all paper usage, meaning that all things will have to be handed in
electronically. However, as the Internet has shown time and time again, it fails. Computers aren’t perfect, things can get lost a lot easier on a network drive than they can in a file on a teacher’s desk. But keep in mind, this is all for the students. Fewer teachers, and fewer classes, means more stress on the
teachers. With the teachers already on a Phase 1 job action, not preforming any administrative duties, or supervising at recess, I fear a Phase 2 or even a Phase 3 job action. A job action, that to the current Grade 11s, casts a dark cloud over the certainty of their Grade 12 academics, sports, extra-curricular activities, and our grad ceremony. But remember, the B.C. government has said time and time again, that they are “For the Students.” Josh Burneau Courtenay
It will be provided to local emergency services for training. Then it will be recycled.
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Butle rebuttal: Tax cuts mean service cuts Dear editor, Re. John Butle’s letter titled “Time for teachers to accept generous deal being offered”: I am a senior citizen too, living on a pension. As a senior, I think I have a responsibility to be wellinformed about the issues of the day and not shoot from the lip as I suggest you did in the May 8 Comox Valley Record. Someone has fed you a bunch of information about government negotiations with teachers that is downright inaccurate and inflammatory to boot. I would recommend that you sit down with the local teacher’s union, listen to what they have to say and express your concerns so they can be addressed. Might not change your mind, but at least you will have the benefit of more information than you had when you wrote your letter to the editor.
COMOX Valley Record
phone 250 338-5811 fax 250 338-5568
If you can’t make that kind of meeting, I’d suggest you look at the tax cuts you have received from Ottawa and Victoria over the last dozen years or so then check out the
cuts in health care, education, grants to municipalities, streets, roads, highways, BC Ferries to name a few government services. You will confirm that there is a 1:1 ratio
between the tax cuts and service cuts. Oh, and increased fees like your medical services premium. Cliff Boldt Courtenay
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Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
PICTURE WEEK OF THE
SHELLY MILLER submitted this photo of a calm, quiet Comox Lake. Lakes and campgrounds will be anything but calm and quiet this weekend, as the first long weekend of the “summer” is sure to attract hordes of outdoor enthusiasts. E-mail your Picture of the Week submissions to editor@ comoxvalleyrecord. com. It may get published in an upcoming issue.
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Cyclists invited to meeting Share your views with the Cycling Public Advisory Committee Meeting. All members of the public are invited to attend this meeting of the Cycling Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) in the Evergreen Lounge of the Filberg Centre (near the Sid Williams) at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 22. The committee is interested in cyclists
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ideas regarding cycling in the Comox Valley. Commuters, recreational cyclists, mountain bikers or anyone with thoughts on how
to help make cycling safer and more enjoyable are welcome. For more info, see w w w. c o u r t e n a y. c a / cycling.aspx
June 4-7 Downtown Courtenay a culturally nutritious emergence of creativity, street level artistry, movement, sound, craft, random and spontaneous inspiration and more
The experts you need to know for...
LANDSCAPE TIES! 2843 Kilpatrick Ave, Courtenay
250-338-6941
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Highland dance comp in Cumberland Village Park in Cumberland will be hosting the Comox Valley’s annual Highland dance competiton on Saturday, featuring dancers from across the Island and across the province. The dancing begins at 9:30 a.m. and will carry on through the afternoon. Piping for this year’s dance competition will be provided by the very experienced Phil Mackenzie of Port Alberni and Alan Walters of Surrey.
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PICTURE of the Week Submit your local photography to the Comox Valley Record … please include your name and a short description.
Send Your Submission to: [email protected] PLEASE put in the subject line: Pic of the Week
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*Redeemable at select restaurants in participating BC Casinos and Chances locations. See BCCasinos.ca for locations and details. Present this coupon to restaurant staff upon seating. Each guest must spend a minimum of $10 on dining from the feature menu, excluding tax, tip and alcohol. Must be an Encore Rewards Member to participate. Restaurant operating hours and menu offering may vary by location. One coupon is valid for up to 4 guests. Guest(s) may only redeem one coupon per day. Guest must retain Meal & Reveal coupon and their dining receipt in order to receive a mystery gaming chip. Cannot be combined with any other offer and/or discount. Some restrictions may apply. Promotion is subject to change. No cash value. Mystery gaming chips for free slot play are limited in quantity and are available only while mystery gaming chips last. Offer valid on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5pm–9pm, April 23 – May 29, 2014. If you gamble, use your GameSense. Must be 19+ to play.
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Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
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Where art meets nature Woodland Gardens to host 12th annual Art & Bloom Festival Paula Wild Record Arts
Tucked away just north of Courtenay, Kitty Coleman Woodland Gardens is an exquisite blend of meandering forest trails, sunlit meadows and one of the largest rhododendron collections in Western Canada. Years ago, owner Bryan Zimmerman began bark mulching paths so visitors could enjoy the native plants and trees, birds, wildlife and stream on his
10-hectare property. Along the way, he planted 3,000 rhododendrons and then, to celebrate their blooms, invited artists to exhibit their work over the May long weekend. May 17-19 KCWG will host 80 artists in the 12th annual Art & Bloom Festival. Each day painters, potters, photographers, jewellery makers and other artisans will display their original work. Concession stands and entertainment add to the festivities.
“People really like the combination of art and the gardens, especially when the rhodos are in bloom,” notes Zimmerman. “And I always include new artists to keep things interesting.” One such artist is shamanic bone painter, Kuctizi Ribe. Originally from Mexico and now living in Errington, Ribe felt the call to a spiritual life early in life. “I’ve been painting skulls for 20 years,” she says. “For me, it is about the sacred connection to the animal more than creating art.” Skull painting is an intricate process that involves asking permission of the animal to breathe some life back into its bones and divining how that should be portrayed. It can take Ribe up to six weeks to complete a large horse skull. “I don’t plan the work ahead of time,” she says. “It comes to me as I paint. Many people are attracted to a certain piece as their spirit companion.” Ribe sometimes finds bones on her forest excursions but most PHOTO SUBMITTED are given to her by farmers or ROY HANCLIFF’S bird photography is amazing. hunters. “The process for cleaning, and feeding habits for hours to lery in Whistler began carrying bleaching and restoring the bones determine where they will come my work.” Livingstone’s abstract expresis often long and gruesome,” she into the frame as each bird has a admits. “It keeps me in constant completely different approach as sionism acrylic landscapes range proximity to the mystery of the they feed,” he says. “It’s extremely from modest to extremely large. “I’m drawn to reflections and continuum of life, death and new challenging but I thrive on it.” life.” Being an artist was not part of refracted light,” he says. “My To say Roy Hancliff’s inflight Gavin Livingstone’s life plan. In paintings are a blend of photo bird photography is stunning is fact, he never painted anything realism with enough abstract the understatement of the year. until 1999. But when he was elements to allow room for the “My goal nearly killed viewer’s imagination.” Ribe, Hancliff and Livingstone is to capture and lost his wife, I’ve been painting something that job and house in are just a sampling of the diverse the naked eye skulls for 20 years. For me, the space of four array of artists that will be at cannot nor- it is about the sacred condays he knew it the Art & Bloom Festival this mally see,” was time for a weekend. KCWG is a 15-minute drive the Qualicum nection to the animal more change. Beach resident than creating art. He bought an north of Courtenay on the Old says. “I want to old canvas and Island Highway. Turn right on Kuctizi Ribe some paint and, Coleman Road and watch for portray a bird that is often after a weekend, signs. The festival runs from 10 considered ordinary in all its in his off-the-grid cabin, discov- a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday with a 4 p.m. closing on splendour.” ered he loved the process. To accomplish this, the world“I prayed to the Good Creator, Monday. Admission is $10 and $8 renowned photographer has sat promising that if it would help for seniors (60+). Dogs on leash in hides in -15 or +35 degrees with quality, I’d take care of the are welcome. For more information visit Celsius to get shot he’s after. quantity,” says Livingstone. “It “I study a bird’s flight patterns wasn’t long after that that a gal- www.woodlandgardens.ca.
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Come & Enjoy
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BONE PAINTER KUCTIZI RIBE will be at the festival with some of his painted animal skulls, like this white buffalo calf skull.
+ TAX
Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD arts
& entertainment
www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
Songsmith duo takes the stage New show at Zocalo Brodie Dawson and imagine a spontaneous Tracy Riley will bring an kitchen party joined by evening of musical magic the likes of Melissa Etheridge, Ellen McIlwaine, to the stage at Studio Live Neil Young and James in Cumberland May 22 at Brown and you can get 7:30 p.m. an idea of what it is like This all ages show will to see and hear Tracy perbe a chance for Comox form. Her audiences are Valley fans to witness captivated by her enerwhat all the hype is surgetic passion for music. rounding this amazing Whether performing an pair of songsmiths. original or her interpreDawson and Riley are tation of a classic ‘crowd excited to join forces this pleaser’, Riley leaves her spring, given the overtrademark charismatic whelming response from and rhythmic signature their last tour which has all over it. energized this pair to ‘bring it’ once again. Her off-grid personality and rustic humour are Winner of ‘Vocalist the results of living most of the Year’ at the 2014 of her life on a northern Vancouver Island Music island with no amenities. Awards and nominated This woman knows how for ‘Best Live Act’ at both to make magic happen no 2013 and 2014 VIMA’s, matter where she plays or Brodie Dawson definitely what the situation. delivers. Tracy has performed You may have heard at festivals and concerts Brodie on CBC radio this all across Canada and the past month during the United States, from Arviat Searchlight contest – The to Beverly Hills as well as Hunt for Canada’s Best appearing on CBC radio’s New Artist. The Vinyl Café, Madly Off Dawson calls her style In All Directions, Peter a mix of ‘soulful folky Gzowski’s Morningside blues’ with a gospel funk, and The Vicki Gabereau a twist of pop and a twang Show. of old-school country; true Brodie dawson (top) and fellow Riley recently completto all those genres she songsmith Tracy Riley hit the stage at PhotoS Submitted ed a tour of Vancouver sings of life, love, search- Studio Live. Island and Interior B.C., ing and finding your way. Serenity Music in Clearwater, For those of you that haven’t and appeared on radio shows in the fall of 2013, with the talheard her sing, you’re in for a such as CBC North’s Homemade ented singer/songwriter Brodie treat. She’ll catch you at the door Jam with Norbert Poitras and Dawson. See more at: www.traas the first notes of her voice CBC’s The Vinyl Café with Stu- cyrileymusic.com Tickets are $15 in advance will totally captivate you, speak art McLean. directly to your heart the entire Tracy Riley is a multi-talented and $20 at the door. Advance evening, and have you groov- musician who plays acoustic gui- tickets are available at Bop City ing right along with her as she tar, harmonica, hand drums and Records in Courtenay, and The Wandering Moose and Riders engages and connects with her bass. audiences in a delightful way. She is known as a superb Pizza in Cumberland. For more Her voice has graced coffee singer/songwriter and entertain- information and a complete list of tour dates visit: http://broshops, house concerts, pubs, er with a rich, soulful voice. clubs, community events, and Her roots are folk with over- diedawson.com Studio Live is situated at 2376 festivals such as Folk on the tones of funk, blues and jazz, Rocks in Yellowknife, The Big which she delivers with her Beaufort Ave. at First Avenue in Time Out in Cumberland, and unique percussive style. Just Cumberland.
OPEN LATE
Great Pub Food ‘Til Late!
Coming Events
Catherine Bell has once again opened the doors of her restaurant, Zocalo Café, to allow the art groups of local artist and instructor Teresa Knight to present Fresh Paint 2. Knight is a well-known artist and art teacher who offers painting
Entertainment Hour at Berwick with Marlene Oolo & Friends
Entertainment Hour is free to Comox Valley Seniors! Limited seating; call today.
Tuesday, May 20th 2:00 p.m. Featuring: Dolyna Ukrainian Dancers Singers Gregg Deshutter & Joey Clarkson Refreshments compliments of Berwick Comox Valley
Call to reserve your spot today! 250-890-2338 Visit BerwickRetirement.com
Liquor Store
Special
POINTS MATCH, NO CATCH Convert your store points to Best Western points - ask in store for details
monthly Brunch draw
Join Us for BLUE JAY GAMES
Barao vs Dillashaw Saturday May 24th! 7pm • No Cover
& ENTER TO WIN TICKETS TO SEE JAYS VS MARINERS IN SEATTLE
Comedy Night
Andrew Albert and Leo Flowers! $10 Cover • Laughter Starts at 9pm
Tonight! May 15th
Weekend Dance Party Friday: DJ TwiztedT Saturday: DJ B-CHUK
Georgia Straight Jazz Society Presents
Saxophonist Extraordinaire
COLD BEER TAPS • SPORTS FAVOURITES • 12
May 22nd • 7:30pm $5 Admission 3 Course Candlelit Dinner before the show $18.00
Claudio Fantinato
Purchase Lucky Beer & Get a FREE Swag*
Wednesdays
6’s 8’s 15’s 24’s
Next Door to the Pub!
250-331-0111
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
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Artist group at Filberg Lodge The Brushworks Artist Group Annual Spring Fine Art Show and Sale is taking place at the Filberg Lodge during the long weekend, May 17 to 19. The Filberg Lodge is a historical site that offers interpretive tours during the show. The teahouse will be
open so people can complete their visit to Brushworks Spring Fine Art Show. More then 28 Comox Valley artists are participating in the show. The group was formally established in 2001, and meets and paints Wednesdays. — Brushworks Artist Group
Integrating arts, music and academics to create a passion for learning using the Waldorf Curriculum taught by Waldorf Certified teachers. Experiential Learning Nurturing connections to nature and the global community through hands-on experience.
Preparing for a Changing World
Damned by vivian Lochridge is part of her ‘I Love Colour’ show at the Pearl Ellis Gallery. Photo Submitted
For the love of colour The Pearl Ellis Gallery in Comox presents ‘I Love Colour’, a show and sale by Vivian Lochridge which is running until June 1. Lochridge is an interdisciplinary from the Comox Valley who is heavily influenced by how traditional genres function in contemporary society. The work is strongly linked to her psychological geography; from the vastness of Patagonia to the northern Canada she loves. She is presently at work exploring the beauty that the balance and harmony of the human form can acquire; an extension of the aesthetic and almost sexual beauty of forms she depicts in animals, mountains, trees and flowers. Following a traditional painterly vein she discovers motifs in a synthesis of skill melded with the liberty of post-modern processes and conceptual schemes. Her style is direct painting with careful attention to the position-
ing of her models and objects, traditional contemporary. background, lighting and colour A reception for the show will choices. be held May 17. Her range of representations Come join Lochridge for is loosely rendered and elicits refreshments from 1 to 4 p.m. at strong emotional responses. the Pearl Ellis Gallery located at Lochridge’s brush strokes evoke 1729 Comox Ave. emotions awakened by sound, the This is a great opportunity to sound of colour. The aim is to offer meet the artist. The gallery is the audience a different take on open Tuesday to Saturday from the delicacy and vibrancy of the 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sundays from 1 world we live in. to 4 p.m. and closed Mondays. At Lochridge has been showing the reception, any new or existing in juried shows both on Vancou- member of the Pearl Ellis Gallery ver Island and Vancouver for the will receive a 10 per cent discount past three years. This is her sec- on artwork purchased. ond solo show. Her aim is to For more information, visit share with you her vision of the www.pearlellisgallery.com or visit preciousness of the smallest and our Facebook page for a virtual the magnificence of the largest tour of shows being held at the of things. gallery. What inhabits this fantastic — Pearl Ellis Gallery place we live in, while continuously exploring Comox Valley Floor Centre and searching for that new is pleased to welcome ground that will make the
Escape the Ordinary EUROPEAN RIVER CRUISES PRESENTATION Join us and find out more about these “All-inclusive” European River Cruises Wednesday May 21st……2pm RSVP... Limited space - reserve your seat now!
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Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
First tour for Sister Plum
W hat’s
Highland grad heading east to promote debut studio album
Valley-raised musi- parts of Canada, from songs that hits you in cian Elder Sister the bustling metropo- just the right place Plum is embarking lises of Toronto and …” while Pamela Filon her first tour. Montreal, to the lion of forgetthebox. The name Elder northern lifestyles of net wrote “…VernacSister Plum was cre- Whitehorse and Daw- ular dances from her ated by counter-cul- son City. lips to our ears, beckture novelist Kurt Semple launched a oning listeners into Vonnegut, but now successful Indiegogo the song paintings Highland Secondary crowdfunding cam- she reveals where graduate Tanya Sem- paign in the sum- kisses are stolen, ple is making it hers. mer of 2013 to raise journeys are taken, That’s the and treasures are 26-year-old singerreconsidered.” Since graduating, songwriter’s stage The Indiegogo name, and in May Semple has spent a campaign brought Elder Sister Plum lot of time discovering Elder Sister Plum will fly to Toron- parts of Canada, from back to the Comox to to tour eastern Valley on April 12, Canada and pro- the bustling metropolis- to play a house conmote her debut es of Toronto and Mon- cert for her biggest full-length stu- treal, to the northern supporters: famdio album “People and friends. The lifestyles of Whitehorse ily Like Us”. audience was uniLike the author and Dawson City. formly delighted that inspired with her lyrics and her stage name, musical presence. Semple’s music Elder Sister explores the human the funds to record Plum will continue to experience using “People Like Us”. The play venues around empathy, humour, album was record- Victoria, B.C. until and a healthy sense of ed at Townhouse she leaves for Toronthe fantastic. “People Recording Facility to. Like Us” is a 12-song & Sound Studio in Her two-week East musical autobiogra- Toronto, and released Coast tour begins phy weaving tales of in July of 2013 to crit- May 27 in Fredricton, sirens and doomed ical acclaim amongst N.B. and concludes in sailors, dark and university and com- Toronto, June 9. mystical pirates, as munity radio station For a sample of well as personal tales music-watchers. Elder Sister Plum’s InRetro Magazine/ music, access this of the joys and sorRadio describes her article at www.comoxrows of life. Growing up in album as “ … a rainy- valleyrecord.com and Comox, Semple day-feel collection of click the link. honed her musical skills at the Rainbow the Youth Theatre and Cantiamo Chamber Presents Ensemble. She was Features Showing May 16th-22nn an active participant X-Men: Days of Future Past 3D in school concert and PG: Violence; coarse language. Pass restricted until June 6th jazz bands, choir, and Sneak Peek, Thursday, May 22nd: 10:00 in Grade 11 landed a Godzilla 3DPG: Violence. Pass restricted until May 30th lead role in Highland Nightly: 6:50 & 9:35; Friday & Tuesday Matinees: 3D 3:35; Secondary’s musical Saturday to Monday Matinees: 3D 12:40 & 2D 3:35 “Anything Goes.” Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return 3D G: No warning Since graduating, Fri & Tues Matinees: 3D 3:55; Sat to Mon Matinees: 3D 12:50 & 2D 3:15 Semple has spent a The Other Woman PG: Coarse & sexual language lot of time discovering Friday to Wednesday: 7:00 & 9:30; Thursday: 7:00 Neighbors 18A: Frequent coarse & sexual language; sexually
Rialto
ARTS COMOX VALLEY RECORD Your Community. Your Newspaper. COMOX VALLEY
RECORD
suggestive scenes. Pass restricted until May 23rd Nightly: 7:10 & 9:40; Fri & Tues Mats: 3:45; Sat to Mon Mats: 12:30 & 3:45 The Amazing Spiderman 2 3D PG: Violence Nightly: 6:40 & 9:45; Friday & Tuesday Matinees: 3D 3:25 www.landmarkcinemas.com Driftwood Mall 250-338-5550
HAPPENING To have your entertainment event included in our What’s Happening lineup, please send the details of your event to [email protected]. Event listing should be no more than 50 words and should include date, time, place and cost. Thursday, May 15 BIG BAND MUSIC The Little Red Church features the Georgia Strait Big Band for its Beltone Jazz Series. Doors for this all-ages event open at 7 and performance starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $12 at the door.
ELDER SISTER PLUM otherwise known as Tanya Semple is promoting her first fulllength studio album. PHOTO SUBMITTED
8th Annual MAY PLANT SALE CV Growers & Seed Savers Saturday, May 24 9am -12 noon Simms Millennium Park (near 5th St Bridge)
Strong, healthy, locally grown, seedling veggies, herbs, fruit, flowers, and shrubs. Come early; Bring friends!
www.cvgss.org
CHANCES COURTENAY THE HOME OF
IN CONJUNCTION WITH PARNELL PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS…
KITTY’S BIG SHOW
AT THE SID WILLIAMS THEATRE
SATURDAY JUNE 21 7p TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE SID WILLIAMS BOX OFFICE
TICKETS $35
Where good friends meet
CANADIAN COMEDY AT IT’S FINEST
TUESDAYS: BURGERS & WINGS 59PM THURSDAYS: COD FISH & CHIPS $7.95 FRIDAYS: STEAK & PRAWNS $12.95 SATURDAYS: JD BABY BACK RIBS 59PM
4000 Isl Hwy, Royston
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Friday, May 16 KIWANIS JUNKTIQUE The Kiwanis Junktique will be held on Friday May 16, 6-8 p.m. and Saturday, May 17, 8-10 a.m. in the church hall at St. Georges United Church on 5th Street in Courtenay. Usual array of this and that, as well as some fixed price collectibles. Saturday, May 17 DENMAN ISLAND POTTERY SHOW Denman Island’s 27th annual Pottery Studio Tour takes place this weekend, featuring an incredible variety of exciting clay creations, Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Various venues. PRAWNS AT THE MARKET The Comox Valley Farmers Market will be featuring B.C. prawns today. Onsite chef Laura Agnew will create several prawn tasters for sampling including Tom Yum soup, and seared prawns with her famous Chang Mai sauce. 9 a.m.- noon at the Exhibition Grounds. CROWN ISLE ART SHOW Artists Marg Selkirk, Gail Neuls and Martha Ponting exhibit their “Colour Burst” collection at Crown iIsle Resort, 399 Clubhouse Drive. Show runs Saturday, 10 a.m. - 8 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. QUILT SHOW The Comox Valley Schoolhouse Quilters’ Guild has a 30th Anniversary Quilt Show May 17-19. Times are Sat.-Sun. 10-5, Mon. 10-4. $5 admission. Cumberland Cultural Centre, 2674 Dunsmuir. Quilt show display, quilt raffle, guild boutique, raffle baskets, merchants’ mall for Quilters Cupcake Tea Room. Part of Cumberland Empire Days. THE WESTIE WALK will move to Cumberland the Highland Games. The Highland Caninies will meet at 11:45 a.m. at the Legion in Cumberland, then walk to the new Cumberland dog park for the Highland Games events. Highland breeds welcome. Sunday, May 18 COMOX VALLEY NATURE presents Sharon Niscak’s “Indigenous Plants: Sharing Traditional Ecological Wisdom with a focus on the traditional plants and foods that are part of our environment,” at the Filberg Seniors Centre at 7 p.m., as part of CVN’s monthly meeting. Anyone interested in this lecture or participating in CVNS activities can also contact Loys Maingon (CVN President) at 250-331-0143. Thursday, May 22 The Point Holmes Recreation Association Annual General Meeting, 7 p.m. at the PHRA pavilion beside the boat ramp. Everyone is welcome to attend, new members and old, and pickup a 2014 renewal sticker for their vehicle. Friday, May 23 Vancouver Island Water Watch Coalition Water Forum, Our Water, Our Future~ 2014 May 23 – 24 at the Filberg Centre. Friday 6 p.m. screening of “Fractured Land”. Saturday features sessions and bus tours. Call June Ross at 250-729-0185 for more info. Saturday, May 24 GIANT GARAGE SALE Location Black Creek Mennonite Brethren Church on the Island highway There will be plants , a bake sale and refreshments and lots of great bargains from months of donations and several estates. The sale runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., no early shopping . Proceeds from this sale go directly to Mennonite Central Committee Projects PLANT SALE The Comox Valley Growers and Seed Savers 8th Annual May Plant Sale. 9 a.m. - noon, Simms Millennium Park. Hundreds of tomatoes and many, many other garden starts: veggies, herbs, berries, and shrubs to sell. JAZZ CONCERT The Strathcona Symphony Orchestra presents RAZZAMAJAZZ at the Native Sons Hall in Courtenay. Doors at 6:30. Concert at 7 p.m. Tickets $15. METALLICA TRIBUTE BAND Damage Inc. will be performing at the Waverley Hotel in Cumberland. Advance tickets are $12 and available at Bop City, the Waverley Hotel, (250) 336-8322 or online at cumberlandvillageworks.com. Doors at 9:30 p.m. Sunday, May 25 CUMBERLAND GARAGE SALE Cumberland Community Schools Society is hosting its sixth annual HUGE Garage Sale 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Cumberland Elementary Gym. For more information, please call Donna at 250-400-8086 or Sara at 250-7022169. VALLEY IDOL finals at Little Red Church. FMI: www. valleyidol.ca. Thursday, May 29 Comox Valley Land Trust AGM. 7 p.m. in the Seniors Lounge at the Florence Filberg Centre. Among the agenda, Guy Dauncey will present a talk entitled: “Life on the Land: A New Spirituality, A New Vision, A New Reality”. LAUGH THE NIGHT AWAY Kitty’s Comedy Night at Red21 Chances Playtime Gaming brings comedian Rob Balsdon from Kelowna and Erica Sidgurdson from Vancouver. Show at 8 p.m.
Lifestyles
‘If you love them, leave them alone’
E
ach year during baby wildlife season MARS (Mountainaire Avian Rescue Society) repeats the message ‘If you love them leave them alone’ in hopes of reinforcing the importance of leaving wildlife to be nurtured by the parents. Fluffy ducklings seem to be irresistible and prone to human interference; this often results in babies being abandoned by the parents thus becoming orphans. Mallard ducks are one of the most common duck species in North America and Euro-Asia and are thought to be the ancestors of common domesticated ducks that are still known to mate with our domesticated ducks, producing hybrids. Found in shallow wetlands, they have also adapted to urban living where they can be found in ponds, lakes and rivers as well as estuaries and shallow ocean shores. The male or drake is quite stunning in his breeding plumage; his vivid iridescent green head and neck are ringed in white feathers and the grey wings are tipped with white and blue. Their black tail is distinct with a curly upturned tip. Females pale in comparison as they are the main protector of the young and need to be well camouflaged during the incubation and hatching process. Females are predominately brown with white streaking and blue and white wing feathers. Food for these ducks
Mars Moment
www. comoxvalleyrecord.com MONY PET CARE HAR A FAMILY AFFAIR
Sandy
Fairfield includes aquatic vegetation and insects that are close to the surface, but they will also eat insects, grass and seeds plus the occasional shellfish treat. Drakes will search for a mate in late summer and will stay with her until they mate the following spring. Once mated, the male will take off with the other drakes and begin a complete feather moult, during which they cannot fly. A normal clutch of eggs for these ducks is between 12 and 14. Sadly, only a few will survive to reach adulthood as many wildlife species dine on the eggs or vulnerable ducklings; unfortunately this is part of the natural food chain. Once the eggs have hatched, which takes place over a few days, the mother’s focus is to lead her brood to the nearest body of water as soon as possible
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• Pet Care (in your home) • Dog Walking • Home Checks Loving care for your pets in the comfort of their home Call Dianne 250-792-3531 or Asheya 250-703-3652
www.harmonypetcare.ca FRIDAY MAY 16
WITH BRIAN ~ WIN UP TO 1000 LOONIES
SATURDAY THE ENABLERS MAY 17 VANCOUVER ISLAND 9:30PM No Cover
These ducklings were recently found on the Inland Island Highway and are now at MARS, (Mountainaire Avian Rescue Society). which is often a route fraught with danger. Nests can be quite a way from water — some ducks even nest in tree hollows — and many times there are too many ducklings to safely lead the whole brood so the mother takes half returning for the remainder. MARS encountered a situation with a mother who was attempting to cross the Inland Island Highway when baby ducklings were trapped against the median on the road.
It was quite a comical event captured on TV, with the ducklings evading the nets and once captured and driven to the wildlife centre, they managed to squeeze out of their cage and explored the back of the truck! Unfortunately the mother did not return for the chicks. If you find ‘orphaned’ babies please leave them alone, or call us at 250-337-2021 for advice. Please remember ducks are not meant to eat bread
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2014 SD 71 Explore Outdoor Education Garage Sale Donations and Supporters: The students, teachers and families of the SD 71 Explore Outdoor Education Program would like to express their heartfelt appreciation and thanks to the hundreds of businesses, organizations, and community members, who donated, helped out and showed their support for Explore’s Gigantic Garage Sale/Fundraiser and for the program itself. The event was a great success and the Explore Outdoor Education program wouldn’t be possible without your very generous support. Your donations and support will ensure that Explore can continue to teach Comox Valley students valuable outdoor leadership, teamwork and environmental stewardship skills now and in the future!
*Offer runs May 1 to June 30. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer. Call for details.
Comox Valley Transit
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COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
ACS Computer Solutions Alberni Outpost Arbornaut Forest, Farm & Nursery Art Knapp’s Atlas Café Atlas manufacturing Avon B. Hill RMT massage Best Western Plus Beyond Beautiful Smiles Black Creek Farm and Feed Blacks Cycle Bonnie & Clyde’s Booster Juice Boston Pizza Butcher’s Block Cameron’s Salon & Barber Canadian Tire Carol Baker Central Builders Chads Chatters Cherry Wine Fashions Comox Dollar Store Comox Recreation Centre Comox Valley Boxing Club Comox Valley Echo Comox Valley Naturalists Comox Valley Record Comox Valley Regional District Comox Valley Sports & Aquatic Centres Costco Courtenay District Fish & Game Cranberry Mama Crown Isle Golf Resort Cumberland Bakery Cumberland Village Works Darkside Chocolates
Denman Hardware Denman Island Abraxas Books Discovery Foods DJB Photography Doggydo Don McRae, MLA Extreme Runners Fabric Land Finning Full Circle Home works Gone Fishin GP Vanier Secondary School staff & students Grains Gunter’s Hartman Auto Holbrook Dyson Home Depot Hot Chocolates Islanders Pizza Jet FM 98.9 Jims Cloths Closet Kingfisher Laughing Oyster Lazy Boy London Drugs Long & Mcquade Maria’s Esthetics Mcdonalds Michaels Off Main Mountain City Cycle Mountain Equipment Co-op Mud Sharks North Island Heating One Thirty Three Board shop Oyster River Fire Hall Pacific Boarder Paradise Plants Parker Marine
Quality Foods River Meadows Nursery Robert A Rusty Rooster Safeway Salmon Point Pub School District 71 Shoppers Silpada Jewellery Ski Tack Hut Staples Starbucks Still Paint Studio Massage Stowaway Adventures Sailing School Succeed Fishing Company Summerside Tack Sunnydale Golf Course Sunshine Organics Superstore Sylvan Vale Nursery The Broken Spoke The Plant Collector Thrifty’s Tim Horton’s Trail Bikes Treasure Shack Tria Pine Catering & Gourmet Eats Trousers UB Diving Van Isle Vet Village Muse Walmart Water Pure and Simple Waterworks Garden Sculpture White Spot York Machine Shop
And hundreds of other community members including many Explore families, friends, neighbours and teachers
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Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
DANGEROUS CURVES AHEAD
ACROSS 1 Allured by 12 Where water remains after an ebb 21 Direct results 22 Big-band singer called “The Jezebel of Jazz” 23 Common types of thrill rides 25 Co.’s top dog 26 S.F. thoroughfare famous for its hairpin curves 27 Fog or mist 30 Bulge (out) 33 Gas in signs 34 State north of Neb. 38 Oahu, e.g. 39 Flower-holding jar 40 Boston Bruin Bobby 41 Status — 44 Kimono securer 45 Disco fan on “The Simpsons” 46 Mended a hem, e.g. 47 Port in Brazil, for short 48 Indefinite article in Italy 49 Psychic “gift” 50 Triceps site 51 Fired 52 Hooting bird 53 — Van Dyke 54 Maple stuff 55 Dried out, with “up” 57 Constricting serpent 58 Window components 59 Pub draft 60 “Zounds!” 61 Thickly fibrous 62 Sneaky guy? 63 Lab helper with a hump 64 “Hammerin’ Hank” 66 Sharp changes of direction 67 Sharp changes of direction 68 Seniors’ dances 69 Reduced 70 Zestfulness 71 Claudius I’s successor 72 Italian “Bye!” 73 Audit org. 74 Zestful 75 Limonite, e.g.
76 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94
Dad’s dad Jon — Jovi Sottish sort L-P middle Renoir of film Put a label on Quiet — mouse Bush spokesman Fleischer Holiday tree Bizarre, slangily Capacious coffeepot — choy Viking’s place Verb suffix in Sussex Amiss Tribe of Canada Baldwin of “To Rome With Love” 96 Spiteful 97 Suffix with infant 98 Frog locales 99 Really hitting the sauce 104 Water, in Toulon 105 #1 Beatles hit of 1970 114 Actress who co-starred in “The Help” 115 Very simple 116 Unfinished business 117 2011-13 secretary of defense DOWN 1 Deed 2 AAA job 3 Prefix for “three” 4 Revolver, in old slang 5 With 56-Down, secondary personalities 6 Classic Liz Taylor role 7 Pothole fill 8 Foul up 9 Italian for “God” 10 Relate 11 Capital in Scandinavia 12 Seat of North Carolina’s Edgecombe County 13 Old Peruvian 14 Christian — 15 Somewhat 16 Scottish girl 17 Actress Annie
18 19 20 24 27 28 29 30 31 32 35 36 37 39 41 42 43 46 52 53 56 57 58 61 63 64 65 66 67 68 70 71 72 74 76 77 78 81 82 86 87 93 95 96 98 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113
Poem type Boat paddle Fleur-de- — “Bam!” chef Entry stamps Houston ballplayer Pipe-clearing tool Chatted “Get — to it!” A Kennedy Acts the Samaritan Favorite son of David Some cured herrings Tormented See 72-Down Quitter’s cry Acorn bearers Food wrap “My bad” San — Zoo See 5-Down Swamplike Meager Rock Starr? Shah’s land “Arabian Nights” figure Spray can suspension Bright, showy flower Not a one Spinet, say Old name of the Congo Bad news for magazine publishers With 41-Down, patchworks “— the night before ...” Music class Whittled De Mille of dance Total up incorrectly Dewlap Actor Ralph Moo goo — pan Route Tab and RC “— my big mouth!” Wiccan, e.g. Snout Opening bet Weed — (lawn care product) Go upward New Age superstar Rolodex no. Med. service Comic Philips Prefix with conservative Veep Quayle MSN, e.g. Go (for) Bit of land in a river Narc’s agcy.
Answer to Previous Puzzle
www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
Puzzling… Fun by the Numbers: Here’s how it works: Sudoku puzzles are formatted as a 9x9 grid, broken down into nine 3x3 boxes. To solve a sudoku, the numbers 1 through 9 must fill each row, column and box. Each number can appear only once in each row, column and box. You can figure out the order in which the numbers will appear by using the numeric clues already provided in the boxes. The more numbers you name, the easier it gets to solve the puzzle!
SOLUTION TO LAST WEEK’S PUZZLES
May 18 to May 24, 2014 The luckiest signs this week: Taurus, Gemini, and Cancer.
ARIES Expect to receive lots of invitations from your friends. There is always someone to talk to. You attend a few large gatherings. TAURUS Your career is suddenly catapulted forward when you dare to make some revolutionary suggestions. You may also start your own business. GEMINI Someone confides some very particular secrets to you. You may have to decipher a message in another language or, perhaps, a cryptic comment from your loved one. CANCER You are a bundle of nerves. You may also shed tears of joy. One of your children may achieve a huge exploit, even if it’s only to take his or her first steps towards something.
LEO In order to negotiate successfully, put your emotions to the side. If you want to avoid any problems, be sure to respect the laws and regulations to the letter. VIRGO There is lots of work on the horizon. You won’t have time to breathe at the office. What’s more, you probably won’t be in the best of health and so some rest is necessary. LIBRA You are particularly proud of yourself after accomplishing a brilliant exploit. You discover some unsuspected talents. SCORPIO You spend some time at home, where you’re sure to find a wall to paint or some jobs that you’d enjoy doing. A move could unexpectedly materialize.
SAGITTARIUS You have a lot to talk about. Indeed, if you’re keeping some secrets you may have difficulty in staying quiet and reveal one with a slip of the tongue. CAPRICORN This is a great week to think seriously about selling or buying a property. You are fairly surprised to realize that you can afford your ambitions. AQUARIUS Everything is going at top speed this week. You settle lots of things and you manage to contact people fairly easily; people will return your calls quickly. PISCES You are overflowing with imagination and you undertake a great masterpiece. You also attend some sort of show that really impresses you.
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Ask yourself these two questions I
n my line of work as a Sandwich Generation like to avoid any uncertainty private geriatric case or undue stress for them manager, there are few both. days that go by where I’m Before you run off and not reminded of the consestart looking for any imporendy quences of “not having one’s tant documents in those affairs in order.” In my last ohnstone dusty filing cabinets, (or in column, I spoke first-hand my case, the stack of papers about my family’s personal waiting to be filed), take a experience with having to make diffistep back and take stock of where you cult end-of-life decisions when my Dad are at in your future care planning. was unable to speak for himself after a Ask yourself the following questions: stroke left him on life support. •Do you have a will, power of attorney and an advance care plan (includI won’t go into why most Canadians don’t invest in future care planing a representation agreement and ning. Rather, I’ll encourage you to ask advance care directive)? yourself two questions: “What is pre•In a medical emergency whereby venting me from planning ahead?” and paramedics need to transport you from “What is preventing me from gathering home to hospital, do you have a ‘Just important documentation and putting it in Case’ Emergency file? This would in one place?” include medical history, emergency Personally, I can tell you from my contacts, current list of medications, vantage point, it’s a low priority for me advance care plan, etc. at 41 years of age. A little reflection can •If I become critically ill, who is able help identify any barriers and often, we to care for me? Do they know I expect or can find something to motivate us to want them to care for me? Are they able overcome inertia. For me, I think about and willing to care for me? my daughter and husband and how I’d •Have I financially planned for a
J
W
critical illness and/or multiple chronic conditions? For example, hiring private services to help with maintaining independence and quality living at home as I age or after a critical illness, or moving to a more supportive living environment or to be closer to family. If you are an older person or if you are an adult child with aging parents, consider the following: •Is the senior living in their own home? •Am I seeing changes in cognition and/or does my aging relative have some form of dementia? •Is safety and well-being in the home a concern? •Am I prepared to be a caregiver? The good news is even if most of your answers are ‘No,’ the resources are at your fingertips. The bad news, well, you have to wait for another two weeks before we start tackling each question! Wendy Johnstone is a gerontologist and is the founder of Keystone Eldercare Solutions. Her column runs in the Comox Valley Record every second Thursday.
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International Fluevog Day
Fluevogs Have Arrived at
onsider the simBehind the Wheel imagination. ple traffic sign Those that interfere or signal. with traffic signs and It stands by the side signals may be dealt of the highway doing with in a variety of im its job regardless of ways. The most serious of these are found the season. We rely chewe in the Criminal Code. on it to tell us when In the case of simto stop, how fast to ple damage, the mischief provisions go, which way to turn or whether might apply. If the death or bodily we can travel in a certain direction harm to a person results, the crimias well as many other controlling nal negligence provisions could be functions. This is a reliance that we might used. not consider until we run into trouFor more information about ble because it is lacking. this topic, visit www.drivesmartbc. What happens when vandals ca. Questions or comments are knock down one of the stop signs at welcome by e-mail to comments@ a four-way stop, and the intersecdrivesmartbc.ca. Tim Schewe is a tion is approached by a driver who retired RCMP constable with many doesn’t know there should be a sign years of traffic law enforcement there? Cross traffic is expecting experience. His column appears him to stop … the rest is up to your Thursdays.
S
Consider the road sign C
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
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B8
Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
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SPORTS
Largest-ever Mini World Cup was a huge success in the Comox Valley -- SEE PAGE B10
Drift cars put on a dazzling display for spectators at Saratoga Speedway
-- SEE PAGE B18
COMOX VALLEY RECORD ♦ SPORTS EDITOR: EARLE COUPER ♦ THURSDAY, MAY 15, 2014
B9
Carr golden at Western Canadians B.C. athletes took five of the top 10 spots in the Open 4 category at the 2014 Western Canadian Gymnastics Championships. Indeed, first place on each apparatus – floor exercise, vault, balance beam and uneven bars - as well as first place overall was won by a B.C. athlete. The competition took place in Saskatoon at the end of April and saw top gymnasts from B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Yukon compete for the title of nWestern Canadian Gymnastics Champion. The athletes competed with others in the same age range and difficulty level. Gymnasts from Levels 4, 5 and National qualified at their respective Provincial Gymnastics Championship meets earlier this spring. This year, two Island athletes participated in the Open 4 category and both brought home gold medals. Lauren Carr from Chimo Gymnastics in
MELISSA MACADAM (LEFT) and Lauren Carr both won gold medals while representing B.C. at the Western Canadian Gymnastics Championships.
❝
Lauren’s first Tsukahara vault was extremely strong and she stuck the landing.
❞
Comox qualified for this year’s competition at the Provincial Championships in Kamloops. The 16-year-old Mark R. Isfeld student started competing with Chimo Gymnastics four years ago and was thrilled to qualify for this event. Vault is the only event in gymnastics that gives you two chances to do your best. Lauren’s first Tsukahara vault was extremely strong and she stuck the landing. Her second vault was even more dynamic, and even with a slight step on the landing scored her a 13.55, placing her solidly in first place on the podium 0.75 ahead of her competitors. Carr placed fourth on floor
Junior cyclist wins Washington race Local Trail Bicycles Junior cyclist, Isaac van der Vliet, enjoyed success in Wenatchi, Wash. at the Tour de Bloom earlier this month. He travelled to Washington State with a number of other B.C. Junior riders to compete in the two-day event. The stage race started with a 4.1 mile hill climb in Squilchuck State Park, finishing at Mission Ridge. Van der Vliet was with the front group on the hill and, even after being involved in an unfortunate crash, finished in fifth place. The second stage was
and positioned her for seventh place overall. Comox and Campbell River gymnasts train together on occasion and cheer each other on at meets. Westerns were no exception. Melissa MacAdam from Springs Gymnastics in Campbell River brought her determination to Saskatoon. The Comox/Campbell River contingent was thrilled to cheer Melissa on to take first place on floor and third place on beam, ultimately crowning her the 2014 Open Level 4 Western Canadian Gymnastics Champion, a fitting finish for this 15 year gymnastics veteran as she prepares to graduate high school and pursue postsecondary education. Both athletes expressed their appreciation for their coaches, respective gymnastics clubs, teammates, friends and families for their support. – Chimo Gymnastics
ISAAC VAN DER VLIET (centre) finished first overall in the Tour de Bloom stage race earlier this month in Wenatchi, Wash.
a criterium in the heart of downtown Wenatchee. It was a fast, four-corner course on a 7km circuit. The race ended with a sprint finish, and van der Vliet crossed the line in first place. The final stage was a 34-mile rolling road course on the Waterville Plateau. A number of attacks made it a challenging race, which also ended with a sprint finish. Once again showing his quick acceleration, van der Vliet crossed the line in first place. Van der Vliet took first overall, 13 points ahead of Norco rider Connor Martin.
PHYSIOTHERAPY SERVICES AVAILABLE! BEN CHATTERSON, PHYSIOTHERAPIST Ben enjoys working with a variety of clients with all types of injuries and he has a professional interest in aquatic therapy, sports injuries and orthotics assessments.
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B10
Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
Smile Reminder: Smile! It increases your face value. Now that’s something to smile about!
250-338-5381 THE THREE OPPOSITION players didn’t seem to appreciate the save by the goalkeeper during Sunday Mini World Cup action at Valley View. PHOTO BY EARLE COUPER
Mini World Cup big success Earle Couper Record Staff
The 2014 Mini World Cup was, in a word, spectacular. That’s how event chair Robyn Smart described the youth soccer festival, held May 10-11 at Valley View and Isfeld fields. The Comox Valley United Soccer Club hosted the largest MWC ever, with 105 teams (approximately 1,250 players and coaches) and hundreds of visitors in town for the weekend.
Smart said having 442 Squadron SAR techs skydive in on Saturday morning with the game balls to kick off the event was definitely one of the highlights, and “the parade of nations at noon Saturday was awesome.” The organizing committee arranged entertainment and food concessions at the fields, and a Saturday night miniconcert at Simms Park proved popular. “The out-of-town folks had nothing but great things
to say about the Comox Valley,” Smart said. “We got lots of feedback on how many sponsors had participated, how great the event was running and how organized it was. And we couldn’t have asked for better weather. I don’t know who we have to thank for that.” Smart said upwards of 100 volunteers did yeomen’s work both days. “We have some amazing people to thank, for sure.” [email protected]
Mixed slopitch season underway The Comox Valley Mixed Slopitch season got underway this past week. In Tier 1 Speedy Glass Devils crushed the Sunlife Slammers 23-7. Banner Landscape Brewers got by the Renegades 16-12. Ducks Gone Wild nipped the Mission Possible Shockers 12-10 while the Cumberland Hotel Lucky Dawgs were 10-3 winners over the Ramrods. In Tier 2 play Average Joe’s won easily 14-5 over the VIIC Vikings and stopped the Benchwarmers 13-8. Sauced trampled the Calm Batters 11-1 and nipped the Peanut Gallery 14-13. The Vikings scored often in a 23-13 win over the Peanuts and the Loose Cannons won handily 19-6 over the Calm Batters.
Comox Valley minor HoCkey Now Accepting Applications for
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The Ball Busters stomped the Rats 22-6. The Zombies were 20-11 winners over C.V. Marine Misfits. The Comox Grind were 15-10 winners over the Malfunctions while the Contenders got by the Wrecks 11-8 in Tier 3 play. In Tier 4 play the Tuls won both of their contests, doubling the Tee Box Ballers 12-6 and beating Weavers Leather EZ Ryders 14-10. The Ballers rebounded with a 20-6 thrashing over the Coco Loco’s. Walkers Optional split a pair of games, winning 11-7 against the Avengers but falling 14-12 to the Slippery Kittens. The Pacers got by the Kittens 7-6 but dropped a 10-8 decision to the Avengers. One other Tier 4 contest saw the Ryders clobber the Loco’s 17-4. – Comox Valley Mixed Slopitch
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COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
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Hyundai raises the bar with world class Genesis VERNON – There is little expect to pay for the Euchance of falling asleep ropean leaders. Will they at the wheel of the 2015 hold their price in resale? Hyundai Genesis, even on – Likely not during this one of those long summer generation, but if the amdriving vacations. bitious Koreans continue The twisty route around to prove reliability and the Okanagan lake counquality then they will. try, chosen to show off the Meanwhile, an owner is agility of this new luxury going to enjoy years of Its eye-catching sedan from the Korean driving a performance manufacturer, guaranteed design, with a giant oriented in comfort and all behind the wheel kept front grille, would style. The fit and finish their eyes glued to the not look out of place inside rivals those with road ahead. which it chooses to parked next to a But should such external compete for the dollars stimulus not be available BMW, Audi or Merc, in the wallets of the for the long distance which is precisely the well-heeled. The subtle driver, there is a nifty little use of leather and micro intent. gadget below the glove suede is classy; with box. An industry-first Napa leather and real Keith Morgan sensor control system wood trim available detects when CO2 levels as an option. Double are too high and boosts the cabin with stitched leather seats always look good fresh air. Research by Hyundai engineers but it’s what’s inside that counts on a determined that drowsiness increases lengthy trip! The foam beneath in this when CO2 concentrations inside the case offers both support and comfort in cabin exceed 2,000 parts per million. Of the right places. Both front seats offer course, cracking a window works the 12-way power adjustment and there’s a same way but many do not detect the power-adjustable thigh extension with onset of a sleepiness until it’s too late, side bolsters that’s available for the while others are reluctant to let in that long-legged. cold mountain air during a winter jaunt. A new power trunk lid goes a step Count me in that group. further than the new trend to enable Gadgets aside, there is much to stimuopening by swinging your leg under the late the senses in the all-new Genesis. rear to pop the trunk. Tired of standIts eye-catching design, with giant ing on one leg with two arms full of front grille, would not look out of place groceries? parked next to a BMW, Audi or Merc, When your pocketed key nears the which is precisely the intent. It’s benchtrunk, it automatically opens after marked against such German Masters at three-seconds. a price segment below what one would A High-Beam Assist (HBA) function
‘‘
’’
switches to low beams when an oncoming vehicle is detected. Other options include a panoramic sunroof, a heated steering wheel, ventilated front seats, tri-zone automatic climate control, and rear door window blinds. Driver-assist safety technologies are also available in abundance for those who like the car to do some thinking for them. The new Genesis is also a statement of intent: it heralds what will be the look of the seven new less-premium Hyundai products expects to grace our showrooms before 2016. When it comes to driving, it’s really a tale of two cars. The top-of-the-line model offers a big V8 5-litre power plant, with 420 horses at its disposal. Ironically, it’s best enjoyed jogged along at low speed on the highway, where it has the feel of an old-fashioned big family sedan. (It’s not a lot of fun on the twisting lakeside roads of the Okanagan.) Cars destined for the Canadian market will come with an all-new HTRAC
active wheel drive (AWD) system. Says Hyundai: “Performance of the vehicle’s all-new platform was validated in some of the world’s most demanding driving environments, including Germany’s famed Nürburgring Nordschleife and Korea’s Yeongam Formula 1 racing circuit.” The large variety of proving grounds offered by the northern Okanagan was much more appealing to me. And especially so in the car equipped with the 311 horsepower, 3.8-litre GDI V6 engine. Flipping between the Normal, Eco and Sport modes and tapping the gear-changing paddles on the steering wheel made for an enjoyable drive. Little lean in the corners and sprightly up hill. Both engines are coupled to an 8-speed automatic transmission with a SHIFTRONIC manual mode. The base price is $43,000, $48,000 gets you the Luxury version, and $53,000 loads up the tech features. If you want the V8, get ready to spend $62,000. [email protected]
Question of the Week Would a 10 cents per litre increase in the price of gas at the pump cause you to cancel a driving vacation? Go to DrivewayCanada.ca to submit your answer.
?
QUESTION OF THE WEEK!
Safety Tip: If you’re taking a road trip this May long weekend, be realistic about travel times as highways will be busier. Plan rest stops every 1.5 to 2 hours to avoid becoming fatigued while driving and check drive.ca for road and weather conditions before setting out.
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DO THE MATH. ADVERTISE IN THE NEWSPAPER.
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Wise customers read the fine print: *, », ♦, Ω, § The Month of the Ram Sales Event offers are limited time offers which apply to retail deliveries of selected new and unused models purchased from participating dealers on or after May 1, 2014. Offers subject to change and may be extended without notice. All pricing includes freight ($1,695) and excludes licence, insurance, registration, any dealer administration fees, other dealer charges and other applicable fees and taxes. Dealer trade may be necessary. Dealer may sell for less. *$7,000 in Consumer Cash Discounts is available on new 2014 Ram 1500 models. $8,500 Consumer Cash Discount is available on new 2014 Ram 1500 Quad Cab SXT 4x4. See your dealer for complete details. »$1,500 Ram Truck Loyalty/Conquest Bonus Cash is available to qualified customers on the retail purchase/lease of any 2013 Ram 2500/3500 models (excluding Cab & Chassis models) and 2014 Ram 1500 (excludes Reg Cab models) and is deducted from the negotiated price after taxes. Eligible customers include current owners/lessees of a Dodge or Ram pickup truck or any other manufacturer’s pickup truck. The vehicle must have been owned/ leased by the eligible customer and registered in their name on or before May 1, 2014. Proof of ownership/lease agreement will be required. Additional eligible customers include licensed tradesmen and those working towards Skilled Trade certification. Some conditions apply. See your dealer for complete details. ♦4.99% lease financing of up to 60 months available on approved credit through WS Leasing Ltd. (a wholly owned subsidiary of Westminster Savings Credit Union) to qualified customers on applicable new select models at participating dealers in British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Dealer order/trade may be necessary. Example: 2014 Ram 1500 Quad Cab SXT 4x4 with a Purchase Price of $26,888 leased at 4.99% over 60 months with $0 down payment, equals 130 bi-weekly payments of $132. Down payment of $0 and applicable taxes, $475 WS registration fee and first bi-weekly payment are due at lease inception. Total lease obligation is $17,986. Taxes, licence, registration, insurance, dealer charges and excess wear and tear not included. 18,000 kilometer allowance: charge of $.18 per excess kilometer. Some conditions apply. Security deposit may be required. See your dealer for complete details. ΩFinance Pull-Ahead Bonus Cash and 1% Rate Reduction are available to eligible customers on the retail purchase/lease of select 2014 Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram or Fiat models at participating dealers from May 1 to June 2, 2014 inclusive. Finance Pull-Ahead Bonus Cash will be deducted from the negotiated price after taxes. 1% Rate Reduction applies on approved credit to most qualifying subvented financing transactions through RBC, TD Auto Finance and Scotiabank. 1% Rate Reduction cannot be used to reduce the final interest rate below 0%. Eligible customers include all original and current owners of select Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram or Fiat models with an eligible standard/subvented finance or lease contract maturing between May 1, 2014 and June 30, 2017. Trade-in not required. See dealer for complete details and exclusions. §Starting from prices for vehicles shown include Consumer Cash Discounts and do not include upgrades (e.g. paint). Upgrades available for additional cost. ≠Based on 2014 EnerGuide highway fuel consumption ratings. Government of Canada test methods used. Your actual fuel consumption will vary based on driving habits and other factors. 10.2 L/100 km (28 MPG) city and 7.1 L/100 km (40 MPG) highway on Ram 1500 4x2 model with 3.0L EcoDiesel V6 and 8-speed automatic. Ask your dealer for EnerGuide information. ±Best-selling based on IHS Automotive: Polk Canadian new vehicle registrations through October 2013 for large diesel pickups under 14,000 lb GVW. ¥Longevity based on IHS Automotive: Polk Canadian Vehicles In Operation data as of July 1, 2013, for model years 1994-2013 for all large pickups sold and available in Canada over the last 20 years. ≤Based on 2500/F-250 and 3500/F-350 full-size pickups. TMThe SiriusXM logo is a registered trademark of SiriusXM Satellite Radio Inc.
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Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
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COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
B13
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Impala deserves better fate than fleet and rental status Canadians love smaller vehicles; the what GM is doing right. The mixture best-selling passenger vehicles are of materials shapes and colours really compact cars and compact SUVs. makes this cabin pop. The seats can be As much as we like to keep things covered in cloth on the base car, faux sensible, there is always a suede seats or leather on place for larger vehicles. the top models. The dash Full-size sedans are not is covered in soft touch big sellers but some materials; I especially like buyers prefer them for the textured aluminum long-distance cruising look around the window and the road-hugging buttons and cup holders. stance that a sedan The MyLink infotainment provides. There are some system is easy to use. This new Impala very good choices out The graphics look good . . . cruises with there and the latest is this and the screen pops up all-new Chevrolet Impala. ease, has more than for access to the hidden The previous Impala was enough room for storage area with a USB a favourite for company five adults and the jack. Standard features sales fleets or rental car include tilt and telescopic interior is quiet and companies, with a minorsteering wheel, Bluetooth refined. connectivity, USB, eightity of buyers choosing way power driver’s seat them for personal transZack Spencer and more. But the back portation. seat might be the best part Looks of this car. The legroom has limo-like This is a very handsome car. I saw it for the first time over a year ago at the New dimensions and the space side-to-side and headroom is ample. The trunk is also York Auto Show and it was the standout huge with a fold-down rear seat, providof that event. This new design is striking ing more space than many small SUVs. on several levels. The front design has
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the signature Chevrolet split grille. The side has sweeping front windshield and rear window with a high rear deck that provides a sleek silhouette. Prices start at just over $28,000 and the 2LT is fitted with the V6 engine and starts at almost $33,000.
Inside
It looks and works well, showcasing
Drive
The Impala is now offered with a fourcylinder or V6 engin. The base engine is a 2.5L with direct injection unit and 195 horsepower. My test Impala didn’t have this engine but I have used this new engine in the Malibu and I was very impressed with it then; one of the best new engines I
2014 Chevrolet Impala have used. The V6 engine is a 3.6L direct injection unit with a potent 305hp. Both are matched to a six-speed automatic that can be shifted manually but the shifter is on top of the knob, not the best place. The big-car platform and independent suspension makes for a sure-footed ride with almost luxury car feel. The road feel is there, but never intrusive. This big sedan can actually handle rather well. Not the choice for a backcountry road excursions but stable and secure feeling.
The good old bad old days of four-wheeling Luxury and hi-tech systems abound in the 4x4s that show up in the local media test fleets. When I stepped out of one of the more loaded examples the other day, I got to thinking about yesteryear. Some might refer to them as the good old days – judge for yourself. I remember – not that long ago – fourwheeling in a truck when the standard transmission shifter was so loose, you didn’t know you were in ‘‘Automatic fourgear or neutral. wheel-drive was Anti-lock brakes were when achieved by asking you lost your master cylinder to a stick, while (indeyour passenger to step out and lock the pendently minded) power steering kicked in when you front hubs.’’ hit the corner of a rock so hard it ripped the steering Ian Harwood wheel out of your hand and if you weren’t carful your thumb as well. Traction control came in the shape of new tires. Automatic four-wheel-drive was achieved by asking your passenger to step out and lock the front hubs. The parking brake was a log shoved under the rear tire. Soft suspension meant your shocks were blown. Off-road suspension meant you spent more time hitting the roof with your head and back than you actually spent on the seat, which, if you were lucky, had some remaining padding still in it. Your seat belts would tighten up on every bump and if you didn’t stop you would be suffocated. You would be lucky if your radio would bring in a few channels on the AM band only, and the CB radio might just reach the driver in front of you. Wheel articulation really indicated your leaf spring was broken in half. Air conditioning was driving with your windows down and trying to breathe in between dust clouds. GPS was your buddy screaming out, “I think it’s this road”.
Most people used to sleep in the back of their trucks. However, I remember pulling into an open area by a river where I found a nice sandy mound, one time after a long day of four-wheeling. With the aid of my flashlight I quickly spread the sand out with my arms, making a flat area in which to put my tent. It was about 5:30 a.m. when I first noticed the red ants crawling all around my sleeping bag. I was tired so killing them one at a time was not a big deal until I saw many climbing the side of the tent. I quickly climbed out of my tent to discover the soft sandy mound I found was actually a giant anthill. The vehicles of today have the capabilities of descending steep hills without even putting your foot on the brake and you could disconnect your sway bar end links to allow for more articulation. Ability to stop on a hill without rolling back is nice. Comfortable seats are really an improvement, especially on long trips. Although we can’t relive the past, it’s important to remember technology is there to help us. There is no replacement for common sense, so don’t let your truck drive you, drive it and be safe. If you have any fun and not-so-fun truck tales to share, please drop me a line.
Verdict
Consumer Reports recently rated this one of the best cars they had ever tested, right behind the Tesla Model S and BMW 135i. This new Impala does everything a big car buyer is looking for: It cruises with ease, has more than enough room for five adults and the interior is quiet and refined. I would suggest that buyers of more expensive luxury brands like Buick or Lexus give this car a shot. It has all the same comfort but with a lower price point. Once main criticism of this new car is the lack of an all-wheel-
drive system. The Buick LaCrosse does offer it, as does the Cadillac, the major difference between these products. Mid-size sedan buyers should also have a look at what the Impala offers for just slightly more money. Hopefully this new Impala will not be relegated to fleet sales and rental lots.
The Lowdown
Power: 2.5L 4-cylinder with 195hp or 3.6L V6 with 305hp Fill-up: 9.9L/6.3L/100km (city/highway) Sticker price: $28,445-$39,645
[email protected]
4th 2014 1 – 9 ne
Weigh in Anything Place Prize
Largest Saltwater Fish $4100 Value T9.9 Power Tilt 4-stroke
1st Place Prize Largest Freshwater Fish $1100 Value F2.5 msH
Tons of Hidden Weight Prizes! • Special Pricing on all Boats & Motors • Six day in-store sale • Never Before Seen Store Pricing • Free Coffee & Donuts • On-site Texas BBQ
Call for Details! $10 per registration before June 9 th $25 per registration after June 9 th Weigh in Times: Mon-Fri: 8:30am – 5pm Saturday: 9am – 4pm
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All Proceeds to: Mid-Vancouver Island Habitat Enhancement Society
NEW & USED SALES • FULL BOAT BROKERAGE
NEW Official Dealer For
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www.parksvilleboathouse.com Old Chevy 4x4
Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
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www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
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2011 Buick regal: Truly a Buick like no other The all-new 2011 model year edition of Regal was built in Germany and based on a rigid Euro-car chassis. It could be ordered with a turbocharged engine and had a driver-selectable suspension system. It would also be the first Buick since the 1980s to offer a manual transmission. Not since the days of the Grand National, Regal’s crash test a bigperformance was engine also outstanding and rocket earned it a ‘top safety last produced pick’ rating. in 1987 (and still Bob McHugh cherished by Buick enthusiasts), had we seen a hard-core sports version of the Buick Regal. Yet, this Regal is a very different beast. While it does not possess the awesome straight-line power of its ancestor, it’s a hoot to drive for different and probably better reasons. It was based on the German-designed Opel Insignia, which was the 2009 European Car of the Year. The 2011 Regal was made in Germany, before all production was switched to Oshawa, Ontario.
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The overall design profile of this Regal is coupe-like, even though it has four doors. Up front, there’s a modern version of Buick’s traditional “waterfall” grille and an extra-large version Buick’s trishield emblem. At the rear, the sloping roofline connects to a short deck with distinctive and large wrap-around taillights. The turbo engine versions of Regal should definitely be on the checklist of buyers looking at mid-sized sporty frontdrive premium sedans such as the Volvo S60 or Acura TSX. Regal has a longer wheelbase (a more comfortable ride) and comes with a larger trunk. The base CXL trim comes with a 2.4L direct-injected engine rated at 182 horsepower, mated with a six-speed automatic transmission. It’s a drive combination that provides decent power and very good highway fuel economy, rated at 6.5L/100 km. The CXL Turbo trim, on the other hand, comes with a 2.0L turbocharged directinjection engine that’s rated at 220 horsepower. The auto transmission is a crisper-shifting six-speed unit and its 6.9L/100 km highway fuel economy is still good, considering the extra power. Buick expanded the Regal line to four for the 2012 model year, with the addition of eAssist and GS editions. The eAssist edition has a mild-hybrid powertrain that uses an electric motor/ lithium-ion battery pack combo to boost power to road wheels when needed, and conserves fuel. It’s the most economi-
Less than 100,000 kms Loaded TRD Automatic
Bi-weekly $228.341
29,998
cal edition of Regal, with a frugal city/ highway fuel economy rating of 8.3/5.4 L/100km respectively. The GS edition is a more potent version of Turbo that rides lower and comes with Brembo front disc brakes and 19-inch or 20-inch (optional) wheels. Under hood its turbocharged engine can produce 255-horsepower and 295 feet-pound of torque. Acceleration to 100 km/hour is under seven seconds and its highway fuel economy is 7.4 L/100 km. The base (CXL/2.4-litre engine) edition was dropped for the 2013 model year and trim levels offered were eAssist,
2008 Toyota Avalon
8 Spd, Auto 350 HP V8 Loaded 88,000 kms
Only 80,000 kms Loaded Beautiful Car!
Bi-weekly $196.813
Turbo, Turbo Sport, and GS. On the safety front, standard equipment includes a stability control system and the OnStar emergency service. It comes with six air bags and rear-seat side air bags were an option and standard on GS. Regal’s crash test performance was also outstanding and earned it a “top safety pick” rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. So far, overall reliability has been “average” according to Consumer Reports, but it did get a “recommended buy” rating and is one of the top-rated vehicles in its class.
WE CAN FINANCE YOUR PRE-OWNED VEHICLE PURCHASE!
2012 Toyota Tacoma
Loaded 34,000 kms 60+ mpg
Bi-weekly $198.1415
25,998
$
1. $228.34/ biweekly 5.99% 84 Months TP $41,557.32 / 2. $272.93 Bi Weekly 5.99% 84 Months TP $49,673.26 / 3. $196.81 Bi Weekly 4.99% 60 Months TP $25,585.30 / 4. $303.99 Bi Weekly 4.99% 60 Months TP $39,518.70 / 5. $250.32 Bi Weekly 4.99% 84 Months TP $45,557.40 / 6. $176.31 Bi Weekly 4.99% 72 Months TP $27,504.36 / 7. $173.63 Bi Weekly 4.99% 84 Months TP $31,599.96 / 8. $219.31 Bi Weekly 5.99% 84 Months $39,915.12 / 9. $198.55 Bi Weekly 4.99% 84 Months TP $36,136.10 / 10. $221.17 Bi Weekly 4.99% 60 Months TP $28,752.10 / 11. $154.57 Bi Weekly 5.99% 72 Months TP $24,112.80 / 12. $245.74/ Bi Weekly 5.99% 84 Months TP $44,724.12 / 13. $249.51/ Bi Weekly 5.99% 84 Months TP $45,411.24 / 14. $220.79/ Bi Weekly 5.99% 84 Months TP $40,183.08 / 15. $198.14/ Bi Weekly 5.99% 84 Months TP $36,061.20. TP= Total Payment, Bi Weekly Payments total 26 Payments/ Year ON APPROVED CREDIT. See Dealer for Details. Payments Include Documentation fee of $195.00.
445 Crown Isle Boulevard • Call 250-338-6761
Dlr#7478
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
B15
Potential money pits: Four high-maintenance classics
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1963 JAGUAR E-TYPE
a regular basis (most recently in a plot arc of AMC’s “Mad Men,” where a suicide attempt was botched because the car wouldn’t start). It is, however, a fairly complex car that takes kindly neither to abuse nor fools with tools. Burn out the clutch in your E-Type and you may wish you hadn’t been born. The list of things that have to come off of or out of the car to do the job is long. The entire massive clam shell hood, headlight and front fender assembly known by the British term “bonnet” is just the tip of the iceberg. It has to come off simply to get at the engine and transmission, which also need to part company with the rest of the car — along with three grand or so of your kid’s college fund. Rob Sass is the vice-president of content for Hagerty Insurance. Hagerty is the world’s leading specialist provider of classic car and boat insurance. Learn more at hagerty.ca and you can e-mail rsass@ hagerty.com
1979 ROLLS ROYCE SILVER SHADOW PLEASE READ THE FINE PRINT: Offers valid until June 2, 2014. See toyota.ca for complete details on all cash back offers. In the event of any discrepancy or inconsistency between Toyota prices, rates and/or other information contained on toyotabc.ca and that contained on toyota.ca, the latter shall prevail. Errors and omissions excepted. 2014 RAV4 Base FWD LE Automatic ZFREVT-A MSRP is $25,689 and includes $1,819 freight and pre-delivery inspection, tire levy, battery levy and air conditioning federal excise tax. †Lease example: 3.9% Lease APR for 60 months on approved credit. Semi-Monthly payment is $139 with $1700 down payment. Total Lease obligation is $18,380. Lease 60 mos. based on 100,000 km, excess km charge is $.10. ††Finance example: 1.9% finance for 48 months, upon credit approval, available on 2014 RAV4. Applicable taxes are extra. 2014 Corolla CE 6M Manual BURCEM-A MSRP is $17,544 and includes $1,549 freight and pre-delivery inspection, tire levy, and battery levy. *Lease example: 2014 Corolla CE 6M with a vehicle price of $17,269 (includes $275 Toyota Canada Lease Assist, which is deducted from the negotiated selling price after taxes, and $1,549 freight/PDI) leased at 0.9% over 60 months with $0 down payment equals 120 semi-monthly payments of $87 with a total lease obligation of $10,715. Lease 60 mos. based on 100,000 km, excess km charge is $.07. **Finance example: 1.9% finance for 84 months, upon credit approval, available on 2014 Corolla CE 6M. Applicable taxes are extra. 2014 Tacoma Double Cab V6 4x4 Automatic MU4FNA-A MSRP is $33,289 and includes $1,819 freight and pre-delivery inspection, tire levy, battery levy and air conditioning federal excise tax. ‡Lease example: 3.9% Lease APR for 60 months on approved credit. Semi-Monthly payment is $165 with $3,150 down payment. Total Lease obligation is $22,890. Lease 60 mos. based on 100,000 km, excess km charge is $.10. ‡‡Finance example: 0.9% finance for 48 months, upon credit approval, available on 2014 Tacoma. Applicable taxes are extra. ‡‡‡Up to $1000 Non-Stackable Cash Back available on select 2014 Tacoma models. Non-stackable cash back on 2014 Tacoma Double Cab V6 4x4 Automatic is $1,000. Applicable taxes are extra. Down payment, first semi-monthly payment and security deposit plus GST and PST on first payment and full down payment are due at lease inception. A security deposit is not required on approval of credit. Non-stackable Cash Back offers may not be combined with Toyota Financial Services (TFS) lease or finance rates. If you would like to lease or finance at standard TFS rates (not the above special rates), then you may be able to take advantage of Cash Customer Incentives. Vehicle must be purchased, registered and delivered by June 2, 2014. Cash incentives include taxes and are applied after taxes have been charged on the full amount of the negotiated price. See toyota.ca for complete details on all cash back offers. ‡‡‡‡Semi-monthly lease offer available through Toyota Financial Services on approved credit to qualified retail customers on most 24, 36, 48 and 60 month leases (including Stretch leases) of new and demonstrator Toyota vehicles. First semi-monthly payment due at lease inception and next monthly payment due approximately 15 days later and semi-monthly thereafter throughout the term. Toyota Financial Services will waive the final payment. Semi-monthly lease offer can be combined with most other offers excluding the First Payment Free and Encore offers. First Payment Free offer is valid for eligible TFS Lease Renewal customers only. Toyota semi-monthly lease program based on 24 payments per year, on a 60-month lease, equals 120 payments, with the final 120th payment waived by Toyota Financial Services. Competitive bi-weekly lease programs based on 26 payments per year, on a 60-month lease, equals 130 payments. Not open to employees of Toyota Canada, Toyota Financial Services or TMMC/TMMC Vehicle Purchase Plan. Some conditions apply. See your Toyota dealer for complete details. Visit your Toyota BC Dealer or www.toyotabc.ca for more details. Some conditions apply; offers are time limited and may change without notice. Dealer may lease/sell for less.
The reality of depreciation has put a tempting array of classic exotics within reach for many of us. Be warned, though, that very often, the cheque you write for the purchase is just the first of many that you’ll write if you make a poor or unlucky choice. Keep in mind this maxim: The cheapest examples almost always wind up being the most expensive in the long run. Here are four that famously can be punishing on the wallet: 1966-80 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow: At around the cost of a loaded Ford Focus for a nice one, it’s hard not to be tempted by the upper crust looks of a vintage Rolls-Royce. But go in with your eyes open: A simple brake service can exceed $1,000, with the special Rolls-Royce brake A simple brake fluid going for $125 all by service can exceed itself. Try to substitute something $1,000, with the from your local auto parts special Rolls-Royce store and you could be brake fluid going for looking at $3,000 or more to repair the damage. $125 all by itself. That famous ParthenonRob Sass like grille in front is about $2,500 used if you can find one. The hood ornament alone can cost more than $1,500 should anyone decide to make a souvenir out of yours. Ouch. 1975-85 Ferrari 308 GTB/GTS: At around $30,000, this lovely thing represents one of the lowest points of entry to the storied Ferrari brand. Fortunately, Tom Selleck in the part of Thomas Magnum probably never had to foot the shop bill to maintain his employer’s 308. If he did, he’d likely have had to pawn the Hawaiian shirt and moustache. While Ferrari 308s have gained a reputation for being reasonably reliable cars as Italian exotics go, they are maintenance-intensive and things do break, particularly with the oldest now approaching 40 years old. That lovely combination switch that operates the turn signals and pop-up headlights? They can cost close to a grand (and they do fail from time-to-time). A belt service including the all-important timing belt needs to happen at least every five years or 30,000 miles. Ignore it and you could be on the line for a $15,000-plus engine rebuild. 1968-72 Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.3: The 6.3 is the closest that Mercedes ever came to building a Detroit-style muscle car back in the day (albeit a four-door one). Sporting a huge 384 cubic-inch V-8 with fuel injection and over 300 horsepower, the 6.3 was capable of a sub-six second 0-60 run and a 14.2-second quarter-mile time. All of this came at a huge price, though, both in acquisition costs and maintenance. A complete rebuild of the air suspension system can cost more than $5,000, as can the wonderfully complex precomputer, mechanical fuel-injection system. At least the parts are available. 1961-74 Jaguar E-Type: The E-Type is actually nowhere near as chronically troublesome as its reputation would suggest. This gorgeous car still seems to take a punch on
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(RAV4 - XLE MODEL SHOWN)
FWD LE $25,689 MSRP includes F+PDI
LEASE FROM †
For 48 months. $1,550 down. Taxes extra.
GT model shown from $26,800
APR
GT model shown from $33,990
REVOLUTIONARY FUEL-EFFICIENT SKYACTIV TECHNOLOGY IS CHANGING THE GAME.
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†0% APR purchase financing is available on all new 2014/2015 Mazda vehicles. Other terms available and vary by model. **Lease offers available on approved credit for new 2014 Mazda3 GX (D4XK64AA00)/2015 Mazda6 GX (G4XL65AA00)/2015 CX-5 GX (NVXK65AA00)/2014 Mazda5 GS (E6SD64AA00) with a lease APR of 1.99%/0.99%/2.49%/0.99% and bi-weekly payments of $79/$129/$129/$139 for 48 months, the total lease obligation is $9,938/$14,970/$14,978/$15,537, including down payment of $1,150/$1,550/$1,550/$1,050. PPSA and first monthly payment due at lease inception. 20,000 km lease allowance per year, if exceeded, additional 8¢/km applies. 24,000 km leases available. Offered leasing available to retail customers only. Taxes extra. *The advertised price of $17,690/$24,990/$26,290/$20,490 for 2014 Mazda3 GX (D4XK64AA00)/2015 CX-5 GX (NVXK65AA00)/2015 Mazda6 GX (G4XL65AA00)/ 2014 Mazda5 GS (E6SD64AA00) includes a cash discount of $0/$0/$0/$3,500. The selling price adjustment applies to the purchase and is deducted from the negotiated pre-tax price and cannot be combined with subsidized purchase financing or leasing rates. All prices include freight & PDI of $1,695/$1,895 for Mazda3, Mazda6/CX-5, Mazda5. PPSA, licence, insurance, taxes, down payment and other dealer charges are extra and may be required at the time of purchase. Dealer may sell/lease for less. Dealer order/trade may be necessary on certain vehicles. Lease and Finance on approved credit for qualified customers only. Offers valid May 1 – June 2, 2014, while supplies last. Prices and rates subject to change without notice. Visit mazda.ca or see your dealer for complete details. ♦The Mazda3 2.0 Litre won the Canadian Green Car Category Award for the most efficient internal combustion engine.
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DOWN
SANTA FE SPORT 2.4L FWD. DEALER INVOICE PRICE INCLUDES $1,316 IN PRICE ADJUSTMENTSΩ, FEES (UP TO $499), DELIVERY AND DESTINATION.
96 MONTHS HyundaiCanada.com
The Hyundai names, logos, product names, feature names, images and slogans are trademarks owned by Hyundai Auto Canada Corp. †Finance offer available O.A.C. from Hyundai Financial Services based on a new 2014 Elantra L 6-Speed Manual/Elantra GT L 6-Speed Manual/Santa Fe Sport 2.4L FWD with an annual finance rate of 0%/0.9%/0.9% for 96 months. Bi-weekly payments are $79/$96/$136. $0 down payment required. Cost of Borrowing is $0/$711/$1,009. Finance offer includes Delivery and Destination of $1,595/$1,595/$1,795, fees, levies, and all applicable charges (excluding HST). Finance offer excludes registration, insurance, PPSA and license fees. Delivery and Destination charge includes freight, P.D.E. and a full tank of gas. ‡Dealer Invoice Price of 2014 Elantra L 6-Speed Manual/Elantra GT L 6-Speed Manual/Santa Fe Sport 2.4L FWD are $16,397/$19,182/$27,278. Prices include price adjustments of $1,197/$862/$1,316 and includes Delivery and Destination of $1,595/$1,595/$1,795, fees, levies, and all applicable charges (excluding HST). Finance offer excludes registration, insurance, PPSA and license fees. The customer prices are those reflected on the dealer invoice from Hyundai Auto Canada Corp. The dealer invoice price includes a holdback amount for which the dealer is subsequently reimbursed by Hyundai Auto Canada Corp. ΩPrice adjustments are calculated against the vehicle’s starting price. Price adjustments of up to $1,197/$862/$1,316 available on in stock 2014 Elantra L 6-Speed Manual/Elantra GT L 6-Speed Manual/Santa Fe Sport 2.4L FWD. Price adjustments applied before taxes. Offer cannot be combined or used in conjunction with any other available offers. Offer is non-transferable and cannot be assigned. No vehicle trade-in required. ʕPrice of models shown (with Price Adjustments): 2014 Elantra Limited/Elantra GT SE Tech 6-Speed Automatic/Santa Fe 2.0T Limited AWD are $23,799/$26,727/$38,448. Prices include Price Adjustments of $1,445/$1,667/$2,446, Delivery and Destination charges of $1,595/$1,595/$1,795 fees, levies, and all applicable charges (excluding HST). Prices exclude registration, insurance, PPSA and license fees. ʈFuel consumption for new 2014 Elantra L Manual (HWY 5.3L/100KM; City 7.6.L/100KM); 2014 Elantra GT L Manual (HWY 5.8L/100KM; City 8.5L/100KM); 2014 Santa Fe Sport 2.4L FWD (HWY 7.3L/100KM; City10.2.L/100KM) are based on Manufacturer Testing. Actual fuel efficiency may vary based on driving conditions and the addition of certain vehicle accessories. Fuel economy figures are used for comparison purposes only. †‡ΩʕOffers available for a limited time. Dealer may sell for less. Dealer order may be required. Visit www.hyundaicanada.com or see dealer for complete details. The SiriusXMTM name is a registered trademark of SiriusXM Satellite Radio Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are those of their respective owners. ††Hyundai’s Comprehensive Limited Warranty coverage covers most vehicle components against defects in workmanship under normal use and maintenance conditions. TM
Finneron Hyundai 250 Island Highway PAPER TOOld INSERT DEALER TAG HERE Courtenay, 250-334-2441 D#30993
B18
Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
sports
Drift cars put on dazzling display
Windsor Plywood The experts you need to know for...
Terry Guest
Special to the Record
Round 1 of the Drifting Competition took place at Saratoga Speedway on Saturday. Five cars from all across the North Island put on an amazing display, with reigning champion #26 Alex Davidson eventually driving his 440 horsep powere Nissan 240 SX to the winner’s circle. In drifting, all cars qualify through a points system based on their control, technique, risk of the run and speed. From that point, two cars are matched together to do side-by-side drifting with one slightly trailing the other, trying to “mock” his or her run. The cars then switch, with the one who was trailing now leading and trying to outdo the other’s run. The judges then decide based on the pointing system who has out drifted the
Karate to help justice On the evening of Thursday, May 15, the karate students of Toshikan Martial Arts located in the Tin Town area of Courtenay will perform 108 kata and a donation will be made to the Comox Valley Community Justice Society. Kata are a series of karate techniques combined into a moving pattern that simulates self-defence and allows practitioners to practise karate both physically and mentally. 108 is a special number in traditional goju-ryu karate, as it is in yoga and in Buddhism. Toshikan sensei Mac Newton will lead the beginner children’s class in 36 kata, then the advanced children’s class in 36 kata, and then the adult class in 36 kata. The 108 kata will start at 4 p.m. and take about three hours to complete. At least $108 will be donated to CV Community Justice. “The guiding principles of Community Justice are complementary with those of traditional karate,” said Newton. – Toshikan Martial Arts
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THE DRIFT CARS put on a good show Saturday at Saratoga Speedway. other, and the winner moves on to the semis and the loser to the loser’s bracket. After a few runs and a bunch of eliminations, Davidson found himself in the finals with #4 Andrew Ottosen. After some
back-and-forth drifting, the judges gave Davidson the nod. #14 Kyle Fallowfield narrowly beat #15 Tom Flagel for third place. EXTRA LAPS The monster trucks make their first appearance this weekend, with
Rockstar and California Kid here once again to put on another amazing performance … in previous years we have seen these trucks hit incredible air and both trucks have rolled over … accompanying the monster trucks on
Outdoor Irrigation Rebate Program $300
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Saturday will be the Crash to Pass cars, Hornets, Roadrunners and Figure 8s with the I.M.C.A Modifieds and Bombers joining the action on Sunday … both nights run rain or shine … – Saratoga Speedway
CONTROLLER
The Whistle Stop Neighbourhood Pub www.whistlestoppub.com • 2355 Mansfield Drive, Courtenay • 250-334-4500
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Use less with smart irrigation The CVRD outdoor irrigation rebate program will help residents use water more efficiently. Commercial and residential property owners connected to the Comox Valley water system are eligible for a $300 rebate on the purchase of a qualifying smart irrigation controller. These controllers adjust the watering schedule according to the weather, reducing water use. Property owners in the City of Courtenay, Town of Comox and the Arden, Comox Valley, England Road, Marsden/Camco, and Greaves Crescent water local service areas are eligible for these rebates. For further details on eligibility requirements, qualifying hardware and frequently asked questions about the program visit www.comoxvalleyrd.ca/smartcontrol. Follow comoxvalleyrd
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Enter fish derby, read fish book S
portfishingbc. com is sponsoring a 2014 salmon derby. The guiding principles of the coast-wide contest (excluding Rivers Inlet and Queen Charlotte Islands) are to: • Have a family friendly derby that will support local salmon enhancement projects • Have a derby based on the trust of our local virtual SFBC community • Remove the pressure on any single area by not hosting the derby in a set location and, • Make the salmon the real winners. All proceeds from the derby will go to the Little River Enhancement Society in the Comox Valley. The process of entering is detailed on the sportfishingbc.com website. The sign-up dates are March 1 to June 1. E-mail confirmation will be sent when the entry is received. If you do not have an e-mail or computer, register through a friend or the library as this event is strictly on the Internet. Fish your own waters and plan your own trips. To enter your catch, e-mail your entry to [email protected] Please include name of fisherman, date, location, and necessary verification outlined in the rules. You must be a member of SFBC in good standing to regis-
my view. Rod’s accounts of walking hundreds of miles of beaches in the Bahamas and broader waters of the Caribbean in search of these beautiful fish is what the journeyman apprenticeship of becoming a master angler is all about. His contribution to the knowledge of fly fishing is on a level of Jack Shaw and Brian Chan in their writing on fly fishing for trout. Do It Yourself Bonefishing gives intimate details of how to get
rod hamilton holds a prime bonefish prior to release. Photo COURTESY OF ROD HAMILTON
outdoors
Ralph Shaw ter. No salmon caught prior to May 1 will be accepted as an entry. The following four species of Pacific salmon may be entered – chinook, coho, chum and pink. Salmon caught in freshwater do not qualify for entry. Leaderboard results will be first posted on June 1 and updated on a regular basis. The awards and prizes will be present-
ed at a barbecue Sept. 27 at Bowen Park in Nanaimo. The winners of the top three salmon will receive awards. There are many prizes – with a total donated value approaching $15,000 at the time of this writing. Good luck! • • • “Do It Yourself Bonefishing” by Rod Hamilton with Kirk Deeter, published by The Derrydale Press, 2014, price $29.95, available at local fishing, book stores and Amazon.ca. Rod lives in the Valley and his book is destined to be a classic in fishing literature in
2014 Thrifty Foods
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Bill Kelly Golf, Ladies Open PO Box 121, Lazo, BC V0R 2K0
Make Cheques Payable to:
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involved with this winter fishing activity in the tropics from November to February. Rod gives over 300 locations to fish for bonefish. It is one of the best books I have read on the fascination and dedication to fly fishing. Ralph Shaw is a master fly fisherman who was awarded the Order of Canada in 1984 for his conservation efforts. In 20 years of writing a column in the Comox Valley Record it has won several awards.
B19
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Comox Valley Therapeutic Riding Society presents the fi
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We are a vibrant, mature team of ladies who enjoy DRAGON BOATING, on both competitive and recreational levels, in a positive and supportive environment. We are looking for a Tiller to join our team. No tiller experience necessary – willing to train. Boating experience would be an asset. This would be a weekly commitment throughout the season for practice sessions, (March - November), plus periodic weekend races scheduled (June - September).
Interested? For more information, please contact Judy at [email protected]
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Announcement RE/MAX Ocean Pacific Realty is extremely pleased to welcome Naomi Gaglardi to our team of Real Estate professionals. RE/MAX is the fastest-growing Real Estate franchise of its kind in North America providing you with the experience and knowledge you seek. Naomi embarked on her new career path equipped with 25 years of experience in management, leadership, and mentoring roles coupled with a background in accounting. She is detail oriented and passionate about providing outstanding customer service and care. For her, the privilege of being your Realtor is about so much more than facilitating a single transaction well. It’s about listening. It’s about quick action. It’s about keeping in touch. It’s about anticipating your needs, and thinking creatively. These core values provide the foundation needed so you will enjoy worry free Real Estate transactions every time. With her, it’s all about you! Helping you find your way home...
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COMOX VALLEY RECORD
CARRIER AWARD Maile Davis
The Record is pleased to recognize Maile Davis for her excellent work in newspaper delivery to homes in the Courtenay area. Maile is 16 years old and attends G.P. Vanier Secondary School. Maile enjoys dance on weekdays, track and field, choir, photography and long boarding with friends. Congratulations Maile and enjoy your gifts from these communityminded businesses.
B20 Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD B20 www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
Thu, May 15, 2014, Comox Valley Record
Your community. Your classifieds.
DEATHS
DEATHS
Randall Leroy Hargreaves May 11, 1968 – May 6, 2014 It is with great sadness we announce the loss of Randy. He passed peacefully with family and friends by his side. He will be dearly missed and lovingly remembered by his mother Linda, father Richard, Dede, brother Dennis (Cheryl), sisters Sheila (Torin) and Erica, nephews Jordan and Zach, niece Emily, and aunts Diane (Bob), Wanda, Lorna (Kurt), and Arlene (Jeff). He will also be missed by extended family and friends, especially Brian and Sandy and Kirsten and family. He has gone to join his beloved grandparents. Randy was always happiest while working. He was first employed as a young boy at Comox Valley Auction Sales in Cumberland where he continued working throughout his teens. He later attended the Western Canadian School of Auctioneering in Calgary, graduating as a ticketed auctioneer. Randy operated a small farm while working for many years logging at Menzies Bay. When the division closed he became self-employed as a Road Building and Logging Contractor. A born wheeler-dealer, Randy delighted in buying and selling everything, houses, equipment, livestock etc. and was always seen driving a different truck. Donations in memory of Randy can be made to the Comox Valley Head Injury Society or the BC Cancer Society. Please join the family for a Celebration of his Life on May 24, 2014 at 1:00 pm at the Cumberland Cultural Centre, OAP Hall, 2674 Dunsmuir Avenue, Cumberland BC.
Janet Izard (nee Hicks) 1949 2014
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On 6 May 2014, Janet Izard passed away peacefully at Toronto General Hospital with her family present. For 4 months, she had valiantly battled infections following her liver transplant. We are very grateful to the dedication & care of the ICU staff at TGH throughout her time there. Jan is survived by her husband, John Izard, and two sons, Roger (Sabrina) and Douglas (Clare) and four grandchildren (Luke, Nathan, Kara and Joshua.) She is also survived by her brother, Roger (Linda) Hicks and her nephew Bruce Hicks and her niece, Emily (Scott) Lindsay. She was born in Princeton, B.C. and graduated from UBC with a teaching degree. Her father was Dr. Al Hicks who grew up in Cumberland. -DQ¡V IRFXV ZDV WR KHOS RWKHUV 6KH ZDV “born with her hand upâ€? and actively volunteered for many groups during her 25 years in Brampton Ontario. She was a passionate gardener, golfer and dog lover. Donations can be made in her name to ´&URKQ¡V &ROLWLV&DQDGDÂľDQGZHZRXOGOLNH everyone to consider registering to become an organ donor to save others. There will be a “Celebration of Lifeâ€? Service for Jan on next Sunday, 17 May, at 2:00 pm DW 6W 3DXO¡V 8QLWHG &KXUFK LQ %UDPSWRQ ON. Our family is extemely grateful to the support we received from so many people during her illness.
Camille de Boisvilliers (nee Perrot) Camille was born in Paris, France, on June 25, 1928 to her proud parents George and Margueritte (Geoffroy) Perrot. She eventually moved to Courtenay, British Columbia where she passed away peacefully on May 3, 2014 with her family at her side. Camille is survived by her daughters, Maryvonne (de Boisvilliers) Urban (Karel) and Marie Christine de Boisvilliers; her grandson John Urban (Francine) and great-grandson Terence Urban. Predeceased by her parents and her grandson Xavier Del Vedove. Camille lived on three continents over her lifetime and found happiness on Vancouver Island. She enjoyed painting in her later years. The family would like to thank Shauna, as well as the staff at Cumberland Lodge, for their kindness and support while caring for Camille.
Funeral Services 250 338 4463 www.tonefffunerals.com
“where your family comes first�
Doreen McKay (nee Dougan)
Born May 27, 1918 Cobble Hill, BC, deceased May 7th, 2014 Cumberland BC. Predeceased by her husband Bill in 1991 and her son Moray in 1990. She is also predeceased by her brothers; Ray, Charlie, Garth, Norm and Jim. Doreen is survived by her grandson Muskie, granddaughter Sam, daughter-in-law Linda, brother Dave (Lol), sister Roma, sisters-in-law Mary and Daphne and by many nieces, nephews and other family and friends. Doreen lived her entire life on Vancouver Island. She was born to the pioneering Dougan family of the Cowichan Valley. She helped raise her younger siblings and cooked in her father’s logging camp in Anderson Bay on Texada Island where she met her husband Bill. They were married in 1943 and her son was born in the Pender Harbour hospital in 1946, delivered by an Army doctor and several men holding Kerosene lanterns. During her married life she lived in many remote coastal logging camps, which is well documented by home movies and many photos. Doreen was very adventurous and travelled to many places including flying to Scotland in 1948 in a Northstar and later to Egypt, Greece, Hawaii, Mexico, Korea, Italy, England, Cuba and cruising the Panama, the Mediterranean and the Nile. Bill and Doreen travelled extensively in their motorhome, hunting, trap shooting, gambling and entertaining. Doreen was an avid reader, who read anything and everything, continuing to keep up on world events by reading her daily TC, despite poor vision in recent years. She golfed well into her eighties, achieving a hole-in-one in 1987 and golfing as a competitor in the BC senior games. Doreen loved to cook and was always ready to try out a new recipe while entertaining family and friends. The family wishes to thank Dr. Potter Cogan, the staff at Cumberland Lodge and CV Senior’s Village, her hairdresser Shirley and her “Pusher� Karen. In lieu of flowers donations can be made to the Campbell Rivers Shrine Club: 639 Yorkshire Drive, Campbell River V9W 7S6 or BC Children’s Hospital: 4480 Oak Street, Vancouver, V6H 3V4 There will be an informal celebration of life Sunday May 18th at 2:00pm at the family home in Deep Bay.
Marilyn Anne Rowe (nee Read) Born May 11, 1954 passed away peacefully May 9, 2014 at home with her husband by her side after a two-year battle with breast cancer. Born in Burnaby, BC, Marilyn attended Annieville Elementary and graduated from North Delta Senior Secondary in 1972. Predeceased by her father Sidney Read in 1997, her mother Gudrun Read in 2011, uncles Arnold (2002) and Mel Gustafson (2010). Survived by her loving and caring husband Keith, her children Michael (Leanne), Stephen, Christine (Steve) and her grandchildren Michayla, Anaia and Linden; all whom she loved dearly. She will be sorely missed by Tayo and Grandmother Runsewe, also her sisters Bev, Joyce, Norma and Pam, as well as numerous nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins. Marilyn will also be missed by her fur babies Tippy and Mitzy. Marilyn and Keith met early in 1974 and were married a short 3 months later in April. They purchased their first home on Gull Avenue in Comox, BC in June 1974 and their first child Michael was welcomed in April 1976, followed by their son Stephen in 1977 and the long-awaited arrival of their beautiful daughter Christine in 1979. Marilyn started her career with St. Joseph’s General Hospital in 1986 as a housekeeper; she was promoted to Acting Housekeeping Supervisor, and ended her work term as a shipping and receiving clerk in 2001 due a permanent disability. From 1992-1997, through her employment at St. Joseph’s, she completed several management courses. Among these a medical terminology course in which she received a final mark of 93%. She found her work at the hospital to be rewarding and developed special friendships with her fellow employees, Andy, Corrina, Sandra (thanks for the hugs) and Patsy, to name a few. Among her accomplishments was her volunteer work with the Orton-Gillingham Program at Brooklyn Elementary School which assists students with learning difficulties, her beautiful garden, her bowling score, her status as #1 Fan at Keith’s softball games in Arizona, and her “Gopher Trophy� she won for being such a great helper. She was also a member of “Field’s Sawmills� women’s softball team coached by her husband “Coach Honey�. Mare was also instrumental in supporting her husband in the family business venture Shamrock Fencing. Marilyn enjoyed the warmth of the Arizona sun as it was incredibly therapeutic. She always looked forward to her annual visits with Christine and her family in the spring. Known for her infectious laugh, Marilyn was deeply loved and respected by all that knew her. She was so proud to be a part of Christine and Steve’s wedding in Courtenay, BC in 2007, and able to attend Michael and Leanne’s wedding this past January in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Being at home allowed Marilyn’s family the opportunity to be by her side during her last few days, giving friends a chance to also say goodbye. A special thank you goes to our family doctor, Dr. Doug Anderson, as well as the compassionate care provided by her home care nurse Sandra. Marilyn’s wish to be at home was supported by the Comox Valley Hospice Society. Donations to the Comox Valley Hospice Society or the BC Cancer Agency in Marilyn’s name are greatly appreciated in lieu of flowers. A memorial service will be held on Saturday May 17, 2014 at 1pm at the D’Esterre House in Comox, BC.
For those who love, time is not. Missing you today and always.
Comox Valley Record Thu, May 15, 2014
B21 www.comoxvalleyrecord.com. B21
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
FAMILY ANNOUNCEMENTS
IN MEMORIAM
Elaine Joy Beecroft (Taylor/Wensrich)
Elaine came to the end of her journey on May 8, 2014. Elaine was born in Calgary on June 3, 1930. She married her first husband William George Taylor (Smiling Bill) in Calgary in 1949. Linda was born in 1950 and Wendy in 1952. The family moved to Victoria in 1960 and in 1961 settled in Courtenay. Without ever having seen a side of beef, Elaine and Bill bought local meat market, Central Cold Storage. Son, Rick was born in 1964. In 1966, the family started spending summers in a cabin at Kitty Coleman Beach where they had many happy memories and made lifetime friends. Linda married Richard Jancowski in 1968 and had twin daughters, Deborah and Sherrill in 1972. Deborah went on to marry Wade Bruns and had children Eva and Camron. Sherrill married Paul Weston and had daughter Molly. Bill passed away at the young age of 45 in 1975. In 1985, Wendy married Jim Nivins and settled in with him and his son Mike. Rick married Sibylle Jorger in 1997 and had two children, Clara and Stefan. Elaine remarried in 1976 to Wayne Boden Beecroft. They bought Nu World of Awards in 1978 and Elaine was again part of the Comox Valley business community until 1992 when they retired. Elaine’s journey included many homes, uncountable RVs and thousands of kilometers of travel including down south where they spend their winters. Elaine had many hobbies and never missed her morning crossword puzzle. She was always enthusiastic, loved to laugh and “the coffee was always on.� We will miss her very much. Elaine is also survived by her sister Jean (Mau) Reveyrand, brother Bob (Ruth) Wensrich and numerous family members from the Wensrich, Taylor and Beecroft families. Elaine is predeceased by her parents Charlie and Matilda Wensrich and her sister Alice (Hub) Wilson. In lieu of flowers, Elaine requested donations be made to YANA, a local charity assisting sick children and their families. Http:// www.yanacomoxvalley.com. 495 Fitzgerald Avenue, Courtenay, B.C V9N 2R1. You are welcome to come and share stories with family and friends on June 29th at 1pm at the Beecroft residence in Courtenay.
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Family Album B i r t h d a y s • We d d i n g s • S p e c i a l O c c a s i o n s Ph. 250-338-5811 [email protected] Deadlines: Tue. and Fri. 12 noon
In Memory of
ROY MACEY
May 29 1938 ~ May 13 2013 You meant so much to all of us You were special and that’s no lie You brightened up the darkest day And the cloudless sky Not a second passes When you’re not on our minds Your love we will never forget The hurt may ease in time
A Time to Celebrate! A Time to Cheer!
Happy Birthday on May 18th! With lots of love, hugs & kisses Grandma and Grandpa Poole
Judy and Norm Fellbaum
Forgive me for wanting you so, But one thing I want you to know, I’ve loved you since heaven knows when, There! I’ve said it again.
Your Community, Your ClassiďŹ eds. Call 1-855-310-3535
TENDERS
Family & Friends, come help celebrate!
Merville Hall ~ Saturday, May 31 Doors @ 5pm • Buet Dinner @ 6
(no alcohol) Bring Your Good Wishes, Old Photos & Stories but No Gifts Please. RSVP Linda 250-338-4689 or [email protected]
Quality Foods Cake
ďŹ l here itplease ’s your ne www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
In loving legacy, Barb, Lydia, Winter, Alan, Maurice, Liam, Molly, and Luke. See ya Later!
Your gentle face and patient smile With sadness we recall You had a kindly word for each And died beloved by all
Wishing you many more happy years together. With love from your family and friends.
will be 80
Memories... Sometimes we’re sad sometimes we’re glad When we think of you and the life that you had Mostly we remember how you touched our lives; your smile; your love and the kindness in your eyes.
DEATHS
Celebrate their 50th Wedding Anniversary on May 16, 2014.
TWINS Beverley Gunter & Barbara Page
In Memory of DAVE HARDY May 17, 2013
Today I know we will mostly miss, your loving arms as they hug and hold us and we hear the words only your voice can speak with assurance: I know it’ll be alright�
In Loving Memory Of BILL ZILKIE Apr. 29 1923 ~ May 18 2012
Turn 11 This Year!
DOWNTOWN
Comox Legion Come share your memories
Forever in Our Hearts Love, Penny, Duane, Janine, Ashley, Caitlin, Warren, Laurie, Trevor, Garth, and Taylor.
Maddie & Deklan
March 16, 1922 – May 4, 2014
1400 Vancouver Street Victoria, BC, V8V 3W3 Ph. 250.385.4465 www.mccallbros.com
May 24, 2014, 1:00pm - 4:00pm
If tears could build a stairway And memories a lane I’d walk right up to heaven And bring you home again
Herbert (Bert) Lincoln Matthews
Born in the Village of Alert Bay, Cormorant Island, B.C., Bert passed away in Victoria, B.C. with his family by his side after a courageous battle with brain cancer. Bert was predeceased by his brother, Daniel (Dan) Matthews and is survived by sisters; Dorothy (Dot) Gorbatuk, Roberta (Billie) Stange and Ethel (Lovie) Petrie. He is also survived by his loving wife, Inez May Matthews (Tame) of 68 wonderful years; daughter, Rosemary Tull (Gregory); sons, Robert (Bob) Matthews and Martin Matthews, Susan (Sue) McKinney; grandchildren, Russell (Nicole), Leanne (Jack), Tim (Yuka), Casey (Tanya), Matthew (Matt) and great-grandchildren, Reid, Katelyn, Madelyn, Cassidy, Tyler, Dylan and Myles. In WWII Bert served his country and defended the country that he cherished so much. Bert served as Flight Lieutenant in the RAF 120 Coastal Squadron based in Northern Ireland and Iceland flying VLR (very long range) Liberator (B24) bombers. His principle task as an Astro Navigator and Bombing leader was to assist in closing the mid-Atlantic gap in the Battle of the Atlantic. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for bravery in 1943. Bert lived a full life enjoying golfing, gardening, researching medical technology, attending church and volunteering in the community. The name Herbert means “Illustrious Bright Warrior� and that, he was for 92 years. The family would like to extend profound respect and appreciation to Dr. M. Mann, Dr. D. Trerice, Dr. J. Goulart and the RJH Oncology medical staff. Remembrance and Celebration of Life Service is to be held at St. Michael and All Angels Church, 4733 West Saanich Road at 2:00 pm on Saturday, May 24, 2014. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to BC Cancer Foundation or the Heart & Stroke Foundation of BC. Condolences may be offered to the family at www.mccallbros.com.
Celebration Of Life for David Arsenault
We never have forgotten The joys we’ve shared with you You’ll always be a part of us Of all we say and do And though we’re truly gratefully For everything we had Our heart forever echoes We really miss you dad. Love Eileen & all your Family
In loving memory TENDERS
Tender for a 2 year Minimum Contract for Sea Freight Services for Cermaq Canada West Coast Operations Cermaq Canada has an opportunity for interested parties to bid on a 2 year contract for Sea Freight services, Smolt Delivery Service and Sea Site Mortality Removal for the West coast of Vancouver Island in the Tofino- Clayoquot area. This Letter is intended for the use of bidding on this contract opportunity. You may bid on all or part of the tender • Mortality removal service • Smolt Delivery Service • Sea Freight Vessels(s) for the Tofino - Clayoquot area of operations All vessels must be able to meet or exceed ISO 14001, 9001, 22000 and 18001 requirements of Cermaq Canada as they apply to this contract Pertinent information; • Cermaq Canada services up to 14 Remote Sea Sites out of their Tofino facility in the Clayoquot Sound year round. • Locations Range from Warn Bay all the way to Dixon Bay in Shelter Inlet. • Tender packages are available but bidders will be required to sign a confidentiality agreement with Cermaq before receiving the package. Terms of Bidding • All bids must be in by 5 pm June 5, 2014 including a proposed contingency plan, in writing by mail or e-mail to the contact info below. • Office Contact: Cermaq Canada, PO Box 142, 61 4th St. Tofino B.C. V0R 2Z0, (250) 725-1255, Fax (250)725-1250 Attn. Don McIntyre, [email protected]
LEONA PEZZOT February 1, 1915 March 9, 2014.
Celebration of Life will be held at the Fallen Alders Hall on May 25 at 1pm. COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS INFORMATION
DID YOU KNOW? BBB Accredited Businesses contractually agree to operate by the BBB’s 8 Standards of Trust. Look for the 2014 BBB Accredited Business Directory Eedition on your Black Press Community Newspaper website at www.blackpress.ca. You can also go to http://vi.bbb.org/directory/ and click on the 2014 BBB Accredited Business Directory
IN-FLIGHT Magazine... SOAR Magazine. This attractive business & tourism publication is published bi-monthly (six times a year). Great impact for your BC Business. More than 280,000 passengers y PaciďŹ c Coastal Airlines. Please call Annemarie 1.800.661.6335 or email ďŹ [email protected]
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B22 Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD B22 www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
Thu, May 15, 2014, Comox Valley Record
COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS CHILDCARE
HELP WANTED
ECE
An Alberta Oilfield Company is hiring experienced dozer and excavator operators, meals and lodging provided. Drug testing required. 1-(780)7235051.
PART Time/Relief Class 1A Driver needed to haul Bulk Milk. To apply email resume & abstract to [email protected] or fax to 780-486-0821.
Vernon Service Company requires Journeyman Service Plumbers/Gasfitters, $36.00/hr Call (250)549-4444 or fax 250-549-4416
WANTED RELIABLE competent cleaning lady. Bi-Weekly. Reply to DRAWER # 4560 c/o The Comox Valley Record 765 McPhee Ave., Courtenay
ICHIBAN SUSHI restaurant is looking for experienced fulltime/part-time Sushi Chef and a kitchen cook. Willing to train right person. Wage based on experience. Apply in person with resume to 932 Fitzgerald Ave, Courtenay.
The Lemare Group is accepting resumes for the following positions: Camp Cooks (Red Seal Chef an asset), Camp Bull cooks. Please send resumes by fax to 250-956-4888 or email to [email protected]
The Lemare Group is accepting resumes for the following positions: Boom men, Off Highway Logging Truck Drivers, Hydraulic Log Loader Operator, Processor Operators, Chasers, Coastal Certified Hand Fallers, Machists,Millwright,Heavy Duty Mechanics. Fulltime with union rates/benefits. Please send resumes by fax to 250-956-4888 or email to [email protected]
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HELP WANTED
HELP WANTED
LARGE BUSY Group Daycare is looking for an experienced childcare worker. Mon. - Fri. 9:00am - 2:00pm. Located at Huband Park School F.M.I 250-792-0054
EDUCATION/TRADE SCHOOLS
EDUCATION/TRADE SCHOOLS
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS If you want to drink, it is your business, if you want to Stop it is ours. Ph: A.A 250-338-8042 Call Any Time 24/7
EARLY CHILD EDUCATOR Part Time / Full Time Competitive salary & benefits
Nar-Anon are you affected by someone’s use of drugs, we can help. Wed. Group 7:30pm at 280-4th St. Eureka Support Society contact Jack 3343485. Fri. Group 7:30pm, Komok’s Health Centre, 3322 Comox Rd. Call Rene 334-2392.
Inquiries: Trina-250-890-9388
FOUND keys with a small lock near roundabout at Cumberland Rd & Willemar. Contact Record at 250-338-5811 LOST KEYS near Value Village April 22 2014. Toyota car key on the chain. REWARD. Call 250-218-8808
TRAVEL GETAWAYS LONG BEACH - Ucluelet Deluxe waterfront cabin, sleeps 6, BBQ. Spring Special. 2 nights $239 or 3 nights $299 Pets Okay. Rick 604-306-0891
ACCOUNTING/ BOOKKEEPING
ACCOUNTANT Long Term Care Facility
Local long term care facility is expanding and requires a Staff Accountant. This is a new position, approximately 30 hours per week. The successful applicant will be a self starter who is highly responsible and demonstrates attention to detail. Requirements: Education equivalent to three years of an accounting designation & several years experience in a bookkeeping/staff accounting position. Knowledge and experience with: •Multi level payroll •AR/AP and inventory •GST •System development •Simply Accounting Flexible work hours, wages and benefits are dependent on back ground and exp. Please submit your resume care of: deborah@ deborahewartcga.com Before May 16, 2014
ADMINISTRATION ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Seasoned full time Admin Assistant required for Courtenay professional office. Successful candidate will be energetic and personable with well-developed office skills. 3-5 years administrative/secretarial experience is required. We offer competitive compensation and a collegial work environment. Please respond by email to:
[email protected]
or fax resume to 888315-8416. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for interviews.
AUTOMOTIVE SMALL INDEPENDENT automotive repair shop in Parksville is looking for a highly motivated certified automotive technician. Experienced in import an asset. We offer competitive wages. Please send resume with references to [email protected]
EDUCATION/TRADE SCHOOLS WEEKEND COURSE FIREARMS TRAINING & C.O.R.E. Non Restricted & restricted. C.O.R.E. Course starts: Fri. May 23 6pm-10pm Sat. May 24 8am-noon
Life Guard Required 18 years or older. NLS certificate. CPRC. Recent criminal check req’d. Available for casual and part time. Start immediately.
C.O.R.E. continues May 26, 27, 28. 6pm-10pm
Contact The Kelsey Centre at 250-282-5500 ask for Darlene
Two pieces of ID required. For info contact: Granlund Fire Arms 250-286-9996 2nd Hand Military Store 250-337-1750 Tyee Marine 250-334-2942
MAINTENANCE PERSON REQUIRED. This is a fulltime, permanent position starting immediately at our post mill and treating plant in Princeton, BC. Must have a minimum of 10 years maintenance experience on a variety of production and mobile equipment, with strong skills in welding, hydraulics and basic electrical work. Experience in a mill environment preferred. Must be able to handle a variety of tasks, work well with minimum supervision and be part of the team. Benefits include excellent wage, health spending account and profit sharing. Please submit resumes by fax 250295-7912 or email [email protected] Please visit our website at www.pwppost.com for further information on the company.
HAIRCARE PROFESSIONALS
Hairstylists/Managers Needed- GUARANTEED $12.50/ HOUR, plus 25% profit sharing on sales, paid overtime, paid vacation, equipment supplied and maintained, advanced annual up grading training. Benefits include dental, drug, eye care.
OWNER / OPERATOR
STYLIST REQUIRED FT or PT. Call Kim at 250-703-1412 or drop off resume to 442A Duncan Ave., Courtenay.
Needed Immediately for Courtenay / Powell River daily delivery and pickup route for Ace Courier in Courtenay. Please email resume or bring in to 2998 Kilpatrick Ave, Courtenay, BC. [email protected]
CAREER SERVICES/ JOB SEARCH
Phone 250-668-5885 or send resume to: [email protected] $1000.00 HIRING BONUS
jobshop
• Class 1 & 3 • ICBC Licensed 1st Class Driving School
Courtenay 250-897-9875 • Campbell River 250-204-9875 www.instructordarryl.com
HELP WANTED
OPEN HOUSE to celebrate our 40th Year
May 21st 2014 1415 Cliffe Ave.
Join us for a celebration cake
11:30 – 2:30
For More Info Contact Gillian at 250-338-7575 ext. 227 www.comoxvalleyfamilyservices.com
Instructor, Hospitality Comox Valley & Campbell River Campuses Please go to http://careers.nic.bc.ca for further criteria, required qualiďŹ cations and information on how to apply to posting #100686.
HELP WANTED
Receptionist - Administrative Support
CAREER OPPORTUNITY The Town of Comox Recreation Department invites written applications for the position of a Part Time Janitorial Relief Services. For complete details, please go to our website at: www.comox.ca and click on “Employment Opportunities�.
Patient Coordinator Position Pacific Sleep Care, a busy sleep therapy clinic located in Courtenay, is seeking a Patient Coordinator to join our team on a part time basis in Campbell River. Candidates must be willing to work in both our Courtenay and Campbell River clinics. Candidates must also be willing to cover periodically vacations at our clinics in Nanaimo and Duncan. Flexible candidates should be able to work in a fast paced medical customer service environment. Basic duties include reception, scheduling of appointments and customer care. A background working in medical, complimentary care clinics or designation as a Certified Dental Assistant, would be an asset. Please drop your resume off at our office at 1255B Cliffe Ave. Courtenay during regular office hours before May 21st addressed to Simone Lamont. email: [email protected] 1-866-210-6585
Office Administration and Support
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES LOOKING TO hire and train 3 new Realtors. Apply to Earl Costello or Gregg Hart - Royal LePage in the Comox Valley. 250-334-3124
Air Brake Course h t t p : //c a r e e r s . n i c . b c . c a
PERSONALS AL-ANON/ALATEEN - Concerned about someone’s drinking? Contact 1-8884ALANON (1-888-425-2666). www.al-anon.alateen.org
Join our team! Provide clerical, technical and program support to the staff and Board of Directors of the Comox MFRC. The ideal candidate will be a capable multi-tasker who is comfortable with technology and has the flexibility to handle a variety of diverse tasks. Strong communication skills are key, as is attention to detail. The incumbent will maintain office inventories including procurement of consumable supplies and computer equipment, liaise with IT department to report and troubleshoot computer and telecom deficiencies, and manage information security issues. Using MS Office Suite, prepare minutes, correspondence, statements, and statistical reports, including maintenance of agency policy documentation. Provide backup capabilities to Reception during lunch and vacation. Post-secondary education in office administration or a minimum of 3 years relevant technical experience are desirable. Knowledge of the military structure, previous non-profit work experience and the ability to communicate in French are assets. This is a full-time position (37.5hrs/wk) commencing June 16, 2014. Forward rĂŠsumĂŠ and cover letter to: Comox Military Family Resource Centre PO Box 310, Lazo, BC V0R 2K0 Fax: 250-339-8199 Email: [email protected] ATTN: Executive Director Closing Date: May 26, 2014, 4 pm Only those applicants selected for an interview will be contacted.
Join our team! The incumbent of this key position will warmly receive clients and visitors with a focus on high-level client-centered customer service that is friendly, professional and courteous. Our busy Reception desk is the central hub for MFRC service delivery; thus, a broad knowledge of all our programs and services and adherence to our core values is expected. The provision of clerical and computing support (MS Office Suite, Access and Publisher) to other staff is a part of the daily duties. Attention to detail and the ability to maintain accurate records are essential skills. Post-secondary education in office administration or a minimum of 3 years’ experience working in a non-profit environment are desirable. Knowledge of the military community and the ability to converse in French are assets. This is a full-time position (37.5 hrs/wk) commencing June 6, 2014. Forward rÊsumÊ and cover letter to: Comox Military Family Resource Centre PO Box 310, Lazo, BC V0R 2K0 Fax: 250-339-8199 Email: [email protected] ATTN: Executive Director Closing Date: May 26, 2014, 4 pm Only those applicants selected for an interview will be contacted.
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
NOW HIRING
Western Forest Products Inc. is an integrated Canadian forest products company located on Vancouver Island that is committed the safety of employees, the culture of performance and the discipline to achieve results.
MAINTENANCE SUPERVISOR Cowichan Bay Sawmill
LOG SCALER/INDUSTRIAL GRADER Englewood (Beaver Cove Dryland)
GRAPPLE YARDER HOOKTENDER Englewood Forest Operation
HEAVY DUTY MECHANIC Northern Vancouver Island
PLANNING ADMINISTRATOR
Stillwater Forest Operation (Powell River) Detailed job postings can be viewed at
www.westernforest.com/business-value/our-people-employment/careers
We offer a competitive salary and a comprehensive beneĂ°ts package.
If you believe that you have the skills and qualiĂ°cations, and want to experience the special West Coast lifestyle reply in conĂ°dence to: Human Resources Department Facsimile: 1.866.840.9611 Email: [email protected]
Comox Valley Record Thu, May 15, 2014 HOME/BUSINESS SERVICES
MERCHANDISE FOR SALE
MISCELLANEOUS FOR SALE
APARTMENT/CONDOS
COMMUNITY SUPPORT WORKER: Milieu Family Services We are looking for enthusiastic people who have a great deal of common sense and can work well under pressure. Successful candidates will work with young people in their homes and in the community. We offer competitive wages and a benefit package and will provide required training. Please send Resumes and Cover Letters to [email protected]
NEED A GUY? Handyman Service. Journeyman Carpenter & Jack of all trades. Reno’s, decks, tiling, bath/kitchens, doors, windows, fix-ups & maintenance. 30yrs exp. Reasonable rates. Seniors Discount. Jamie 250-650-6304
RED SHOPRIDER Scooter with cane holder, canopy, windshield & speed adjustment dial. Battery charger & manual incld. Works like new. $1500. Call (250)871-1331.
HITACHI 2-TON electric hoist $1,250.obo. Inglis programmable stove $200.obo. Frigidaire 16.5 cu.ft. fridge w/freezer $125.obo. Kenmore HD large capacity over/under W/D $100.obo. Woodstove 18� fire box + 2 stove pipes $300. 250-890-1071
KILL ROACHES! Buy Harris Roach Tablets. Eliminate bugs- guaranteed. No mess, odorless, long lasting. Available at Ace Hardware & The Home Depot.
NANAIMO WATERFRONT 2nd floor condo. 1500 sq.ft. LR/DR/2bdrms with view, den, gas FP, secure bldg. 2 underground parking spaces. Maintenance fee includes hot water/gas/landscaping. 1 pet OK. View anytime. $339,900 Reduced to $329,000. (250)7539123
GARDENING
HOME STAY FAMILIES
HOTEL, RESTAURANT, FOOD
MEDICAL/DENTAL OPHTHALMIC ASSISTANT needed for busy Ophthalmologist office. Must have excellent typing skills and medical terminology. Previous medical office experience would be an asset. Position available immediately. Full time position or four days/week. Please forward resume and references to: [email protected]
TRADES, TECHNICAL CEMENT PUMP OPERATOR Local company seeks experienced concrete pump operator for operations in the Comox Valley and surrounding areas. Specific experience with a 40m pump an asset but not a requirement. The successful candidate will have a professional attitude with customers and be respectful to the equipment and the work environment. Drivers abstract required. Applicants can forward their resumes/ applications to: E-mail: admin@upland group.ca Fax: 250-287-8382
PERSONAL SERVICES
BREMSHEY TREADLINE Scout Treadmill, 5 years old, excellent condition, safety features, multiple programs, automatic deck adjustments. $700 phone 250-335-0534.
HANDYPERSONS
BRIDAL GOWN, sleeveless, full figure with chapel train. Satin with beading on front & back never worn $600. 250-339-4551.
250-898-8887. HOME Repair, Renovation & Maintenance Service. Interior or Exterior. Call Les for Free Estimate.
GUITAR, BANJO - 5 string. PC Lap Top, printer & equipment. For more information please call 250-339-7705
VISITING! BUSTY blonde playmate, 36D-30-36, curvy, 26 yrs. Sensual massage and more! Senior/Military rates. Call (587)877-0255.
~ Bark ~ Topsoil ~ Gravel ~ Sand ~ Dump Runs ~ Yard clean-ups ~ Firewood ~ Full Cords Call 250-218-2817
PAINTING COLIN’S PAINTING. Spring Special 3 rooms $299. Ceilings & trim extra. 30 yrs exp. Refs. Call (250)923-1954.
MERCHANDISE FOR SALE
2 Bdrm, 1 bath, apartment. Quiet Puntledge Park Area. Call after 4pm 250-336-2338
ALL YOU NEED IN PRINT AND ONLINE www.bcclassiďŹ ed.com
#,!33)&)%$3Ă–7/2+Ă–(!2$
"59).'Ă– Ă–2%.4).' Ă–3%,,).'
MARY ANN ROLFE B.Sc, M.Ed
REGISTERED CLINICAL COUNSELLOR Approx. 25+ Years 25 Years Experience Experience E.M.D.R. & Clinical Hypnosis #300-841 Ave., Courtenay • 250-339-9730 WorkSafeCliffe B.C., I.C.B.C. & other 3rd Party Coverage As of June 1st: #11-1822 Comox Ave. Comox, BC #300-841 Cliffe Ave., Courtenay • 250-339-9730
www.rolfecounselling.com E-mail: [email protected]
To advertise in this feature call the Comox Valley Record at 250-338-5811 or email [email protected]
#ALLĂ– Ă–TOĂ–PLACEĂ–YOURĂ–GARAGEĂ–SALEĂ–ADĂ–ANDĂ–RECEIVEĂ– &2%%Ă–BALLOONS Ă–INVENTORYĂ–ANDĂ–TIPĂ–SHEETSĂ–ANDĂ–GARAGEĂ–SALEĂ–SIGNSĂ– GARAGE SALES
GARAGE SALES
GARAGE SALES
Annual Plant SALE
COURTENAY: 2115 Embleton Cres., Saturday and Sunday, 8:30-3pm. Garage sale/Lemonade stand. Lots of girls and boys clothing sizes 6-12. Women’s clothing sizes 14-18. Shoes, toys, dressers, aquariums, hamster cages, and accessories, dishes, air hockey table, kids kitchen and more!
CUMBERLAND - 2971 Royston Rd. Sat., May 17th, 8-2. Antique tools, power saws, household items. Great prices.
Saturday 9 am - 12 pm Rain or Shine 2250 IDIENS WAY, COMOX
UNDER $100
Too much to list Save $$$$
HORSE SHOES three sets of two. $50 per set. Phone 250-703-2172
COMOX1965 COUGAR Cres, Sat, May 17, 8-1pm.
ELECTRIC BED Simons 39� v.nice cond $225 Inversion Table, new cond $100 334-8030
FARM EQUIPMENT
FIREWOOD FULL cords $170 a cord 2 cords for $165 a cord order now 250-218-2817
APARTMENT/CONDOS
NEW INSIDE - RANCHER. 1505 Hobson, Courtenay. 2-bdrm, 1 bath, all new appliances. Asking $268,000. Call (250)334-7335 or email [email protected]
OPEN HOUSE every Sunday 1pm-5pm Courtenay-#26-20 Anderton Ave. Patio Home, Adult Complex, 2 bdrm, 2 bath, 1274 sq ft - $249,900. FMI & Pics see KIJIJI or call 250-703-0097
Valley Wide Small Haul
#250-703-FIRE(3473)-Yellow cedar avail. Custom cut, split, delivered,clean.Well seasoned
#,!33)&)%$Ă–!$3Ă–-%!.Ă–-/2%Ă–"53).%33
KILL BED bugs & their eggs! Buy Harris Bed Bug Killer Complete Treatment Program or Kit. Available: Hardware Stores, Buy Online: homedepot.com
REAL ESTATE
FUEL/FIREWOOD
250-650-1333 SKILLED carpenter. Licensed & certified. Free estimates, Call Doug www.suncrestholdings.ca
INDUSTRIAL SERGER, high speed, Siruba 757 B, straight needle, over lock, five thread, safety stitch machine, self oiling. Comes w/table. In like new condition. Owner retiring. $999.99 OBO. Beautiful Oak Electric Fire Place, in as new condition. Comes with hearth, works well New was $1500 without hearth. Asking $550 OBO. Call 250-339-1033
RENO SALE: Whirlpool Gold dishwasher & microwave. Kitchen table & 4 chairs. Sofa and love seat. Treadmill. Lawnmower. All items for sale by “Best Offer�. Please call 250-898-8859
FOR SALE BY OWNER
Relationship counselling, trauma, mental and Individual and couple counselling. physical health issues, chronic pain, addictions.
THINKING OF A NEW IKEA KITCHEN? • DESIGN • DELIVERY • INSTALLATION Since 1990. 250-338-3148
1975 DAVID BROWN Tractormodel #995, comes with front end loader, 3. hitch and PTO, good running order. 64HP diesal. $5700. obo. Call (250)897-2997.
CARPENTRY
HOT TUB (SPA) COVERS. Best price. Best quality. All shapes & colours available. 1-866-652-6837 www.thecoverguy.com/ newspaper?
HOME IMPROVEMENTS
FINANCIAL SERVICES
HOME/BUSINESS SERVICES
HOSPITAL BED w/linens, $750. 2 chrome cloths rack, spiral, $40, 4’, $30. Print, black grey and purple Irises, 40x28. $40. (250)751-2142.
LARGE SHOP Rider Scooter and a Bruno Lift, Aqua-tech bath lift and Roho cushion. Delta band saw, Delta 12� planner w/dust collector. Large map drill press w/metal bits, horizontal metal band saw, Settling torch and cart, 4 tool boxes, numerous other tools too much to list! Call (250)3381689.
250-898-4585. SKILLED Carpenter kitchen/bath,interior/exterior. Free Estimates, Seniors Discounts. No job too small [email protected]
UNDER $300 ESCORTS
1985 500cc Honda Shadow M/C good condition $1500. Troybilt rototiller, ramps & hiller/furrower $500. Cabart wooden oboe $650. Vito clarinet $100. Suzuki 3/4 size violin $125. Please call for more info 250-336-8423. 2004 PONTIAC Sunfire 4 cyl standard 120,420k - $3000. 5X10 Utility Trailer covered sides + roof, roof racks - $600. 16’ Frontiersman Canoe $400. Call 250-335-2048.
HOMESTAY FAMILIES NEEDED for Japanese boys for July 23 to Aug 8. Stipend paid. Louise 250-334-1501.
EXECUTIVE CHEF+ experienced cooks are needed at the newly renovated Micky J’s Bar & Grill at Arrowsmith Golf & Country Club, Parksville. Competitive wages, great perks, fun people... Please email resumes to: [email protected]
MISCELLANEOUS FOR SALE
FIREWOOD. Full cords. Cut, Split and Delivered. Phone today! Call 250-792-4328
FURNITURE BEAUTIFUL PECAN China Cabinet. 56� x 17� original. $1500, selling for $500. Solid Oak Pedestal. table extends to 59’ with the 18� leaf in it, + 4 matching chairs $300. 250890-3458. MOVING Must sell- Sofa $400 (6mos old). Beautiful Cherry wood fireplace/media cabinet $400 (new). 250-757-8757.
COMOX - 2160 Stradacona Dr. Sat., May 17, 9-1pm. Moving sale. Bedroom set, household items & much, much more. COMOX- 325 Querry Rd, Sat, May 17, 8:30-? Multi-Family! Collectibles, wood working tools, air brush machine, household items, CD’s, tapes, DVD’s, CD player, tape player, music stands, electric organ, books, LP’s, 2 large office desks. Several guitars by appointment only! Special table of items of which the proceeds will be donated to the ALS Society of BC. COMOX - 500 Block Church St. Sat., May 17th 8:00am til 12:00 noon. Annual Garage Sale. Invisible Door Screen, exercise bike, cordless swiffer, coffee maker, treadmill, restaurant style stainless steal rotisserie, antique crystal punch bowl and much, much more. COMOX. CARDINAL Place. Saturday May 17, 9am - 2pm. Furniture, household items, etc. COURTENAY - 1483 Valley View Dr. Sat. May 17th 8:00am-12:00pm. Estate Sale. All household items, kitchen ware & china, furniture-bdrm, dining rm., living rm.
COURTENAY - 3040 Cumberland Rd. May 17 & 18. 8am til? Multi family sale. Plants, vinyl windows, household items and collectables. COURTENAY - 305 Evergreen Ave. Sat. 17th, 8:00am - 10:00am. Household, fishing, tools. ETC. COURTENAY: 3425 Jaqueline Dr., Sat., May 17th, 9-1pm. Neighborhood sale; tools, horse items, sewing machine, house wares, books, you name it! Rain or shine! COURTENAY - #35 309 Cowichan Ave. Trailer Pk. May 17 & 18, 9am - 1pm. Lot’s of wood furniture, tools, living room furniture. COURTENAY 4703A Ashwood ph. (off Muir) Sat., May 17th 9:00 Am - 1:00 PM COURTENAY - 5th St. & Harmston, St. John’s Church Sale. Sat., 8am - noon. Vast selection of items to please discriminating buyers. Reasonably priced. COURTENAY EAST 620 Nechako Ave. Top of Ryan Rd. off Cowichan. Sat., May 17th, 0800 - ?
COURTENAY - 168B Arden Rd. May 17th, 8-12 noon. Household items, bike, toys, stroller, TV stand, books.
Courtenay Flea Market EVERY SUNDAY Puntledge Road past bottle depot No booking required. Space $15 Vendors set up 8am-2pm Call Greg 250-334-1540
COURTENAY - 355 Webb Rd. May 17, 18, & 19. 8am -3pm Homemade jams & bread, floater coast, suitcases, cassette drawers, bells, picnic tens, kerosene heater, rat cage, hand knit doll & baby clothes. Lots of good stuff
COURTENAY - Multi family Sale. 1400 Malahat Dr. Sat May 17th, 7:15-12:00. Bedding, kitchen, books fabric, home decor, bikes, student desk, pet dishes. Rain or Shine!
ROOFING
QUALITY WORKMANSHIP GUARANTEED!
DAHLIA TUBER SALE ($3 or 5 for $10) 4308 Marsden Rd. Courtenay 250-338-2250 On Going
- ESTATE SALE COURTENAY Back room at Michael’s Off Main, 355 4th St. Tue., May 20 to Fri., May 23rd 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM FANNY BAY - Holiday Rd. Garage Sale, Sat. May 17th, 9am-1pm. No Early Birds. 8 houses - Follow balloons up hill. Treasures galore.
KIWANIS CLUB OF COURTENAY “Gigantic Juncktique Sale� at St. George United Church Hall corner of 6th St. & Fitzgerald Ave. Courtenay B.C. May 16th 6pm - 8pm Fri. May 17th 8am-12noon Sat.
NOT YOUR AVERAGE PLANT SALE Beautiful perennials, shade lovers, bulbs some trees and shrubs. (30% off this weekend). Organically grow berries and veggie starts (over 20 varieties). 10-2pm Sat, Sun, Mon, May 17-19. 55 Rod & Gun Rd, Courtenay, BC. SARATOGA BEACH 8829 Driftwood Rd. Fri. May 16. 6-9pm. Sat/Sun. May 17, 18. 8am-2pm. Extremely Large Sale. Incredible deals. This is THE ONE!
RENOVATIONS Additions, Garages, Decks, Concrete, Renovations, Flooring, Tile, Kitchens, Bathrooms, and MORE!!
High EfďŹ ciency One Man Show ATTENTION TO DETAIL From 30 Years Exposure to Interprovincial RooďŹ ng Standards. WCB reg., Licenced, Neat & Tidy
HOME IMPROVEMENTS JASON NEAL
A roof is only as good as its weakest point
250-792-3827
AUTO ACCESSORIES/ PARTS
AUTO FINANCING
PERFECT Home - Quiet, clean 1-bdrm appt close to downtown Courtenay. $650/mo. Hot water. N/S N/P. 250-667-7528
3 Bay Service Station - Royston - 2240 sq feet, 3 bays. 1 hoist, overhead winch, storage rm, office, front till area, 1 bthrm. Significant use of outdoor parking. Entire space for $1895/mo. 2 Bays only $1500/mo. [email protected]
1369sqft. PATIO HOME. 2bdrm. In a location that can’t be beat. Mntn. view Quiet neighborhood in a beautiful setting. Bareland strata. 2 minutes to Merecroft Village. $282,000. 250-287-8570 or 250-202-7717
TOWNHOUSES 587 S. MURPHY St. Spacious 4bdrm, 3bth, 3500sqft. Centrally located. Ocean view. Low maint yrd w/ 2 lg. decks in back. Oversize dble garage + RV prkng. Must be seen to appreciate. $519,900. 250-2877709 or 250-203-5160. CR
MOBILE HOMES & PADS COMOX2-BDRM mobile, W/D, F/S. $750. May 15. Call 250-339-1772.
SENIOR ASSISTED LIVING
BRIGHT COZY 2bed 2bath home on sunny 2+acres $284,000. England Rd. Courtenay. See more craigslist or contact [email protected] for details. Country living w/city convenience
250-897-1611 Licensed Professionals Attention 1st time buyers & investors! 1400+ sqft. 4 bd. 2 bth. Prvte fnc’d bkyrd w/ patio. Excel. Willow Point Location. Walking distance to beach & all levels of school. Updated w/ laminate flooring throughout, newer roof Realtors welcome offering a full buyers commission. 250-923-6503.
COURTENAY RANCHER for sale, 1800sqft, in floor heat, 3 bdrm, 2 living rooms, 2 full baths, hot tub & RV Parking. 250-338-5962 250-897-4465
“JUST RURAL ENOUGH� 5 bdrm, 3 bath 3200 sq.ft. home on 2.79 acres 2131 Schulz Road Black Creek Large country kitchen with custom oak cabinets, Hardwood floors kitchen/dining. Heat pump, air cond., wood stove, 7 skylights, central vac, Large wrap around deck. Dbl garage, excellent well system, large basement with suite potential. Great family home in private setting backing onto Saratoga Golf course, near schools and beaches. $559,000. 250-337-8450
MOVABLE COTTAGE. Brand new, built to code. 160 sq.ft. Open & bright. Enclosed deck. $8500. (778)585-2287. [email protected]
NANAIMO: 1450SQ.FT, Open concept, 2bdrm, 2bath Rancher on 1/2 acre. Dbl garage, mature trees, greenhouse, RV prkg. $359,000. (250)7535826 for more info google search 360264.
WHOLE DUPLEX for sale1280sq ft per side, 3.5 bdrms, 1.5 bath. 9498 McDougall Rd, Port Hardy, BC. $225,000. Call (250)334-8474.
HOUSES FOR SALE
CUSTOM 3BDRM,2 bth, 1850 sq ft home in Cambridge Estates, well maintained, one owner, Asking $349,900. 250923-8452/250-203-3912
CR-2700 sqft. Ocean & mountain views. 3bdrm, 2.5 bth. 7 yrs old. Lrge kitch. Open concept. Gorgeous fnc’d bkyrd. Fruit trees & shrubs. Must be seen to enjoy all extras. $424,900. 180 S. Birch St. 250-287-7006. By appt. only.
MOBILE HOMES & PARKS
FREE MOBILE Home - Brentwood.Age unknown, 55X11ft approx. Would suit refurbishment. Serious viewers only. Must collect. 250-813-0562
FREE MOBILE Home/Trailer, age unknown, 38X8ft approx. Scrap or animal storage. Serious viewers only. Must collect. 250-813-0562
FREE MOBILE Home/Trailer two together, age unknown, 42X11ft 44X9ft approx. Scrap or animal storage. Serious viewers only. Must collect. 250-813-0562
REAL ESTATE SERVICES
www.pennylane.bc.ca
MAPLEWOOD MANOR 2nd flr 1 bdrm, 1 bath unit, new carpet & lino, F & S, W/D hook ups in suite, balcony, adult oriented, N/S, No pets Avail. June 15 - $625/mth ROSEWOOD TOWNHOUSES 2 bdrm, 1 bath townhouse, F & S, coin laundry, basic cable incl., N/S, Cat ok. Avail. Immed. $725/mth. $250 move-in incentive. Call Res. Mgr. 250334-8602. MAPLEWOOD MANOR 1 bdrm, 1 bath, adult oriented, F & S, coin laundry, balcony, new flooring & paint, laminate fls, new blinds & end unit. Avail. Immed $650/mth PARK PLACE MANOR 2 bdrm, 1 bath, 5 appls, gas F/P (gas incl), patio, N/S, No pets, new laminate flrs & paint, Avail May 15 $825/mth LORELIE 2 bdrm, 1 bath, F & S, coin laundry, adult oriented, balcony, new carpet & paint, N/S, No pets, Avail Immed. - $675/mth WILLOW WOOD, 2 bdrm, 1 bath, 4 appls, patio, 2 res. pkg spots, N/S, No pets, Avail. Immed - $750/mth CLOSE TO COLLEGE ground flr 2 bdrm, 1 bath, 5 appls, patio, new paint, res. pkg, N/S, No pets Avail. Immed. - $825/mth TRUMPETER RIDGE, 3 bdrm, 1.5 baths, 5 appls, garage, patio, gas F/P, N/S, No pets, Avail. Immed. $925/mth TRUMPETER’S LANDING ground flr 2 bdrm & den, 2 bath, 6 appls, undergr. pkg, patio, storage locker, Avail June 1 - $1,150/mth CLOSE TO COLLEGE 3 bdrm, 1 bath, 5 appls, res. pkg, 2 patios, N/S, No pets, Avail. July 1 - $875/mth SOUTHPOINT ESTATES 2 bdrm, 2 bath, 5 appls, gas F/P, double garage, heat pump, N/S, No pets, Avail. July 1 - $1,250/mth PIERCY CREEK ESTATES 3 bdrm, 2.5 bath, 5 appls, garage, fenced back yard, N/S, No pets, Avail. June 1 $1,250/mth
Are you currently a Licensed REALTORÂŽ or are you taking the UBC Real Estate Trading Services Course? If you are looking for a great brokerage, give us a call. Coast Realty Group Comox Valley offers you a dynamic management team and a friendly work atmosphere with Professional Realtors. For further details, call Mark Anderson at 250-897-3999 or email [email protected] today to ďŹ nd out if Coast Realty Group is the right ďŹ t for you
APARTMENT/CONDO COURTENAY- 2-BDRM, new paint, 5 new appls, baywindow w/park view. $750. Call (250)702-4857. LARGE 2-BDRM. Free heat. Elevator. Great location! From $750./mo. 250-334-4646. MOUNTAIN VIEW Manor- 125 Centennial Dr, Courtenay. 1 & 2 bdrms, secure entrance, ELEVATOR. 250-334-2800.
250-897-1611 Licensed Professionals www.pennylane.bc.ca
COURTENAY RANCHER 3 bdrm, 1 bath, 5 appls, newly reno’d, fenced yard w/shed, N/S, No pets, Avail May 15 $1,200/mth
COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRIAL PRIME COMOX location, 862 sq ft retail/office store front. Call 250-897-2402 for info.
#,!33)&)%$Ă–!$3Ă–7/2+
RV RESORT ON THE LAKE
Sites available at Great Rates. Daily, weekly, monthly. Pool, Hot tub, exercise room, laundry, putting green, hiking, fishing, Pickle Ball Court. Free coffee in one of the best clubhouses on the island. Nanaimo area. www.resortonthelake.com 250-754-1975 or [email protected]
OFF-ROAD VEHICLES
STORAGE
2005 POLARIS QUAD Silver Anniversary. New fuel pump, battery, bearings, front hub & shaft. Armour all around. $5500. 250-923-1372
ABBEYFIELD HOUSE offers affordable, supportive seniors accommodation in a home-like setting. All meals provided. Call 250-338-7136 for tour.
STOWAWAY STORAGE 5’x7’ Locker, $60/mo 2nd mo. free. Centrally Located. Lowest Prices.250-334-2626 Mon- Fri.
HOMES FOR RENT
1970 Fitzgerald Ave, Courtenay
1015 Cumberland Rd., Courtenay
2 AND 3 BEDROOM available. Quiet complex with on-site management. Reasonable rates. Some completely renovated units with new appliances. Sorry no pets. Security deposit and 2 rental reference required. 250-334-3078
TWO BEDROOM SUITE available in well-respected, adult-oriented building. Close to downtown, and ideal for seniors with bus stop out front. Arran House is well managed and maintained, and offers a friendly and secure atmosphere. House cat is accepted with pet deposit. Non-smoking building. 250-334-9717
HOLLYRIDGE MANOR
200 Back Road, Courtenay
1252-9th St., Courtenay
1 and 2 Bedroom suites available. One of the best values in Courtenay. Unique floor plans. California kitchens. These bright, modern suites are available in quiet, secure building.
Spacious 2 & 3 bedroom suite in a quiet family oriented building with secure entry and manager on site. Walking distance to schools, bus stops, and downtown. Reasonable rent includes heat, hot water, stove, fridge, carpet and drapes. No pets, two rental references and security deposit required.
Call Sharon 250-338-7449
For viewing call Donna
250-334-9667
ANDERTON ARMS 426 Anderton Ave, Coutrtenay Cozy 1 Bdrm. in a great location! Overlooks Puntledge River and Lewis Park. Short walk to downtown. 2 rental references required. Sorry No Pets. Call 250-334-9717
CONDOS BEECHER MANOR
PACIFIC COURT 1520/1540 Piercy Ave, Courtenay
1045 Cumberland Road
Available May 1st: 2 bedrooms available in clean, quiet building with on-site manager, close to town, schools, and bus. Stove, fridge, blinds and carpet. Insuite storage with washer and dryer. Small pets welcome. Rental references and security deposit required. To View, Call 250-218-2111
BRIGHT AND SPACIOUS 1 bdrm & 2 bdrm 1.5 bath condos available close to downtown. This quiet, well maintained building suits mature adults. Bus stop is conveniently located out front. Small dogs accepted with pet deposit.
RUTHERFORD MANOR
1075 Edgett Road, Courtenay
1255 9th Street, Courtenay
1 & 2 bdrm suites available. Reasonable rent includes stove, fridge, dishwasher, carpet, blinds and storage room in suite. N/P, security deposit and 2 rental references req’d. Call Donna 250-334-9667 to view
Available deluxe 2 bedroom suite in a quiet well maintained building. Rent includes full size stove, fridge, washer/dryer, carpet and blinds. Nice feature: large open concept. No pets. 2 Rental references and Security Deposit required.
For viewing call Donna
250-334-9667
TOWNHOUSES TORRY PINES 1560-13th Street, Courtenay Attractive 2 bedroom townhouses have been completely renovated – enjoy new appliances, flooring and bathroom fittings in these spacious units. Friendly and quiet atmosphere make it ideal for family or working couple. Large, private patio area allows great access for your pet. Small dogs accepted with pet deposit. Call 250-334-9717
B25 www.comoxvalleyrecord.com. B25
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday, May 15, 2014
Comox Valley Record Thu, May 15, 2014 RENTALS
RENTALS
SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES
1966 FORD RANCHERO Good condition, good driver $5000 O.B.O. 250-287-3345
1986 BRONCO II XLT 2 dr, runs well, body good, 272km, sunroof, cruise, 4 wheel dr, sets 4 w/s rims, metal and wood roof racks. $1950. 250338-7190
VACANCIES MAPLEWOOD MANOR 2 bedroom, 1 bath condo. Balcony, laundry in suite. N/S N/P. Available immediately. $800/month. BARCLAY SQUARE 2 bedroom 1 bath. No smoking, no pets. Available immediately. $750/month. CORINTHIA ESTATES 2 bedroom 2 bath penthouse. In suite laundry, balcony. N/S, N/P. Available immediately. $1700/month. ROBB AVE. 3 bedroom, 1 bath rancher style house. Big yard, close to schools. Available immediately. $1200/month.
1989 BUICK LeSabre. Mechanics Special. Good 3.8 engine, newer battery, 4 good tires. Needs brake line repair $850.00 O.B.O. For more information please call 250-339-3512 1990 Ford F250 4x4, good mech cond, new brakes, tires, fuel system - $2500. 1998 Chev Cavalier 2 door, auto, Excell cond, 171000km $2400. 2004 Chev Cavalier 2 door, 5 spd, 124000km - mint - $4500. 2004 Pontiac Montana Van, auto, excell cond $4800. Call 250-339-5808.
1997 SUZUKI SIDEKICKbrand new tires+ 1 yr old winter tires, 4 cylinder. $3700. Call (250)204-6166.
1992 DODGE 4x4 Cummins Diesel Supercab, 252K original with winch, $3500. 250749-3358
SANDPIPER VILLAGE 1650 Comox Ave. TWO BEDROOM bright and spacious south facing unit. Unique floor plan with cross ventilation. Huge, private deck overlooking garden. Recently renovated. Very attractive. Quiet, mature adult building just two blocks from Comox Mall and services. ALSO ONE BEDROOM. Call Greg @ 250-339-1222.
TRADEWINDS 1600 Comox Ave. TWO BEDROOM nicely renovated suite - spacious and modern. Excellent location in central Comox walking distance to everything. In suite storage. New designer kitchen. Large dining room. Resident social room. Elevator and security entry. Well maintained and managed, mature adult building. ALSO ONE BEDROOM & DEN. Call Greg @ 250-339-1222.
GREENBRIER 750 Eighth Street LUXURY TWO BEDROOM CONDO. Very spacious corner suite. Unique floor plan. Nicely appointed with in suite washer/dryer, fully sized appliances. Very well maintained, mature adult building. Security entry. One of Courtenay’s finest. Three blocks from downtown. No pets. Call David @ 250-338-0267 or John @ 250-703-2264.
HYCROFT 1835 Cliffe Ave. LARGE TWO BEDROOM bright and spacious. Recent renovation. Very attractive. Quiet, mature adult building. Central Courtenay. Security entry. Call David @ 250-338-0267.
Photos submitted become the property of the Comox Valley Record, a division of Black Press.
1996 PONTIAC Grand Prix. $1200. New brakes & tires. Call (250)339-4225.
2002 CHEV MALIBU. One owner vehicle, low mileage and in A-1 condition. $2700 O.B.O. Call Barb 250-6504145 or 250-871-5452 to view.
2001 4x4 Dodge Dakota P/U Crew cab. 243,000 kms. $7,900. obo. Call 250-3375565 after 7 pm.
CORRECTION - KID-LIT QUACK
AUTOBODY REPAIRS and painting. Dents, rust, bumpers, undercoating, restoration. Professional, affordable. 250-7025754, 250-334-8521. DO YOU need a rust free body for your 89-93 Dodge Diesel? No rust, primed & ready to be painted (box, tailgate, cab, doors, fenders, hood, rad support, grill, bumper). $3500. Also 5.9 Cummins engine, 130K, $2000. 250-749-3358
MARINE
33 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 47 48 49 50 51
2005 PT Cruiser Convertible Touring Edition. $5,500. Red and black. 225,000 km but garage kept and in excellent condition. 250-335-0565.
95 FORD Crown Victoria. 4.6 litre. Cruise, Power locks/windows. Air Conditioning. New tires. 95,000 kms. $1600. 250923-1618 RECREATIONAL VEHICLES FOR SALE
10.5 ft. AB dinghy hard bottom inflatable with nearly new Suzuki 15 hp 4 cycle outboard and like new EZ Loader trailer. $4,500. Call 250-339-3264.
12ft- 380 QUICKSILVER inflatable (made by Mercury). Removable floor boards and wheels. Good condition. $750. obo. (250)758-4093, Nanaimo
1993 CLASS A WINNEBAGO 23’. Excellent condition. $10,500. Call 1-250-752-6484, Qualicum Beach. 19’ FIBERGLASS boat with trailer. 200hp and 8hp Mercury outboards. $6,900. obo. Call 250-337-5565 after 7pm.
2002- 32FT. Southwind Motorhome. Triton V-10 bank exhaust, 5,500 w generator, near new Toyo tires, back-up camera, awnings and many extras. $34,000. obo. 250-758-4093, Nanaimo.
2858 BAYLINER Ciera, boathouse kept, all bells/whistles, low hours, quality boat, possible smaller trade, reduced to $40,000. 250-745-3700
29FT MOTORHOME. Class A Very good cond. 2nd owner Must sell for health reasons. $15,000 obo. 250-287-3345
SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES ALOHA 34, 1979, $49,900. In Comox with slip, good condition, well equipped, Yanmar 27 HP 3GM30S. Inflatable dingy. Suzuki 2.5 HP outboard. Call (250)334-2450. 1997 TOYOTA Tacoma pick up truck, 5 speed manual 4 wheel drive, extra cab, V6, 3.4 liter and new body paint. $8500. Call (250)204-4441.
BOAT FOR Sale w/Trailer 18.5ft Lund Fiberglass. Make A Offer - 250-338-6236 after 6:00pm or weekend 9:00am-7:00pm.
Nutty confection Cardio workout system Icy home Old screen star Lamarr “Enough!,” in El Salvador Crucial — Lodge (motel) Minimum Squeeze (in) Charged, as in battle Thing to hatch out of Evening time Cry before “No hands!” Caught between — and Charybdis 54 One prodding 55 Walk very quietly 56 Exit door 57 Listened to 59 Comedian — Smirnoff 63 Buenos —, Argentina 66 Given out as deserved 67 Frankie Avalon’s “— Dinah” 69 Saintly article 70 “I’m not — complain ...” 71 Earthquake 72 Attach 75 Hole-making tool 76 Blues street of Memphis 77 “Cómo —?” 78 Sodium 81 Country singer Milsap 82 — -do-well 85 Most speedy 89 Mollify 91 Baby female sheep 92 “Forget it!” 93 Mop & — 94 Diplomacy 96 Pre-Easter 97 Dance music genre 98 Hawaiian coffee 99 Speechified 100 Music ending 104 Everyone, in Germany 105 Great benefit 106 Local near a loch 107 Punta del —, Uruguay 111 Candy bar from Mars 112 Actress Campbell 113 Sacked out 115 Mangy mutt 116 British corp. designation 117 They precede xis
fill here please
BOATS
SONOMA 1049 Stewart Ave. SPACIOUS TWO BEDROOM freshly renovated and redecorated. Quiet, mature adutl building. Central Courtenay. Security entry. No pets. Very attractive suite. Call John @ 250-703-2264.
Send Your Submission to:
[email protected] For more information
WESTWATER 60 Anderton Ave. TWO BEDROOM renovated suite. Ensuite, Jacuzzi tub, fireplace, in suite washer/dryer. New appliances. Walking distance to downtown. Well maintained and managed quiet, mature adult building. Resident social room. Indoor scooter parking. Elevator. Call John @ 250-703-2264.
YOUR SUBMISSION COULD BE CHOSEN!
Call 250-338-5811
APARTMENT/CONDO
Do you care about where you live? Do high standards of maintenance, service and cleanliness matter to you? Do you prefer quiet, mature neighbours? If yes, please give us a call and discover how the quality of ownership and management makes all the difference. We have the best managed, finest apartments in the most convenient locations in the Comox Valley. Locally owned, we own and manage our own buildings. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE! Please refer to available apartments listed below. TELEPHONE 250-703-2264 | 250-338-0267 | 250-339-1222
Photos chosen for publication will appear with photo credit.
PLEASE put in the subject line: Pic of the Week
www.totalconcept.ca APARTMENT/CONDO
Submit your local photography to the Comox Valley Record … please include your name and a short description.
TRUCKS & VANS
250-871-4427 407A-5th Street
PICTURE of the Week
ACROSS 1 “I.Q.” co-star Walter 8 Hearing-airing channel 13 1990s Oldsmobile model 20 Most sore 21 Singer Katy 22 Two-time 23 Start of a riddle 25 Sweet Italian wine 26 Swizzle 27 Co- — (some apartments) 28 Blood classification system 29 Insects in the woodwork 30 Filled to the very top 32 Macchio or Nader 34 “Who’s in charge here?” reply 35 Riddle, part 2 42 Wary 43 Class for U.S. immigrants 44 Tiny building block 45 Sinful habit 46 Family reunion mem. 47 Funnyman Foxx 50 Andes animals 52 — large extent 53 Riddle, part 3 58 Greenish-blue colors 60 Places to secure ships 61 Countless centuries 62 Be fraught with meaning 64 Student transcript fig. 65 Traveled via canoe 68 Category 69 Egypt’s — Stone 73 Leech, e.g. 74 Oft-pierced body parts 79 January, to José 80 Riddle, part 4 83 Fragrant neckwear 84 Earnest attempt 86 Fish that wriggle 87 Ocean off N.C. 88 “— wrap!”
90 91 93 95 101 102 103 104 108 109 110 114 115 118 119 120 121 122 123
Soprano Jenny Tacoma-to-Spokane dir. F sharp’s equivalent End of the riddle — Wee Reese Concepts, in Québec The Hunter in the sky No-show 151, in old Rome Indian flatbread Large Sicilian volcano Pinpoints Riddle’s answer Least tight Not satisfied, as needs Slippery Friendly pact Wearing a housecoat Spayed, say
DOWN 1 Greedy mouths 2 Eight, in Germany 3 Tongue of Bangkok 4 Measure via a reagant 5 Males 6 “Michael Row the Boat —” 7 Ideal place 8 Rank below Sgt. 9 “Me Talk Pretty One Day” author David 10 The major leagues 11 “The Stupids” star Tom 12 TV scientist Bill 13 High point 14 Alluring magnetism 15 Writer Melville 16 1994 sci-fi writer’s memoir 17 Coup d’— (rebellion) 18 Meadow rodent 19 Santa — (desert winds) 24 Branch of the mil. 29 They precede iotas 31 Globe-circler Nellie
Answer to Previous Puzzle
Thursday May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
C.V. SPORTS & SOCIAL CLUB ULTIMATE FRISBEE Monday A Tier
Team BlackMonday Thousand Monkeys The Huckstables Frisbeasts B Tier Team Discs of Hazzard Game of Throws 2.0 Grease Balls Hornets Ultamotoes Warhorse Disc in a Box Total Discheads
W L T Pt 2 0 0 4 1 1 0 2 1 1 0 2 0 2 0 0 W L T Pt 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 4 1 1 0 2 1 1 0 2 1 1 0 2 1 1 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 0
OUTDOOR SOCCER Thursday A Tier
Team Hashtag Awesome Blue Toque FC Epic Los Lobos Super Mario Strikers
W L T Pt 3 0 0 6 2 1 0 4 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 4 2 1 0 4
Football Hooligans Fubar’d Streakers Hicks and a Brit Monstars Jiminy Kickits Killer Cleats The Untouchaballs B Tier Team The Off Side TC Valley Collision Free Lions The Subs Bench Total Mayhem Grassy Balls Kids and Drinks Team Supreme Balls to the Walls Springfield Atoms Toepunters
1 1 1 1 1 0 1 2 0 0 2 1 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 2 0
3 2 2 1 0 0 0
W L T Pt 3 0 0 6 2 0 1 5 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 4 2 1 0 4 1 2 0 2 1 2 0 2 0 1 1 1 0 3 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 0
BEACH VOLLEYBALL Tuesday A Tier
Team Messy Dumps Wall-E-Ballers Balls Deep Notorious D.I.G. B Tier Team 4Play on the Beach Blue Toque
W L T Pt 3 1 0 6 3 1 0 6 2 2 0 4 0 4 0 0 W L T Pt 3 1 0 6 3 1 0 6
www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
score board Hit For Brains Joy of Sets Baconators 2.0 Show Us Your Tips Bumping Uglies Unprotected Sets
3 3 2 2 0 0
1 1 2 2 4 4
0 0 0 0 0 0
6 6 4 4 0 0
FLAG FOOTBALL Tuesday W L T Pt Young and Old 3 0 0 6 12th Man 2 1 0 4 Honey Badgers 2 1 0 4 Mult. Scoregasms 2 1 0 4 Pigskeets 1 2 0 2 Red Zone Rebels 1 2 0 2 Sacksual Healing 1 2 0 2 Dirty Bandits 0 3 0 0 SLO-PITCH Sunday
Team A*Team Back Door Sliders Beer Batters
W L T Pt 1 0 1 3 1 0 0 2 1 0 0 2
Sons of Pitches Swingers Thrillbillies Brew Crew Harry’s Beavers Legion of Boom The Herd The Screwballs
1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0
2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0
INDOOR VOLLEYBALL Wednesday A Tier Team W L T Pt Ball So Hard 4 1 0 8 A* Team 3 2 0 6 Around the Block 2 2 1 5 White Tigers 0 4 1 1 B Tier Team W L T Pt Strike Farce 5 0 0 10 2 School 4 Cool 4 1 0 8 Getting Tipsy 3 2 0 6 Floorplay 2 3 0 4 Setting Ducks 1 4 0 2 People’s Court 0 5 0 0
BASEBALL KOMOX MASTERS Team Yankees Nationals Indians Blue Jays Expos Twins Mariners Athletics
Noah Kerluck, 3rd Elliot Purich, 4th Harlow Yochim, 5th Reece Dixon. 17-20 Girl Cruiser 1st Aleasha Wiebe, 2nd Ally Churko, 3rd Janel Church. 26-30 Cruiser 1st Dylan Church, 2nd Andrew Templer, 3rd Ron Botrokoff, 4th Evan Yaretz. 5 & Under Novice 1st Jeremy Purich, 2nd Jett Yochim, 3rd Bianca Sorg. 1st Mathew 7 Novice Hutchinson, 2nd Dane Kerluck, 3rd Myra Green, 4th Nathan Cox. 7 Novice 1st Jason Sekulich, 2nd Brayden Dixon, 3rd James Odarich, 4th Blake Robbins. 6 Intermediate 1st Maddex Yochim, 2nd Peyton O’Connell, 3rd Brailyn Webster. 7 Intermediate 1st Justin Yaretz, 2nd Issac Templer, 3rd Austin Salt, 4th Thomas Sorg. 9 Intermediate 1st Jack Christian, 2nd Sean Queenan, 3rd Macklin Johnson, 4th Koen O’Connell, 5th Oliver Sorg, 6th Iain Petersen, 7th Arland Berry. 11 Intermediate 1st Ally Churko, 2nd Adicus Bird, 3rd Samuel Kuzma,
Team Cuddles 81 3563 258 Chalk-A-Holics 80 3576 268 4 Men & A Lady 80 3400 230 Classics 72 3456 232 Chalk-N-Awe 67 3375 229 The Breakers 66 3231 205 Who’s Counting? 65 3186 196 Balls In Hand 62 3314 216 Cue Tease 53 3116 172 Chalk One Up! 47 3076 175 Mex Hookers 32 2909 140 Darn Winians 29 2679 132 RW-rounds won; PT-points; GW-games won
W L T GB 1 0 0 -1 0 0 -1 0 0 -1 0 0 -1 1 0 0.5 0 1 0 1.0 0 1 0 1.0 0 2 0 1.5
Player of Year Standings Player GP Pts Ostwald, Werner 72 100.0 Douglas, Ron 72 89.4 Horton, Rob 90 87.8 Caton, Bernie 96 80.9 Stewart, Wayne 100 80.6 Brown, Jim 108 79.7 Kellog, Jim 48 78.0 Ferguson, Brian 88 77.3 Brown, Randy 92 75.3 Laramee, Bill 102 74.0
8-BALL C.V. POOL LEAGUE Team RW PT GW Scratch 93 3700 278 Breaking Bad 93 3534 250 Misspent Youth 87 3618 262 Rack-No-Phobia 86 3596 267 Choc-O-Lot 85 3582 258 Drive By 82 3569 264
BMX COAL HILLS Race #1 - April 19 Strider 1st Kailee Botrokoff, 2nd
Continued, B27
COMOX VALLEY WORSHIP DIRECTORY Church of Our Lord
BAHÁ’Í FAITH
Holy Communion 10:00 am each Sunday
“Reflections on the Life of the Spirit” – ongoing study circle. All are welcome. ~~~ “The whole duty of man in this Day is to attain that share of the flood of grace which God poureth forth for him.” Bahá’u’lláh
at Berwick, 1700 Comox Ave. Comox, BC All Welcome Tel: 250-941-0332
www.coolcomox.ca Anglican Church in North America
www.bahaisofcomox.org 250.702.3041
250.702.0574 www.courtenaybahai.org
Different Like Me Service Leader: Anna Isaacs
Jim Lyster, Rector 218 Church St., Comox • 250-339-2925
We meet 1 & 3 Sundays at 4pm 250 Beach Drive, Comox
250-890-9262 cvuf.ca
(May 18 at 4:00 pm) st
rd
(Old Fish and Game Building)
We’ve Got Some Space
For You!
to place your ad here
250-338-5811
E-Mail: [email protected]
sports www.comoxvalleyrecord.com Continued from B26 BMX COAL HILLS Race #1 - April 19 9 Girls 1st Hannah Green, 2nd Janel Church, 3rd Peyton Yochim, 4th Lauren Churko, 5th Avery Yochim, 6th Haley Tufts. 10 Expert 1st Quinn Webber, 2nd Evan Yaretz, 3rd Evan Henderson, 4th Jacob Sorg. 16 Expert 1st Yuriah Kaska, 2nd Zack Fieret, 3rd Hayden Fieret, 4th Aleasha Wiebe, 5th Jasper Petersen, 6th Eric Cox. 9 Novice 1st Hayden Botrokoff, 2nd Caleb Armitage, 3rd Anna Purich. Race #2 - April 26 Striders 1st Noah Kerluck, 2nd Elliot Purich, 3rd Reece Dixon. 17-20 Cruiser 1st Aiden Webber, 2nd Aleasha Wiebe, 3rd Evan Yaretyz. 31-35 Cruiser 1st Andrew Templer, 2nd Brody Yochim, 3rd
Paul Simard, 4th Sarah Paddock. 5 & Under Novice 1st Jeremy Purich, 2nd Jett Yochim, 3rd Jordon Paddock, 4th Harlow Yochim. 7 Novice 1st Dane Kerluck, 2nd Brayden Dixon, 3rd Jason Sekulich, 4th Samuel Johnson, 5th Reid Watson, 6th James Odarich, 7th Nathan Cox, 8th Cohen Beaton. 7 Intermediate 1st Justin Yaretz, 2nd Issac Templer, 3rd Austin Salt, 4th Maddex Yochim, 5th Brailyn Webster. 9 Intermediate 1st Jack Christian, 2nd Sean Queenan, 3rd Macklin Johnson, 4th Arland Berry, 5th Caleb Armitage, 6th Iain Petersen. 11 Intermediate 1st Quinn Webber, 2nd Evan Yaretz, 3rd Adicus Bird, 4th Emma Erickson. 9 Girls 1st Peyton Yochim, 2nd Lauren Churko, 3rd Avery Yochim. 13 Expert 1st Aiden Webber, 2nd Lukas Ferguson, 3rd Hayden Fieret, 4th Nathan Simard. 16 Expert 1st Dayton Raps, 2nd
Comox Avenue • 250-339-4847 Lerwick Courtenay • 250-338-5656 8th Street Courtenay • 250-338-1401
www.viic.ca
We’ll take care of it. Victoria Ladysmith Nanaimo Parksville Qualicum Beach Courtenay Comox Cobble Hill Campbell River Quadra Island Gold River Port Hardy
COMOX VALLEY RECORD • Thursday May 15, 2014
of COMMERCE |
score board
COMOX VALLEY CHAMBER
Yuriah Kaska, 3rd Zack Fieret, 4th Aleasha Wiebe, 5th Eric Cox. Race #3 - May 3 4 Strider 1st Kevin Fawkes, 2nd Noah Kerluck, 3rd Elliot Purich. 16 Cruiser 1st Evan Yaretz, 2nd Janel Church, 3rd Dylan Church. 31-35 Cruiser 1st Andrew Templer, 2nd Brody Yochim, 3rd Tony Church, 4th Paul Simard. 5 & Under Novice 1st Jeremy Purich, 2nd Jett Yochim, 3rd Harlow Yochim. 7 Novice 1st Dane Kerluck, 2nd Sol Christian, 3rd Ethan Cracknell, 4th Matthew Hutchinson. 7 Novice 1st Jason Sekulich, 2nd James Odarich, 3rd Nathan Cox, 4th Arron Mottashaw. 6 Intermediate 1st Maddex Yochim, 2nd Peyton O’Connell,
3rd Brailynn Webster. 7 Intermediate 1st Issac Templer, 2nd Austin Salt, 3rd Justin Yaretz. 8 Intermediate 1st Macklin Johnson, 2nd Avery Yochim, 3rd Sheppard Kapitan. 9 Intermediate 1st Jack Chrisitan, 2nd Koen O’Connell, 3rd Arland Berry, 4th Evelyn Cracknell. 9 Girls 1st Adicus Bird, 2nd Janel Church, 3rd Peyton Yochim, 4th Haley Tufts. 9 Expert 1st Devin Fawkes, 2nd Evan Yaretz, 3rd Sean Queenan. 12 Expert 1st Hayden Fieret, 2nd Tyson Tufts, 3rd Quinn Webber, 4th Samuel Kuzma. 14 Expert 1st Aiden Webber, 2nd Benjamin Leslie, 3rd Nathan Simard.
16 Expert 1st MacKay Leslie, 2nd Yuriah Kaska, 3rd Zackary Fieret, 4th Dillon Butch, 5th Eric Cox.
Beaumont/Cutie 23.419, Sophia Ticiniski/Rylie 25.247. Skillbarrels 39+ 1 Kirsten Shatford/Tessa 21.974, 2 Kathy Heidelbach/ Cutie 26.174. Senior 2 Lisa Kavanagh/Cody *20.626, 2 Kenzie Meadon/Dave 24.847, 3 Jen Teesdale/Beauty 26.591. Junior 1 Kaylee Toneff/Te’a 22.760, 2 Halle Gagne/Doll 21.485+5, 3 Savannah Atchison/ Ryder 31.811, 4 Corbin Gerdun/ Callie 37.169. PeeWee Jordan Doleman/Licorice 34.675, Chase Beaumont/Cutie 51.866, Sophia Ticiniski/Rylie 59.024. Barrels 39+ 1 Kirsten Shatford/Tessa 30.421, 2 Kathy Heidelbach/ Cutie 22.265. Senior 1 Lisa Kavanagh/Cody *18.138, 2 Jen Teesdale/Beauty 24.519, 3 Kenzie Meadon/Dave 24.846. Junior 2 Kaylee Toneff/Te’a 19.460, 2 Halle Gange/Doll 22.483, 3 Savannah Atchison/ Ryder 24.159 PeeWee Jordan Doleman/Licorice 32.693, Chase Beaumont/Cutie 46.117, Sophia
...taking care of business! EQUESTRIAN NVIHA North Vancouver Island Horse Association Gymkhana - May 4 Speedball 39+ 1 Kirsten Shatford/Tessa 13.066; 2 Kathy Heidelbach/ Cutie 21.346. Senior 1 Lisa Kavanagh/Cody *12.235, 2 Jen Teesdale/Beauty 12.915+5 Junior 1 Corbin Gerdun/ Callie 13.052, 2 Halle Gagne/ Doll 15.039. PeeWee Jordan Doleman/Licorice 29.188, Chase
BC Chambers: Getting Results for BC Business
COMOX VALLEY CHAMBER of COMMERCE | MAY 2014 regulation, which deals with packaging and February 17 – 21, 2014 is Chamber of Commerce Week: an opportunity for Chambers of Commerce across British Columbia to showcase their hard work on behalf of business communities across the province.
printed paper.
And that’s just one of many positive changes that the Chamber network has led for BC businesses. Among many areas of impact, BC’s Chambers have been a key voice in encouraging balanced budgets at all levels of government and calling for solutions to BC’s skills gap.
...taking care of business!
As members of the BC Chamber of Commerce, Chambers throughout the province are part of BC’s most extensive business policy development process. This process brings BC businesses’ innovative ideas and on-the-ground insights to BC’s decision makers, and helps shape an ever more business-friendly province.
This year, Chambers are celebrating the theme of “Leadership in Action” – a theme which highlights the leadership Chambers bring to their business communities, working hard to enhance BC as a business-friendly jurisdiction with strong opportunities for all British TheColumbians. Chamber’s Annual General was held At the local level, Chambers throughout BC are This leadership delivers results.Meeting Just this month, April 24th, 2014. Those in catalysts for change, bringing together business BC’s Chamber network, working in partnership attendance from with the BC government, was able heard to deliver a the and community leaders to figure out how to take Chamber ofkey, Commerce’s significant win for BC’s businesses: businesseach community forward. Governance friendly changes to a Comox recycling Valley regulation that Task Force whose So as BC celebrates Chamber Week, don’t miss had caused concern inReview business communities is to initiate an inde- the opportunity to swing by your local Chamber, across BC. Thanks togoal the hard work of Chambers attend some Chamber and celebrate pendent study to determine regulation, which dealsevents, with packaging and the 17 – 21, 2014 is in BC, working closelyFebruary with a responsive Comox Valley’s diverse business community! if the governance of the printed paper. Chamber Commerce government, more than 99% ofof BC’s businesses Comox structured Dianne Week: anValley opportunity for Dianne Hawkins — President & CEO changes that will faceHawkins no red tape or fees under thisisrecycling that’s just one many positive AGM alsoof featured Keynote Speaker in a manner that best satis- AndThe Chambers of Commerce the Chamber network has led BC businesses. Marty Douglas, Managing for Broker of Re/Max fiacross es theBritish political, cultural and Columbia Among many areas of impact, BC’s Chambers Ocean Pacifi c Realty who offered an educationpublic services the community needs in order to to showcase their hard been a key voice look in encouraging balanced al and entertaining at the current market meet the challengeswork that on growth At this have behalfbrings. of business budgets at all levels of government and and calling for along with his observations on past recent • Lunch Don Friday, February 21 time thewith taskMinister force communities is in McRae: the process of gatheracross the solutions to BC’s skills gap. happenings in the Comox Valley. The commuing information in order to be able to determine • Chamber Showcase Tradeshow: Thursday, February 27 province. nity’s futureofneeds were discussed in an optiif• Business there is Mixer a desire amongst the general As members at Coastal Community CreditpopuUnion: Tuesday, March the 11 BC Chamber of Commerce, mistic manner that set tone for evening. lation andChambers levels ofare government to investigate This year, celebrating the theme Chambers throughout thethe province arethe part of • Board Elections & Networking Lunch: Wednesday, March 19 new directors were installed to the 2014fully whether itinisAction” necessary or even possible to BC’sFive of “Leadership – a theme which most extensive business policy development 15 Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors restructure the of services thewww.comoxvalleychamber.com/news-events highlights leadership Chambers bring to their process. This process brings BC businesses’ Full detailsthe on allprovision Chamber events can beand/or found at: by Mayor Leslie Baird. Andrew MacMillan, Bill governance of the Comox Valley. If there is in- innovative business communities, working hard to enhance ideas and on-the-ground insights to Girard, Allison Bligh, LCol Glenn Watters and deed desire then the primary objective of the BC’s BC as aa business-friendly jurisdiction with strong decision makers, and helps shape an ever Bill Ransom were elected in March and have task force would to initiate a request for a more opportunities for allbe British Columbians. business-friendly province. study and have a joint committee established to now begun serving on our vibrant and energetic This leadership delivers results. Just this month, At the level, Chambers Whether you’re a soloprocess. entrepreneur, board.local We are pleased to throughout have them!BC are you want - from Life oversee the review This home-based initiative is in coverage BC’s Chamber network, working in partnership catalysts for change, bringing together business Incoming Chair, Helen Furgale noted that the business or part of a larger firm, benefits are a and Disability, Health and line with the BC Chamber of Commerce Policy with the BC government, was able to deliver a and community leaders to figure out how to take Chamber has many exciting plans for 2014-15 very important part of your financial security. Dental, to Business Overhead Statement that has been approved by all memsignificant win Plan for BC’s businesses: key, businesseach community forward. including theeven inaugural The Chambers creates athe solid foundation coverage and Critical Great Valley Rally, the ber Chambers throughout Province. friendly changes to presentation a recycling regulation return ofcelebrates the Comox Valley Top don’t 40 Under for thatTask security, based on a benefit program Benefits. Claims are paid The Force was verythat well re- Illness So as BC Chamber Week, miss 40 had caused concern in business communities Awards program, and continued relationship designed specifically for small-business owners. promptly, most within 48 hours, ceived by those in attendance. Those interested the opportunity to swing by your local Chamber, across BC. aThanks to the hard work ofinterested Chambers in building with various community leaders in the in signing petition or businesses attend Chamberdirectly events,in and celebrate the and cansome be deposited your employees’ Membership in the Comox Valley Chamber of in BC, working closely with a responsive Comox Valley. placing a petition at their to location mayincontact bank Comox Valley’s diverse business community! accounts. Prescription drug benefits can be Commerce is a requirement participate government, more than of BC’s businesses Thank you once again to all those who atthe Chamber Office at 99% 250.334.3234. More in- provided instantly at the pharmacy. this plan. The Chambers Plan has no industry Dianne — President & CEO will face no red tape or fees under this recycling tendedHawkins the Chamber’s Annual General Meeting. formation available at www.cvgovreview.ca restrictionsisand offers guaranteed coverage Request a quote today to get a personalized amounts for businesses with three or more proposal from local advisor, Darren Kardynal, employees. Glacierview Financial Services. Darren can be
2014 Annual General Meeting Review
BC Chambers: Getting Results for BC Business
Upcoming Chamber Events: Save these dates!
For timeless service, we’re the ones in Downtown Courtenay. 320 - 5th Street Downtown Courtenay 250-334-2611
“Searle’s for that hard to fit foot” “Serving the Comox Valley for over 80 Years”
250 Fifth Street Courtenay
250-334-3178 Open Monday to Saturday 9:30 - 5:30 pm Fridays till 9:00 pm
www.searlesshoes.com
Chamber Benefits: Chambers Group Insurance Plan
Upcoming Chamber Chamber Events: Upcoming Events: Save Save these these dates! dates!
reached at 250.338.7577 or [email protected]. Your Chambers PlanWorldHost allows youFundamentals to choose the Workshop May 27: •• Lunch with Minister Don McRae: Friday, February 21 • May 29: Chamber Lunch n’ Learn: First Aid • Chamber Showcase Tradeshow: Thursday, February 27 Considerations in the Worldplace June 10:Mixer atwith Business Mixer - Hosted byCommerce! FirstTuesday, Insurance Get connected YOUR Chamber •• Business Coastal Community Creditof Union: March 11 July‘Like’ 26: Valley Rally Wednesday, MarchFollow us on Facebook at: Lunch: •• Board Elections &Great Networking 19 us on Twitter: Pre-regsiter for all upcoming events at comoxvalleychamber.com/events www.facebook.com/ComoxValleyChamber @CXValleyChamber Full details on all Chamber events can be found at: www.comoxvalleychamber.com/news-events
Taking care of business
2014-15 Board of Directors
Chair – Helen Furgale; 1st Vice Chair – Andrew Gower Chamber Benefits: Chambers Group Insurance Plan 2040 Cliffe Avenue BC home-based Whether you’re a solo Courtenay, entrepreneur, V9N 2L3 business or part of a larger firm, benefits are a very important part of250-334-3234 your financial security. The Chambers Plan creates a solid foundation comoxvalleychamber.com for that security, based on a benefit program
2nd Vice Chair – Kevin East; Past Chair – Tracey McGinnis coverage–you want - from Life Treasurer Donna Cloutier Directors: John Gower • Margaret Szafron and Disability, Health and Mackenzie LCol R.G. (Glenn) Watters Dental, to Gartside Business•Overhead Bill Ransom • Bill Girard • Allison Bligh coverage and even Critical Andrew MacMillan Illness Benefits. Claims are paid
un
b27
Ticiniski/Rylie 98.488. Big T 39+ 1 Kathy Heidelbach/ Cutie *18.954. Senior 1 Lisa Kavanagh/Cody 20.351, 2 Jen Teesdale/Beauty 22.506. Junior 1 Kaylee Toneff/Te’a 20.864, 2 Halle Gagne/Doll 20.150+5, 3 Savannah Atchison/ Ryder 30.147. PeeWee Jordan Doleman/Licorice 30.732, Chase Beaumont/Cutie 41.001, Sophia Ticiniski/Rylie 91.654. Poles 39+ 1 Kathy Heidelbach/Cutie 26.666, 2 Kirsten Shatford/Tessa 31.169. Senior 1 Lisa Kavanagh/ Cody *25.774, 2 Kenzie Meadon/Dave 31.450, 3 Jen Teesdale/Beauty 33.093. Junior 1 Kaylee Toneff/Te’a 29.848, 2 Halle Gagne/Doll 29.311+10, 3 Savannah Atchison/Te’a 41.010. PeeWee Jordan Doleman/ Licorice 43.581. * denotes fast time. The next NVIHA show is Western Games, Sunday, May 18 at the Comox Valley Exhibition Grounds.
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Thursday, May 15, 2014 • COMOX VALLEY RECORD
www.comoxvalleyrecord.com
Painters ✿ Photography ✿ Jewellery ✿ Potters ✿ Garden Art ✿ Furniture ✿ Unique Art ✿ Wrought Iron ✿ Glass ✿ Forms ✿ Sculptures ✿ Fabric
Art & Bloom 12th Annual
FESTIVAL Kitty Coleman Woodland Gardens
ADMISSION $10 SENIORS $8 Saturday & Sunday 10am – 5pm Monday 10am – 4pm
May 17, 18 & 19th
MAIN PATH
SANTA’S BARN
ATM Kucutz Ribe - Painted skulls, ceremonial fans, acrylic on bone or leather Jenny Rucker Designs - Original One-of-a-kind knitwear; natural fibres: mohair, wool & cotton. Darrel Hancock Pottery - Functional Pottery Katy Foss - Living Eath Pottery: Functional Pottery Joe Smith - Painter; watercolour & acrylic Cheryl Moore - Driftwood Sculpture: Amazing Driftwood Horse Scott Laughlin - Sandstorm Knives & Baked Goods Robert Belz - Custom Jewelry and Fossils Earnie Carlson - Rock Coaster, Clocks, Hot Pads, Lazy Susans & Fountains Dave Kaspeick - Red Cod Forge: metal art, demonstrations
Flavors of the Mediteranean - Gourmet Spice Blends Jonathan’s Mosaic Lamps Courtney Powell - Wood Art, Plaques and Bowls Steve Williamson - Nature & Wildlife Photography
SOUTH LAWN
Barb McCrindle - Tablecloths, Placemats, Runners and Napkins Taylor Carson - Altered Wearable Art Clothing Carol Leaverton - Cut as a Button: Handknit & Felted Ladies Hats & Bags Vicki Forkin - Pottery; functional and decorative Jane Perala - Handmade Glass Bead Jewelry Judy Baum - Vintage Spoon Bracelets Hornby Island Soap Company - Trina McNeice Linda de Beeld - Clay Roots Pottery Celestial Beeding - Lampwork Jewelry Ron Simmons - Funky bird houses Darrill Hanscom - Woodturnings & Benches
SUNSET GARDENS
Kim Reid - Mystic Glass Creations: Glass Blowing & Torch Work Sharon Hubbard - Wood Carvings, Handpainted Silk Scarves and Mixed Media Paintings Robert Mathieson & Jane Rothmund - Stone Works Jewelry Steve Hubber - Stone Hot Plates, Coasters, Clocks etc. Janet Moe & Richard Lonsdale - Two Fish Pottery Mary Lee Dzielak - Visions Stained Glass - Nite Lites, Suncatchers, Glass Panels Wendy Adams - Lampwork Glass Jewelry Pam Chaney Artisan Jewelry: Freshwater Pearls, Precious Gems, Gold and Silver Linda Westrom & Claude Duperron - Rhythms Art Glass: Blown Glass Dragantalz - Art of the Earth Jewelry Judy Cadrin - Native Teas George & Theresa Penrod - Dichroic Glass & Salmon Lures Ruby Simrose - Award Winning Porcelain Flowers Alan Cornall - Fine Art Photography Martin Kaspers - Fine Art Photography Gilbert Dore - Burls, Bowls & Lazy Susans Christi Mitchell - Contemporary Artisit Tonja Bjermeland - Painting and Sculpture... Mixed Media Dan Kingsley - Visual Artist: whimsical garden gnomes Bill McDonald - Woodland Spirit Flutes: Original Jewelry Designs, Wood Turning and Carvings Larry & Dee Aguilar - Pottery Steve Jensen - Oil Paintings Inge McArthur - Hats & Handbags
LONG HOUSE
Roy Hancliff - Photography - Fine Art Sublimation Prints on Aluminum - Limited Editions Steve Shelley - Nature’s Edge Wood Designs Fanny Bay Candle Company - Custom Handmade Candles of all Varieties Julie Jean Moren - Quilts & Sewing Items: cotton, bamboo & silk Aarme Robillard - Print Making & Paintings Health Anderson - Solar-pyro engraved Cedar Wood Burnings & Wearable Arts
ARTIST GLADE
Main Path: Jorge Alfaro World Music, All Day Artists’ Glade: Bruce & Judy Wing, All Day Sunset Gardens: Traci Canil, Wandering Flute
SUNDAY
Main Path: Brad Prevadoras Trio, All Day Artist’s Glade: Jorge Alfaro World Music, All Day Sunset Gardens: Traci Canil, Wandering Flute
Artists’ Glade
South Lawn
FOOD
Santa’s Barn Concession: hot dogs, smokies, homemade chili & bun, drinks and treats Artists’ Glade: Jalapeno Grill marinated chicken or beef steak burritos, marinated chicken or beef steak tacos and Mexican corn on the cob
Long House
ENTERTAINMENT SATURDAY
Driftwood Pavillion
Patt Scrivener - Abstract Paintings, Mixed Media and Oil Susan Wade - Garden Sculpture: Concrete, Clay & Acrylics Gavin Livingston - Acrylic Artist: on Paper, Canvas & Cards Amy Louise - Henna Design Artist: natural and organic James & Shelia Holland - Little Lily Tutu: handcrafted dress up items for girls Angela TeMarsch - Outdoor Garden Sculpture, 3D Wearable Art Sabine Arends - Fireworx Glass Rocks Bejewelled - Lapidary & Wire Wrapped Jewelry: gold, silver, Semi Precious stones David Fukuhara - Endless Knot Amazing Knot Work Colin Mallard - Award Winning Author & Photographer Vee & Wayne - Casting Resin, Metal, Crystal and Gemstones (Organite) Deena Bowerman - Tole Painting and Beach Art, Mixed Media April Laurie - Dancing Yarn Scarves MARS Avian Rescue
Sunset Pavillion
| McDonald's |
May 15, 1928 saw the introduction of what iconic character, when the 6 minute short Plane Crazy was publicly introduced, co starring Clarabelle Cow? | Canal record
Canal record
Canal record (St. Petersburg, Fla.)
Abbreviated Title:
Canal rec. (St. Petersbg. Fla.)
Physical Description:
v. : ill. , ports. ; 22-28 cm.
Language:
Panama Canal Society of Florida
Publisher:
Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc.
Place of Publication:
Periodicals -- Panama Canal (Panama) ( lcsh )
Genre:
Description based on: Vol. 10, no. 4 (Nov. 1976); title from cover.
Record Information
All applicable rights reserved by the source institution and holding location.
Resource Identifier:
This emblem is a Registered
Trademark. Any unauthorized
reproduction is punishable by law.
OFFICERS
Highlights of Minutes of Scheduled Meetings .
"Where Are You?" . ..........
"And the Memory Lingers On" ...........
Your Reporter Says ................
For Sale or W anted ..................
SLATE OF OFFICERS FOR 1998-1999 ......
Application Form ....... .......... .
FRONT COVER: The Queen Elizabeth II exiting Miraflores Locks during one
of her several transits of the Panama Canal She is the fastest diesel-electric
ship afloat. A new and larger funnel improved her appearance aesthetically.
BACK COVER: A Panama Canal deckhand comes down a jacob's ladder as
others await their turn to descend into the launch from the deck of a
Japanese ship. Painting by Al Sprague, World renowned artist of the former
Canal Zone.
March No Panama Canal Society of Florida meeting scheduled.
March 28 PCS of Arizona Spring Luncheon, Wyndham Garden Hotel,
Chandler, Arizona.
April 3 PCSOFL Regular Meeting, St. Bede's Episcopal Church, 2500
16th St., St. Petersburg, FL. 12:00 Noon. BROWN BAG.
April 7 Ocala Zonians meeting, Maggie's Buffet Restaurant, Noon.
May 2 PCSOFL Luncheon/Meeting. Treasure Island Yacht Club, 400
Treasure Island Causeway, St. Petersburg, FL. Bar open 11:00
a.m. Lunch at noon.
June 5 PCSOFL Regular Meeting, St. Bede's Episcopal Church, 2500
16th St., St. Petersburg, FL. 12:00 Noon. BROWN BAG.
June 6 Oklahoma Society Chapter meeting, Oklahoma City Zoo.
June 21 Blanche Shaw Memorial Picnic, Jones Family Center,
Springdale, Arkansas. Bring food, utensils and plate.
July 1 5 PCSOFL ANNUAL REUNION, Orlando's World Center
Marriott, 8701 World Center Drive, Orlando, FL. (See Yellow
Pages)
August 8 1998 Northwest Picnic at Sequim Prairie Grange Grounds,
Sequim, Washington. Host: Marti Lohr, P.O. Box 1145,
Sequim, WA 98382. (360) 683-9612.
October 3 Gulf Coast no-host Picnic, 11 a.m. Davis Bayou Campground,
Ocean Springs, MS. (See Announcements).
The Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc.
2 ,^^ (A Not-For-Profit Organization) lP
"To preserve American Ideals and Canal Zone Friendships" Wa
*8050 Seminole Mall, Suite 334, Seminole, Florida 33772-4712
The Canal Record (ISSN 0528-0001) is published quarterly on March, June, September, December by
The Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc., 8050 Seminole Mall, Suite 334, Seminole, Florida 33772-4712.
Second Class postage paid at Largo, Florida and additional entry for March, June, September and December issues.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the Canal Record, 8050 Seminole Mall, Suite 334, Seminole, Florida 33772-4712
The membership fee is $30.00 annually, $12.00 of which is for a subscription to the Canal Record for one year.
The Annual Directory is published once a year.
The Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc., reserves the right to refuse to print anything derogatory or of a controversial nature, including any
advertising not in the best interests of the Panama Canal Society of Florida, whose sole aim is to Preserve American Ideals and Canal Zone
Friendships.
Single copies for sale at $5.00 each, (postage is included) to members only.
All photographs and correspondence sent to the Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc. will become the property
of the Society and will be retained in their files and archives. The Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc.
assumes no responsibility for advertisements placed in the Canal Record.
HEADQUARTERS of the Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc.
8050 Seminole Mall, Suite 334
Seminole, Florida 33772-4712
Hours: 10:00-12:00, 1:00-4:00 Monday thru Friday
Printed by Roberts Printing, Inc., 2049 Calumet St., Clearwater, FL 33765
97I
All the committees for the upcoming 1998
Reunion of the Panama Canal Society of Florida are
hard at work and during the next few months will
have begun the final touches for the arrangements
that must be put into effect so that you, the
members, can enjoy yourselves to the fullest. We are
pleased to report that the Reunion reservations are
coming in at a rapid pace and we hope that this
reunion will be even bigger than 1997.
In one of my Christmas Letters this year I
received a poem entitled "Today" and it was sent to
me by Joe and Ella Norton. Hubert and I were
touched by its words and it states the way we would
like to enter each day and I would like to share it
with you.
Outside my window, a new day I see
And only I can determine what kind of a day it
will be
'It can be busy and sunny, laughing and gay,
Or boring and cold, unhappy and grey
My own state of mind is the determining key,
For I am only the person I let myself be
I can be thoughtful and do all I can to help,
Or be selfish and think just of myself
I can enjoy what I do and make it seem fun,
Or gripe and complain and make it hard on
someone
I can be patient with those who may not understand
Or belittle and hurt them as much as I can
But I have faith in myself, and believe what I say,
And I personally intend to make the best of each
day.
Good words to live by, huh? I believe that most
of our Panama Canal Society volunteers follow these
statements and that is why we have such a successful
Reunion each year.
John and Muriel Whitman did a wonderful job
on the Christmas Luncheon on December 6 with 130
members and guests attending. A delicious lunch was
had by all with very nice door prizes. The
entertainment was delivered by the Ladies in Blue. I
would like to congratulate everyone for a job well
done.
Barbara and Tom Peterson did another great job
on the Sarasota Luncheon and Steve Nehring ran a
well attended, very dry, Picnic in October. The
feedback from both these events was excellent and I
think more people will be attending in the future. If
you are not attending our luncheons you are missing
out on a great opportunity to voice your opinion on
how the Society is running along with enjoying a
very tasty lunch.
Happy New Year to everyone. Christmas vacation
was great. Hope everyone had a nice holiday.
We are into a very busy year. New computers,
Internet, getting used to new programs. Talk about
teaching an old dog new tricks! But I am all for
progress. It might take me a little longer to get
things done but done they will be.
Just as a matter of information, all Reunion
paperwork is processed in the Society office before
being disseminated to the Chairpersons. Please
enclose all forms and checks in one envelope less
work for me. Also, please be sure to check prices
and send correct amounts. Don't forget that you
must pay the Society Registration Fee in order for
us to process your hotel reservation.
Pat and I will continue to do everything we can
to help all members and everyone is afforded the
same treatment. Every now and again we get
"chewed out" by a member thank goodness not too
often we follow instructions and abide by the By-
Laws.
For those of you who are wondering how I am
doing. Thank God, I am getting along fine. I feel
well and am able to keep up with my everyday
comings and goings. My thanks to all who have
cared and prayed for me. I just completed my first
year of recovery.
Welcome back to the 4-a-year issues of the
Canal Record Your four issues of March, June,
September and December will be mailed 2nd. Class,
if the Post Office approves our petition. The Annual
Directory will be mailed 3rd. Class as it doesn't meet
the requirements for 2nd Class mailing.
Hope you all had a nice Holiday Season. Son
Bob and my granddaughter Jordan came East from
California for a short visit with his sister Carol Fritz
in Peachtree City, GA. and his mother, Liz in Largo,
FL and me in Clearwater, FL. They took in Disney
World in Orlando and I took both Bob and his
brother Dick to Busch Gardens in Tampa liked
2
Members are cautioned to check with your Post
Office as to the accuracy of your postal address.
With the new Zip + 4 and the bar-coding, which is
composed to assure mailing under the newly installed
Postal Automation System. Addresses throughout the
U.S. must be standardized in order to make the
system work. Make sure your address meets their
new criteria, with Zip + 4. Failure to do so may
make proper delivery difficult to your address.
Busch Gardens better, but I think the rainy weather
in Orlando had a lot to do with it. Didn't have
much time to show them off but it goes without
saying I walked around town like I owned it while
they were here.
It's true I have become a great-grandpa to
Ryan Michael Bell of San Bernadino, California!
Grandson Warren and wife, Alexandra are the proud
parents. Hope to get some photos soon to print.
There's nothing like this to make you feel the
footsteps of Father Time behind you, but I'll bet I'll
be at Ryan's high school graduation!
Getting our computers in line has been a hassle
in several ways. Am still using my own for the Canal
Record, which I brought to the office, but the new
one appears to have most of the bugs cleared out
and we shall transfer to that one as soon as this
issue goes to print.
I would like to thank all those who took the
time to jot a few nice remarks about the Canal
Record when they paid their 1998 dues, and through
telephone calls even fax's! They are real "highs" for
us and we appreciate them all thanks again. Also
would like to thank the Drakes of Dalton,
Massachusetts for their lovely gift stationery made
out of recycled money, all light green. Barbara
enjoyed her gift as well.
Those who send us Fax's: Please call us before
you send us a fax. We usually have it set at "auto"
but if we are here, we will change it to "manual" in
order to be sure to receive it. We can't guarantee
receipt when we are not in the office when it is set
at "auto."
We are still quite a bit away from a 100% dues
renewal but our hopes are up due to the influence
the internet and E-mail has among the younger
generation some of which never knew there was a
Panama Canal Society! Come and jump in, gang, you
will like the water!
The ballot for electing YOUR officers for the
1998-1999 tenure will be found in the BACK of this
issue because it's the last thing we do in putting the
magazine together. We had a few "no-shows" at our
last meeting, meaning there was no quorum for any
official business. We have to wait for the
Carnavalito/meeting and the magazine will be at the
press two days later. Talk about rushing! DON'T
overlook those back pages the future of the Society
will be riding on those officers you elect, so be sure
you vote! It COUNTS!
\ Background: For U.S. citizens, the
original paid-up life insurance
certificate program issued by the
SGroup Insurance Board (GIB) and
underwritten by Mutual of Omaha
began for employees retiring on
or after October 30, 1970; for non-U.S. citizens, it
started in November 1985. To be eligible for the
certificate,the retiree must have been enrolled for five
years prior to the date of retirement. The initial
certificate issued equaled to 25% of the basic
insurance amount in force on the date of retirement
from the Panama Canal Company and was issued
with the condition that the percentage was effective
on a policy year basis and could be modified by the
GIB and Mutual of Omaha. (This qualifying
statement appeared on the certificate).
In 1979, the GIB and Mutual of Omaha were
forced to reduce the amount of all outstanding and
future certificates to 15% due to the decrease in
active enrollments, the significant increase in the
number of retirees covered under the program, and
the inadequacy of the reserve funds to cover the
insurance volume of the outstanding certificates. This
change became effective on February 1, 1980.
On January 1, 1990, PALIC of Panama became
the underwriter of the life insurance program and
began issuing new certificates under the same
conditions and amounts as were in effect since the
change in 1980.
Current Situation: Today, PALIC remains the
administrator of the life Insurance program and will
continue to satisfy death claims for beneficiaries. The
GIB may take action to change to another
underwriter this year; regardless of the outcome,
there are sufficient reserves in the program to pay
off all certificates whoever may be the underwriter.
December 31, 1999 will have no effect on this
program because it is not Federally or PCC
sponsored. The GIB, the sponsor of the program,
should be around after 1999 and will be able to get
claims to the proper place and provide information
to policy holders.
Those individuals that still have a Mutual of
Omaha certificate should contact the Retirement and
Insurance Branch, Panama Canal Commission, APO
34011-2300, to replace their outstanding certificate
with a PALIC certificate.
2. How Does the New Tax Laws Affect You?
Now that the dust has settled on the Taxpayer Relief
Act of 1997, which President Clinton signed on
August 5, it's time to figure out what the changes
really mean since in one way or another they will
affect everyone where it counts: In the wallets!
Among the beneficiaries of the new tax laws are
families and investors. My comments here cursory
address some of the changes that affect families,
since I do not consider myself as an investment
expert.
The most important tax change, in my opinion,
is the Capital Gains area. In a nutshell, most
homeowners can sell their home without being taxed
on any profits. In reality, as a homeowner, you get
an additional tax break. The new tax tosses out the
old system of rollover deferrals of tax liability on
$125,000 tax-free exclusion on profits for home sellers
age 55 and older.
Under the new law, profits on sale of a personal
residence will be tax-free up to $500,000 for a couple
($250,000 for singles), provided you've owned the
home and used it as a residence for two of the five
years preceding the sale.
The second significant change in the new tax
laws have to do with Individual Retirement Accounts.
In the past, if you were not covered by a company
pension plan (or military retirement) or if your
adjusted gross income (AGI) fell below $25,000 for
singles, $40,000 if married and filing a joint return,
you were allowed to deduct $2,000 ($4,000 for
couples) in IRA contributions from your federal tax
bill. Under the new tax laws, current income limits
on deductible contributions will gradually increase,
doubling by 2005 for singles and 2007 for couples.
In previous years, those with spouses covered by
pension plans could not take advantage of an IRA
contribution reduction. The new law removes that
spousal equation if you do not have a pension plan.
ow you can fully deduct IRA contributions
(regardless of your spouse's situation) provided AGI
on your joint tax return is $150,000 or less.
Additionally, the new law creates various new
IRAs. The first one, called the Roth IRA, allows
individuals to contribute up to $2,000 per year
($4,000 for couples). The right to participate in this
IRA is subject to the following income limits: for
joint filers, the phase out begins at $150,000 AGI;
for individual filers, the phase out begins at $95,000
AGI. Key point here is that the contributions to this
IRA are not tax deductible, but earnings accumulate
tax-free and are free from taxes at withdrawal if the
owner has held the IRA for at least five years and
is at least 591/2 years old.
One important point, you can convert your old
IRA into one of the new accounts if your income
does not exceed $100,000 AGI. The conversion will
be taxed as an IRA distribution, but there will be no
penalty for early withdrawal.If you convert in 1998,
the tax bill will be spread out over four years. If you
wait longer, you'll have to pay the entire tax in the
year of conversion.
Another IRA is the Education IRA. Those
individuals with AGI's of $95,000 or less ($150,000
for joint filers) may contribute up to $500 annually
per child to an Education IRA. The earning will
accumulate tax free, with no taxes on withdrawal for
qualified college education expenses.
Last important note about IRA's, as the
beginning of the new year, you can withdraw money
from an IRA penalty free if you use that money as
a down payment on a first home. Note, however,
that there is a lifetime limit for this type of
withdrawal of $10,000.
In addition, penalty-free (but not tax-free)
distributions can be made from IRAs for qualified
college expenses incurred by the taxpayer, his spouse,
child or grandchild. These college expenses include
tuition, fees, room and board, books, supplies and
equipment required in courses.
3. Estate Planning Checklist. The older we get,
the wiser we're supposed to get. However, when it
comes to estate planning, we normally don't do a
very good job of thinking what happens when we no
longer are among the living. Some personal financial
management computer software programs provide
ready-made estate planning forms that one can
customize. One can also use a letter of instruction or
a checklist specifying where important documents are
kept, whom to contact, important identification
numbers, lists of assets and outstanding debts and
other information. (I made such a checklist a couple
of months ago for the local society members;
however it was too lengthy to include as a tear-out
in the Canal Record for all members to use as an
example).
Regardless of the methods used to let our heirs
know what they need to do to take care of the
personal and financial affairs after our deaths, it is
imperative we all put together an estate plan. Some
of the items recommended by the United States
Automobile Association to consider are:
Important Identifications Numbers:
Social Security number; Driver's License number,
Passport number, Veteran Affairs claim number (if
applicable).
Names and addresses of key advisors:
Attorney; Executor, Banker, Physician,
Will; Trust documents (including trustee's name,
address and phone number); Health care
directive/living will; Powers of attorney; Prior years'
tax returns; birth certificate and/or adoption papers;
Marriage certificate; Divorce decree; Real Estate
deeds; Employment and pension records; Military
records, including DD Form 214; Social Security card
and records; Voter Registration card; Passport;
Naturalization papers, as applicable; Appraisals of
valuable property.
Name, address and phone number of all
insurance agents and companies. Policy numbers and
location of all policies. Life insurance, Medical and
Dental insurance; Long Term Health Care insurance;
Automobile, property and liability insurance.
Funeral arrangements (if you prearrange and
prepaid your funeral): Name, address and phone
number of selected mortuary; Name, address and
phone number of selected cemetery; Location of
cemetery plot deed; Details of desired service ;
pallbearers, charities for donations in lieu of
flowers.other details.
Location of deed; Account number and name,
address and phone of mortgage holder; Insurance
policies, (List the same information for all property
owned).
Outstanding Loans: Account numbers, amount
owed, payable to whom.
Routine Bills: (credit cards, phone, utilities,
insurance, cable TV, etc. Account number; Name,
address and phone number; Schedule of when
typically arrive.
Name, address, phone and account numbers.;
Name, address and phone number of any joint
owners and cosigners; Locations of passbooks,
checkbooks, past monthly statements and certificates.
Safe-deposit box numbers and location and location
of keys; Inventory of safe-deposit box contents.
Investments:
Name, address and account number of all
brokerage or investment accounts, such as money
market accounts or mutual funds; location of
investment records, including past statements, savings
bonds, stock certificates and certificates of deposit.
Employment and income information:
Name, address and phone number of your
supervisor and your secretary; Name, address and
phone number of companies that pay you wages;
Name, address and phone number of pension
sources; Name, address and phone number of your
retirement plans, such as 401(k) or IRA. If a
veteran, location and phone number of nearest
Department of Veterans Affairs office and military
casualty office; Address and phone number of
Defense Finance and Accounting Service office that
administers your military retired pay or survivor's
benefits.
Inventory of personal property (video or
photographic record is helpful) List and appraisal of
valuable jewelry, artwork and collectibles; Make,
model, year and vehicle identification number of each
vehicle; Location of vehicle titles and registrations;
Location of vehicle maintenance records.
Business: Complete details about any business
you own.
Family: names, addresses and phone numbers of
all family members; guardians for minor children
named in your will.
FROM THE NORTH: 1-75 south to Tampa (from the
East, 1-4 west to Tampa) then 1-275 to St.
Petersburg and the 5th Avenue North exit. Go
straight ahead to Central Ave. then turn right.
Central Ave. continues onto Treasure Island
Causway. (Approx. 5 3/4 miles) Proceed until you
reach toll booth, pay toll and cross drawbridge and
go 75 more yards. Yacht Club is on your left. To
reach Bilmar Beach Resort keep going on Treasure
Island Causeway to Gulf Blvd. Bilmar Resort is
ahead.
FROM THE SOUTH: 1-275 north across the
Sunshine Skyway Bridge to the US 19 Exit. Go
straight ahead and turn left about 3 3/4 miles, onto
Central Ave. which continues onto Treasure Island
Causeway. (41/2 more miles).Proceed until you reach
toll booth, pay toll, cross drawbridge and 75 more
yards on your left is the Yacht Club. To reach
Bilmar Beach Resort continue on Treasure Island
Causeway to Gulf Blvd. Bilmar Resort is ahead.
I YACHTBASIJN
I would like to recommend Mrs. Jane Huldtquist for
the DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD.
Mrs. Huldtquist has volunteered her time and energy for
almost twenty years to the Panama Canal Society of Florida,
Inc.
She has served is almost all offices of the Executive
Board, including Budget and Audit Committee from 1982-
1988, Legislative Representative, President for the 1993-
1994 term, Past President during 1994-1995, Nominating
Committee 1994-1995, By-Laws Committee, 1995-1998.
She has been Chairperson for Carnavalito, and she and her
late husband Fred were co-chairpersons for the Chagres
Invitational Golf Tournament from 1981-1994 and either
co-chaired or was a member of the Golf Committee from
1995-1997, and will chair the 1998 tournament in Orlando
in July.
I hope the executive Board will recognize Mrs.
Huldtquists' hard work and devotion to the Panama Canal
Society of Florida, Inc.
(Signed) Mrs. Nancy van Siclen.
October 8, 1997
I would like to propose Mrs. Jay Cain to be awarded a
Distinguished Service Award by the Society at our Annual
Panama Canal Society Reunion in July 1998.
The 1998 Reunion will be the thirty-first consecutive
Reunion that she has attended and volunteered her services.
For several years she was Chairperson for the Annual
Reunion Luncheon and has been a member of that
committee for over seventeen years. She has also been a
member for the Registration Committee for over twenty
years as well as chairing the Sarasota Luncheon several
times in the past. She has also served on several other
committees and has missed only a few of our regularly
scheduled monthly meetings. She drives over eighty miles to
attend them.
Mrs. Cain has always been a supporter and a faithful
member of our Panama Canal Society, and has always
upheld and practiced the ideals and purposes of the Society
for over thirty-one years during which she has been a
member.
PANAMA CANAL SOCIETY AUDIT REPORT
July 1, 1996 Through June 30, 1997
January 26, 1998
The Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc.
Dear Mrs. Jordan:
The Budget and Audit Committee has completed its examination of the ledgers and
accounts of the Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc., for the period July 1, 1996 through
June 30, 1997.
The audit consisted of such tests of the records that were deemed appropriate to satisfy
ourselves that the data was both accurate and correct. Suggestions made during the audit were
readily accepted and implemented.
Some areas for future year audits were identified and will be presented on an ongoing
basis to the Executive Board, as well as, reported to the general membership when determined
to be necessary or desirable.
Actions taken in response to prior audit recommendations were reviewed and determined
to be appropriate under the circumstances.
Attached hereto is a statement of Receipts, Expenditures and Fund Balances for the period
under review, accompanied by a statement concerning Society functions. In our opinion, the
statements fairly and accurately represent the results of activity during the accounting year
and accurately state the Society's fund balances at June 30, 1997.
Luis R. Reyes, Co-Chairperson
STATEMENT OF RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES AND CHANGES
IN FUND BALANCES AS OF JUNE 30, 1997
BEGINNING FUND BALANCES ON JULY 1. 1996
Bank Checking Account
CD (11 mos) Matures 01/12/97
CD (11 mos) Matures 01/12/97
CD (6 mos) Matures 10/18/96
CD (20 mos) Matures 10/14/96
CD (11 mos) Matures 07/10/96
Petty Cash Fund
Total Fund Balance on July 1, 1996
$ 23,140.40
Sales of Tags, Decals and Pins
Sales of Canal Records
Total Receipts During Fiscal Year
$ 89,192.00
Society Functions (Other than Annual Reunion)
Canal Record
Cost of Tags, Decals and Pins
Bank Charges
Total Expenditures During Fiscal Year
$ 28,481.74
ENDING FUND BALANCES AT JUNE 30, 1997
Bank Checking Account
CD (11 mos) Matures 12/12/97
CD (11 mos) Matures 12/12/97
CD (6 mos) Matures 10/17/97
CD (12 mos) Matures 06/25/98
Petty Cash Fund
Total Fund Balance at June 30, 1997
$ 10,226.21
JULY 1, 1996 JUNE 30, 1997
ATTENDEES
These social functions are intended to be break-even activities, with
ticket prices set as near as possible to recover associated costs of the
activity.
r9 96., 9 97 F INAN C AL Y EAR REPORT
Y EAR END H FUNDS IN CHECKING ANlD SAVIN GS
0 'f
at the
PANAMA CANAL SOCIETY REUNION LUNCHEON
Over the years, the Reunion Luncheon has hosted talks on every aspect of life in the Panama Canal Zone
and of life in Panama. A couple of years ago we were treated to a wonderful journey back through time to
enjoy over twenty years of United Way theater productions. This nostalgic vista was hosted by director/producer
Bruce Quinn and he was joined by many of the performers who originated some of the roles in those United
Way musicals. This year we decided once again have some musical entertainment at the luncheon and our
president, Margot Jordan, has arranged for some of the Canal Zone's own troubadours to provide the afternoon's
delight.
Linda Woodruff Weir (BHS'66) has assembled a cast of seven performers to introduce us to "Love in the
Afternoon", a musical journey through the various stages love, loss, and love again. The show features music from
broadway shows, to Burt Bachrach to Cole Porter, to Irving Berlin. Interwoven through the music is the tale
of old love, young love, any kind of love at all!!
Performing with Linda will be Bob Teta and Erin Hatchett, both with ties to the Canal Zone. Bob was
stationed at Ft. Amador when he and Linda met doing musical theater for the United Way and at the Theatre
Guild. Bob performed in "1776", "Fiddler on the Roof", "A Man for All Seasons", "Who's Afraid of Virginia
Woolf?" to name a few. Most of us, however, will certainly remember Bob's outstanding performance as King
Arthur in the United Way's production of "Camelot". Bob has continued his acting and singing career in the
U.S. and has appeared in the TV series "Eischied" with Joe Don Baker. Bob currently lives in Vero Beach where
he has been singing in various night clubs along the beach coast.
Erin Hatchett, (BHS'93) is the daughter of Toni and Ken Millard and Mr. Edward Hatchett. Erin performed
in "Guys & Dolls" and "Oklahoma" at BHS and in "Steel Magnolias" at the Ancon Theatre Guild. Erin is a 1997
graduate of the NYU Tisch School of Arts where she was named 1997 Outstanding Actress. Erin has just
completed a role in the independent film "Threat".
Linda Woodruff Weir performed in many of the United Way and Ancon Theatre Guild productions, to
include "Fiddler on the Roof, "Showboat", "Applause", Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and "The Apple Tree".
For the past two years, Linda has been active in the Pinellas County Florida Community Theatre scene
performing in "Funny Girl", "Gaslight Girl", and most recently as Dr. Gorgeous in "The Sisters Rosensweig" at
the Largo Cultural center. Linda was recently awarded Favorite Actress in a Comedy by the Pinellas County
Theatre Grapevine for her performance as Blanche Bickerson in the recreation of "The Battling Bickersons" for
"The Return to the Golden Age of Radio". Joining the Canal Zone cast of "Love in the Afternoon" will be
Nancy Stauffer, James Grenelle and Brick. Nancy has appeared in "Cabaret" and "Here's Love" on stage and
currently has a duo musical act with her brother Bob, creating sounds of the Big Band era. James is one of
the most talented young performers to grace any stage. He is also a director and choreographer and is a
winner of the Theatre Grapevine Award for Favorite Supporting Actor for his performance in "Funny Girl".
While performing in "The Sisters Rosenweig", Linda had the privilege to work with and get to know a
wonderful comedienne, Brick, who originally came to Florida after doing stand-up comic work in New York.
Brick has also appeared in "Fiddler of the Roof and as the stripper, Mazeppa, in "Gypsy". Brick is a Theatre
Grapevine award winner as Favorite Supporting Actress for "Jake's Woman".
We hope to have some other special guests and surprises for you and know that you will all enjoy a
delightful afternoon full of music and love. Come join us for "Love in the Afternoon".
SOME
Some members keep their organization strong
While others join to belong.
Some volunteer to do their share,
While others lie back and don't care.
Some always pay their dues ahead,
Some get behind for months, instead.
Some do their best; some build; some make,
Some never do, just sit and take.
Some lag behind, some let things go,
And never help their club to grow.
Some drag; some pull; some don't, some do,
Considerer, which of these are YOU?
Author Unknown
p( SO prn tLun theco
Chairperions A.nna and Joe (2ll.ni
ffl/ay 2, 1998
The Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc. will hold its May SPRING LUNCHEON on
Saturday, May 2, 1998 at the Treasure Island Yacht Club, 400 Treasure Island Causeway,
St. Petersburg, Florida. The BUFFET luncheon will be held on the second floor.
There will be a Cash Bar from 11:00 a.m., with Vegetable Plate w/dip, until noon when
the buffet will open. A short business meeting to follow at 1:30 p.m. Cost of the BUFFET
is $13.00 which includes tax and gratuity, to include Soup de Jour, Shrimp Salad, Chicken
Salad, Pasta Salad, and and more, plus dessert.
Elevators are on your left upon entering, stairs on the right. Dining Room is on second
floor, directly ahead upon exiting elevator. There is a Toll charge of 500 to enter Causeway.
Parking is available, however it is suggested that car-pooling be used as much as
possible to avoid any parking problems with other patrons of the Yacht Club.
We hope to see you on May 2, so please jot the date on your calendar so that you
won't forget to make your reservations. RESERVATIONS or requests for REFUNDS must be
in the office by April 28, 1998. Directions to Yacht Club are on page 4.
There will be door prizes.
If you have any questions, please call Anna Collins at (813) 894-8484
.--------------------------------------- ^- ^--------------------------------
Treasure Island Yacht Club, St. Petersburg, Florida
Member Name Membership No.
Please make Reservations at $13.00 each. Total enclosed: $
Names of Guests (Please print)
1. 5.
4. 8.
DEADLINE: April 28, 1998
Make checks payable to the Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc. and mail to 8050 Seminole Mall, Suite 334,
Seminole, FL 33772-4712
There will not be a
MAReE 1998
St. g'ced 'd fIdcafz i (/iwrcL-
2500 16ti Steet
AND LIST OF NOMINEES FOR OFFICE
ARE IN THE BACK OF THE BOOK.
WE WANT TO SEE THE SOCIETY GROW, BE SURE AND VOTE
AND SHOW US YOU CARE TOO!
IT WILL ONLY COST YOU 320
Highlights of Minutes from Regular Meetings
The Sarasota Luncheon Committee, L-R: Barbara
Peterson, Co-chairperson; Mike and Marion
Greene, Kay Miller and 1st Vice President Tom
Peterson, Co-chairperson.
Meeting held during Annual Picnic at Anderson
Park, Tarpon Springs, Florida. 1st Vice President T.
Peterson presided. Mr. Peterson reported that
Executive Board voted not to change dues year due
to financial reasons. Computers were purchased for
Record Editor due to malfunction of his original, and
for Secretary Treasurer due to new requirements. Fax
was purchased for Reunion Coordinator, as President
Jordan requested to keep hers due to increase in
communications.
October Picnic Committee: L-R: Steve Nehring,
Chairperson, Betty Malone, Barbara Green, Muriel
Whitman, Faith Brundage and Gary O'Connor.
Carol Masino resigned as assistant for the
Society Office. Barbara Slover hired in her place.
Membership responded well to Dates to
Remember/Dues Notices cards. T. Peterson stated the
Reunion netted $10,000 for the Society. 1998
Reunion dates are July 1-5 at Orlando's World
Center, Marriott. 1999 Reunion to be held same
place.
Mr. Peterson presented Mr. Stephen Nehring,
Chairperson of the Picnic, with a token of
appreciation and Nehring in turn, presented his
committee of Faith Brundage, Muriel Whitman, Betty
Malone and Barbara Green with tokens.
November 4, 1997:
Meeting was held at St. Bede's Episcopal Church,
St. Petersburg, Florida. President Margot Jordan
reported that Mr. Ken Morris is conducting a full
audit of all Society books. The Executive Board
approved a 2% salary increase for the office staff.
The By-Laws are being reviewed by-Laws Chairperson
Jane Huldtquist. A committee has been appointed to
study milage reimbursement.
Roy Culbreth, Legislative Representative gave a
report on health and life insurance covered by Pan
American Life Insurance Co. Information will be
published in the March Canal Record. He provided
copies of a check-list of items for concern. Mrs.
Jordan suggested we have a speaker who can give us
information on the retirement system. So far, about
1,700 dues for '98 are being processed and staff is
about a month and a half behind in updating and
posting.
Editor Pat Beall reported October Canal Record
was sent as 3rd Class mail to Post Office October
29. He is checking with Postal authorities about slow
delivery. He apologized for omitting room rates on
hotel registration form. Those rates will be included
through the internet; and sent to all mini-reunion
chairpersons, and Area Reporters. This has been
corrected for the March issue.
Mrs. Jordan stated that by signing the reunion
contracts for 1999 and 2000, the hotel agreed to
keep room rates the same. A survey of different
areas in the Tampa area proved unfruitful. A new
hotel in Tampa, ready in 2 years will be checked on.
December 6, 1997:
Meeting/Luncheon was held at Holiday Inn
Select, St. Petersburg, FL. After opening the meeting,
Lunch was held and reconvened at 1:50 p.m.
President Jordan reported on actions taken by the
Board. Mini-audit being conducted. Budget for 1998
presented. History of Society being conducted, an
welcomes input from members. Tom Peterson,
Reunion Coordinator reported all going well with
1998 Reunion plans. Charles "Chuck" Hummer
reported on work being accomplished on office
computers and is impressed with office work output
and the way the Society is presented to the public
by the office staff. The Web page was created by
Matthew Armistead in Oklahoma. Roy Culbreth,
Legislative Representative reported on developments
regarding Pan-American Life Insurance Company.
Those with questions may call him at (813) 960-
9593. Steve Nehring announced a Christmas Tree
burn for December 27 at Eckerd College Campus.
Carnavalito to be held at Santa Madeira
Restaurant on February 7, 1998. Candidates for office
for 1998-1999 term will be accepted from the floor
at January 9, 1998 meeting. Jim O'Donnell,
chairperson, Nominating Committee recommended
slate of officers for President: Tom Peterson; for 1st
VP: Chuck Hummer; 2nd VP: Faith Brundage;
Directors: Muriel Whitman and Steve Nehring.
Pat Beall contacted Postal authorities regarding
problems with October mailing of Canal Record.
Harry Foster won two COPA tickets to Panama.
Meeting closed at 2:38 p.m.
CHRISTMAS LUNCHEON
The Christmas Luncheon held on Saturday,
December 6, 1997, at the Holiday Inn Select in
Clearwater, Florida was attended by 130 members
and guests. The room was decorated for Christmas,
the tables were done in red and green and the
center pieces had an Angel, adorned by two candle
lights. These were used as table prizes. There were
also gift wrapped calculators, candy canes and Santa
Claus magnets for all.
The Christmas Luncheon Committee: L-R: Muriel
Whitman, Chairperson, Faith Brundage, Carolyn
Johnson, Bob Johnson, John Whitman, Loretta
King, and Lois Jones.
After a delicious lunch we enjoyed the singing by
"The Ladies in Blue", a choral group with included
our own Faith Brundage. Many door prizes were
given out and we want to thank all the members
who donated them; we really appreciate your
generosity. Ethel Askew drew Harry Foster's name
for the round trip tickets to Panama. What a nice
early Christmas present!
Christmas Luncheon 1997 Harry Foster wins 2
round-trip tickets to Panama via COPA from COPA
representative Dalys Benninghoff.
Harry Foster being overwhelmed by volunteers to
share his second ticket to Panama.
The Committee was thanked by President Jordan,
they were John and Muriel Whitman, Robert and
Carolyn Johnson, Faith brundage, Betty Malone, Lori
King, and Lois Jones.
A delightful time was had by all and it was a
nice event in which to start the Holiday Season.
January 9, 1998:
Meeting was held at St. Bede's Episcopal Church,
St. Petersburg, FL. 1st VP Tom Peterson chaired the
meeting as President Jordan was ill. There was no
quorum therefore no official business was able to be
conducted. 4,361 members are in the computer and
only 3,369 have paid their dues. Approval to be
asked to send additional dues notices. Legislative
Representative Roy Culbreth is checking to see if
Pan American Life Insurance Company certificates
are still valid. He gave background on PALIC
Insurance.
The Nominating Committee Chairperson, Jim
O'Donnell announced that without a quorum,
nominations from the floor would have to be done
at the Carnavalito/Meeting. Floor nominations will be
published in the March Canal Record.
Steve Nehring gave brief account of the
Christmas Tree Burning event. As Chairperson for
the 1998 October Picnic, he has reserved the same
location as the last picnic.
Muriel Whitman reported that 130 members
attended the Christmas Luncheon. "Ladies in Blue"
singers provided entertainment and money was left
over after expenses.
We shall continue "Brown Bagging" until a
Hospitality Chairperson volunteers services. In the
interim, desserts will be accepted at forthcoming
meetings.
A short business meeting will be held at
Carnavalito. There will be no meeting in March, and
April meeting will be held here at St.Bede's.
The meeting adjourned at 1:55 p.m.
SPREAD THE WORD: In an Internet Treasure Hunt for former Crossroads of
the World, Hometown, USA or DODDS alumni from anywhere in the world, go to the Panama
Canal College, Cristobal, and Balboa page by following the "PanCanal" trail from
http://www.willapabay.org/ anne, and register yourself for others to find, or search for
others.
First, we would like to thank all the classmates
and friends of the Class of 1938 who have notified
us of the whereabouts of several of our classmates.
We are still trying to locate the following BHS 1938
classmates:
If you know where any of these classmates are, please
send their names and current addresses to the undersigned
so we can advise them of the pending 60th CLASS
REUNION in Orland, Florida on July 3, 1998.
Also, please see notice for BHS 1938 under the
Announcements Section on the Canal Record.
Robert "Bob" VanSiclen
9816 Lake Seminole Dr. West,
Seminole, FL 33773-4521.
If you have any information or any leads on how to locate
our missing classmates please contact:
William McGinn
a shift engineer in the
Electrical Division was
killed in 1967, leaving a
infant daughter, separated
due to a divorce. She was
reunited with him as a
teenager for a few short
hours the day before he
was killed. The daughter,
would like to know more
about her father. Among
a room bears his name at
the Jungle Warfare School
plans to be at the 1998
Reunion in Orlando and
would like to talk to
anyone who has any information about him. She may
be contacted at P.O. Box 280 Gunnison, UT 84634,
(435) 528-7744. e-mail:
Please advise the Search Committee, below of any
known addresses:
Barbara Fritz Reyle Ruth Rose Foster
10518 Providence Way, 10397 N. Ranch Hand Ave.
Fairfax, VA 22030 Dunnellon, FL 34433
(703) 273-2654 (352) 489-3264
Anyone knowing the whereabouts of any of the
above, please notify Diane Sanchez, 1197 Kinsmen,
Auburndale, FL 33823. (941) 967-1899.
WILLIAM L. LEWIS
Please let Cynthia Schuckenbrock know, of
131 N.E. Street, Carlisle, Pennsylvania 17013
13
THE NIFTY CLASS OF FIFTY -
WHERE ARE YOU?
THE BIG BHS CLASS OF 1950's 50th
REUNION IN THE YEAR 2000 is in the earnest
planning stage NOW with an industrious volunteer
committee determined to produce a great 50th
reunion BUT we have lost contact with a number of
our classmates. A few dear and long lost classmates
like Max Kurillo, who called me in December after
conferring with Chuck Becktell and Stuart Plumer
who let us know of his whereabouts last November,
are appearing. BUT we are still missing many of our
buddies like Richardson "Dick" Selee, Burt Page, Dr.
K. Keith Kreth and others. So..if you or if you know
of one or more of our classmates who are not listed
in the Canal Record Directory, or have not recently
attended a reunion, PLEASE CONTACT US via any
of the communication routes listed below! Please
help us have a great 50th Reunion! Thank you all!
Dr. Wendall N. Spreadbury Joan (Powell) Arndt
BHS Class of 1950 Reunion 9770 S.W. 198th Cir.
RR 13 Box 8600 Dunnellon, FL
Nacogdoches, TX 75961-9599 34431-4148
(409) 564-0620 FAX 409-569-2514 (352) 489-3887
cspreadbury@titan,sfasu.edu
Would anyone have the address of Jean Mitchell
Smith? I believe she lives in Menlo Park, California,
however, my letter was returned. Please contact Ruth
Drake, 55 North St., Dalton, MA 01226.
ATTENTION!
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Charles P. Ake
history of the Panama Canal
By Susan Harp
A filmmaking crew from the Discovery Channel
set up camp in the Panama Canal Administration
Building for a few hours last week, focusing its
cameras on the rotunda murals that depict scenes of
the Waterway's construction. The group is filming a
historical documentary on Canal construction that,
eventually, will be aired worldwide. The group has
been sighted gathering material in Canal townsites as
well as along the banks of the waterway and even up
remote Canal watershed rivers. Headed by producer
Eugenie Vink, the crew includes associate producer
Anabel Hester, cameraman Patrick Duval and
soundman Thomas Williams.
The two-hour documentary, when completed will
follow the human struggle to build a path across the
Isthmus of Panama, including the discovery of the
Pacific Ocean by Vasco Nufiez de Balboa, Spain's
quest in the 16th century for the best route across
the Isthmus, the 19th century French attempt by
Ferdinand de Lesseps to construct a canal and the
successful U.S. canal project carried out between
1904 and 1914.
Vink, who previously worked for the Discovery
Channel but is now an independent filmmaker, has
produced documentaries on diverse topics ranging
from classical literature and wildlife to the
paranormal. She says the idea for this project began
as a casual conversation between Roundabout
Productions producer Nancy LeBrun and Stover
Jenkins, (BHS'71) former Canal resident whose
father, Albert McMillan Jenkins worked for the
Accounting Division and retired in 1978. LeBrun
teamed up with Vink to write a proposal for the
show, and the Discovery Channel accepted it.
"Panama's history is a fascinating one, and not
many people are aware of it," says Vink, who wrote
the program and is currently directing and producing
it. Before starting to film, she reviewed archives at
the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and
made a preliminary visit to Panama. Local footage
will be shot in both the rainy and dry seasons and
will include simulated scenes of 1849 California gold
rush travellers; a French hospital and a West Indian
home; authentic French barges and rail carts now
hidden in the jungle alongside the Canal; an
interview with Alexander Heron, a 103-year-old
veteran of the U.S. Canal construction; and blasting
and excavation work currently underway in Gaillard
Cut, the section that was known as Culebra Cut and
was the site of the deepest earthwork slicing through
the Continental Divide, an area subject to many
landslides during construction.
Physical, a local casting and production agency,
is assisting the production crew by providing actors,
period costumes, and logistical support. Some props
were borrowed from the Interoceanic Canal Museum
of Panama and the Commission's Technical
Resources Center. Searching for French-era scenery
and furniture, Physical Executive Producer Marie
Claire Fontaine located old hospital beds at the
Hogar de Luz y Vida, a home for older men in
Panama's older French quarter. There, the crew
filmed scenes of an actress posing as a French nun
and placing bowls of water under the hospital bed
legs to keep ants away...
...The film crew also travelled to the upper
reaches of the Chagres River to recreate a scene of
19th century California Gold Rush prospectors
travelling from the Atlantic side by dugout canoe up
the Chagres River to the town of Las Cruces, where
they traditionally continued across the Isthmus by
mule. Commission "palancamen" Jose Asprilla and
Eustacio Largacha played the parts of river guides
during the filming, and everyone was caught in a
torrential downpour.
"The rain has been pretty impressive in the
jungle and on the Chagres River" says Vink about
difficulties encountered during the filming, adding,
"After that experience, I have even greater
appreciation for the workers who built the Canal."
Planning to return in January to film aerial shots
and Gatun Lake's blue, dry season waters, Vink says,
"The project will take a year to finish, including a
20-week editing process." She adds that the show will
eventually be translated into several languages for
worldwide distribution.
The Internet may seem simple to those who use
it, but setting up an Internet service and making it
work is not an easy task. Information Management
personnel are currently developing such a service
under a project that entails updating already existing
network infrastructures and installing new equipment
that allows the Panama Canal Commission to have
its own direct Internet link.
Commission Internet usage has been somewhat
informal until now, with contracted Internet
companies providing the service and hosting the
Commission's web page, explains Supervisory
Computer Specialist Alvaro GonzAlez. GonzAlez is
coordinating the in-house project to provide Internet
as well as Internet (internal network) services for the
Canal Agency.
According to GonzAlez, the project involves
establishing direct satellite connection, installing a
complete and reliable network, redesigning and
enhancing the Commission web site and setting up
an Intranet system that allows offices to share
information internally.
He says the satellite connection is already
installed and is being tested. Cables that currently
connect local area networks in Commission offices
with the central "backbone" computer cable will be
used to provide direct access to both the Intranet
and Internet, and, GonzAlez says, will not require the
use of a telephone modem to call into the system.
Remote offices, such as the Flamenco Island Signal
Station, will still have to use a modem connection
because they do not have physical cable connections.
15
The number of available modem lines will increase
from 16 to 48, permitting approximately 300 users to
connect at one time.
Gonzalez envisions the new Canal web site as
being "dynamic," meaning that offices that provide
information for site pages will be able to update
their sections at any time from their own computers.
This will involve updating a database that is in turn
"read" by the web page and made available to the
public. For example, the Purchasing and Contracts
Branch can update contract bulletins from its own
office, making them automatically available on the
web page.
GonzAlez comments that the project has been a
collective effort involving the Research and
Development Branch, which analyzes the overall
strategy; Inter-Networking Unit, in charge of system
configuration and coordination; the
Telecommunications Branch, which maintains the
physical network cables.
GonzAlez adds that guidelines defining
appropriate employee usage of the Internet are
another important component and are currently in
the planning stage.
Hosted by Panama First Lady Dora Boyd de
Pirez Baladares, 17 first ladies from the Americas,
plus the first lady of Spain and the queen of
Belgium as special guests, met in Panama last week
for the seventh First Ladies Summit of the Americas.
During the conference, participants discussed ways to
improve human rights and living conditions for
women, children and other vulnerable groups in the
Western Hemisphere.
U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
addressed the group on women's rights and their role
in supporting democracy, saying, As our countries
continue to expand our political, economic and
strategic alliances, the women of this hemisphere can
lead the way in building an alliance of democratic
values that will strengthen our democracies into the
next millennium."
From the Miraflores Locks Control House balcony,
Hillary Clinton views Panama Canal locks
operations as a southbound ship exits a locks
chamber. Accompanying Clinton are Deputy
Administrator Joseph W. Cornelison and
Administrator Alberto Aleman Zubieta. Photo from
Panama Canal Commission.
The summit's closing ceremony took place at the
Miraflores Locks visitors center, as illustrated by the
photos on this page (Panama Canal Spillway). One
of the final acts was the signing of the Panama
Declaration containing guidelines for future actions.
U.S. Agency for International Development officials
also signed an agreement to provide over $4 million
in support for the Inter-American Institute of Human
Rights.
During her stay in Panama. Clinton also met
with Peace Corps volunteers, toured a rural
agricultural project for women, made a helicopter
overflight of the Panama Canal and visited the
Miraflores Locks Control House. As she operated the
handles to open locks valves and gates, Clinton
jokingly commented that she would enjoy having the
job of control house operator when she no longer
has the role of first lady.
The Panama Canal Spillway
The Gaillard Plaque was rededicated on
September 18, 1997, at its new location in Balboa, at
the foot of the Panama Canal Administration
Building's sweeping steps.
Its design featuring two laborers in the
foreground and two mighty steam shovels in the
background, the Gaillard Plaque commemorates the
colossal work accomplished in digging the Panama
Canal.
The bronze plaque was originally installed on
Contractor's Hill, 103.5 feet above the Canal's
surface. There, in 1928, it was dedicated in honor of
Lt. Col. David DuBose Gaillard, the engineer, who
between 1908 and 1913, was in charge of the
excavation of Culebra Cut, the eight-mile-long section
of the Panama Canal channel carved through
Panama's jungle-covered, geographically complex
Continental Divide. The famous Cut continues to be
known by engineers throughout the world for the
difficulty of its excavation. Gaillard died the year
before the Cut was completed, and the excavation
was renamed Gaillard Cut in his honor.
,f- .
Presenting Gaillard Plaque in 1928. Mrs.
Katherine Gaillard and Dredging Division
employees pose with the plaque dedicated to the
memory of her husband, Lt.Col. David Dubose
Gaillard, which she, and her family and the Third
U.S. Volunteer Engineer's Memorial Association
gave to the Canal in 1928. Photo from Panama
Canal Commission.
The recent rededication ceremony was attended
by U.S. Ambassador to Panama William Hughes, the
Panama Canal Commission officials, Panama City
Mayor Mayin Correa and designated members of the
Panama Canal Authority Board of Directors. Also
present for the event were Cecil F. Haynes, the
longest serving Canal employee; Alexander Heron, a
103-year old Canal construction-day worker, and a
Gaillard descendant, U.S. Army Maj. Mark Gardner,
and his family. Panama Canal Administrator Alberto
Alemin Zubieta unveiled the plaque. He also
presented a smaller replica, made by David Dickson
and Leika Guerrero from the Maintenance Division,
to Correa for display in the Inter-Oceanic Canal
Museum.
Although Lt. Col. Gaillard did not live to see
the completion of this heroic engineering
accomplishment, his dedication and that of thousands
who worked on the construction of the Panama
Canal is captured in this magnificent plaque. And
now in its new location, visitors and employees as
well will be able to see the plaque close up and feel
the immense power and triumph captured in its
design.
The Gaillard Plaque was presented to the Canal
organization as a gift in 1928 by Gaillard's wife
Katherine, the Gaillard family and the Third U.S.
Volunteer Engineers' Memorial Association, composed
of members of the regiment that Col. Gaillard
commanded during the Spanish American War.
Weighing about a ton and measuring
approximately 8 x 9 feet, the plaque was sculptured
by American artist James Earl Fraser in 1927, and
cast by Kuntz Foundry of New York.
According to Technical Resources Center Chief
Roberto Sarmiento, the Gaillard Plaque is often
referred to as the "gypsy" plaque because of the
several times it has been moved. Sarmiento explains
that the plaque was moved from its original location
in 1954 during the project to reduce the overburden
of Contractor's Hill and reinstalled in 1956. When
the hill was further reduced in 1959, the plaque was
removed for a second time and reinstalled for the
third time in 1960 in a spot on Contractor's Hill not
far from its original location.
Due to the plaque's relocations and exposure to
the elements, it has suffered considerable
deterioration. Approval of its restoration work was
granted by former Panama Canal Commission
Administrator Gilberto Guardia F. in April 1996. The
company contracted for its restoration work was
Capital Refinishers, Inc. of Vienna, Virginia. It cost
approximately $49,000.
The plaque restoration process included cleaning
and removing layers of paint, filling cracks, creating
molds for casting a replica, removing corrosion and
repairing metallic streaking, chemically producing the
plaque's caramel color and finally, applying several
layers of a special protective wax. According to
Sarmiento, the restoration work was no easy task,
since various layers of paint, corrosion and cracks
made the plaque difficult to clean and polish.
Sarmiento explains that, during its 69 years in the
Cut, several paint coatings had been applied to the
plaque. That, as well as the deep corrosion,
complicated the contractor's work. He adds, "They
tried many cleaning procedures with different types
of equipment to get the best possible results. It
involved a mixture of art and chemistry."
Sarmiento says that a full-size replica will be
installed on Contractor's Hill as a replacement for
the original plaque, when the Cut widening program
is completed. The creation of a replica contributes to
keeping the Canal's traditional history alive. "The
image is still meaningful today," Sarmiento says
referring to the plaque s original design.
Personnel from the Maintenance Division
provided extensive support and were responsible for
transporting the plaque, providing the space for the
contractor to work and building the retaining wall
that supports the plaque in its new location. The
Electrical Division installed the illumination system
around the retaining wall and the Engineering
Division carried out all the design work. Building a
wall and setting up the lighting for the replica in
Gaillard Cut is also on the Maintenance Division's
agenda for when the Cut Widening project is
completed.
The Holiday Season is over and everyone is back
to their day-to-day activities.
Karl Basham, son of Mike and Linda Basham of
Enterprise, and grandson of Millie Patton and Marty
Bradford of Dothan, AL, recently received an
R.O.T.C. scholarship from Troy University, Troy,
Alabama. In June 1998, he will enter the U.S. Army
as a Second Lieutenant. His sister, Susan, will leave
in March 1998 for Korea with the Army Canine
Corps. This is a "going places family", folks.
Edna Koval had as her house guest for five days,
Dr. Steve Mahaffey of Danville, CA. The visit was
great, still haven't got all the details. Edna Koval
then had to rush off with Alice Clark, Arlene Abbott
and Edna O'Donnell on a three-day trip to Orpyland,
U.S.A. Details are forthcoming next time.
Now some exciting news of my own! Kellie Luke,
daughter of Susan and Jim Luke and my own
granddaughter will turn Sweet Sixteen on January
29!.This definitely doesn't mean I am getting any
older. Anyway, she will celebrate with a surprise
birthday party at Holiday Inn South here in Dothan,
with family and friends. Kellie's big surprise will be
a new car which I know she will enjoy. Next time I
will enclose pictures of the proud owner.
That's all for now. Hopefully next time I will
have much more news from Alabama!
Dolores Cleveland
The fall luncheon of the Panama Canal Society
of Arizona was held at the home of Daniel and
Miriam Hirschl in Sun City West.
Those attending were treated to a tour of the
Hirschl's beautiful home and magnificent mola
collection.
Miriam Hirshl of Sun City, Arizona with her mola
bedspread and pillows. (Wish this was in color!)
--
Chester and Mary Grace Oakes at the Arizona
potluck. Loring White in background.
A potluck of typical Panamanian foods was
enjoyed by Darrell and Nancy Eide, Daniel and
Miriam Hirschl, Norm and Donna Gillis, Carl and
Pat Berg and daughter Jennifer, Ruth Senzer, Robert
Senzer, Evelyn and Loring White, Ann Parks and
her cousin, and Chester and Mary Grace Oakes.
The spring luncheon will be held on March 28
at the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Chandler, Arizona.
Nancy Eide
Carl Maedl, Petie Maedl and Dorothy Sanders
Willard and Kathleen Huffman had a very nice
Christmas in '97. James, their youngest son and his
lovely wife, Joan, spent seven days here in Rogers
and they showed Joan the sights of Arkansas. Joan,
a former 1st Class Petty Officer in the Navy will
spend the first six weeks of '98 in Pensacola training
to be a recruiting officer for the Navy. James is
stationed in San Antonio, Texas where Joan will join
him in February. Kathleen and Willard hope to
attend her 50th Cristobal High School Reunion in
Orlando at the Panama Canal Reunion.
In mid-September Dorothy Sanders received an
airline ticket to fly to Dallas, Texas, where Bruce,
Sandy, grandson Curt, wife Kim, and two great-
grandsons, Ryan and Collin, honored her with a
surprise birthday party. She's not 39, but didn't mind
having this birthday at all. Thanksgiving found the
family back together again this time in Bentonville,
and included grandson Doug, from Santa Cruz, CA,
The boys had great fun raking up the mountainous
piles of leaves, and wrestling in them. Just like a
Norman Rockwell scene. In December, Dorothy
returned to Dallas to join Bruce, Sandy, and her
mother, Beatrice Younger for a seven day cruise of
the Caribbean on the Sun Princess. It was a
wonderful trip and the first time Dorothy had been
on the Atlantic since those unforgettable Canal Zone
to New York vacation trips.
Addie Colclasure and her sister, Juanita, drove
down from Kansas to spend the holidays with
daughter Marion and son David and family.
-- -
Sewing Club, Back L-R: Katheen Huffman, Betty
McGilberry. Middle: Maxine Reinhold, Lee Butz,
Gloria McGilberry, Glenn Conklin, Petie Maedl,
Dorothy Sanders. Front: Maxine Wrenn, Mary
Condon.
Joan and Jack Corliss stayed put and Joan spent
a lot of time baby sitting granddaughter, Kelsie Joan.
The Harps, Jerry and Harold, spent a quiet
Christmas with family and grandchildren.
Henrietta and Mike Horoda spent time in
Coppell, Texas, with family, Had a great time. Spent
Thanksgiving there too.
The following reported spending a quiet
Christmas at home or with family and friends: Betty
McGilberry, Alice Nail, and John and Polly
Michaelis.
Peggy Keller was in California with family and
friends for Christmas and New Years. Said she had
a great time.
Maxine Reinhold has been recuperating at a
rehab center in Rogers after falling and breaking her
left leg in mid-November. Son Mel visited around
Thanksgiving and daughter Barbara came from
Minnesota in December for a few days.
Gretta and Joe Vowell had their daughter Alison,
graduate from the U.of Washington with a degree in
Linguistics and English Literature. They also went to
Kerrville, Texas to visit with Coral and Eric Adema.
Took a trip to King Ranch and had a good time.
Jess and Lynn Harp had her parents, Bill and
Betty Dunning here in Arkansas for the holidays.
Also visiting were Carol Schwenke and Freda
Stohrer.
Reporter Bud Balcer made four trips to
Shreveport, LA., for the birthdays of son Paul
Rhoads, daughter-in-law Melissa Rhoads in October,
and then for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Enjoyed
each and every one of them.
Robert "Bud" Balcer
Nancy (Crooks) Kipplinger, who moved to
Fayetteville in January, 1997, was visited by her son,
David Todd, and his wife, Tammi, and her 16-year-
old grandson, Gabriel, in August. In October she and
her mother, Minnie (Crooks) Burton, traveled to
Tucson, AZ., to visit Nancy's four children, eight
grandchildren and two great-granddaughters. Her
mother returned to Arkansas, and Nancy flew to
Ontario, CA., to spend two weeks with her cousin,
Betty (Crooks) Ingram. She returned to Fayetteville
November 1, and on November 23, her eldest son,
Bob Todd, and his wife, Linda, came to spend
Thanksgiving with her, her mother, and her sister,
Judi (Crooks) Daily. Judi, with some help from the
family, prepared dinner at her home for 16 guests.
This was the first Thanksgiving Nancy had spent with
her mother and sister in 47 years. It was wonderful!
During November and December, Charles and
Mary McGimsey enjoyed a five-week stay in Australia
and New Zealand as part of an Elder Hostel
program. Part of their time was spent in Cairns in
northeastern Australia near the Great Barrier Reef.
Charles had a chance to do some snorkeling and
both of them had a ride in a glass-bottom boat.
They also hiked around Ayer's Rock in central
Australia. Incidentally, it was 104F at this place. In
New Zealand they visited Aukland and Rotorua on
the North Island and Christ Church on the South
Island.
Harry and Lee Butz had as their guests over
Christmas Esther and Bill Clair from Atlanta, GA.
and Peter and Janet Butz from Supulpa, OK., with
sons Jason and George. On Saturday they were
joined by Peter, Jr. and wife April, and Peter III
and wife Beth, and the newest addition to the family,
one-month-old Michael.
From an article by Charles Allson, printed in
The Morning News, Springdale (10/27/97) it was
learned that Paul Noland, professor emeritus of
Animal Science at the University of Arkansas, was
honored with the Panamanian National Order of
Manuel Amador Guererro. Noland, who lived in
Panama for three years during the 1950's, was part
of the university's first agricultural mission to
Panama. He continued to travel to Latin America
over 30 times in the last 40 years in support of
agricultural research.On behalf of the Panamanian
president, Perez Balladares, the Panamanian
ambassador, Tito Jaen, himself an alumnus of the
U.of Arkansas, presented the award to Noland,
describing him as a "scientist, teacher, civic leader
and most of all, a friend of Panama"
Petie Maedl
The Panama Canal Society of Southern
California held their Annual Christmas Luncheon on
December 7, 1997. This date is important to our
members, not because we are attending our luncheon,
but more important, we are remembering and paying
homage to the thousands of servicemen, women and
civilians that were killed or injured during the attack
on Pearl Harbor.
In Panama, those listening to the radio were
alerted of the attack and many thought the Canal
was in danger. At our luncheon, I called Bill
Monsanto to the podium to tell us what he was
doing at the time. He was in charge of the Balboa
Movie Theater and was working that day. Two
ushers, Janet Nesbitt and George Muller were also
there, working that day. I, Bob Wolfenstein, and my
folks, living in Margarita, decided to have lunch at
Fort Randolph, and had just ordered our lunch when
the announcement came over the radio. The P.A.
system then announced that all civilians had to leave
the base and all servicemen were to report to their
duty stations. We finished eating and immediately
got stuck in traffic. Exiting the base's main gate the
traffic got worse. All along the road there were
soldiers, sailors and marines lined up about 30 yards
apart with rifles and gas masks, lined along the road.
Trucks were pulling out of the ammo dumps and it
was stop and go all the way back to Margarita,
about 4 hours later.
As a former marine, I am active in the !st.
Marine Division Association and The Chosen Few,
Inc. from the Korean War. As such, I have been
able to get a permanent Marine Corps Color Guard
for our Society luncheons beginning in 1995.
In appreciation for their precision drill and in
honor of Corporal Thomas Tolentino, Jr. former
member of the Honor Guard who passed away in
August, 1997, our Society selected Mrs. Harriet
Drake Kambestad to present a plaque to Color
Sergeant Tom Tolentino, Sr. The plaque was
accepted by S/Sgt Don MacDermott in Color Sgt.
Tolentino's behalf.
Harriet Kambestad presenting plaque to Don
McDermott at Holiday Inn, Laguna Hills.
Mrs. Kambestad related to the members that
when she was a little girl in the Fourth Grade, her
teacher, Ms. Dove Prather took her to watch the
workers blow up the dike in Gamboa to let the
water flow into the empty Canal in October, 1913.
Six generations of CZ resident females (except the
baby Brigid Bennett Godfrey) and her mother,
Teresa Dyer Godfrey, and her mother Kathleen
Steiner Bennett, and her mother Dolly Allen
Steiner, and her mother Margaret Breheney Allen
(right photo in frame) and her mother Mary
Mannion Breheney (left photo in frame).
Teresa, her husband, Steve Godfrey, and Brigid,
have just moved to London, England, where Steve
has transferred to Bank of America's Currency
Trading Department, from same in San Francisco.
Teresa has accepted a promotion to European
Budget Director for INTEL. Kathleen leaves next
week for London to help them unpack and babysit
until they hire a nanny. "I guess Court and I will be
spending a lot of time in London, so we can watch
Brigid progress. We'll see my cousin, Mitzi (Siegel)
Beers (BHS'54), who lives in the area. Moving across
the 'pond' is not like moving to the other side!"
Kathleen Steiner Bennett
'Twas a balmy, sunlit evening on the Bay in San
Diego as approximately 72 of us old Panama Canal
residents and friends gathered for our annual West
Coast Bash. Yes, we are are still in business! We
greeted many old friends and a few new ones who
came from far and near and brought everyone up to
date on our lives. The room was sectioned off to
allow for plenty of mingling. The food was delicious,
the music not loud enough, as you know we all like
to talk, there was plenty of things to purchase and
we wished there were more of you.
1) Sue Pitney and Johnny Magee, old friends
from Balboa High. 2) Linda Morris and Winifred
Muller.
"Dolly" (Allen) Steiner, enjoyed her special
serenade by Douglas Custance, Director, Melody
Makers, Laguna Hills,
The Wanke family of Whittier, always attending our
society luncheons for over 20 years. L-R: Ronald
(BHS'43) and Peggy, George ("Dick") and Janice
(Cooper), both of BHS'45, and Libby Cooper
(BHS'49)
The Rice family, longtime, supportive members of
our society. Front L-R: John ("Ed") and Rosalind,
Costa Mesa. Rear L-R: Bette and Julian ("Bud"),
Marian (Snyder CHS'41) and Tom (BHS'38), Los
Angeles.
Our attempt at one evening event turned out
well and with a few more bugs to be worked out, we
hope to see you all here eventually. The next one is
on September 26, 1998 at the Marine Corps
Recruiting Department. See the registration form in
this issue of the Canal Record. We look forward to
greeting more of you later on this year.
Kathryn (Argo) Taylor
John Gough III and Paul Overstreet.
FLORIDA
It's really nice to see Panama Canal Society
members who winter in Florida at our monthly
meetings. These loyal and interested members are
Lucille Abernathy, Ruth Conner Warner, Lee and
Marion Kariger and Bill and Alice Forsstrom.
Running into Keith Mead in a Clearwater
grocery store brought back the good feelings and
warmth of seeing friends everywhere like we did at
home (Canal Zone). Keith, Cindy and baby Chase
had brought his mother, Gladys Mead back to her
home in Clearwater after she had spent the
Christmas Holidays with them in Tallahassee. Gladys
plans to spend a month (mid-January to mid-
February) playing and taking care of baby Chase.
Bob Van Siclen with his youngest grandchild,
Corey de Groot. Corey is the son of Amy and
Ron de Groot of Boca Raton, Florida.
Corey de Groot hoping Santa (Robert "Skip" Van
Siclen, Bob's son) brought all he asked for.
Carolyn Vezina and Ruth Schmidt went to Ahab,
Alabama to be with Ruth's son, John, when he had
open heart surgery in mid-December. The "Barlow
Girls" spent the holidays with John's family wife
Alice, three children and three grandchildren.
The Holiday Season was enjoyed by Rosalie
Cook, Hampton, VA. and Violet Smith during their
2V1/2 week visit with their sister, Dorothy and Ernie
Yocum. Violet came from Wadsworth, OH. for this
sister's reunion.
Esther and Ed Niskanen of Woodlands, Texas,
visited Jim and Barbara Boyer Slover of Seminole
during 10-13 January. Barbara and the Niskanens are
longtime friends since the days their children played
together. After visiting the Slovers, the Niskanens
were off to visit family and friends around Florida
then off on a Caribbean cruise.
Stuart, Florida, was the destination for Fran, Bill
and daughter Cindy Stock. On December 27 they
attended the wedding of Mark Sherry and Michelle
Coon. Mark is the son of Marje and Art Sherry of
Panama.
Lemuel Presley, Shreveport, LA., was visited by
sister, Jane Presley Huldtquist over the Christmas
Holidays. While there, Jane and Lemuel motored to
Dallas to visit Lem's daughter, Karleen Hoffman.
Shreveport has riverboat gambling casinos on the
Red River, slot machines are Jane's "thing", so she
and Lem went to the casinos several times. She often
WINS BIG but also puts it all back into the slot
machines as she loves to "pull that handle,"
On the Saturday after Christmas, fourteen
members of Aura Erikson met at her home in New
Port Richey for a Christmas and family reunion bash.
The Christmas holidays saw Bob and Nancy Van
Siclen in Boca Raton visiting daughter Amy and Ron
de Groot and their baby. Corey is Bob's youngest
grandson. Robert "Skip" Van Siclen, Bob's son,
played Santa Claus for Corey on Christmas morning.
Another daughter, Mary Ann, flew from New Jersey
with her three children to surprise Bob and Nancy.
Betty Comley Forgeson reports she had a most
interesting month of September just cruising. She and
Ruth Conner Warner sailed in and out of Vancouver,
British Columbia for 14 days on the S.S. Universe
Explorer, then throughout Alaska. They enjoyed eight
ports along the way plus beautiful Glacier Bay. After
the cruise they enjoyed three fun-filled days in
Vancouver.
Betty then boarded the Holland-American Lines'
S.S. Rotterdam along with ex-Zonian Bob Daniels and
his wife, Hazel. Bob was an old fishing and boating
buddy of the Forgesons aboard Bob's Viking which
was owned by Bob and Johnny McConaghy.
The Daniels and Betty cruised down the
California and Mexico coast to Costa Rica through
the Panama Canal to end their 18-day cruise in
Ft.Lauderdale. Off the coast of Mexico, the ship
avoided Cabo San Lucas and Acapulco because of
hurricanes "Linda" and "Nora". Remember these
hurricanes devastated Acapulco. Betty wasn't sorry to
miss these two ports of call as she enjoyed the seven
days at sea until the next port,
Bob Beall and his daughter, Jordan of Santa
Rosa, California visited his mother Liz Beall in
Largo and his dad Pat Beall in Clearwater for a few
days. He and his sister, Carol Fritz of Peachtree
City, Georgia took Jordan to visit Disney World in
Orlando, then drove them to Largo where they
recouped for a few days only to be led off to visit
Busch Gardens with dad and brother Dick. Bob and
Jordan made it a point to ride every hair-raising,
cork-screwing (5 of them) rides, while dad and Dick
preferred to walk and look. All concerned very much
enjoyed their brief visit.
Next meeting of the Ocala Zonians (Panama
Canal Ditch-diggers) will be April 7, 1998, at
Maggies Buffet Restaurant, 717 NE 36th Ave. (South
of east Silver Springs Blvd.) in Ocala, FL. Restaurant
opens at 11:30 a.m. Luncheon meeting starts at noon.
Contact Bill Muller at (353) 854-7902.
Arrangements are being made for a special
speaker who will provide information of interest to
all our PCSOFL members.
We were all saddened by the passing of Capt.
Ralph Curies. Marie Curies had recent surgery but
is doing well. Wesley "Red" Townsend recently fell
and broke his hip and is recovering slowly. He and
Virginia are both staying at Surry Place of Ocala in
mid-January. "Andy" and Garnet Anderson were
talking over the "good old days" on the Pacific locks
with Truman and Betsy Hoenke, John Balschun, Leo
Shadeck, and Richard Burchett traded info. Irene
Bissell, Margaret Hughes and Barbara Kelly enjoyed
visiting. Richard Lopp (BHS'46) drives down from
Gainesville for our meetings
Edmond and Eleanor Hesser of McIntosh were
off for Ireland. Meanwhile, Roy and Charlene
Trullinger came from DeLand. The McConaugheys
(Dick and Juanita) and son Bob are regulars, as are
Dick and Elaine Conover. Dick and Sandy Roscoe
recently moved north of Gainesville to Alachua.
Margaret (Curies) Maxwell (BHS'55) had another
interesting experience transporting vehicles cross-
country, as she was contracted to deliver a Prisoner
Bus for the US Immigration and Naturalization
Service from the factory to the Border Patrol
Headquarters in the Big Bend section of Texas.
I 1 ,, "'E
L-R: Edna (Curies) Cooley, Margaret (Curies)
Maxwell, Betty and Dale Cockle beside USINS
Detention and Deportation bus.
Marge met her sister Edna (Curles) Cooley at
the Walkabout Emu Ranch owned by Betty and Dale
Cockle (CHS'54) and were greeted by over 100 birds
at various stages of growth. The Cockle's breed the
Emus and hatch their eggs naturally or in their own
incubator house. Joan (Powell) Arndt flew to Akron,
OH to spend a month with her daughter, Diana
Carey and family. A surprise visit by Floann (Pierce)
Gray to Dunnellon, FL and a happenstance meeting
with Jerry Fox at a local Wal-Mart provided Joan
and her guest an opportunity to visit with Jerry
(BHS'52) and his wife Marcia (CHS'55).
26
Joan (Powell) Arndt and Floann (Pierce) Gray, of
BHS'50.
Dick and Elaine Conover reported five months of
activity. They visited with their son Mark and
daughter Kelly and her husband in Las Vegas in the
Monte Carlo Hotel, then Bob and Dee Suisman
came from Sun City Center, FL. and the Conover's
son, Peter and wife Annette and grandson Kyle
stopped on their way to Disney. Further extensive
traveling led them to Fisherman's Wharf in San
Francisco and Daytona Beach.
Jerry and Dianne (Hutchison) Cox, settling down
in their new home were visited byDianne's sister,
Vicki and husband Bob Boukalis, who recently
returned from Peru and Argentina, and later by
Wally Matthews who lived in Gamboa.
William "Bill" Muller
Hola from Pensacola. This is my first submission
as an Area Reporter, so please bear with me.
Since we moved to Pensacola in August 1995, my
husband of 31 years, Don, passed away in December
1995. He loved Pensacola and had made many new
friends in the short time we lived here.
When Bev and Skip Rowley, who live a few
hours away in Tallahassee, spend their vacation at
their time-share in Destin, we always find time to get
together. Their last visit was in September '97 we
had a Johnnie Mazetti dinner at the Vose house with
Bev, Skip, Darla, Shane, Jeff (Darla's fiancee), Bob,
Dawn (Bob's girlfriend of 2V years) Kevin, Libby
(Kev's girlfriend) and myself. That same week, Darla,
Shane, Bob, Dawn and I met Bev for dinner in
Niceville. From there we went to the high school
there to watch Skip and his barbershop group
perform it was fabulous. Following the performance,
we had a bonfire where Bev and I were serenaded
by members of Skip's group. We had a great time -
can't wait for their next visit.
After 21/2 years of being engaged, Darla and Jeff
have set a wedding date for April 25, 1998. We're
all on pins and needles hoping everything will go
smoothly. The ceremony will be in the evening at St.
Anne's Catholic Church and the reception following
will be at the Ramada Inn. Of course, I will be
- -.- ..
making one of my famous wedding cakes. We are
expecting a lot of family and friends from Panama
and the U.S. who we haven't seen in a long time.
My grandson, Shane, made his First Holy
Communion on April 6, 1997 at St. Anne's Catholic
Church a lovely reception for the children and
their families was held after in the church hall.
Bob Dillon, (BHS'84) who lives and works in
Alabama, came to visit in September for the day.
Darla, Shane, Kevin, Libby, Giselle, (Caturett) Pollitt
(who was visiting me while she was TDY at the
Naval Air Station) and myself, had lunch at Pegleg
Pete's on the beach. Hope he comes to visit again
real soon we had a really nice time.
Eddie (CHS'82) and Tina Williams had a
beautiful baby girl on January 29, 1997. Hopefully, by
the next issue I'll have a photo to submit. Eddie
manages "Coconut Bay" (Better known as "Coconuts",
a regular hang-out for Zonians on the Gulf Coast
where we have lots of Zonian Get-togethers. Even
has a Panamanian flag displayed inside.
We're planning another get-together this year and
I'll be sure to get it in my submission for the Canal
Record.
The holiday season is a great time to get
together with family and friends.
Gladys McLain recently returned from visits with
her son and daughter during the holidays. Gladys
traveled to Columbia, MO, to share the Thanksgiving
festivities with her daughter and son-in-law Judy and
Rabbi Yossi Feintuck and their three children. In
early December, she departed from Columbia, MO
for Brussels, Belgium to spend her birthday ,
Christmas and New Year's holidays with her son and
daughter-in-law, Douglas and Cindy McLain and their
three children. It was a very happy and busy festive
time for all.
Allen and Kay Miller enjoyed their Christmas
holidays with a nice visit from their daughter and
son-in-law, Martha and Dale Hoskins and their son
Michael from Portland, OR. Several family
celebrations and get-togethers with classmates was an
added treat.
Myrtle Hughes and her daughter Sandra
(Hughes) Claflin of Merritt Island, FL spent their
Christmas holidays in Deer Park, TX with Myrtle's
son and daughter-in-law Tom and Lorna Hughes.
Glades Humphrey enjoyed an early Thanksgiving
celebration with an unexpected visit from grand-
daughter Debbie Mann who was in Tampa for GTE.
Debbie transferred to GTE in Texas earlier in the
year and was able to surprise her mother Donna
(Humphrey) Mann with a weekend visit before
conducting the training class in Tampa. Gladys
enjoyed a fun filled Christmas holiday with her son,
Donald Humphrey in Malabar, FL. Joining in the
festivities were Donald's daughter and son-in-law
Danna and Carey Moorhead and their children Glenn
and Cassie. Donald's daughter Dellrie also joined in
the fun.
Fred and Bev (Moody) Ebdon had his brother
and sister-in-law, Bill and Susie (Fahenstock) Ebdon
of Sholo, AZ as houseguests. They came for an early
Christmas visit and a family reunion with his older
brother Joe and wife Rae (Newhard) Ebdon of
Sarasota. When families get together it;'s a great
time to reminisce with family and friends.
Joe and Rae Ebdon spent the Christmas holiday
with their son and daughter-in-law Dick and Kathy
Ebdon and their children Geoffrey and Jennifer in
Marietta, GA. Geoffrey graduated from Texas
Christian University in Fort Worth and came home
for the holidays. Jennifer completed her first year at
the University of Denver where she is attending on
a gymnastic scholarship.
L-R: Hostess Marion (Neely) Greene, with nieces,
Julie Burks Sides, Robin Smith Larson, Mary
Ruth Davis Bowman.
Mike and Marion (Greely) Greene entertained at
a dinner for her three nieces and their husbands.
Bryan and Julie (Burks) Sides of Brookside, FL, Ron
and Robbin (Smith) Larson of Bradenton, FL, and
Frank and Mary Ruth (Davis) Bowman of Colorado.
Each of the girls' mothers shared one of Marion
Greene's sisters maiden name. Their grandmother was
lovingly called Muzz Neely.
Fred Walker with his sisters, Mickey Fitzgerald,
Jeanne Wagner and Carole Miller at the
beginning of their MJC Adventure.
The Walker sisters, Mickey, Jeanne and Carole
had their annual MJC Adventure in October. We
had a great beginning with our brother Fred Walker
meeting us for breakfast in Tampa, then he drove us
to the airport. In Atlanta we spent the whole
afternoon with Roger and Yoli Conley with lots of
bochinchi and computer fun. Roger had worked with
Jeanne at Gorgas, and had hunted with Jack Wagner
in Panama. Then onto Asheville to tour Baltimore
Estates, which included dinner at the Stables Annex.
27
Since we grew up with horses, we were thrilled to be
in the actual stables, beautifully refurbished. We
climbed Clingman's Dome in the Smokey National
Park, and had one foot in Tennessee and the other
in North Carolina. When we got down we saw lots
of people waiting on the side of the mountain,
sunset was in 30 minutes. It was worth waiting for -
so beautiful and peaceful. We enjoyed a day at
Stone Mountain in Atlanta and had a nice phone
call with cousin Alita (Collins) Adams. Upon our
return we visited with Fred and Kay and their son
Shane at their new retirement home in Riverview,
had dinner together and then drove to our parents
home, George and Mayno Walker in Sarasota for
"show and tell". Our trip always begins at Mom and
Dad's so they are in on everything. We had a great
time together. Other trips have been to Washington,
D.C., Dover, DE, and Richmond, VA with Jeannine
Wagner, Alaska, and the Florida Keys with Gayle
Wagner.
Mike Stephenson was recently here checking on
the progress of his and Elaine's magnificent home
that is nearing completion. We kept telling him that
the weather was just a cold snap; and besides, it
always warms up by 10:00 a.m. By the second day,
I think he believed us. He left Burt and Carol
Mead's house in the wee hours of the morning,
bundled from head to foot, but came home for lunch
carrying his jacket!
We had another complaint about the chilly
weather from Burt Mead. Actually, Burt rather likes
the cool weather (even wears shorts most days!), but
he lodged a protest against the Smith's (Mike and
Sharon) for requiring their guests, at their annual
"Games Party", to shoot darts outside on their deck.
He swears the wind chill was 20 below freezing -
and THATS why he didn't win! The Smiths told him
to take it up with the Gaming Commission ...
Wti' ;E r A
Actually, both the Meads and the Woods have
ruffled feathers over yet another incident. They have
very little toleration for the lovely geese that grace
their yards and neighboring ponds seems they
destroy the grass (a definite no-no, see picture of
Burt and Joe pulling weeds, vying for "Yard of the
Quarter"). Burt goes so far as to state, unequivocally,
that there is no good goose except a cooked goose!
So, when SOMEONE snuck over to the Woods and
Meads on Christmas Eve, and planted two geese
decoys in the yard between their homes, they
immediately suspected each other! Bev went out to
get the paper m the morning sans glasses and
tried to shoo the critters away. Burt looked out his
window and, also thinking the geese were real,
murmured an expletive deleted. That's when they
realized it must have been someone else....hmmmm.
I guess I should go easy on poor Burt, he
recently had a severe case of chickenpox (Burt calls
them goosepox). But he and Carol did have a
glorious hohday this year, having been blessed with
the birth of two new grandchildren; Rick and Maria
Mead (they moved back to Tally in October, when
Maria took the job of Director of Keiser College)
had a gorgeous baby girl, Brianna, on 9/7/97. Not to
be outdone, brother Keith Mead and his wife Cindy
had a baby boy, Chase, on 11/19/97. When brothers
David and Gil Corrigan and their lovely families
(Marcy and four-year-old daughter Darien and Cher
with one-year-old baby Gil Jr.) arrived for a visit, it
was babies everywhere!
Speaking of Corrigans, Larry and Sue also
delighted in seeing the boys and their beautiful
brood. Larry made me chuckle the other day when
he called Mike Smith early one morning to tell him
to "Get up and start practicing on the "circle," we
have our work cut out for us today." Larry was
referring to a golf match with Jimmy Givens and
another player (they play together at least 1-2 times
a week) The "circle" refers to a devise much like the
one advertised on TV and in golf magazines that
helps perfect their swing. Larry very cleverly created
one out of PVC pipe and sold his first one to Mike
(he really likes it!).
While we are so happy to have newcomers to
Tally such as the Woods, Meads, Mcllvaines,
Mizrachis, Stephensons, Paynes, and Doris Hunt, we
are sad to see L.B. and Bonnie Wilson leaving the
fold. They are heading south (no, not because it gets
a little chilly here) but to be near their family Ellen
and Gary Anderson. They are building a home in
Zephyrhills that should be completed by the end of
March. Farewell, and good luck, sweet people.
Here is a story you will never want to duplicate:
John Schmidt, Jr. (Doug Schmidt';s brother) was
blowing leaves off his roof one day last year, when
he fell and broke numerous bones, including his
wrist, ribs and NECK! Miraculously, John was not
paralyzed even killed but he did suffer terribly,
having to wear a "halo" neck/head brace for several
months (it screws into the head!). I can't tell you
what a courageous, sweet, dear man this is who
never complained and was appreciative of the
smallest kindnesses. We hope to see John back on
the dance floor at the next reunion!
We had a visit recently from my aunt, Rusty
(Doris) Folger and her beau, John Ward. Rusty (and
her deceased husband, George) lived in the Zone for
over twenty years and retired in 1977. She and John
live in New Orleans, so they were greatly surprised
when we took them to a casual B.Y.O.B. restaurant
where the oyster stew, crabs and shrimp rivaled their
creole fare. Rusty and I had a great time rehashing
our two trips to Los Angeles last year to watch my
niece (Rusty's grand-niece), Alice Ensor, perform in
"Cabaret" and Miss Reardon Drinks a Little." fact
is stranger than fiction, as evidenced by Alice's tale
of chatting with a fellow cast member one night
about their backgrounds, to include Alice's summer
adventures in Panama when she was a kid. The
fellow actor exclaimed "Panama?!" "I'm from Panama
- my dad's a pilot on the Canal!" His name: John
Bowerman, son of Emmile and MaryEllen Bowerman
(recall him in "Elephant Man" with John Mayles?)
The two have since become fast friends guess it's
a Zonian bond. John had to bleach his hair blond to
play a Nazi, in the picture. The performance was
superb, and I had to hold Rusty back from leaping
on the stage exclaiming, "That's my niece!"
Alice Ensor and John Bowerman
Alice Ensor and John Bowerman
I am aware of just a couple of trips
Tallahasseeans have taken recently: Joe and Bev
Wood (and Burt and Carol Mead) traveled to San
Antonio in December to attend their son, Brian's
graduation from the University of Texas at San
Antonio with a master's degree in International
Business. Congratulations Brian! And Laverne
Larabee called to tell me of her trip aboard the QE2
talk about a dream come true! (Laverne's article
may be seen in "Letters to the Editor.")
That's it from northern Florida (Florida with a
southern accent!) If you live in the area, please call
me if you would like to have something included in
the Canal Record. It's impossible for me to call over
100 families for stories, so PLEASE call me!
Sharon Smith
I recently spoke with Mariella Meggers McNally
and she was telling me that she has been traveling
about three times a year to Panama, and loving
every minute she was there. Mariella still has all her
family and lots of friends in Panama, so when she
goes, they keep her busy. She was there for ten days
over New Years and claims she found paradise in
Palenque on the Gold Coast. She also states that
scuba diving in the San Blas is fabulous. She loves
loves to scuba dive, and does it at every opportunity,
not only in Panama, but also in Florida. I'm happy
to report that she seems to be enjoying her life to
the fullest.
Speaking of enjoying life, my husband and i
loved our Princess cruise to Alaska in August. We
were able to fly by helicopter to, and walk on, the
famous and huge Mendenhall Glacier. That was
really a treat for a "tropical girl". We also flew to
Carmel Valley, California in September to visit with
Bob and Bertha Read, and had a wonderful 10-day
visit with them. Bertha was getting ready for a
Mola Exhibit in Monterey and showed us some of
her exquisite molas that she has collected over the
years. I later heard that the Exhibit was very
viipcrafiil
Bertha and Bob Read, Donna Geyer Bowman,
Davis and June Stevenson at Monterey Aquarium
in Monterey, California.
.Juay ana I-ioDn baerg, in ian i-rancisco, L;A.
While there, we were lucky enough to spend
some time with Donna Geyer Bowman, a classmate
of mine from CHS. Everyone looked great, and we
had a fabulous day at the Monterey Aquarium. We
also got to visit for a short time with Judy Baerg
and her daughter, Robin. Judy and Robin both live
in California, and love it there. I can see why, as the
weather was magnificent the whole time we visited.
In November, Steve and I flew for a 2-week trip
to Peru and Argentina with Vicki and Bob Boukalis,
and the trip was so great that I wrote a separate
article on it. (Next issue, June) While in our hotel
lobby in Lima, Peru, Vicki (Hutchison) Boukalis and
I saw Don Garrido, ex-pilot with the Marine Bureau,
so i managed to get a photo of the three of us ex-
Marine Bureau employees in Peru. Just goes to show
what a small world we live in. Don was there with
his wife Lydia, and they both said that retirement
was great!
Bob, Vicki Boukalis, June and Davis Stevenson
whale watching in Penisuela Valdez, Patagonia,
Argentina.
June Rowley Stevenson, Don Garrido, Vicki
Hutchison Boukalis in hotel lobby in Lima, Peru,
November 1997.
On a sadder note, Ed Aanstoos, who now lives
in Peachtree City, wrote me a letter dated October
1997 which I am reprinting here.
"To Sir from de colon beach bwoy,
I did see de dahktah las' mont' and him did tell
me dat I is holding a Mass in me Pantry t'rass an;
dat it is malignorant. Well, I tell you mon dat dat
dahktah don' know a ting about masses. Ever since
I was a likkle bwoy I did go evry Sunday wid me
Mudder and I know for a fack dat people attend
mass. Masses don' attend people. An' dere don'
ennuf room in me pantry to do so. Dat dahktah
mus' be one of dem Perspiretyrrians or him is
makin'a poppie joke. Two times now him did have
me in de hospital and said dem did feed me anti-
buttocks through some ivy. I don' know why dey
don' like me buttocks. Why dem should be against
dem so? Dem mus' be sky-larkin'!"
I called Ed's home the early part of January and
was told that he was very sick with cancer of the
pancreas, but wanted to get the last word in writing
about the cancer in his "bajun" way. (Ed passed away
a few days later on January 21.)
Marilyn "Sissy" Flynn gave me some good news.
She says that she finally retired from the Georgia
School System in January 2nd, and is looking forward
to a whole new career doing workshops for children
with language, learning and reading disabilities. In
fact, she has developed some instructional games to
teach children with learning disabilities, and her
games will be published by LinquiSystems in March
of this year. Sissy is also planning on having another
mini-class reunion with some of her classmates in
April. She had several classmates come visit her last
year, and everyone had such a good time they want
to do it again this year. So, if anyone out there is
a ex-classmate of Sissy Flynn, give her a call, or
write her and come visit.
30
Anne Carpenter Rathgeber of Jonesboro, told
me she spent the Christmas Holidays with her two
daughters, Donna Crump and her husband Ron, in
Conway, South Carolina, and Judy Phillips and her
husband Jim, their daughter, Megan, and their new
son, Hunter James, in Cameron, North Carolina.
Judy and Jim just bought and moved into their new
home before Christmas, so they all had a lovely time
together.
Lori Stevenson Snow and her husband Virgil are
excited about their first trip to Europe in February.
They will be flying into Zurich, Switzerland and
spending a week sightseeing and going by train to
Heidelberg, Germany to visit with Dorothy Rowley
Gerhart and her husband, Jim. They plan on taking
lots of warm clothes!
Well, I guess I have covered all the news from
this end. Till next time.
June A. Stevenson
Larry and Sue Barca with Don Ho in Waikiki.
What a shock it was to learn that my friends
Hank and Virginia Ridge Dolim were moving in
January to an Air Force Retirement community near
March AFB, California. However, they are retaining
their fine home here and will be returning regularly
to Hawaii nei.
In February Margaret (Sullivan) McMillan is to
leave Hawaii for a 12-day visit to Panama, flying
non-stop from Los Angeles on the Taiwan airline
EVA. She is taking her daughter and husband David
Lengkeek, headed for a trip to Jaqu6, Rep. of
Panama to view the total solar eclipse on February
26. Margaret's sister Nancy Schorach and husband
Carl are in Panama at this writing (she's a serious
bird watcher). Another sister, Mary and husband Jim
Young will be in Panama to visit their three sons
who reside there, one a Canal pilot, one an art
teacher at Balboa High, and another, an employee
of the military.
Bates birthday bash at Waikiki Yacht Club: L-R:
Katya DeLaMater, Becky Bates, Lois Bates, Paul
Bates.
ame party, L-R: Marti (Taylor) Frensley, Bill
Frensley, Margaret McMillan.
Bill Brophy (Mr. Panama), Lois Bates and the
Ecuador roses.
On January 10, the Waikiki Yacht Club was
festive with a wonderful birthday party about 70
persons attending which my children Katya, Paul
and his wife, Rebecca Bates gave for me ("One of
the BIG O's", the invitation read). Never have I
been lei-ed so often in one day (chin high). Friends
present who have lived in Panama were the Dolims,
Margaret McMillan, Bill Brophy, and the daughter
of the late Bill and Jan Taylor- Marti Frensley and
husband Bill. Bill Brophy, "Mr. Panama" in Hawaii,
brought me huge, golden-amber roses imported from
Ecuador, each 2 ft. stem in its own tiny vase.
Visiting Hawaii music lovers may miss the
beautiful, sentimental music of Israel
Kamakawiwo'ole. "Iz" was so revered that in an
outpouring of respect, his body lay in state in the
capitol Building, a gesture not even awarded to
Hawaiian music legends like "Gabby" Pahinui. His
compositions, his voice and his brotherly love are
deeply missed. He died at age 38 years (and 800
pounds).
Jackie (Whitlock) Werbrouck from Mishawaka,
IN. sent me an e-mail letter as follows:
"Marcel and I went to Buchanan, MI to the
home of our daughter, Beth Dokey, early December
24, 1997. We had our traditional Christmas Eve
dinner with our daughter Beth, her husband, Doug
and her son Aaron. Also joining us was our eldest
daughter, Cassie Reese and her daughter Vanessa
Reese. After enjoying the festive meal we helped
prepare, we had a wonderful visit with Cassie and
Vanessa (as well as a gift exchange) before they had
to return home. Marcel and I stayed at Beth's where
we awoke Christmas morning to greet Santa Claus
and enjoy a traditional breakfast of Eggs Benedict
prepared by Beth and Marcel. The rest of Christmas
day was spent relaxing and resting and much
watching of football games. Marcel and I returned
home on December 26th. after a most enjoyable
holiday celebrated with family."
Jackie is the proud owner of a new computer
and her e-mail address is [email protected]. She
welcomes hearing from any and all classmates and/or
friends.
Claud and Ruth Lyon from Charlestown, Indiana
also spent the Christmas with family and friends. It
began with a Christmas Eve service after which we
went to the home of our eldest daughter, Marjorie
Meredith and her husband, Roy. Our younger
daughter Marlene Lyon joined us as well as one
granddaughter and a grandson and their spouses and
six of our seven great-grandchildren. Gifts were
exchanged on Christmas Eve. The next day, all of us
went back to Marjorie and Roy's house and spent
the day together, eating both lunch and dinner there.
We also took time to celebrate the birthday of an
eight-year-old grandson who had been born Christmas
Day and of course to give him our gifts.
Claud has had a computer for about eight years
but has just got on the internet in November. If any
of his classmates or friends would like to send an e-
mail, his address is: [email protected].
Claud E.Lyon
Millie Damerau Boudreau reports from
Washington, LA., that she and Kirt took a vacation
to Mexico City last fall, enjoying the Zona Rosa
cuisine and fantastic mariachi music. They toured
Xochimilco, San Miguel de Allende, Taxco and
Cuernavaca. Millie was thrilled with the arrival of her
second grandchild, William Paul Sellers Jr., born
December 23, 1997, and little brother of Catlin, 3.
Between musical gigs, Millie has become an avid e-
mailer. Her address is [email protected].
Through the Canal Record's e-mail listing, she
recently reunired with old buddy Dickie Ford. At
Christmas Millie telephoned Migui Richa Loppe
visiting in Gainesville with her son George, Jr.
Slidell spent Christmas in
Sr., of Marrero threw an
outdoor surprise 73rd
birthday party for him at
Jimmy Chaisson's camp
on the bayou at Crown
Point. He says the nice
part about it being his
Dona Helmerichs birthday is that he got to
blow out the candles, cut the first piece of cake and
dance with all the pretty girls.
Macular degeneration would have stopped a
lesser man, but not Bud Hallett of Shreveport.
Dissatisfied trying to watch TV about 3 inches from
the set, he's discovered the best-kept secret around -
books on tape from the library. With a doctor's
letter, he received a tape player and catalogs for best
sellers, Westerns, old radio shows. He urges anyone
with bad eyesight to get in touch with a local library
about this service. Everything is free postage both
ways, tapes, use of player. The high-quality tapes are
produced by the library of Congress. Bud forwarded
a poem, "The Ghost of Pedro Miguel" by Norma
Stillwell Martin, (BHS'37). Bud drove through Pedro
Miguel when he was in Panama in 1991. The only
buildings he saw were concrete.
Mariel Hemingway and her family were in
Panama last June doing a television documentary in
conjunction with the Audubon Society. Titled "Wild
Life Adventures" it's about the endangered rain
forest of Panama. Watch for it on TBS.
Evelyn and Bob Wertz of Belle Chasse enjoyed
a fall journey to LeMans, France, to visit Evelyn's
relatives. They touristed in Vienna seven days, picked
up a rental car, drove to Salsburg for three days and
on to Innsbruck for three more days. Then by rail to
32
Venice over the Austrian Alps and through the
Brenner Pass. Reasonable rates and fine
accommodations were had at the Rialto Hotel on the
Grand canal at the Rialto Bridge. Three days later
Venice to Lausanne over the Italian Alps and
Lausanne to Paris and LeMans by rail through the
Swiss Alps. After six days in LeMans and three days
in Paris, they flew back to New Orleans.
Patt Foster Roberson
Dan and Margaret (Morris) Hanesworth enjoyed
the company of Margie's brother and sister-in-law
Charlie and Julieta Morris of Panama in late
October. It sounded like days were filled with
shopping along "The Miracle Mile", sightseeing and
museum visits. My wife Shannon and I were able to
join the group for dinner one evening at one of our
favorite Italian restaurants.
Mark Powell (BHS'79) has joined my corporation
in Chicago in the role of Vice President of
Operations. One of his first duties after joining us
here included a trip to Panama with my wife and I
for 9 days to look into a business venture there.
While there, time was spent in Gorgona, El Valle,
Isla Grande and various golf courses, to include
Lakeview Golf Course for some shark fin soup. I
was most impressed with all the construction in and
around Panama City.
Heard from Jeff and Mary (Davis) Burbach
(BHS'79) recently. They are now living in Heidelberg,
Germany, and loving it there. I look forward to
visiting them when the opportunity arises!
Victoria (Morris) Hall of Guatamala and her
children Kenito, Crystal and Devon traveled to Dallas
for Christmas and New Year's to visit her sister
Bliss. I was fortunate enough to fly down to attend
Bliss' annual New Year's Eve Party, and had a great
time. I hope to hear from some Zonians in the Mid-
West Region soon.
Virginia Selby Entrekin of Hattiesburg enjoyed
an unusual Christmas all her family plus three from
India. Delphine, spends most Christmases with the
Entrekins if she doesn't go home to Calcutta.
Delphine was a grad student assigned to Virginia and
the family "adopted" her. Delphine's former USM
roommate arrived from the West Indies where she is
in medical school. Delphine's boyfriend, originally
from Bombay, flew in from Minnesota where he is
a Ph.D. in chemical engineering. Over the holidays,
the Entrekins also entertained two handbell choirs
that Virginia plays with. She read the Panamanian
version of "Night Before Christmas" and "Twelve
Days of Christmas" for them. She is also busy serving
as president for USM retirees; group DMA (Don't
Mention Age) and taking piano lessons. Ain't
retirement fun!
The Boswell sisters were touring Tokyo last
October. No details, but a picture was received from
Lynn Boswell Turner who lives with her family in
Hattiesburg. The three graduated from BHS: Lynn in
*A31a^\^-; .^^
From left: Dick Green, Lynn Boswell Turner,
Jeannie Boswell Green and Deanna Boswell
Barry in Tokyo, Japan.
Joe Nito of Petal called for the first time.
Originallyfrom Long Island, N.Y., he graduated from
CHS in 1940, married Vera "Vickie" Turner in 1941,
worked as a payroll clerk in Mechanical Division and
left in 1944. After 54 years of marriage, he was
widowed. He enjoys contacting CZ friends and has
the phone bills to prove it. He has taken up golf to
play with former CHS classmate Georgiana
Carnwright Mau who lives near mutual classmate,
Anna White, of Remona, Calif. Georgiana plans to
enjoy the Dothan Gas House Gang Tournament and
Gulf Coast picnic this year.
Lee and Jean Wade in
Oahu, Hawaii
Jean and Lee Wade of Clinton, along with their
son, Hal of Fort Worth, Texas, spent a week in
Hawaii in November. They enjoyed sightseeing by bus
around Oahu, saw Waikiki Beach, Hanauma Bay,
Polynesian Cultural Center, Sunset Beach, Waimea
Bay and the most moving and touching of all Pearl
Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. Hal
(CHS'68) climbed the active Kilauea Volcano and
they all hiked to the top of Diamond Head. Before
Hawaii, the Wades enjoyed a visit with Melanie and
her family in Little Elm, Texas.
Hal Wade (CHS'68) with native Hawaiian on Oahu.
Patt Foster Roberson
News from Western North Carolina is a little
sparse this time. Guess we are all sitting around
waiting for winter to arrive! So far, it has been very
mild with lots of rain.
The most significant news in my household was
the death of my husband Jack on October 14 (see
obits). I am grateful for all the love and support I
have received from my family and many friends. My
thanks to all of them.
Bill and Betty Dunning made their annual
Christmas trek to Arkansas to spend the holidays
with daughter Lynn Harp and family, While they
were there, Betty's sisters Freda Flenniken Stohrer
and Carol Flenniken Schwenke visited for a few days.
Carol is an Episcopal priest at the cathedral in
downtown Kansas City. She and son Matthew moved
there from Tampa last fall, husband Roger is still
commuting from Tampa.
Willy and Wilma Nowotny said they didn't have
much news, however I do know they took a short
trip to Las Vegas and had a wonderful time seeing
some spectacular shows. Obviously they did not hit
it big on the slots, as they are still here, unless of
course they are biding their time to sail off around
the world.
Norma and Sam Irvin entertained guests over the
Thanksgiving holiday when Sam's sister, Betty
Quintero and her daughter Beth drove over from
Virginia for the family gathering. Malcolm and Jean
Stone joined them for the big turkey dinner. Jean
and Malcolm flew to Panama for two weeks in late
January for their first visit back since Malcolm
retired. I am not sure if he took a ship through the
Canal "for old time's sake" or not, but they did have
an enjoyable trip. Their next trip will probably be
to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for son David's wedding in
August. (See "Congratulations"). I wonder if they will
be wearing overalls?
Jim and Diane Bradley became grandparents
again with the birth of Candice Ren6e on December
27th to their son Jim and his wife Sherry Anderson
Bradley in Jacksonville, FL. Jim and Diane drove
down to Jacksonville before Christmas to visit and
had hopes that Candice would arrive early but no
33
such luck. They returned to Hendersonville just five
days before she was born. They had spent
Thanksgiving in Houston with Mike and Kim Bradley
and their two children. On the way to and from
Houston they visited with Richard and Olga Phillips
in Conyers, Ga. Richard and Olga spent a few days
with them in Hendersonville in January. Daughter
Eileen was married to Per Petzold in Berlin,
Germany on December 20th. Jim and Diane were
unable to attend but will host a reception for the
couple in Hendersonville in August.
I heard from a very reliable source that Nicki
and Ty Erickson spent the Christmas holidays in
Boston, MA. with daughter Heather and her
husband. Brad Erickson also joined the family for
the holidays. My four children and grandchildren
were here with me over Christmas and I visited both
Lisa and Laurie into January. As of this writing I
am at home still trying to get my Christmas
decorations down hopefully before Easter. That's it
from North Carolina. Until next time.
Pat Hunt
Marti Lohr, who offered to host this year's
Northwest Reunion Picnic, wanted to make sure that
everyone was aware of a major change in the date
of this year's picnic. It will be held a week later
than planned, on Saturday, August 8, 1998. Marti
was unable to secure a site for the 1st. Arrangements
were made to hold the picnic at the Sequim Prairie
Grange Grounds, Sequim, WA. There will be ample
parking for RV's right on the grounds, for a minimal
ee, which should keep all attendees together most of
the time, especially early arrivals. Marti will mail out
a more detailed report to all in April.
Marti Lohr
and Pat Cruz at Marti's home in
Last fall, Marti was able to spend some time
back East visiting family and friends. She saw Annie
Laurie Halvosa, her former Los Rios neighbor, who
now lives in Raleigh, NC, a very gracious host who
showed her the sights. In Hayes, Va., she visited
Kathryn Meissner. (Son Carl passed away, daughter
Adelle was, and maybe back with the Salvation
Army). She missed seeing Rusty (BHS) but, met his
daughters Megan and Melody.
Pat Cruz, Vaniece (Roberts) Quinn, Patricia
(Rudge) Nellis and Dan Nellis at the Nellis' home
in Sequim.
Fellow Society member Judi (Crooks) Daily
called to chat at Christmas. Said she retired from the
IRS in Texas, for whom she had worked, and has
moved to Arkansas to be near family. Her "part time
work," which has pretty much become a full time,
keeps her quite busy, and that's part of the reason
for her missing her BHS'52 class reunion last year.
Elaine (Clark) Cook, who has moved back to
Atlanta from Ocala, wrote that she had a great visit
with fellow class-mate Edna (Hart) Musso, who now
lives in Philadelphia. Wanted to know about Panama
and whether there would be a cruise to Panama for
the last reunion, as she would be interested. Edna
didn't know. Elaine says the move back was good,
and she and Warren are really enjoying the
grandchildren's activities.
The Rev. Fred Raybourn says he is very busy
with his church in Bellevue, Nebraska, where he has
bilingual groups, so it's two of everything and sort of
tough. There is no other Spanish speaking priest in
the Diocese, so he is unable to get away. (Father
Fred also enquired about "Seco", but said it was
probably too volatile for the airplane).
From Jay Troup, who is busy with his version of
the Parakeet Voyager, received a very nice card with
a photo of the El Carmen Church in Panama City,
which was much appreciated. Across the street from
the El Panama Hotel, is where this reporter's sister's
funeral services were held.
Barbara McDougal mentioned in her card that
Murray Falk's brother had passed away. He
apparently was able to maintain a low profile of his
illness until the last few days. our heartfelt
condolences go to fellow Society member Murray.
Shirley (Zemer) Swenson's mother passed away
while Shirley was visiting her in San Jose, Ca., last
fall. She has returned to Wilmington to busy herself
in her town home. Sister Isabelle was to spend
Christmas with her.
Vaniece (Roberts) Quinn, (CZJC'55) recently had
lunch with Pat and Dan Nellis at their home in
Sequim, WA. They are old friends from Panama,
where Vaniece attended the old Canal Zone Junior
College while her dad was stationed at Ft, Kobbe.
Her husband Robert passed away a few years ago.
He also attended CZJC. Vaniece moved up here
from Alabama to be near her son Robert and his
family, who live in West Seattle, WA.
Henry Cruz
The Oklahoma Chapter held its semi-annual
picnic on October 4, 1997 in Tulsa at the home of
Paulino and Julia Allande. Thirty four attendees
included Paulino and Julia Allande, Marisa
Fernendez, Charley Brown, and Erma Coiner from
Joplin; Jean and Doris Burns, Scott Burns, Tomas,
Aymee and Michelle and Michael Diaz, Fidel Diaz,
Francisco Caiianza and Francisco Caiianza, Jr., Bill,
Teresa and Kim Keller and friend Desiree, Eli and
Lydia Lugo, David and Shirley Lugo, Bob and Fran
Norman, John, Madaleine and Kristen Raffler, Mike,
Laura, Elizabeth and Cheyenne Redemann, and
Carlos Valencia anrd ann 1rn-h
Group attendees at the October meeting of the
Oklahoma Chapter.
Marlyn Carter and Ren6e Carter Collins,
December 13, BSN graduation celebration.
Ren&e Carter Collins and children Elizabeth,
Christopher, Christina, Michelle and Lauren
celebrated completion of nursing school with a
pinning and graduation ceremony on the campus of
Rogers University in Tulsa. In attendance were
Ren6e's mother, Marylyn Carter of Kerrville, Texas,
sister Kim Carter Baird of Houston, sister Venette
Carter of Kerrville. Ren6e has accepted a position
with the city of Tulsa as an RN with the Children
First program, delivering home-based prenatal care to
first time mothers, well-baby exams and infant care.
In addition she continues with home health nursing
visits and is a lead nurse in a heart study conducted
by a leading cardiologist in Tulsa. Just before all the
excitement in December, Ren6e had the opportunity
to enjoy some wonderful skiing at Keystone in
Colorado during the Thanksgiving break.
Jean and Doris Burns drove to Weatherford,
Texas in early December to visit with Vicki and Bob
Boukalis and stay with his folks Jim and Julie
Boukalis. Vicki has now retired and they will be
moving to Lillian, Alabama. Following this, Jean,
Doris, and Scott Burns spent a week in Cancun,
Mexico, enjoying the fine weather. Doris seems to be
doing very well after her kidney removal in July.
Kurt and Kellie Meissner of Altus, Oklahoma
got to enjoy their first Christmas and his birthday
with twin daughters Kylie Ann and Kaylie, born July
30, 1997. Four-year old brother Jacob Charles
enjoyed the excitement as well. Kurt is the son of
Dottie and the late Carl Meissner. They can be
reached at the following e-mail address and home
page: [email protected]; [email protected] and
On a sad note, a dear friend of the Carter
family. Henri Skeie of St.Petersburg, Florida passed
away this week. Henri was an RN in the Canal Zone
for many years and lived at a lovely beach house
near Santa Clara in Panama. We will miss her.
Our next Oklahoma Chapter meeting is
tentatively planned for June 6, 1998 at the Oklahoma
City Zoo. Hope to see you there!
Renee Carter Collins
Exalted Ruler Maz Mazerolle reports B.P.O.Elks
1542 has regular meetings; restaurant concessionaire
Otto does good business. Gatun Yacht Club
Commodore Kirk Kunkel says monthly steak dinners
are well attended; PCC is taking over, including
refurbishing, opening up to all PCC employees, and
starting cruise ship services; paid up members to
have limited access with some privileges. PC
(Cristobal) Yacht Club Commodore Al Jova says the
Garote annex (past Portobello) to serve members
now and if and when the Cristobal Club is taken
over is about finished; the November 3 picnic bash
there was great. Tarpon Club President Sid Coffin
reports the Board meets once a month; the
concessionaire's Restaurant and Disco are faring well;
the Christmas party was great! There is much
concern about the $1,500 minimum toll for small
boats.
October: Weather pretty hot, few rains; fishing
so-so, Gatun Lake quite low. Bonnie Seeley went to
Texas to welcome Scott and Vickey (Seeley) McCoy's
first child, Taylor Victoria, born September 21. Henry
and Sunny Mizrachi moved to Tallahassee, FL.; a
nice farewell party was held in their honor in Brazos
Heights. Ian and Alice Evan's son Cookie returned
after serving on the tuna boat Bold Venture since
mid June; other son Ivan is in Palm Beach, FL,
midway through studies at Northwood University. Sid
Coffin and the Laatzes joined the Mannings for a
week at Ambergris Caye in Belize, to
dive/snorkel/visit Mayan ruins. Sue Stabler flew up to
half Moon Bay, CA. to welcome second grand-
daughter Grace Ramona, born to Richard and Leslie
35
(Pancho Griffin) Robertson on the 8th, joining sister
Anna. Jennifer (Rankin) and John Lewis moved from
Memphis to Nashville, TN. From the Eckels: Butch,
Jan, Joann (working in St. Pete and taking care of
son Christopher, now 7, and Jennifer (taking classes)
are all enjoying their home in Odessa, near Tampa;
Tom and Alan work at their grounds car business -
wives Liza (Sasso) and Kristine (Stromberg)
respectively, also work. Alan and Kristine's son Kyle
is now 4. Gayle Rankin put on a super retirement
party the 31st to honor Wallace Teal's November 1
retirement at the Gatun Yacht Club.
~-~- ?--
Robert Rankin with 12 lb. Snook caught from
kayak, Gatun Locks, North end, December 1997.
Alice and Gerald Corrigan with son Jordan, 10
months old, Ewa Beach, HI, November 1997.
Kindra (Rankin) Younce and sons Justin, (2) and
Robby (9 mos.). (Robert and Gayle Rankin's
daughter and grandsons).
November: Hard rains, beautiful days, fishing
better, snook biting at Locks north end. Lake slowly
rising. A group of ex-Atlantic side teachers hosted an
afternoon retirement get-together at Wallace Teals
home. Son Kevin visited dad for a few weeks,
including a 3 day fishing trip on Sid Coffin's boat,
and daughters Andrea and Beverly also visited.
Robert and Gayle Rankin took a week's business and
pleasure trip to London and New York. Lucky
Dunlap visited for a few weeks with the Mazerolles.
Thanksgiving was enjoyed in the Volcan by:
Blennerhassetts, Fearons, Gibsons, Corrigans,
Doubeks, Rankins, Seeleys, Stablers, Trims, Wills, et
al. Lin Mazerolle and the Laatzes now also have
kayaks. The Atlantic Tri-Club (PC Yacht Club-Club
Nautico-Tarpon Club) Fishing Tourney had a good
turnout.
Miriam and Stuart Newall with daughter Lorianne-
Marie, (10 mos.). (Granddaughter of Joan and Roy
Newall and Lucia and Douglas Ng) Fort Espinar
(Gulick), Panama, October 1997.
dry, too windy to fish in
Bay. Vera Fettler and
S for a months's visit with
1 Gayle and Robert Rankin.
Alberta Corrigan was off
to San Diego to welcome
granddaughter Mackenzie
Rae, first child of Dodd
and Tiernan (Corrigan)
wife Alice and son Jordan
doing great in Ewa Beach,
HI. Mike Concir and son
Paul visited Laatzes,
Dyonne Cafiamas Ruth King for a week.
Blennerhassetts were off
to San Diego to see their
three kids and families. Cafiamases visited son
Darrell in Winter Park, FL and daughter Dyonne in
Virginia Beach, VA. and her dad Al Wilder in Ocala,
FL. The Laatzes saw family in CA and LA.
January: An Elks New Years party was super.
Michael and Glenda (Lewis) Kochel, son Jason and
daughter Stephanie Dempsey were here for a short
visit to see friends, her mom. sisters Betty and Elie
and Peter Johnston and kids.
We'd love to hear from any of you ex-Atlantic
siders.
Richard and Diana (Huff) Grimison moved from
Merritt Island, FL, to Panama, where Richard has
accepted the Pilot-in-Training position with the PCC.
David Seitz and Alex Reyes, a.k.a. "Shorty and
Slim" began work on their second CD in February
'96. They went to the studio one day a week from
November '96 to March '97 and their CD arrived on
July 3, '97, the day before the Reunion. Thanks go
to Rowland Folse, Evan Rodaniche and Jim
Hashman who contributed their time and efforts.
Jim Hashman, the music teacher at BHS helped get
all the background music together. "Gone Platano"
came about because David and Alex said "We will
never have a gold or platinum record, but perhaps
we will 'Go Platano!" The CD included such songs
as "Liko Bwoy" which David says is about himself
and how easy it is to outwit things in life but not
your mother! "Ocean Breeze" should have been on
the Mango Street CD but lacked space;
"Calypzonian" and "Until we meet again" are "I miss
the Zone" songs, says David. "Mango Tree Mechanic"
was written with David McArthur in mind and "Plenty
Cucarachas" had to do with the roaches all Zonians
knew about. David and Alex would like to thank all
those for saying good things they hear from fans and
friends.
S Anderson was also in
Panama for the holidays.
and Jay Gibson in honor
of Ashley. With nearly 40
Eva Anderson and family members and
Aggie Atkinson friends attending, the
Anderson shopping guests enjoyed the
on Central Ave. Gibson's home built pool.
Aggie and the rest of the
Andersons, the Fishboughs and close friends,
attended the wedding of Ashley to Daryl Fishbough
on December 23 at St. Mary's Church. The wedding
included many stateside guests. Steve Joyce was best
man.
The Cardenas and Gamboa tree burns were held
in January. The Cardenas burn was organized by
Robert Will and the trees were gathered by the
Cardenas kids with the help of Rusty Smith. Hugh
Thomas provided hoses and was in charge of fire
protection. The Gamboa burn was organized by
Debbie Sykes and Llori Gibson. Those attending
enjoyed games of frisbee, a pot-luck dinner, and
hours of music by the Bohio Boys (Fred Bayles,
Davis Seitz, Jim Hashman, Michael Erhart and
Andrew Rodaniche). Many thanks to those that
helped. It took Eddie Sykes and Carl Marohl five
hours to move the trees to the burn sight. Technical
support was provided by Jay Gibson, Dick Abell,
Mayra Seitz, Jackie Fearon and Flor Espinosa helped
Class of 1964: Wilma Engelke, Sigma Jameson
Duty, Tita Milas, Kathie Lavallee Sears.
i I
of 1964: L-R: Anne Gilley, Bob Howard,
Frank, Barbara Frank, Chuck Curran.
Class of 1964: Chuck Curran,
Sherry Sabo.
Class of 1964: Bob Howard, Joe Bremer, Ed
Fehrenbach.
The BHS Class of 1964 held a reunion in
Panama on January 15-19. Alumni came from as far
as California, Texas, Ohio, New York, North
Carolina, Illinois and Australia. Classmates were:
Claire NcNaught, Sherry Sabo, Carole Salonik, Joe
Bremer, Billy Satterwhite, Linda Donley, Anne Gilley,
Chuck Curran, Fred Wells, Bob Howard, and Betsy
Brown. Those they joined in Panama were: Dicky
37
and Barbara Frank, Doug and Lil Webster, Kathie
Lavallee Sears, Chuck Moses, Louis Engelke, Ed
Fehrenbach, Sigma Jameson Duty, Tita Mills, and
Bob Gonzalez. Most of the visitors stayed at the
Costa Del Sol Hotel in Panama city where the
official activities started with a barbecue hosted by
the hotel, after which the group visited the causeway
and Fort Amador. Earlier in the day, they all visited
where they once lived and other familiar landmarks.
The following day they toured BHS at which
time they witnessed workers from the Rep. of
Panama removing a controversial statue which was
placed there the previous week to commemorate the
1964 riots, without permission. The US Embassy filed
an official protest and the statue was removed. That
evening there was a Class of '64 party at the home
of Kathie Sears, which was well attended, including
by members of other classes who live in Panama.
After more shopping and sightseeing on Saturday,
they enjoyed an evening on Chiva Parrandera, rented
exclusively for the class, and they toured Old
Panama, the Pedro Miguel Locks, the Causeway,
dinner at Mi Pueblito and concluded the evening
with drinks on the rooftop of the hotel. On Sunday
they traveled to Punta Barco and the beautiful home
of Chuck Moses where they enjoyed a day in the
pool, on the beach and eating ceviche, sancocho and
arroz con polio. The group left Panama on the 19th
of January, some remained, and all vowed to return
in 1999.
FOUR GENERATIONS, L R: Freddieann S.
Matheney (Gallardo) grandmother; Victoria Anne
Sherry (Matheney); Tamara Anne Sherry
(Matheney) mother; and Matgaret M. Gallardo
(Williamsl areat-arandmother
L-R: Katherine (Simons) Heddaeus, Jillian
Heddaeus, and Mark Heddaeus.
Jillian Heddaeus, daughter of Katherine (Simons)
and Mark Heddaeus made the BHS All-Star traveling
cheerleading squad. With her parents, she went to
Puerto Rico in November to play against their
Antilles High School. Also on the Heddaeus
homefront, Katherinre's sister Jeannette joined the
Heddaeus family for Christmas in Panama.
Eva Anderson
Like the swallows of Capistrano, the annual
arrival of the troupe from the eastern seaboard
arrived at Tannersville, in the Poconos, September
5th. My particular entourage was headed by
"chauffeur" Rosemary Gilead, sporting an impressive
Lincoln our group of five leased for the weekend.
She and three others drove up to Mt. Holly Springs,
from Virginia to pick me up and we were on our
way.
Many of the reunion group were already partying
by the time we got there. Like last year, the first
thing we heard was that this was the chefs first day.
The last one light-fingered himself right into jail. He
coveted the management's Tiffany Lamps they
objected.
After our first night's dinner, which was excellent,
by the way, our Georgie Jessel in the person of Billy
Michaelsen surprised us with the announcement that
he was ready to relinquish his position as reunion
coordinator, golf pro, jokester, and Panama's answer
to Fred Astaire, to someone who would like to take
the reins. Bill March (BHS'44) stood up and
suggested Bob Whitam, who without a moment's
hesitation said, "I will." A done deal and quite a
challenge, I'd say.
Billy announced that Marge Halliday was looking
for a group of would-be Line Dancers. Shirley
Erickson would assist. We were to gather for our
dancing slippers the following morning.
About fifteen of us started out learning that the
Macarena was a bit more strenuous than expected,
but fun. With Marge's patience she convinced us that
we could perform the Macarena and three or four
other Line Dances that evening. We did even better
than we had hoped, even with the free style dancing
of one Billy Michaelsen, to the delight of the crowd.
This reporter was happy to have been a dance
partner to some of Billy's own version of dirty
dancing a la Panamefio. Loved it. Who needed a
toldo?
No evening would be complete for this group
without a half-dozen verses of Sly Mongoose,
accompanied by Wendell (Cinco) Allen. None of us
really remembered the words even with music sheets
in hand.
Next, we were honored with our very own
Mariachi/McNamara's Band. There were probably a
dozen exuberant tooters and drummers and a couple
of Kazoos. The names of the band members escapes
me except for a couple; Sarah Storey, Noreen
(Rathgeber) Lucas and her sister, Louise (Rathgeber)
Hunt, who had come up from Alabama. I doubt that
they'll be asked to play in Macy's Parade, but it
sounded better than most of today's music.
The biggest hit of the night was our very own
oetess in residence, Norma (Stillwell) Martin. She
brought more than a few tears to our eyes as she
recited one of her very fine poems about her former
home in Pedro Miguel. Even those of us who hadn't
lived there were asking for copies. It is hoped that
she sees to it that it is printed somewhere for
everyone to enjoy. She promises to give us more
next year.
One of our big disappointments with this reunion
was the absence of Bill Poole. There were family
health problems that prevented him from coming.
Besides missing him and the videos he usually had
for us, we'll miss the pictures that weren't being
taken for our own memory book and those pictures
that would have been sent to the Canal Record.
The weekend was over before any of us were
ready. Good-bye's are painful we stalled as long as
we could. Along with bacon and eggs, hugs were the
order of the day. It's impossible not to consider the
sad thought that, by the following September,
someone in our group just may not make it. It could
be any one of us, so we make the most of our time
we have together. After all our cars were stowed
with all our gear, plus one keyboard, the final
"Adios, see you next year" was called out. Licenses
from Florida, New York, New Jersey, Virginia and
Pennsylvania peeled-off, homeward bound.
(Ed. Note: Not being familiar with the Florida Postal
System, Shirley's report came too late for the
October 1997 issue. Although it is several months
later, her report is too good to by-pass. Shirley, the
next deadline is April 22 for the June issue. Please
mail not later than April 17. It might get here on
time.)
We really depend on our luncheon meetings to
see our members we seldom cross paths at the
mall or the grocery stores. At our September
meeting at EJ's Restaurant, and the December
luncheon at Houndslake Country Club we caught up
with Sis and Bill York who celebrated their fifty-
fifth wedding anniversary in October Blanche
Browne who brought along Arlene Hopkins of
Columbia Olga Holmes Lorna Shore Oscar and
Beverky Lard Jack and Scottie Steele Peggy
Hutchison Jack Woodzell Fina and Frank
Balinsky Trudy Clontz Josey Tilley Howard
Hilborn Mitzi, Arnold and Mark Schwindt. In
addition, we were pleased to have at the September
Luncheon, Bill and Ann (Edwards) Willoughby of
Huntsville, Alabama, and Henry and Gay (Edwards)
Pridgen of Georgia.
- 11_, I .IN" I E EN r'
Left: Beverly and Oscar Lard. Right: Arlene
Hopkins and Blanche Browne.
Left: Bill and Ann (Edwards) Willoughby of
Huntsville, AL. Right: Henry and Gay (Edwards)
Pridgen of Georgia.
Current Officers of PCS S.C., L-R: Scottie Steele,
Sec/Treas; Blanche Browne, V.P.; Oscar Lard,
Pres.; Olga Holmes, Chaplain; Trudi Clontz,
Reporter.
Trudi Clontz traveled to New England in
September to visit family members in New
Hampshire, Massachusetts and New Jersey a trip
which became a "tour" of airports Augusta, GA.,
Charlotte, NC., Pittsburg, PA., Manchester, NH.,
Boston, MA., Newark, NJ., and back via Charlotte
and Augusta....walking almost as far as flying!
Sandra Davis (Shore) and son Adam of Miami
spent the Christmas Holidays in Aiken with Lorna
Shore.
Among the guests at Peggy Hutchison's Christmas
dinner were her daughter Dianne and son-in-law
Gerry Cox, and Trudi Clontz. Peggy's other daughter,
Vicki Boukalis, who is still in Panama, came to
Aiken in October. She has retired and is scheduled
to move to Alabama in April 1998.
Leona and Paul Badonsky and their son, Leo,
drove to Lexington, South Carolina to celebrate
Christmas with their daughter, Paula Leitch and
family. Leo's wife, Gabriela, traveled to Panama with
their two daughters to spend time with their other
grandparents.
The Christmas season began with Honey Fealey's
Canasta party, December 5, 1997. There were about
28 ladies gathered for lunch at the Inn of the Hills
restaurant. After the lunch and the exchange of gifts,
the ladies adjourned to Honey's home for an
afternoon of Bridge and Canasta. It was an enjoyable
day and we were all put in the holiday mood with
the great fellowship and scrumptious desserts.
Honey's canasta parties are anticipated each year and
the first entry on the new calendar is the date of
the next Christmas Canasta Party.
The 18th Annual Hill Country Zonians Christmas
Party, December 6, 1997, was a huge success. There
were 120 reservations. Elsie Larson and Robbin
Gabrick were the Chairperson and co-chairperson
and are to be congratulated for a job well done. Ray
Larson was the announcer.Kathi Lessiack, Iris Hogan
and Honey Fealey were recognized for their part in
making the party so successful. All the comments
received were very favorable. We look forward to the
1998 party. Elsie Larson says she will run it again.
39
"Santa's Lil' Helpers" at Hill Country Zonians
Christmas Party, Dec. 6, 1997 in Kerrville, TX.
Standing L-R: Honey Fealey and Robbin Gobrek.
Seated: Iris Hogan and Kathi Lessiack.
Marilyn and Vanette Carter went to Broken
Arrow, OK., in December for Ren6e Carter Collins
graduation from Longston University School of
Nursing. Kim Carter Baird of Katy, Texas also came
for the celebration. There was a surprise birthday
party for Kim whose birthday was December 16. A
mini Christmas was enjoyed by all the family. An
abundance of delicious food was provided by Ren6e,
who is a superb chef, and now is also a caring
Registered Nurse.
Sue and Lew Stabler and family, and John and
Dawn Lessiack and family visited Kathi Lessiack for
the holidays. Kathi surprised them with an emergency
admittance to the local hospital that lasted from
December 13 until January 5. Kathi is recovering
slowly, but was able to enjoy the visits from her
family and remain quiet at the same time.
Pappy Grier is still at CAMLU Nursing Home
awaiting another operation on his hip. His doctor
says he can correct the problem. We hope so, Pappy,
and hope it will be soon.
Our congratulations go out to Major Robert
Grier (Pappy's son) and his wife Monica who were
married on January 3, 1998 at Ft. Huachuca, AZ.
We wish the happy couple many years of health and
happiness.
Wally Teal has retired from his job with the
Panama Canal Fire Department. He hopes to make
his home in Kerrville.
Anna Calvit has been busy with visits from
friends and family and baking her famous breads.
Son Tim Calvet of Hollywood, FL., came for a few
days in October after attending an Engineering
Conference in College Station, TX. Leo Krziza and
Mary Cryan Lade of California spent a week with
Anna. Anna's daughter Helen, her dog and her
friend of Pembroke Pines, FL., spent the Christmas
Holidays with Anna. Tim was not able to join them
as he was working.
Bob and Lois Byrd spent the Christmas holidays
with Bob's son Donald in Houston.
Honey Fealey spent the holidays on Whidby
Island, WA. visiting her sons Guy and Jimmy and
their families. It was the first Christmas to be with
the family since the grandchildren were little. She
was also able to have a visit with Ed and Millie
(Turner) Kennedy and their family, and also Joe and
Olga (Turner) Wallace.
Our sympathies are extended to Ed and Barbara
Stanford and family of Panama, R.P. and Larry and
Nancy Stanford and family of Coppell, TX on the
death of their father, Bill Stanford who passed away
January 8, 1998 in Ft.Worth, TX.
Bea Rhyne
Former Panama Canal Commission Office of
Public Affairs writer Susan K. Stabler proudly shows
the Master Key Award certificate in the grade of
"Master Gold Coast Booster and Benefactress" she
received from Administrator Alberto Alemfi Zubieta.
For over 23 years, Stabler was an exemplary
employee of the Panama Canal Commission, most of
that time serving on the Atlantic side, where her
many contributions to the community earned her tne
award.
Panama Canal Commission Press Release
September 18, 1997
(Ed.note: Susan was also the Canal Record reporter
for the Atlantic side for many years. Congrats to
you, Susan.)
George H. Clark III and Valerie J. Gayer
ROBERT GARCIA
Robert Garcia, a senior at Southwest Texas State
University, and a '93 graduate of BHS recently
chalked up a double victory when he won first place
at the NPC Lackland Classic Bodybuilding Champion-
ships, held in Lackland AFB, San Antonio, TX. He
beat out 20 other competitors, then went on to win
the overall competition for his class.
Success didn't come easy, Garcia recalled. He
followed a strict regimen in diet and exercise.
Maintaining a fever pitch schedule, Garcia is
majoring m Exercise and Sports Science. When
visiting family in Panama, he alternates his workouts
between the PCC Gym at Diablo and Reeder Gym
in Ft. Clayton. 41
After graduating from SWT, he plans to pursue
a career in fitness and health and wellness
promotion; seek a graduate degree, and to continue
conditioning himself for further competitions. His
commitment and dedication is boosted by the
encouragement he received from family and friends.
KJA 4*
Robert Garcia wins U.S. Bodybuilding competition
He is the son of Anthony Garcia, Acting
Manager, Market Research, Panama Canal
Commission and Berta Garcia (Medina), a DODDS
teacher at Ft. Kobbe Elementary School.
STONE-RADLOFF ENGAGEMENT
Malcolm and Jean (Pearson) Stone of
Hendersonville, North Carolina, announce the
engagement of their son, David Stone to Michelle
Lee Radloff, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wesley
Radloff of Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
David graduated from Balboa High Stone in 1987
and from Auburn University in 1991 with a degree
in Criminal Justice. He is a Captain in the US Air
Force stationed at Warren A.F.B. in Cheyenne,
Wyoming.
The wedding is planned for August 15th in
Oshkosh.
David Stone and Michelle Radloff
David Stone and Michelle Radloff
OLIVER DRABYK ENGAGEMENT
Harvey M. and Violet E. "Vickie" van't Veld
Johnson of Sun City, Florida, announce the
engagement of their niece, Roberta Lynne Oliver
(van't Veld) of McLean, VA. to Michael Roman
Drabyk of Bethpage, NY. Roberta is the daughter of
the late Eugene and Ethel J. van't Veld, and Michael
is the son of Michael Drabyk and the late Sonia
nlrnhvk
Roberta Lynn Oliver and Michael R. Drabyk.
Roberta received her BA degree in Interior
Design from Mary Mount U. in 1979 and her MA
in Human Resource Development in 1993. She is
employed by Interactive Media, Tysons Corner, VA.
as an Instructional Systems Designer. Michael
received a BA degree in Journalism, Psychology and
Statistics from City College of NY in 1976 and an
MA degree in Journalism from the U.of Missouri in
1979. He is a computer consulting specialist in the
Washington, D.C. area.
A summer wedding is planned in 1998.
MACDONELLS CELEBRATE 53rd
Roderick and Virginia Macdonell celebrated their
53rd wedding anniversary at home in Wimberley,
Texas. with all their children present from coast to
Roderick and Virginia Dixon Macdonell with their
Highland Pipers.
The occasion was complete with Highland Pipers
to set the mood for their upcoming tip to Scotland
in August. Rod and Virginia were raised in Pedro
Miguel in the "Good Old Days" and were married in
Waycross, Georgia on July 1st, 1944. The trip was
their 1997 Christmas gift from their children.
BEATRICE HIBLER HONOR GRAD
Beatrice I. (Smith) Hibler (BHS'73) graduated
from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas,
in May 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts Cum Laude in
Computer Science.
While it took longer than the normal transition,
this non-traditional student appreciated the
opportunity to finish what so long was pending.
Congratulatory letters and gifts (just kidding) are
welcome and can be sent to 1605 Quail Run Road,
Pflugerville, TX 78660. For those on-line, see email
additions section in this issue.
Beatrice I. (Smith) Hibler (BHS'73) and Kirk
Hummel.
Vernon and Ruth Caturia celebrated their 40th
wedding anniversary on August 21, 1997 with an
open house at their home in Menomonie, Wisconsin.
About 100 relatives and friends attended.
Back L-R: Todd Folkerts, Vern Caturia. Middle:
Alexander Caturia, Vernon, Ruth, Lewis Caturia.
Front: Susan Folkerts, Halle Folkerts, Timothy
Caturia, Tippy, Theresa Caturia.
Bill and Jane (Gabriel) Huff congratulate their
daughter Allison on her graduation summa cum laude
from the University of Oklahoma, Panama Branch
with a Master of Education with a degree in
Instructional Psychology and Technology.
The graduation was held on May 18, 1997 at the
Howard Officer's Club with a reception following.
Present for her graduation were her parents, sister,
and brother-in-law, Brandy (Huff) and Rick Cofer;
niece Emma Rhiane, grandmother, Esther Huff,
uncle, Leonard Huff, uncle and aunt, Dennis and
Peggy (Hale) Huff, and many other friends.
.. s. lllF .' .kat
L-R: Christina Henzel, Gerlinda Nolan (Mom),
Patrick Nolan (grad), Jennifer Nolan (sis) and
Donald L. Nolan (Dad).
Attending the graduation ceremony were sisters,
Jennifer Nolan, Christina Henzel Nolan, brother
Richard T. Nolan and of course proud Mom and
Dad. During their five day stay in Maine, they visited
with Capt. and Dona Brophy and enjoyed the quiet
surroundings of Capt. Peter and Leslie Tassell's
house.
Since graduation, Patrick has sailed as 3rd Mate
for Evergreen Line in Panama and at present is
sailing on a tanker as 3rd Mate for Mobil Oil.
Richard (Rich) is currently attending the academy
and pursuing the same career as his brother Pat.
KATHLEEN CALLAHAN, CORNELL
Kathleen Callahan just received her certificate
from Cornell University as a certified registered diet
and nutritionist.
Kathleen has BS degree from Plattsburg
University in New York, and is now on the staff of
Cornell University Hospital of New York.
rI~A
REGISTRATION: 6:00 PM 9:00 PM. MARRIOTT CONVENTION CENTER, GRAND BALLROOM.
INFORMATION/HOSPITALITY 6:00 PM 9:00 PM CONVENTION CENTER, LOWER LEVEL
VENDORS SET UP: 4:30 7:30 PM NO MERCHANDISE SOLD CONVENTION CENTER, CRYSTAL
BALLROOM "A" thru "F".
CHAGRES INVITATIONAL GOLF TOURNAMENT. CHECK IN: 7:30 A.M., MARRIOTT GOLF COURSE.
GOLF LUNCHEON: 1:30 P.M. GRAND BALLROOM 3-6.
REGISTRATION: 9:00-11:00 AM; 3:00-7:00 PM. CONVENTION CENTER, GRAND BALLROOM.
INFORMATION: 9:00-11:00 AM; 1:00-5:00 PM; 7:00-9:00 PM, CONVENTION CENTER LOWER LEVEL.
VENDORS: 9:00 AM-1:00 PM; 3:00-9:00 PM.- CONVENTION CENTER, CRYSTAL BALLROOM "A" thru "F".
Friday, July 3, 1998
ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING: 10:00 AM (Members only).GRAND BALLROOM SECTION 2-6.
VENDORS: 1:00 P.M. 7:00 P.M. CONVENTION CENTER, CRYSTAL BALLROOM "A" "F".
REGISTRATION: 1:00 P.M. 4:00 P.M. CONVENTION CENTER, GRAND BALLROOM.
INFORMATION: 1:00 P.M. 4:00 P.M. CONVENTION CENTER, LOWER LEVEL.
BINGO: 2:00 4:00 P.M. GRAND BALLROOM 5-6.
ANNUAL PANAZONIAN DANCE: 8:30 PM-1:30 AM. CONVENTION CENTER, GRAND BALLROOM.
DJ DANCE: 11:00 P.M. 4:00 A.M. CANARY BALLROOM.
Saturday, July 4, 1998
REGISTRATION: 9:00-11:00 AM; 2:30-4:00 PM. CONVENTION CENTER, GRAND BALLROOM.
INFORMATION 9:00-11:00 AM; 2:30-4:00 PM. CONVENTION CENTER, LOWER LEVEL.
VENDORS: 9:00-11:00 AM; Noon-7:00 PM. CONVENTION CENTER, CRYSTAL BALLROOM "A" thru "F"
ANNUAL LUNCHEON: DOORS OPEN 11:30 AM, LUNCH 12:00 NOON. CANARY BALLROOM.
ANNUAL BALL: 8:30 PM 1:30 AM. CONVENTION CENTER, GRAND BALLROOM.
DJ DANCE: 11:00 PM 4:00 AM CANARY BALLROOM.
Sunday, July 5, 1998
VENDORS: 9:00 AM 12:00 AM. CONVENTION CENTER, CRYSTAL BALLROOM "A" thru "F".
DESPEDIDA: ALL SOCIETY MEMBERS INVITED FAREWELL TO FRIENDS 9:00-11:00 A.M.
CONVENTION CENTER, GRAND BALLROOM.
Thomas Peterson, 1998 Reunion Coordinator
Tel: (941) 371-7731. FAX: (941) 371-7731
Members will find that the following "Yellow" Pages" have been adjusted, refashioned or revised so that
members may become clearer about what is expected of them and are made simpler to follow.
The Registration Fee of $5.00 for each person over 18 years of age is being charged to offset Reunion
expenses, which includes all mailing charges, telephone and mileage charges, audio set-up at dances, rental of
equipment, signs and miscellaneous material used during the Reunion, etc.
The volunteer Chairpersons for the 1998 Reunion are listed for your information:
Society Registration:
Panama Canal Society of Fla.
1 ad Meunlon uoorainator
Panama Canal Society of Florida
8050 Seminole Mall, Suite 334
Seminole, FL 33772-4712
8050 Seminole Mall, Suite 334
Seminole, Florida 33772-4712
NOTE: One check can be made out to cover Registration Fee, Dance & Luncheon Tickets.
CHAGRES INVITATIONAL Jane Huldtquist Jane Huldtquist
GOLF TOURNAMENT 9200 Park Blvd. #205
LUNCHEON: Seminole, FL 33777
HOTEL REGISTRATION Orlando World Center Marriott Reunion Coordinator
8050 Seminole mall, Suite 334
Seminole, Florida 33772-4712
1. Lodging is contracted 2 years in advance so it is crucial that members reserve rooms
early, giving us a chance to ask for more rooms if needed. We CANNOT get more
rooms or fill cancellations after the hotel's deadline.
2. Make one (1) night's deposit by check or money order on a U.S. bank or use a major
credit card and include card number with expiration date and signature on Application
Form.
3. Hotel Reservations must be made through the Society Lodging Chairperson, NOT THE
HOTEL, and any changes/cancellations must be made directly with the Society Lodging
Chairperson, BETTY FRASSRAND, (352) 567-5594.
** IMPORTANT: To participate in the above functions you must have paid your 1998
membership dues and the $5.00 Reunion Registration fee (See Page "C").
MAIL TO:
i~Li~,
IMPORTANT NOTICES
1. If you are not a member of the Society and are planning to attend the 1998 Reunion, you should submit
an application for membership to the Secretary/Treasurer, Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc., 8050
Seminole Mall, Suite 334, Seminole, Florida 33772-4712, before the June 25, 1998 Executive Board meeting.
2. UNDERAGE DRINKING WILL NOT BE TOLERATED OR PERMITTED AT THE REUNION. HOTEL
SECURITY MAY REQUEST PROOF OF AGE. ANYONE OBSERVED SUPPLYING INTOXICATING
DRINKS TO UNDER-AGE INDIVIDUALS WILL BE DEALT WITH AS DEEMED NECESSARY.
3. STATE LAW FORBIDS ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES, NOT PURCHASED AT HOTEL BARS TO BE
CONSUMED OUTSIDE THE CONFINES OF THE GUEST'S ROOM.
4. Chairpersons of the Society and those of non-Society functions are not permitted to place schedules, notices,
pictures, etc. on the walls or furniture anywhere in the hotel. Any schedules or reasonable information
concerning your event may be displayed at the Society Information Desk. Contact Pat Beall or Tom Peterson
at the reunion.
5. CHILDREN UNDER 12 YEARS OF AGE WILL NOT BE PERMITTED INTO THE PANAZONIAN
DANCE OR THE ANNUAL BALL, AND UNDER 15 YEARS OF AGE AT THE DJ DANCES.
6. DRINKS WILL NOT BE PERMITTED ON THE DANCE FLOOR AND SMOKING WILL NOT BE
PERMITTED IN THE BALLROOMS OF BOTH DANCES.
7. REMEMBER TO SEND YOUR REGISTRATION FORM WITH THE NON-REFUNDABLE
REGISTRATION FEE, AND PLEASE LIST ALL YOUR GUESTS, WITH NAMES THEY WANT
PRINTED ON THEIR NAME BADGES SO THAT WE MAY PREPARE NAME BADGES FOR
THEM TO HELP US TO OBTAIN A TRUE HEAD COUNT ON HOW MANY WE CAN EXPECT
TO ATTEND AND PLAN ACCORDINGLY!
8. THE PANAMA CANAL SOCIETY OF FLORIDA HAS ENJOYED THE REPUTATION OF BEING A FUN-
LOVING, AND CONGENIAL GROUP AND WE HOPE TO CONTINUE THIS REPUTATION.
DISRESPECTFUL AND DESTRUCTIVE ACTS WHILE ATTENDING THE 1998 REUNION IS BEHAVIOR
UNBECOMING A SOCIETY MEMBER AND WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. SOCIETY MEMBERS OR
THEIR GUESTS WHO PERFORM THESE ACTS WILL BE DEALT WITH TO THE FULLEST EXTENT.
VANDALISM OF HOTEL PROPERTY COULD RESULT IN CANCELLATION OF MEMBERSHIP. LET'S
ALL HAVE A GOOD TIME AND ENJOY FRIENDS!
Make Reservations Early!
DEADLINE FOR RESERVATIONS IS MAY 15, 1998
Society Lodging Chairperson: Betty Frassrand (352) 517-5594
e-mail: [email protected]
*7- WTd o d Ce \-v r^ Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc.
Od 1998 Reunion July 1 5, 1998
--------- SORT AND CONVENTION CENTER
For Revisions or Cancellations Please call Requests must be received by: May 15 1998 Month/Date
Society Lodging Chairperson
at (352) 567-5594 CHECK-IN TIME 4:00 PM. CHECK-OUT TIME 11:00 AM. DEPARTURE: TIME:
NAME OF PERSON REQUESTING ROOMS FOR HOTEL
I ll II | | I I II ll l I USE ONLY
Last Name
PANAMA CANAL SOCIETY OF FLORIDA. INC. I Name(s) of additional persons) sharing room
IStrI et s rI I o r nI I ber Last Nim I I I ilt I I N I
City State Zip Code Last Name Frst Name
I _ __I_ I
Area Code Phone Number Fax Number Last Name First Name
Number of People in Each Room
jo. of Rates Method of Payment To Be Used at Checkout:
niS gle-Double
One King Bed. $ 94$.00 + tax
Two Double aeds. $ 4,00 + te x
Accessible Hoom One ingBed Only 400 + tax
Non-Smoking Room $ 94.00 + tax
Other
Credit I I I 1 I I
Carr I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
For Suite information contact Society Lodging Chairperson at (352) 567-5594 i- L--.I
One Bedroom Suites Expiratin Date
Two Bedroom Suites xpiraton Date
Hospitality Suites (non-bedded) [I
I Sales Tax 10% FOR ALL RESERVATIONS
SPECIAL REQ STS I understand that I am liable for one night's room and tax which will be
SPECIAL REQUESTS:deducted from my deposit or billed through my credit card in the event I do
not check in on my scheduled arrival date or cancel my reservation 72 hours
prior to arrival.
1. Members with PHYSICAL DISABILITIES and members needing roll away beds and refrigerators will be
assigned on a first come, available basis.
2. SUITES: Members must contact the SOCIETY LODGING CHAIRPERSON for prices, availability and
approval and then submit their request on the Hotel Registration Form.
3. FAILURE TO CANCEL reservations 72 hours prior to scheduled arrival, or FAILURE TO CHECK INTO
HOTEL on the first night will forfeit your first nights deposit and your reservation will be cancelled.
4. A Sales and Resort Tax will be added to your final bill.
5. The State of Florida allows only five (5) people to occupy one hotel room.
SEND HOTEL RESERVATION FORM AND CHECK TO: SOCIETY LODGING
CHAIRPERSON, 8050 SEMINOLE MALL, SUITE 334, SEMINOLE, FL 33772-4712.
oot ms ACCOMMOD S
Marriott Convention Center, Lower Level
Chairpersons: Pat Beall (813) 391-4359
Hospitality was conceived as a service to our members attending the Reunion, to help make their stay a little
more pleasant, helping them over some of the rough spots they might encounter in an unfamiliar city and
surroundings. The Society Information and Hospitality Desk is open to any member during the published working
hours. Our staff is experienced and have volunteered to serve.
We can: 1. Provide information regarding activities within and outside the Reunion.
2. The center for "Lost and Found" articles.
3. Sell Society license plates, decals, available Annual Directories and Canal Records.
4. Sell Annaul Ball, Panazonian Dance, and Disco Dance tickets.
5 Place your message on our bulletin board for friends and/or guests.
6. Guide members to proper channels regarding hotel complaints..
7. Help those who wish to worship at the church of their choice.
8. Provide detailed maps of the area, with restaurant information, attractions, etc.
9. Advise members of local transportation available for outside Reunion confines.
10. Assist members regarding their Class Reunions when what where.
11. Assist members in finding a restaurant of their choice and show locations.
We are at your service.
REUNION DANCES
Dances Chairperson: Charles "Chuck" Hummer (941) 421-4758
DJ Dance Chairperson: Steve Nehring (813) 522-5369
1. Ticket orders will be accepted only from, members who have paid their 1998 dues and have paid the $5.00
Registration fee. (See page "C"). Tickets will not be refunded after June 15, 1998 and will not be resold
at the Reunion.
2. TICKETS WILL NOT BE MAILED. PREPAID TICKETS WILL BE AT THE REUNION REGISTRATION
TABLES ON THE LOWER LEVEL.
3. Children under 12 years of age will not be permitted' entrance to the dances.
r ------------------------------------------------------------------------
MEMBER'S NAME:
ANNUAL BALL ORDER FORM I PANAZONIAN DANCE ORDER FORM
Music by Frankie Pretto Saturday, July 4, 1998 Music by Leroy Lewis Friday, July 3, 1998
8:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m. Grand Ballroom 1-8 8:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m. Grand Ballroom 1-8
$12.00/Ticket 6 Tickets per member $8.00/Ticket 6 Tickets per member.
No. of Tickets Total $ No. of Tickets Total $
Special Request: Special Request:
Dress: Semi Formal, NO SHORTS OR JEANS. Dress: Informal or Panamanian attire.
DJ DANCE DR. DUCK
Friday, July 3 and Saturday, July 4, 1998
11:00 p.m. 4:00 a.m.
CHILDREN UNDER 15 NOT PERMITTED INTO DJ DANCES
MEMBER'S NAME:
Chairperson: Pat Beall (813) 391-4359
The Mini-Reunion Chairperson will aid and assist all Coordinators for high school, and ancillary reunions
held during the 1998 Reunion. Coordinators planning a mini-reunion at Marriott's World Center must receive
advance approval from the Mini-Reunion Chairperson prior to making arrangements. He will assist and advise
as much as possible while conforming with the Society's schedules. Those planning their mini-reunion will be
responsible to obtain the necessary Society membership application and ticket forms for those in their group from
the Mini-Reunion Chairperson. They will also be responsible for making their arrangements with the hotel for
their function. Upon completion of their arrangements, they must notify the Mini-Reunion Chairperson, at The
Panama Canal Society of Florida, 8050 Seminole Mall, Suite 334, Seminole, FL 33772-4712.
FRIDAY, JULY 3, 1998
Grand Ballroom
President Margot Jordan (813) 963-6998
This is your Society we urge ALL members to attend and give your support and ideas to the membership
- be there for the election of Officers and Committee Reports.
1. Grand Ballroom. Meeting starts at 10:00 AM. THERE WILL BE NO SMOKING AT THE BUSINESS
MEETING.
2. Show your interest in the Society by attending this meeting.
3. Only paid-up members will be admitted.
4. There will be several drawings for prizes donated by Vendors and other contributors. You will be given a
lottery ticket as you enter the Ballroom for the meeting.
YOU MUST BE A MEMBER AND YOU MUST ATTEND THE ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING TO RECEIVE
YOUR LOTTERY TICKET FOR DOOR PRIZES.
DOOR PRIZES WILL ONLY BE AWARDED TO THOSE MEMBERS PRESENT AT THE TIME
OF THE LOTTERY DRAWING.
GRAND PRIZE WILL BE TWO (2) ROUND TRIP TICKETS TO PANAMA VIA C.O.PA.
COME TO THE ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING!
CHAGRES INVITATIONAL AMATEUR
Chairpersons Jane Huldtquist and Jim Slover
ALL PARTICIPANTS IN THIS REUNION FUNCTION AND
THEIR GUESTS MUST PAY THE $5.00 REGISTRATION FEE.
PLEASE SEE PAGE "C".
Entry Deadline: June 13, 1998
----------------------------------------------*
GOLF TOURNAMENT REGISTRATION FORM JULY 2, 1998
The Nineteenth Annual Chagres Invitational Amateur Golf Tournament will be held at the Orlando World
Center Marriott's Golf Course, 1 World Center Drive, Orlando, Florida on July 2, 1998.
The field is limited to 136 players. Check-in time will be 7:30 a.m. followed by a "shot-gun" tee off at 8:00 a.m.
NO LATECOMERS WILL BE ACCEPTED.
Entry fee will be $68.00 per golfer, which includes green fees, cart, luncheon, awards, favors and door prizes.
Luncheon will be served promptly at 1:30 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom 3-6 in the Convention center. One guest
per player will be allowed at $18.00. I.D. guests tags will be received at the entrance to the ballroom. No 'Gate
Crashing" will be allowed at the luncheon, nor children under 12 years of age.
After reviewing suggestions made by the players, the committee has decided to continue the format used in the
past of flighting by age group and medal play. Unfortunately, many of our golfers do not have established handicaps,
making it impossible to compete against other golfers in net play. You may play with whomever you designate on
your registration form, otherwise you will be matched by the Committee.
The golf club has requested that if possible, golfers should wear "SOFT SPIKES", to preserve the course,
however it is not obligatory this year. The same information concerning your golf clubs being brought to the
"Pro Shop" the day before or by 7:00 a.m. on July 2, 1998 is still in effect. There is a one-time $5.00 fee for
storage of your clubs while at the Reunion. The $45.00 green fee and cart rate is in effect during the Reunion.
A "Super" Hole-in-one prize will be available again this year consisting of $1,000 Golf Shop Credit, along with
dinner for two at JW's Steakhouse, a week-end for two includingg golf) at the hotel, and a free Video of your
hole-in-one. Pairings will be on display in the Registration area atter 4:00 p.m. on July 1, 1998.
NAME (Print) MEMBER NO.
TELEPHONE NO. Age (7/2/98) (Males only)
Atlantic Sider Pacific sider Professional Amateur
NAME AGE HANDICAP
IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A HANDICAP, LIST YOUR AVERAGE SCORE FOR 18 HOLES_
GOLF AND AWARDS LUNCHEON: $ NON GOLFING LUNCH GUEST: $
# GOLFERS
# LUNCHEON GUESTS TOTAL AMOUNT SUBMITTED $
LUNCHEON GUEST'S NAME:_
(NECESSARY FOR NAME TAG IDENTIFICATION)
MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE AND MAIL FORM TO JANE HULDTQUIST, 9200 PARK
BLVD. #205, SEMINOLE, FLORIDA 33777. TEL: (813) 397-5846.
----------................................
FRIDAY, JULY 3rd, 1998, 2:00 4:00 P.M.
BINGO
Chairperson Betty Snow (813) 799-4769
Grand Ballroom, Rooms 5-6
Bingo will be called on Friday, July 4th, from 2:00 to 4:00 P.M. in the Grand Ballroom, rooms 5-6.
Those interested, look us up on Friday, July 4th. You'll love the prizes!
DESPEDIDA
Chairperson: Virgil and Shirley Camby (813) 321-8566
Say farewells to your friends at the Despedida which will be held in the Grand Ballroom of the Convention
Center at the Marriott's Orlando World Center on July 5, 1998. The doors will open at 9:00 a.m. when the Panama
Canal Society of Florida, Inc. will furnish free coffee and the hotel will have sweet rolls for sale.
Again the Ballet Folklorico of Orlando will perform for your entertainment and pleasure starting at 10:00 A.M.
This dance group will be available afterwards for photographs.
What a great way to say your good-byes to your friends. Come to the Despedida and experience a little bit of
Panama!
4. 9.
15. 10.
Tickets will not be refunded after cut-off date of June 5. 1998 and will not be resold at the Reunion.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ----------,, ,
Luncheon Program: "Love in the Afternoon" A Musical Variety Show with Linda
Woodruff Weir, Erin Hatchett, Bob Teta, Nancy Stauffer, James Grenelle and Brick, and
other guest performers.
TO TAKE PART IN THESE FUNCTIONS YOU MUST HAVE PAID YOUR 1998 DUES
AND REGISTRATION FEE OF $5.00. (SEE PAGE "C").
TO ORDER LUNCHEON TICKETS OR TO APPLY FOR A VENDORS TABLE, MAKE
YOUR CHECK OUT AND MAIL TO REUNION COORDINATOR, 8050 SEMINOLE
MALL, SUITE 334, SEMINOLE, FL. 33772-4712.
VENDORS
Chairperson: Muriel Whitman (813) 544-0214
1. Only paid-up members of the Society who have paid their $5.00 Registration Fee will be authorized to sell.
2. Vendors MUST submit an application for the 1998 Reunion, which may be obtained from the Vendor
Chairperson, Muriel Whitman. Applications will not be published in the Canal Record The deadline for
receiving Vendors applications and for REFUNDS is June 1, 1998.
3. Approval of the application will be based on whether items for sale are related or compatible to Panama
memorabilia. Authorization will be assigned in order of receipt of Vendors application and fee of $100.00.
Instructions and Restrictions are completely defined with the Vendor Application Form. Please read the
instructions carefully. The Marriott's World Center have certain restrictions which must be complied with such
as attaching anything to walls, etc.
4. Space is available for 25 vendors. Crystal Ballroom "A" thru "F" will provide vendors with a large single room
area. Vendor tables may NOT be shared without prior approval of the Chairperson.
5. Vendors hours for selling will begin at 9:00 a.m. Thursday morning. PLEASE NOTE AMENDED HOURS
FOR SALES IN SCHEDULE OF EVENTS.
6. MAKE CHECK OUT TO, AND MAIL CHECK AND APPLICATION TO: REUNION COORDINATOR,
8050 SEMINOLE MALL, SUITE 334, SEMINOLE, FLORIDA 33772-4712.
1,II
Peter Foster Transportation Chairman (813) 785-8555
*** WIN A FREE ROUND TRIP TICKET BETWEEN YOUR AIR GATEWAY CITY ***
**** WITHIN THE CONTINENTAL US. AND ORLANDO OR TAMPA****
MAKE YOUR REUNION TRAVEL RESERVATIONS THROUGH THE SOCIETY'S *
*** OFFICIAL REUNION TRAVEL AGENT BOWEN-KEPPIE TRAVEL ***
** DELTA OFFERS REUNION DISCOUNT OF 5% **
The Executive Board of the Panama Canal Society of Florida, Inc. has appointed BOWEN-KEPPIE TRAVEL
of Clearwater, Florida the OFFICIAL TRAVEL AGENT for the Society's 1998 Reunion.
The primary purpose of appointing an Official Travel Agent is to provide the Society members the lowest fares
available when making their travel arrangements to the Reunion. Also, the Travel Agent will provide the Reunion
Committee with arrival/departure data of reunion attenders. This data may be utilized to coordinate Reunion
Registration hours, airport/hotel ground transportation and Hotel Registration Desk Staffing.
The membership travel data will also be used to determine feasibility in establishing Charter Flights at those
locations where a significant amount of members originate. Chartering Flights would provide a considerable
reduction in Reunion travel for our members.
Members may make their air travel reservations with BOWEN-KEPPIE TRAVEL, or Delta Air Lines. With
Delta you must use the Delta File number indicated in the Bowen-Keppie Ad located in the Reunion yellow pages.
The advantage in utilizing BOWEN-KEPPIE is that in addition to providing a complete travel profile, advanced
seat assignments, boarding passes and free ticket delivery BOWEN-KEPPIE will ticket the lowest rates available
on any Air Carrier and monitor reservations for significant fare reductions in order to provide refunds to members
when applicable.
BOWEN-KEPPIE has arranged with DELTA to offer the discounted convention fares from June 28th through
July 9, 1998. Members planning to travel by commercial carrier to the 1998 Reunion are asked to support your
Reunion Committee's efforts. Please take advantage of the Reunion Transportation program by completing and
mailing the Preliminary CONTEST/TRAVEL Form in BOWEN-KEPPIE TRAVEL'S AD. The form is non-binding
to you, but it will also provide advance information for the Reunion support functions.
This year, BOWEN-KEPPIE TRAVEL AIR DISCOUNT INCLUDES REUNION TRAVEL TO or FROM
TAMPA or ORLANDO. One leg of air travel must be to or from either Tampa or Orlando and the other leg of
air travel can be from any other Florida Air Gateway City.
To make your travel reservations, follow the information provided in the BOWEN-KEPPIE AD and if you
should call after hours, leave your name, phone number and request that the Panama Canal Society Specialist return
your call.
As the Official Travel Agent for the Reunion
0 AND
*** FLY DELTA *** ** 60 DAY EARLY **
UP TO 10% DISCOUNT WeLoveToFyAndItShows.o BOOKING DISCOUNT
** HELP YOUR SOCIETY **
FLY DELTA TO THE ORLANDO REUNION
** DELTA discounted Air Fares are available from June 27, 1998 through July 8, 1998 for REUNION TRAVEL
to or from TAMPA, SARASOTA or ORLANDO.
JOIN THE 1998 REUNION TRAVEL CONTEST
Send in a completed CONTEST/TRAVEL FORM below. The Contest Drawing will be held during the Annual Reunion
Business Meeting. The winner will be reimbursed the cost of one roundtrip ticket (not to exceed a maximum value of
$400.00 and purchased through the Reunion's Official Travel Agent) between the winner's continental U.S. major Air
Gateway City and Orlando, Florida.
As a service you may phone DELTA at 1-800-241-6760 and request your reservations under FILE No. 107445A.
Regrettably, this method does NOT permit BOWEN-KEPPIE to monitor your reservations and fare reductions.
Limo transfers to/from Airport Hotel discounted for Society members and their guests
with Reunion Air Reservations.
Call Bowen-Keppie for your Reunion travel plans. Bowen-Keppie will find the lowest rates with the best flights to get you
to and from Orlando. Bowen-Keppie will continue to monitor your reservation and automatically reduce your travel costs
should air fares go down significantly before you depart.
FOR BEST RATES & FLIGHTS DON'T DELAY CALL TODAY!
Make your reservations early ** Complete this CONTEST/Travel Form and mail to Bowen-Keppie Travel:
r--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sharon Glassburn (De Vore) has been elected
President of the Morton Plant Hospital Auxiliary in
Clearwater, Florida, and took office January 24, 1998.
The Morton Plant Hospital Auxiliary is one of
the largest volunteer organizations in the state of
Florida, and Sharon can be elected to 3 one year
terms. In 1997 she was First President/President Elect
and has been a volunteer at Morton Plant for almost
22 years with over 12,000 hours.
MEL SMITH, A HOLE-IN-ONE!
Mel Smith, a well-known Canal Zone golfer
scored his first "hole-in-one" recently at the Silver
Dollar Golf Club.
Mel has been playing for more than 40 years,
and when asked how he felt after his first ever hole-
in-one, he replied, "I didn't know how expensive this
feat was, these guys can really drink!"
Back L-R: Joe Cicero, Bobby Diaz, Willie Holt,
Dave Menegas, Will Nickisher, Fred Sapp, Gary
Anderson, Al Carr, Dick Fiala, Jim Orvis, Roy
Culbreth, Jack Hern. Front L-R: Ralph "Dewey"
Harris, Joe Panzollo, MEL SMITH, John Demas,
Tom Doyle, Bob Suisman, Hubert Jordan, Ken
Morris.
Mr. and Mrs. Darrell Eide of Tucson, Arizona
announce the engagement of their son, Lars Jorstad
to Shannon Blanusa, both of Tahuyeh, Washington.
Shannon is the daughter of Doris Blanusa and
the late Steve Blanusa of Lake Tapps, WA. No date
has been set for the wedding.
Sharon Glassburn (De Vore) and granddaughter
Joanna Holly Glassburn-Slusarewicz.
Sharon was formerly married to Paul Glassburn,
and in the above picture, she is with her new
granddaughter, Joanna Holly Glassburn-Slusarewicz.
Joanna was born to their daughter, Dr. Tracy
Glassburn-Slusarewicz, and son-in-law, Dr. Paul
Slusarewicz, on December 18, 1997 in Bedford,
England. Their son, Stephen, manages a pizza hut in
Tampa, Florida.
Lars Jorstad and Shannon Blanusa
Both the bride-elect and prospective groom are
teachers at Central Kitsap High School, where she
teaches Spanish and he teaches Physical Education
and is the Athletic Trainer for the school.
95th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
Maxine (Kemper) Hitchcock of Sarasota, Florida,
in celebration of her 95th birthday, August 26, 1997,
was honored at an open house and a luncheon party
at the home of her sister, Wilhelmina "Billie"
(Kemper) Galloway.
The party was planned and hosted by Maxine's
son, William C. Hitchcock and his wife, Virginia and
their young daughter Sarah of Bethesda, MD and
Billie's daughter Anna Catherine (Galloway) Daniel
of Houston, Texas, all of whom came for this very
special occasion. Many of Maxine's friends were on
hand to help her celebrate. All of her special
caregivers were present to help her mark her day.
Ina Hostetler played the guitar as she and her three
children sang songs and many of the other guests
joined in. Pictures of Maxine and her family adorned
the table, as well as floral arrangements.
HUFF-MacPHERSON ENGAGEMENT
Bill and Jane (Gabriel) Huff of Los Rios,
Panama, are pleased to announce the engagement of
their daughter, Allison Jane to Cecil MacPherson,
son of Cesar and Carmen MacPherson of Glendale,
Arizona.
Allison Huff and Cecil MacPherson
L-R: Maxine Hitchcock, daughter-in-law Virginia
Hitchcock with daughter Sarah, and Billie
Galloway, and Maxine's son, William Hitchcock.
At a later date, Anna Katherine (Galloway)
Daniel presented Maxine an album of photo's and
birthday cards from her friends so she could continue
to enjoy and reminisce the birthday bash for many
days to come.
Allison is a 1992 graduate of Balboa High
School. She received her bachelor's degree in
Psychology from the University of West Florida and
recently completed a Master of Education with a
degree in Instructional Psychology and Technology
from the University of Oklahoma.
Cecil is a 1990 graduate of Deer Valley High
School in Glendale, Arizona. He received his
bachelor's degree in Biology from West Point. He is
presently a lstLt in the U.S. Army stationed in
Taegu, Korea.
The couple plan to be married at the Church of
Our Savior m Cocoa Beach, Florida on June 13,
1998.
AND LIST OF NOMINEES FOR OFFICE
ARE IN THE BACK OF THE BOOK.
WE WANT TO SEE THE SOCIETY GROW, BE SURE AND VOTE
AND SHOW US YOU CARE TOO!
IT WILL ONLY COST YOU 320
HUTCHINGS FRENCH
Jay and Diane French of Fort Collins, Colorado,
announce the marriage of their son, Frank J. French
to Miss LyAhn Hutchings on October 25, 1997.
The bride is the daughter of Sihn Thi Parker of
Palmdale, CA., and Thomas Hutchings of Paso
Robles, CA. The wedding took place at the Orleans
Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada and the reception was
at the Rio.
Frank Jay French and LyAhn Hutchings
Frank's three brothers.John R.Gough III, Michael
G. French and William J.French acted as best men.
Frank's nephew, Justin Paul Gough was the ring
bearer while LyAhn's daughter, Bree Anna Hutchings
acted as flower girl.
Frank is currently stationed in Istanbul, Turkey
with the Air Force. The couple will make their home
at his next duty post, which is expected to be
Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.
HOLDER GERMANY
Anne-Marie Holder and Joshua Nathan Germany
were united in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony on
July 26, 1997 at the Church of the Most Holy
Trinity in Augusta, Georgia. Anne-Marie is the
daughter of Norma York Holder (BHS'64) of
Martinez, GA. and Walter Martin Holder of
Lumpkin, GA. The groom is the son of Mr. and
Mrs. Lester Gene Germany of Evans, GA.
Grandparents of the bride are Mr. and Mrs. William
C. York (Sis and Bill), formerly of the Canal Zone
and currently residing in Martinez.
Anna-Marie Holder and Joshua Nathan Germany,
in Augusta, Georgia.
The bride's maid of honor were her sisters,
Jessica E. and Christina T. Holder. Bonner Rebekkah
Germany, sister of the groom was the bridesmaid.
Lester Germany, father of the groom was best man.
Groomsmen were Theodore C., brother of the groom
and Christopher Y. Coffey, cousin of the bride and
son of Nancy York Coffey (BHS'66). Katie Duncan
was flower girl, and Garret Germany was ring bearer.
A dinner hosted by the bride's mother and
maternal grandparents was held at the North Augusta
Country Club following the ceremony.
The couple, both recent graduates of the U.of
Georgia are at home in Athens, GA., following a
honeymoon trip to the West Indies. Anne-Marie
works at the school of social work at the U. of
Georgia and has begun her graduate studies.
waeac.0 K
Jean Marie Gramlich and Jimmy Conner wish to IR
announce to their friends and family that they were
married in a private ceremony on September 30,
1997.
Tamara (Matheney) and Arthur Sherry of
Panama City, Panama, are proud to announce the
birth of their daughter, Victoria Anne Sherry, born
on August 29, 1997, weighing 6 lbs. 10 oz. and
measuring 19 inches long.
Jean Marie and Jimmy Conner
The bride is the daughter of Larry and Aggie -
Gramlich of La Boca, Panama. The groom is the son
of James and Gail Conner of Bristol, Florida.
Jean Marie and Jimmy are currently living in
Clermont, Florida and work as Wildlife Biologists
with the Florida Game & Fresh Water Fish
Commission.
Lester and Andrea (Byrd) Smith of
Lawrenceville, Georgia, are pleased to announce the
marriage of their daughter. Christine to Mike Foster,
of Atlanta, Georgia on October 18, 1997.
Arthur and Tamara (Matheney) Sherry with
daughter Victoria Anna and god-parents Derek
and Nona (Kane) Gallardo, while baptizing Victoria
on November 23, 1997 at St.Mary's Church,
SBalboa.
Maternal grandparents are Freddieann (Gallardo)
and Grover Matheney. Paternal grandparents are
Marjorie and Charles (Art) Sherry. Great-
grandparents are Blanche Browne (Adler) and
Margaret (Williams) and Carlos Gallardo. Victoria is
Shown with her parents and godparents, Derek and
Nona (Kane) Gallardo.
Christine Smith Romero and her husband, Mike issue, 11993, baby pictures
Foster with her son, Jaenon Romero. will nct be accepted
Her sister, Kimberly Smith of Denver, Colorado unless they are shOwn
was her maid of honor, and Christine's son, Jaenon,
was her ring bearer. Out of town guests included with their parents. 1Ilease
Mrs. Frances Byrd, maternal grandmother, Robert see "lEditr's Comrner." 9/92.
and Terri Smith, paternal grandparents, Kathleen
Sheridan, and many other guests.
50
Juan and Terry (Leon-Guerrero) Cajandig of
Vacaville, California, proudly announce the birth of
their son, Patrick Ephriam on August 8, 1997.
He joins his sisters, Anamaria (9), Marilena (4),
Gabriela (4) and Cecilia (2).
Maternal grandparents are Virginia Leon-Guerrero
and the late Ephriam Leon-Guerrero.
l -,
Stevan and Marla (Matney) Stough are happy to
announce the birth of their first child, Matthew
Stevan Stough on August 29, 1997 in San Antonio,
TX.
Matthew is the grandson of the late Charles
Stough and Jeanne (Flynn) Stough of Playa
Coronado and the former Panama Canal Zone, and
is the great, great grandson of the late Richard
Roberts, a Roosevelt Medal holder one of the
builders of the Panama Canal.
. -. .UI......- _1.
Juan and Terry (Leon-Guerrero) Cajandig with
their children, Patrick, Anamaria, Marilena,
Gabriela and Cecilia.
Kellie (Carey) Hurson and her husband, Jim, are
the proud parents of James Carey Hurson, born
March 18, 1997.
Kellie is the daughter of Capt. John Carey and
Lani Carey, formerly of Gatun, Canal Zone. Kellie
and Jim live in Washington, D.C.
Jim and Kellie (Carey) Hurson with baby James
Carey Hurson.
Jennifer (Stokes) and Kevin Beck are proud to
announce the arrival of their first girl, Briley Spencer
Beck at Joplin Missouri Hospital on November 14,
1997. Jennifer (Stokes) Beck is a CHS'82 graduate.
Grandparents are Elia C. (Garcia) Stokes and
the late Bobby J. Stokes, formerly of the Customs
Division.
Kevin and Jennifer (Stokes) Beck, with baby
Briley Spencer Beck.
Rebecca (Grimison) and Geoffrey Pletcher
proudly announce the birth of their first child, a son,
named Dylan James, on September 5, 1997, in
Columbus, Ohio. Dylan weighed 9 lbs. 5 oz. and
measured 22 inches at birth. Maternal grandparents
are Tom and Nancy Grimison of Satellite Beach,
Florida (formerly of the Canal Zone) and Jim and
Mary Sue Pletcher of Rockville, Maryland.
i ml Mft.1
Dylan James Pletcher with parents,
(Grimison) and Geoff at his Baptism.
Rebecca
Carol L. Masino takes pleasure in announcing
the arrival of two new granddaughters, Aurora Rose
Vestal and Tessa Rae Vestal, on October 3, 1997.
Aurora weighed 4 lbs. 3 oz. and Tessa weighed an
even 4 lbs.
Both babies were born at home in St. Petersburg,
Florida to Dawn Massino-Vestal. They join R.
Dalton, 7, and Shelbi Lee, 2 years of age.
Grandma Carol Masino with twin granddaughters,
Aurora Rose and Tessa Rae.
Blayne Sidney Kennon
Buzzy and Reina (Miller) Kennon are proud to
announce the birth of their son, Blayne Sidney
Kennon, born in San Antonio, Texas, on August 7,
1997. He weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz. and was 20 inches. He
is joined by his two older brothers, Richard (15) and
Buzzy, Reina, Ricky, Brendon and baby Blayne
Kennon.
Grandparents are William S. and Ann Kennon of
Plant City, Florida, and Alicia and the late Capt.
Fred Miller of San Antonio. The Kennons have
recently moved to Orlando, Florida.
Patrick Morris Finkelstein
Joe and LuAnn Finkelstein of Ackworth, Georgia,
pictured with son, Patrick Morris, born July 21,
1996. Joe is Regional Director of Prime Equipment
Company in Marietta, GA., and LuAnn is employed
by the Internal Revenue Service.
Joe and LuAnn Finkelstein with son, Patrick
Morris Finkelstein, born July 21, 1996.
Paternal grandparents are Sarah and the late
Morris "Coach" Finkelstein, the Canal Zone College
coach. Sarah lives in Charleston, SC, and is employed
by the Medical University of South Carolina Hospital.
Maternal grandparents are Barbara and Robert
Lee of Charleston, SC.
acwul t 4/wfual yi /A ee u/w //tm n
Edward Robinson Aanstoos, 71, of Peachtree
City, Georgia, died January 21, 1998 after a six-
month battle with cancer. He was born in Colon
Beach, Panama Canal Zone and grew up as a "Colon
Bwoy," He graduated from Georgetown University in
1951 with a degree in Foreign Service. His career
included employment with the State Department, the
CIA, the Department of Defense, and the Panama
Canal Company. He was awarded the Master key to
the Panama Canal granted to him by the Governor
of the Canal Zone in August 1967. He retired from
Pan Canal in 1982 with 33 years federal service. In
1986 he retired from the Naval Reserve achieving the
rank of Captain (Intelligence Designator). He lived
the past 15 years in Peachtree "by God" City,
Georgia.
He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Virginia
(Martin) Aanstoos, and six children, Helen Aanstoos
of Sebastopol, CA., Janet Aanstoos of Bodega, CA.,
Marty Aanstoos and his wife Mary Ann of
Charleston, SC., Virginia Joan Aanstoos Taylor and
her husband, John of Tokyo, Japan, Peter Aanstoos
and his wife, Sharon of Peachtree City, GA., and
Erich Aanstoos and his wife, Kathleen of Sharpsburg,
GA; a brother, Matt Aanstoos of Vienna, VA.; a
sister, Olive Aanstoos Ford, of Hopewell, VA; ten
grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Eugene I. Askew, 88, of Largo, Florida, died
September 30, 1997 at Columbia Largo Medical
Center. Born in Hickman, Tennessee, he retired from
the Panama Canal Navigation Division in 1970 with
over 38 years of service. He was an Army veteran
and a member of Gordonsville Tennessee Methodist
Church. He was also a Past President of the Panama
Canal Society of Florida, a member of the Masonic
Order, Past Patron and Life Member of Orchid
Chapter of the O.E.S. and member of Elks Lodge
#1414, NARFE and AARP.
Survivors include his wife, Ethel of 57 years; two
daughters, Nancy Goodwin of Ocala, Florida and
Linda Martin of Mobile, Alabama: two sons. Robert
of Hailey, Idaho, and Stephen of Clearwater; six
grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Kenny Baer, of North Carolina, passed away on
December 13, 1996. His sons helped him move to
North Carolina due to bad health in September,
1996. He was a Balboa High School graduate of
1944.
He is survived by his sons, one of whom is Ken
Baer III, of Pinehurst, North Carolina, (910) 295-
2749.
Dorothy E. Bitter, 77, of St.Petersburg, Florida,
died January 7, 1998 at St. Anthony's Hospital. Born
in New York, she left the Canal Zone in 1968 where
she was a medical liaison for the U.S. Government.
She was a Lutheran and was a member of
N.A.R.F.E.; the Panama Canal Society of Florida,
where she was a former assistant to the Editor, and
the Pinellas Association for Retarded Children. She
was preceded in death by her husband, Charles
Bitter, a former senior chief marine engineer in the
Canal Zone in May, 1996.
Survivors include two nephews, Richard J.
Tomford Jr. and Dennis M. Tomford, both of St.
Petersburg; an aunt, Kathryn Funke, Ghent, N.Y.;
and two cousins, Miriam Anderson and Amy
Strawgate, both of Wantagh, N.Y.
Marian Lynn Gregg Brown, 43, a registered
nurse and resident of Slaughter, Louisiana, died
suddenly in her sleep December 26, 1997, while on
a ski trip to Crested Butte, Colorado with her family.
She was born in Colon, Panama, attended Coco Solo
Elementary School, graduated from Cristobal High
School in 1972 and from the LSU School of Nursing,
New Orleans, in 1977. In 1978 she was married at
the Holy Family Church, Margarita, Canal Zone.
Survived by her husband, Clayton G. Brown,
MD: parents, Eugene T. and Marian Smith Gregg;
two daughters, Carlye, 18, and Haylye, 14; and two
sons, Rayne, 17, and Harrison, 13, all of Slaughter;
grandmother, Edna Smith, W. Virginia; four sisters,
Nancy E. Gregg, Baton Rouge, Laura A. Roa,
Panama, Gail D. Weien, California and Helen M.
Gregg, Zachary; and a brother, Eugene J. Gregg,
Korea.
Eleanor Dunn Burnham, 90, of Palm Harbor,
Florida, died December 23, 1997 at St. Mark Village
continuing care community. She was born in
Evergreen, Louisiana and left the Canal Zone in
1958 where she was head librarian at the Panama
Canal Library for many years. She was a member of
All Saints Episcopal Church, Tarpon Springs, Florida.
She is survived by a niece, Madgette Mueller,
Corvallis, OR.; three grandnieces and four grand-
nephews.
Dr. Victor P. Carter, 59, of Balboa Heights,
Panama, died October 22, 1997 of emphysema. He
was born in Baltimore, Maryland and came to
Panama when he was two years old. He grew up in
the Las Cumbres area of Panama and attended
Balboa High School. After working with the Carter
family company, Geneva, S.A. for several years, he
most recently helped manage Kora Transportation
Services and Cain Brothers. He was a member of
the Balboa Scottish Rite, and York Bodies, Abou
Saad Shrine Temple and was Past Exalted ruler of
the Elks Lodge 1414, Balboa.
He is survived by his wife of five years, Linda;
sons John of Salt Lake City, UT, William of
Houston, TX., a daughter, Victoria of San Antonio,
TX., three stepsons, Richard, Dave and Steve
Dahlstrom.
Dorothea Tufts Churchill, 92, of Orem, Utah,
died September 28, 1997 at the Alpine Valley Care
Center in Pleasant Grove. She was born in Maiden,
Massachusetts. Her family moved to Gatun, Canal
Zone in 1914 where her father was a Control Tower
Operator at Gatun Locks. She graduated from
Cristobal High School and attended college in
53
Medford, Mass. where she met her future husband.
They returned to Gatun where her husband was
employed as a fireman in the C.Z. Fire Department.
Dorothea worked for the C.Z. Commissary, the U.S.
Army and the U.S. Navy. She and her husband left
the Zone in 1959 to reside in Asheville, N.C. After
her husband died in 1973, she moved to State
College, PA. then finally relocating to Orem, UT to
be near family. She was a member of the Eastern
Star and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints.
Survivors include her son, Starford Churchill
Jr.and daughter-in-law Adelia Jane Shacklette
Churchill of Orem; two grandchildren; and two great-
grandchildren.
Margaret Ruth Conner, 93, of Hattiesburg,
Mississippi, passed away January 5, 1998 in Forrest
General Hospital, Hattiesburg. She was born in
Brewton, Alabama, and went to the Panama Canal
Schools Division as a second grade teacher at Ancon
Elementary School. She retired from the Schools
Division with 30 years of service in 1996, and retired
to Hattiesburg to make her home. She was a favorite
and well-loved teacher by her students and their
parents.
She is survived by a number of nieces and
nephews
Ralph Curies, 87, of Dunnellon, Florida, died
October 6, 1997. He was a native of Jarvisburg, N.C.
and retired as a tug boat captain of the Navigation
Division in 1970 with over 30 years of service. He
was a past president of the International Master,
Mates and Pilots; a 32* Mason, a Knight Commander
Court of Honor of the Scottish Rite, and a member
of Abou Saad Shrine Temple.
Survivors include his wife, Marie of Dunnellon;
daughters, Barbara Aycock of Dunnellon, Edna
Cooley and Margaret Maxwell, both of Ocala,
Florida; eleven grandchildren and thirteen great-
grandchildren.
Winifred Adella Deaver passed away on October
31, 1997. Mrs. Deaver taught Special Education at
Balboa High School for 20 years.
She is survived by her daughter, Katherine Ziquin
of North Hollywood, California; a son, the Rev. Paul
D. Lawson of El Segundo, CA; grandson David Bo
and daughter-in-law Cristina Collins Lawson.
Charlotte Hickey McLaughlin Eckert, nee
Randall, died in Long Island, New York on June
23, 1997. She was a long-time resident of Balboa and
Gamboa, Canal Zone. A graduate of Balboa High
School about 1920, she was a lifetime member of
the Eastern Star in the Canal Zone. She spent her
final years on Long Island with her daughter.
She is survived by her daughter, Jacquiline
Johnstone, nee McLaughlin; five grandchildren and
seven great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death
by a daughter, Marie Hickey Trobridge in 1996.
Catherine (Kitty) Enoch, 82, died November 16,
1997 after being confined to Richey Manor Nursing
Home, New Port Richey, Florida for an extensive
period. She lived in Gatun and Coco Solo for 20
years with her husband, Ronald H. who was a tug
54
boat engineer, and operated a flying service for
several years, operating out of France Field to the
San Bias Islands and Costa Rica. Catherine was well
known for her love of dogs, having several with the
name of "Zorro".
She moved to Holiday, Florida 10 years ago, and
is survived by her husband, Ronald H. Enoch and
several brothers and sisters.
Henry Edwin Falk, Jr., 65, died October 16, 1997
in Ashville, North Carolina where he had made his
home since 1986. Born in Gorgas Hospital to Capt.
Henry E. and Margaret C. Falk, Sr., he attended
C.Z. schools through 9th grade, completing 10th
through 12th at Greenbrier Military School. Hank, as
he was better known attended C.ZJ.C. and received
his college degree at Grove City College. He was a
Korean War veteran, a member of the American
Field Service, he hosted several foreign students in
his families home. He was a member of Darien
Masonic Lodge since 1954; Scottish Rite, Shrine and
Past Patron of O.E.S. He was also a member of the
Country Club of Ashville, a Deacon at Calvary
Baptist Church, and a member of the Panama Canal
Society of Florida. His wife, Charlotte W. Falk
predeceased him in 1993.
He is survived by a daughter, Kristine Courtney,
and two grandchildren, Stephen and Julie, all of
Indianapolis, IN. and a brother, Murray Falk of La
Center, WA.
Thomas F. Foley, 79, of Orlando, Florida, died
January 25, 1998. He was a contract officer for the
U.S. Government. Born in Colon, Panama Canal
Zone, he moved to Central Florida in 1962 and was
a member of Good Shepard Catholic Church. He
was also a member of the Knights of Columbus,
Toast Masters, Lake Barton Volunteer Fire
Department, VFW Goldenrod Post, and N.A.R.F.E.
He was a U.S. Army veteran of World War II.
Survivors include his wife, Eileen; two sons,
Joseph and Thomas, both of Orlando; three
daughters, Irene Girard of Fairfax, VA., Rita
Kaminski and Pauline, both of Orlando; two sisters,
Mary Cronan of Santa Monica, CA. and Eleanor
Husum of Tallahassee, FL.; seven grandchildren and
three great-grandchildren.
Marcella Gaeb Green, 87, of Cincinnati, Ohio,
died November 10, 1997 from a massive stroke. She
retired from the Panama Canal Company on
December 30, 1965 with 31 years and 11 months
service. Her father was a Roosevelt medal holder
with three bars, and her husband, Philip died in
1980.
She is survived by her brother's widow, June
Gaeb.
Mary E. (Chita) Hanna, 79, died September 9,
1997 in a Care Center in Kerrville, Texas. Born in
Colon, Rep. of Panama, she retired from the
Terminals Division in 1968 and has been a resident
of Kerrville since 1969. She was a longtime member
of Notre Dame Catholic Church in Kerrville. She
was predeceased by her husband, Parker P. Hanna in
1988.
She is survived by three children, James of
Washington State, Max of Spring, Texas, and Liz
Neal of Long Beach, California and three grand-
children..
Alberta P. Harris, 90, of St.Marys, Kansas, died
January 1, 1998 at a Rossville nursing home. She was
born in Pittsburgh, PA. but was raised and attended
schools in the Canal Zone. She worked for the
United Fruit Co. in Cristobal and later was a clerk
for the Panama Canal Company. She had also
worked for police departments in Florida and
California, and was a civilian employee for the U.S.
Navy at Treasure Island. She was a medical
transcriptionist for the V.A. Hospital in Martinez,
CA. and for a physician in private practice in
Antioch, CA until she retired. She was a member of
St.Marys United Methodist Church.
She is survived by three daughters, Anita H.
Janssen, St. Marys, Louise H. Bradshaw, Antioch,
CA. and Marion H. Buol, Petaluma, CA., 12
grandchildren, three step-grandchildren, 13 great-
grandchildren, several step-great-grandchildren and
Mary Sarah Calvit Harrison, 104, of San Diego,
California, passed away in her sleep on April 16,
1997, in "The Cloisters nursing facility, She was the
widow of T.W. "Will" Harrison, a Roosevelt Medal
holder. One of six children, they came to the Canal
Zone with their mother and cousin, Joe Ebdon from
Houston, Texas in 1907 to join their father who
came in 1906. She became active in the Eastern Star
in the Canal Zone and was awarded trophies for her
golf there. She enjoyed playing bridge and raising
hybrid tea roses as well as enjoying a good party,
especially if there was cake, ice cream and balloons.
She is survived by her eldest child, Gertrude M.
Gibson of San Diego; and grandchildren Joan
Conover of San Diego; Robin Walker of Baltimore,
MD; Christine Parrish of Tallahassee, FL; Gail Penna
of Homestead, FL; Harry J. Harrison of Panama,
R.P., and Thomas William Harrison III of Bradenton,
FL. She leaves 28 great-grandchildren and 15 great-
great grandchildren. Two sons, Charles W. and Harry
J. predeceased her.
Beauford Jenkins Hartley, 84, died January 1,
1998 in Leesville, South Carolina. "BJ." was an Army
Mess Sergeant for four years and later worked as a
heavy equipment operator for the House and
Grounds Maintenance Division. He lived in the Canal
Zone for 38 years and retired to West Columbia,
S.C. in April 1972. He was a member of the Panama
Canal Societies of Florida and South Carolina; the
Masonic Lodge, Panama Scottish Rite Bodies, Abou
Saad Shrine Temple and Jester while in Panama.
He is survived by three sisters and two brothers,
Azalee Taulbee, Dollie Oswald, Wilson Hartley of
Leesville, SC., and Kathleen Burkett and Latham
Hartley of Lexington, S.C. His wife, Grace, passed
away three days later
Grace Evelyn Brazie Hartley, 80, died January 4,
1998. Her husband, "B.J." passed away three days
earlier. Grace was born in Cleveland, Ohio and was
a Protestant. She worked as a Budget Analyst for
the U.S. Army in the Canal Zone and retired in
1973 after 30 years of service. She then joined her
husband in West Columbia, South Carolina.
Survivors include her sister, Beatrice E. Lee of
Merrit Island, FL; three nephews and a niece, Fred
H. Lee Jr., Merrit Island, David Garman of North
Arlington, OH, Kenneth R. Lee of Grapevine, TX.,
and Angela M. Azcarraga of Panama City, Panama.
John A. Hunt, 69, of Hendersonville, North
Carolina died October 14, 1997 after a period of
declining health. He was born and raised in the
Canal Zone and graduated from Balboa High School
in 1946. He retired in 1979 after 29 years of service
with the Panama Canal Company and Commission.
At the time of his retirement he was the chief of
Warehousing, Storehouse Division. He was a member
of Elks Lodge 1414. He moved to Hendersonville in
1990.
He is survived by his wife of 39 years, the
former Patricia Dunning; three daughters, Lisa
Johnson of Ramsuer, NC, Teresa Rhodes of Atlanta,
GA, Laurie Trinca of Durham, NC; a son, John Jr.
of Boone, NC; and five grandchildren.
Orelia Martha Hurdle, 70, of Dothan, Alabama,
died January 16, 1998 at home after a brief illness.
She was born in the Canal Zone and was a retired
clerk with the Civil Service Department of the Navy
working in the Panama Canal Zone. She had been
a resident of Dothan for the past twenty years,
working for ten years as a volunteer at the
information desk at the Southeast Alabama Medical
Center. She was an Honorary Member of the
Panama Canal Society of Florida. She was preceded
in death by her husband Charles Robert Hurdle in
July 1988.
Survivors include his sister, Sylvia Tracy, a niece,
Vickie Tracy, and a nephew, Dale Tracy, all of Idaho
Falls, Idaho; a friend, Dot Benny of Dothan; special
friends, Larry and Peggy Howell, of Dothan, AL.
Arnold W. Jackson passed away December 20,
1997 at Aiken Regional Medical Center. He was a
native of North Carolina and was a tank sergeant
while serving in the Army during World War II. He
retired from the Panama Canal Locks Division as a
Control House Operator with over 23 years of
service.
He was preceded in death by his first wife, Inez
Hudson Jackson. Survivors include his wife, Azilee
New Jackson; three sons, James R. and Stephen C.
of Williston, SC, and Raymond A. of Aiken, SC; two
sisters and five grandchildren.
William "Bill" Johnston, 75, of Lakeland, Florida,
died December 3, 1997 at Lakeland Regional Medical
Center. Born in the Canal Zone, he moved to
Lakeland from Schenectady, NY in 1985. He was a
physicist for General Electric. He was a member of
the Panama Canal Society of Florida.
He is survived by his wife, Doris M. Cothron
Johnston; stepson Michael A. Lowery; stepdaughter,
Carol Collins; sisters Shirley Schiesser, Ruth
Sullivan, and Norma Rose; and five stepchildren. He
was preceded in death by his first wife, Cynthia L.
Johnston.
Norbert F. "Nobby" Keller, 69, of Rogers,
Arkansas, died October 7, 1997 at home. He was
born in Colon, Rep.of Panama and graduated from
55
Cristobal High School in 1947. He served in the U.S.
Air Force from 1952 to 1956 and the Reserves from
1956 to 1960. He was a steamfitter and Locks
operator for the Panama Canal and retired in 1972
with over 25 years of service, and moved to Rogers
in 1979. He was a member of St. Vincent de Paul
Catholic Church; a lifetime member of the NRA and
also a certified NRA counselor and instructor. He
was a past president of the Rogers Gun Club; Lion
Club member for 30 years and past president of the
Coco Solo Lions Club. He was also a life member
of the Elks, member of the American Legion, VFW
and the Panama Canal Society of Florida. He was a
charter and lifetime member of the Bella Vista
Sportsman Club and an avid fisherman and
sportsman.
He is survived by his wife of 48 years, Mary
Margaret "Peggy" Keller; a brother, Louis V. of
Lanham, MD; a sister, Laurena M.Powell of New
Port Richey, FL., 12 nephews, five nieces, and many
grand-nephews and nieces.
Mabel D. Kimmel, 96, died in April 1997 in
Edmonds, Washington. She moved west in 1990, from
New Hampshire to be close to her daughter. She
was born in Chicago and at age 12 became a child
actress and dancer, performing on Broadway and in
silent movies, and was the sole support of her
widowed mother and brother. She left the theatrical
world in 1923 when she married. She was very active
in the Girl Scouts, leading to her life-long interest in
nature and conservation.The family moved to the
Canal Zone in 1941 where her husband was
employed as a pharmacist, and she worked for 15
years at the Madden Y Army Signal Corps Depot. In
April of 1947, Mabel and a friend became the first
to paddle a cayuco the length of the Canal, paying
only 72o in tolls. Her husband retired in 1961 and
they settled in New Hampshire where she was active
in the Congregational Church, Shedd Free Library,
4-H, Bird and Garden Club, and Historical Society.
She was elected the supervisor of the Voter Checklist
and at 89, won the Good Citizenship Award for her
outstanding community service. She was predeceased
by her husband, Everett Kimmel in 1972.
She is survived by her daughter, Janet and son-
in-law Richard Kinnier of Edmonds, WA.; four
grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
Frederick E. Kirk Jr., 76, of Springdale, Ohio,
died September 27, 1997 in Hartland of Springfield.
He was an Indiana native. He was an
instrumentation engineer at Wright-Patterson AFB for
34 years, retiring in 1973. He was a member of the
Panama Canal Society of Florida, the First United
Church of Christ, Masonic Lodge, and a World War
II U.S. Navy veteran.
Survivors include his wife, Jean E. (Holmelin),
two daughters and spouses, Muriel A. and Richard
Oglesbee of Springfield,and Carol Lee and Dan
Knode of Groveport, Ohio; three grandsons, Stephen,
Scott Griffin and Jeffrey Khouri.
Marjorie (Marge) Fuller LeBrun, 104, died
December 11, 1997 at the home of her son, Bill, in
Wimberley, TX. She was employed for many years
with the Accounting Division of the Panama Canal
and after retirement she lived in California until 1995
when she moved to Wimberly with her son Bill, his
wife Aurora and their daughter Laura.
56
She is survived by her son Bill, former Chief of
Internal Security, C.Z. Government; Alberta (LeBrun)
Quinn of Oxnard, CA; Charles of Riverside, CA; and
Barbara (LeBrun) Chadwick of Las Vegas, NV; 16
grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren and 7 great-
great-grandchildren.
George O. Lee, 99, of Lake Como, Florida, died
October 7, 1997. He was a World War I Army
veteran and a high school and college professor and
retired in July, 1960 from the Canal Zone Junior
College. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and
graduated from Iowa State College and received his
A.M. at Columbia University. He was a member of
Lake Como Methodist Church, O.E.S., Masonic
Lodge, and was a Phi Delta Kappa.
He is survived by a nephew, Allan Kobal of
Fargo, North Dakota; two nieces, Cecily Wood of
Lafayette, California and Joyce Mathern of
Muscatine. Iowa.
Marion Rogers Lewis, 101, of Easley, South
Carolina, died recently at her home. She was born in
Norwich, Conn., and graduated from Secretarial
School in Washington, D.C. She retired as a
keypunch operator in the Accounting Department of
the Panama Canal Company, where she lived from
1909 to 1950. She was a Gray Lady in the Red
Cross, volunteering for more than 3,000 hours during
World War II and the Korean Conflict in the
Army.Navy Hospitals in Panama and in the Oteen
Veterans Hospital in Asheville, N.C. She was a
member of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Ancon,
Canal Zone.
Surviving are a son and daughter-in-law, Allen
Rogers "AR, and Ruth Nelson Lewis of the home;
three grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.
Dorothy H. "Dot" Loehr, 75, of Ozawkie, Kansas
died July 17, 1997 at an Oskaloosa hospital. She was
born in Fort Dodge, Iowa and was a member of the
First Christian Church in Leavenworth, the American
Legion, Disabled American Veterans, and past
president of the auxiliary to the American Legion at
Fort Clayton, Canal Zone. She was also a host of a
radio program in the Panama Canal Zone, where she
earned a Golden Mike Award. She retired in 1968
as a card folder for Hallmark Card Co.
She is survived by her husband, Sgt. First Class
William S. Loehr; a son, Donald E. of St. Joseph,
MO.; a daughter, Ginger Johnson, of Circleville; a
sister, Julia Carlton, Kansas City, MO; four
grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Genevieve P. Long, 94, of Virginia Beach,
Virginia, died at home on December 29, 1997. Born
in Caledonia, Minnesota, Gene graduated from
Winona State Teacher's College and taught
elementary school in Balboa and Diablo Heights for
nearly 22 years. In 1926, she married Arthur Howard
Long, who worked in the Quartermaster's Office and
who predeceased her in 1923. Upon retirement in
1965, Gene moved to St. Petersburg, Florida where
she lived for 31 years. Since 1996, she had lived in
Virginia Beach to be closer to her family. She was
an avid bridge player and earned her Life Master's
in Bridge in 1973.
She is survived by her son, David, and wife Sally
of Springfield, VA; granddaughters Lorraine L. Field
of Scottsdale, AZ., and Tracey L. Parr of Virginia
Beach; a sister, Wilma P. Herrod of Chesapeake,
VA; and five great-grandsons.
George Edwin Muller, 73, of Anaheim, California,
died January 17, 1998 in Anaheim. George lived in
the Canal Zone for 27 years; graduating from Balboa
High School in 1942 and CZJC in 1948. He served
in the Army Signal Corps and Field Artillery during
World War II, and was later employed in the
Municipal Division of the Panama Canal Company.
His survivors include his wife, Winifred; sons,
Richard G. (Tracy) of Portland, OR., and Douglas
V. (Mari) of Orem, UT; a daughter, Margaret
(Geoff) Bennett of Anaheim; five grandchildren;
brothers, John W. and William A.of Florida; sisters
Adrienne Neuhaus (Harold) and Catherine Peabody
(Ray) of N.M.
Ida Marie McDade, 89, of San Diego, California,
was fatally injured in a car accident on November
21, 1997. The eldest of five children, she was a
registered nurse and served in the U.S. Army during
World war II, then served as a Public Health Nurse
for twenty years in the Canal Zone. She was elected
the first woman commander of the American Legion
in its history in 1954, and earned several campaign
medals while in the service. She later joined the
American Legion Auxiliary and represented the group
at its 46th annual convention in Washington D.C.
She retired to Florida and then moved to San Diego.
She is survived by two nieces, Kaye Hendrickson
and Karol Swauger, both of San Diego.
Mary E.Smith McDonald, 66, of Port Royal,
Virginia, died on 18 October, 1997 in Fredericksburg,
Va. as a result of a heart attack. She was born in
Ancon, Canal Zone and lived and worked in the
Canal Zone until she married Paul R. McDonald of
the U.S. Army in 1955. She returned to the U.S.
with her husband and then returned to the Canal
Zone for another tour in 1968-1971 and lived in Ft.
Clayton.
She is survived by her husband, Paul; sons, Paul
and Mark; three grandsons; brother Charles of
Harwood, MD; sisters Judy Krogh, Dallas, TX., and
Georgia Sumrall, Pascagoula, MS.
Edward P. "Hammer" McFadden, 77, of
Wellsburg, West Virginia, died November 17, 1997 at
Trinity Medical Center East. He was a retired
accountant from the Department of the Army and
also a caretaker and chauffeur of the Jack Berkman
estate from 1974 until his death. He was born in
Lowell, Massachusetts; a Catholic and a member of
V.F.W. #4496 where he was a trustee; American
Legion Post #3 and the Wellsburg Volunteer Fire
Department. He was a World War II Navy veteran.
In 1997 he was one of three recipients of the
Friends of Education, Brooke County Schools.
Surviving are his wife, Sally Williams McFadden;
four sons, Edward and James, both of Follansbee,
WV, Thomas of Darmstadt, Germany and William of
Atlanta, GA.; two daughters, Mary Shea Rowley of
Atlanta, and Margaret Mulroy of Acworth, GA; two
brothers, William of Lowell, and James of Tucson,
AZ; and seven grandchildren.
H. Thomas McKeown, 56, of Dunedin, passed
away October 23, 1997 at home. He was born in
Panama City, Rep. of Panama. He was a U.S. Navy
veteran and retired from the U.S. Postal Service. He
was a Catholic.
Survivors include his mother, Helen Ledgerwood,
a sister, Arlene Tochterman, and a brother, William,
all of Seminole. Florida: five nieces and nephews.
Melvin Forbes Millard, 89, of New Port Richey,
Florida, died March 25, 1997 at Columbia-New Port
Richey Hospital. Legally blind, he suffered a stroke
in September. He was born in Paterson, NJ and
came to the Canal Zone in 1943 and worked at the
Gatun power station. He retired in 1968 from the
Engineer and Construction Bureau as an engineering
technician in Safety and Traffic Control, at which
time he settled in Holiday, FL until 1984 when he
moved to New Port Richey. He was active in the
Gun Club, Boy Scouts, a member of Sibert Masonic
Lodge and Abou Saad Shrine, a parishioner at St.
Luke's Cathedral, and member of St. Stephen's
Episcopal Church, New Port Richey. He was a life
member of N.A.R.F.E and the National Rifle
Association.
He is survived by a daughter, Barbara M.
Armistead of New Port Richey; a son, Kenneth F.
Millard of Satellite Beach, FL; eight grandchildren
and six great-grandchildren.
Raymond M. Murphy, 63, of Sarasota, Florida,
died November 18, 1997. He was born in Vienna,
Maryland and retired from the Panama Canal Co. as
chief of the Community Services Division in 1980.
He served four years in the Navy in Panama and
was a graduate of the University of Maryland and
was a member of the First United Methodist Church
of Sarasota.
Survivors include his wife, Diane; three sons,
Keith A. of South Carolina, Glen S. of Lakeland,
and David L. Wertz of Ft. Lauderdale; two sisters,
Lois Hurley and Carole Brittingham, both of
Maryland; a brother, Reginald of Maryland; and five
grandchildren.
Marie Helen Neal, 85, of St, Petersburg, Florida,
died October 12, 1997. Born in Dixon, South Dakota,
she began her teaching career in Spencer, SD. She
was a U.S. Navy veteran and graduated from Wayne
State College in Nebraska, attended the U.of
Nebraska and earned her masters degree from
Northwestern U. She came to the Canal Zone in
1949 and taught at Cristobal and Gamboa
Elementary Schools. She served as Principal of
Gamboa Elementary, and completed the greater part
of her service in 1972 as Principal of Balboa
Elementary School. Many a "CZ Brat" will recall
warmly having been taught and fairly disciplined by
this wonderful educator. She was a member of the
Cathedral of St, Jude the Apostle, the University
Women of St. Petersburg, The Panama Canal Society
of Florida and American Legion Post #14.
Survivors include her daughter, Marguerite H.
Zumbado, Orlando, FL; sisters Ann Wiges, Omaha,
NE., and Frances Oakeson, Spencer, NE; brother
Jerry Mashek, Spencer; two grandchildren, Joseph A.
Robles, Elkins, WV, and Esther R. Aronson, W.
Hartford, CT., and five great-grandchildren.
B K R3F9 9999mJ |^aM R3 t9 E 8 69T9
Paul V. O'Donnell, 67, died unexpectedly on
January 22, 1998, in Dothan, Alabama, where he
resided since his retirement from the Canal Zone
Police Force in 1979. He was born in Gorgas
Hospital, raised in Balboa and was a BHS'48
graduate. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he
returned to the C.Z. and worked as a police officer,
retiring with the rank of Sergeant when the Police
Force disbanded upon implementation of the Carter-
Torrijos Treaties. He was a member of the Elks,
Lodge 1414 and the V.F.W. He was a member of St.
Columba Catholic Church, where a memorial service
was held.
He is survived by four children, Carol Jones of
Arvada, CO, Paul O'Donnell Jr. of Dothan, AL,
Teresa Mumbrue of Maribel, WI, and Sharon
Schneider of Green Bay, WI; a sister, Maria Clothier
of Philadelphia, PA; four brothers, Dan of Peru, IL,
Bob of San Francisco, CA, Jim of St. Petersburg,
FL, and Tom of Carlsbad, CA.
Dorothy V, Payne passed away of natural causes
on November 29, 1997 at home in Valley Center,
California.
She is survived by a nephew, Richard T.
Leiterman of 164 Harruby Dr., Calimesa, CA. 92320.
Xenia E. Rhoades (Velasquez), 66, passed away
October 16, 1997 in New Port Richey, where she was
under the care of H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and
Hospice of Pasco County. She had recently moved
from Panama to live with her daughter Xenia in
Land O'Lakes, Florida. She was born in Panama,
Rep.of Panama, daughter of Pablo E. Velasquez and
Isolina L. Vaccaro. She was the widow of Joseph
D."Dusty" Rhoades of La Chorrera and San Carlos,
Panama.
She is survived by her mother, Isolina of
Panama; four daughters, Bessie J. Prickett of Tampa,
FL., Lina L. Norris of Curundu, Panama, Xenia E.
Seiler of Land O'Lakes, FL., and Franchesca Y.
Quijano, Panama; brothers Tito, Carlos, Edison and
Aquiles of Panama, Pablo of Lynn Haven, FL; sisters
Isolina (Gina) Clotilde of Panama; Judy Nathanson
and Linda Teabo of Tampa, FL; and five
granddaughters and two grandsons.
Frank H. Robinson, 70, of New Smyrna Beach,
Florida, died of a heart attack on November 8,
1997. He was born in Sanford, FL., went to Panama
with his parents. He served in the Army from 1945
to 1946 and returned to Panama from the
Philippines. He left the Isthmus again to attend
college but found a number of short-term jobs with
the Panama Canal and then was given a permanent
job with the Police force in 1952. He became an
engineering aide in 1953, a supervisory surveying
technician in 1964 and a hydrologist in 1970 and was
involved in many other pursuits. He became a
leading advocate for the protection of the watershed
and welfare of those who lived there. He
accumulated a wealth of experience in Panama's
outdoors by offering safety workshops on hazardous
snakes and plants. Recognized for his valuable
contributions to the Canal, he was presented the
Panama Canal Gold Honorary Service Award, and in
1970, Panama President Jorge Illueca honored him
with the Vasco Nufiez de Balboa Award. Robinson
also served the Canal Zone Council, Boy Scouts of
America for more than a quarter of a century, and
for more than a decade as Advisor for Explorer Post
21, the most active post in the annual ocean-to-
ocean cayuco race. He retired on January 1, 1988 as
the Operations Section chief for the Panama Canal
Commission Meteorological and Hydrographic Branch
with over 38 years of federal service. He is
remembered primarily, for his expertise and
enthusiasm of is work in the Canal watershed.
He is survived by his wife, Pat; three sons,
Frank, Mark, and Brian; a daughter, Lisa; a brother,
John; his mother, Rhoda; and an aunt, Marjorie
Bridgman.
Lou Scigliane, 87, of Stone Mountain, Georgia,
died october 15, 1997 of complications from
Alzheimer's. He transferred from the Brooklyn Navy
Yard to the Canal Zone in 1945 and retired as an
Army civilian, Corozal, C.Z. in July 1976 with 33
years of service. He was an active member of Canal
Zone Lodge, Scottish Rite, Abou Saad Shrine and
their Clown Unit. For 30 years he was an instructor
at the Balboa YMCA where he taught body building
and boxing. He could also be found umpiring teen
baseball games and refereeing military boxing events.
He was presented the YMCA Armed Services Award,
and the "Citizen of the Year" award by the Balboa
Lions Club. Prior to retirement the YMCA again
honored him with an award, reading "1946-1976,
thirty years of dedicated service as a volunteer leader
with the Armed Services YMCA, Balboa, C.Z." He
was also a member of the Panama Canal Society of
Florida.
He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Mary;
four daughters, Mary Leach, Lilburn, GA.,Louise
Bauman, Port Huron, MI., Janet Garcia, Warner
NH., June Lane, Panama City, R.P.; nine
grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Henri Grady Skeie, 84, of St, Petersburg, Florida,
passed away on January 18, 1998 at home. Henri was
a Registered Nurse who worked at Gorgas Hospital
and later worked for Public Health as a school nurse
until her retirement.
She is survived by a son, Christian Skeie of
Tampa; a daughter, Selma Klipper of Seminole, FL;
grandchildren Lance Klipper and his wife Nicole,
Suzanne (Klipper) and husband Danny Jacobs, and
Christian S. Skeie III.
Carol Ann Smith (Saarinen), 50, passed away on
September 26, 1997 at her home in Valrico, Florida
after a long illness. She attended schools in the
Canal Zone and graduated from Balboa High School
in 1966.
She is survived by her husband, William (Bill);
a son, Matthew; a sister, Jean Haydel, Memphis,
TN.; in-laws Melvin and Miriam Smith of New Port
Richey, FL; an uncle, Paul Saarinen of St.
Petersburg, FL; and stepmother, Clara Saarinen of
Sarasota, FL.
Teresa P. Smith, 100, of St. Petersburg, Florida,
passed away November 12, 1997 at Bob Secours-
Maria Manor. Born in New York, she came from
the Canal Zone to St. Petersburg in 1943. She was
a member of St. Mary's Catholic Church and the
Catholic Daughters of America.
There are no family survivors.
Etta Fay Terrell, 81, of Bentonville, Arkansas,
died December 7, 1997 at the home of her daughter
in Metaire, LA. She was born in Detroit, MI., and
resided in the Canal Zone from 1918 to 1963 when
she and her husband, Glynn retired to Bentonville.
She was a Past Matron of Fern Leaf Chapter of the
O.E.S. and was predceased in death by her husband
in 1982.
She is survived by her son, Lance, of Austin,
TX., and a daughter, Andrea Oliver of Mertaire,
LA.
Howard T. Tettenburn, 86, passed away on
December 20, 1997 in Keyser, West Virginia where
he and his wife Daisey resided since his retirement
from the Panama Canal Dredging Division in
January, 1971 with over 30 years of service."Tet" was
widely known throughout the Isthmus for his work
with alcoholics, and was awarded the Vasco Nufiez
de Balboa by the government of Panama for his
contribution in that field.
He is survived by his son, Tom, and daughter-
in-law, Lou; their children and other family members
in West Virginia. His wife Daisey predeceased him
in March 1997.
Anita R. Thompson, of Austell, Georgia, died
January 3, 1998. Born in Ancon, Canal Zone, she
spent several years growing up in Tela, Honduras,
San Jose, Costa Rica and New Orleans. She returned
to the CZ to graduate from high school. She married
Paul Thompson and worked for the Panama Canal
Accounting Division, retiring in 1959, then moved to
Florida. She was widowed in 1980 and has been
living near her daughter and son-in-law in Georgia
since 1989.
Survivors include her daughter, Frances A.
Clinton, Marietta, GA; two brothers, Rev. Paul
Rankin CSC, Notre Dame, IN, and Thomas L.
Rankin, Jacksonville, FL; three grandchildren, one
great-granddaughter and several nieces and nephews.
Stewart P. Trail, 85, of Fairhope, Alabama, died
October 15, 1997. He was a native of Missouri and
retired from the Panama Canal Police Division in
1962 with over 26 years of service.
He is survived by his wife, Jessie Trail of
Fairhope; a son, George Young Trail of Houston,
Texas; and a sister, Georgia Lintvet of Lexington,
Missouri.
Marie Hickey Trobridge, nee Hickey, born in
Brooklyn, N.Y., died suddenly of complications
following surgery in Baltimore, Maryland on
November 1, 1996. She graduated from Balboa High
School in 1941, then went to college at Iowa State
University, graduating as a physical therapist.
Following graduation, she worked in Michigan where
she contracted polio from a patient. She married in
1957 and left on an extended adventure with her
husband in their home-built sailboat, White Seal,
giving birth to their first child in Australia, and a
second child in South Africa. They finally settled in
Maryland where she was active in 4-H and Girl
Scouts. She had been employed by the Department
of Aging and taught classes using slides from her
travels of the East Coast.
She is survived by her husband, Gerry and two
children: Mrs. Tracy Fiege of Baltimore and Lt.Col.
Thomas G. Trobridge of Fort Bragg, NC; and three
grandsons, Tyler, William and Eric.
Hendrik "Jim" van't Veld, 70, of McLean,
Virginia, died September 9, 1997 at
Columbia/Arlington Hospital. Born in Gorgas
Hospital, he attended Pedro Miguel and Ancon
Elementary Schools until 1937, continuing his
education in the Netherlands. Due to German
occupation, he and his brother were unable to return
to the U.S. until 1944 and graduated from Balboa
High School in 1945, then joined the Army and was
accepted into OCS and commissioned in 1946. After
his tour of duty he remained in the Army Reserves
and studied at Georgetown University only to be
recalled for active duty in Vienna, Austria, then
finally getting his BS degree from Georgetown U. in
1953 and returning to the Canal Zone where he was
employed by the Office of Security, PCC. He
returned to Georgetown U. for his Masters degree in
International Law, then employed by the National
Security Agency, after which he transferred to the
Office of Personnel Management where he assisted
in obtaining Social Security benefits for Panamanian
employees and was involved in negotiations for U.S.
bases in Spain, retiring in 1979 as a Army Reserve
Colonel.
He is survived by his sister, Violet "Vicki" van't
veld Johnson, Sun City Center, FL., and his niece,
Roberta Lynn Oliver, McLean, VA.
Donald G. Vose, 60, passed away on December
6, 1995 at his home in Pensacola, Florida. He was
born in Cumberland, Rhode Island and spent most
of his Navy service time in the Canal Zone. He was
Inspector for the Canal protection Division when he
retired in July 1994 with almost 40 years of service.
Survivors include his wife of 31 years, Barbara;
a daughter, Darla; two sons, Kevin and Bob; a
grandson, Shane, all of Pensacola; a sister, Susan
Jencks of Pawtucket, R.I., and two brothers, Robert
and Irving, both of Cumberland, R.I.
Walter Clarence Watson, 79, of Panama City,
FL. and winter resident of Sarasota, died February 1,
1998. He was born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. He
was head of the F.A.A. in Panama before he retired
in 1981. He was a grand master of the Masonic
Lodge of Panama, served on the board of B'nai
b'rith and the Salvation Army. He was a Navy
veteran of World War II. He was a member of
Synagogue Kol Shearith Israel in Panama.
Survivors include three daughters, Sarita E.
Quackenbush of Phoenix City, AL., Esther C. Abadi
and Donna L. Rios, both of Panama City; four
sisters, Thelma Maguire, Gladys McLain. Madeline
Perez and Joy Finnimore, all of Sarasota; 10
grandchildren, and twelve great-grandchildren.
Pearl Wickham, 98, of McAlester, Oklahoma,
passed away October 7, 1997. She was born in
Calvert, Texas. Mass of the Christian Burial was held
at St. John's Catholic Church, McAlester.
She is survived by her daughter, Ms. Jimmie
Wickham, a member of the Panama Canal Society of
Florida and a resident of McAlester, Texas.
Louise Sullivan Sampson Wilkinson, 94, of
Collinsville, Oklahoma, died January 21, 1997. She
was born in Lisbon, North Dakota and received her
Nursing degree at the St. Barnabas Hospital in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. She accepted a nurses
position at Gorgas Hospital in the Canal Zone and
met Dr. Sampson, married him and spent 26 years in
the Canal Zone. Her husband retired in 1948 and
the family settled in Lisbon, ND. Six months later,
Dr. Sampson passed away and Louise became the
Public Health Nurse in Lisbon. She then married
Leslie Wilkinson, moved to San Antonio, TX, later
to Donna, TX, and in 1992 moved to McAllen, TX.
In January of 1997 she moved to a nursing home in
Oklahoma to be near her family. She was a member
of OES, Weslaco Branch; and the Teachers
Retirement and Book Review Club.
She is survived by a son, Don Sampson of
Owasso, OK; a daughter, Jan Muralt of Mission
Viejo, CA; four grandchildren and seven great-
grandchildren.
William Howard Will, Sr., 80, of El Cajon,
California, passed away at his home on September
25, 1997, after a brief illness. He was born in Ancon,
Canal Zone and retired from the Construction
Division in 1975 with over 37 years of service. He
was a member of Elks Lodge #1542, was active in
the Little League and Pony League. For many years
he called Bingo at the Knights of Columbus and the
Elks in Margarita.
He is survived by his wife, Rita of 57 years; a
son, Will, of Sunnyvale, CA; three daughters, Laurie
Engelke, Margaret Ender, and Norine Ernest of
Panama; nine grandchildren and a great-grand-
daughter.
Bobby Joe Williford, 59, passed away January 22,
1998, after a brief illness, at the East Pasco Medical
Center, Zephyrhills, Florida. He was born in Pope,
Mississippi and came to Panama with his parents in
1941, and was a CHS'57 graduate. In his younger
years, he became an avid flyer, fisherman and hunter.
He was also known for his woodworking and often
assisted cayuco crews preparing their cayucos for the
Annual Ocean to Ocean race. His design of a more
efficient, streamlined, popular paddle was known as
the "Williford Paddle. He was a member of Elks
Lodge 1542 and Past President of the Tarpon Club,
and the Panama Canal Society of Florida. During his
career he was employed by many areas of the Canal
Zone Government, serving with the Postal Division,
Marine Traffic Control, Terminals Division, Housing
Branch and Logistical Support Division. He also
served with the Government of Panama in the area
of Pier Maintenance during the PCC Transition
period. He retired in 1995 after 36 years of service
to Dade City, Florida, where he excelled in vegetable
and flower gardening.
He was predeceased by his father, William who
died in 1980 and his brother Terry in 1982. He is
survived by his wife Molly (Engelke); two sons,
Robert of Orlando and David of Brandon; his
mother, Tommie Williford of Ocean Springs, MS.;
brothers James of Ft. Walton Beach, FL and Michael
and sister Nancy Farnsworth, both of Corozal,
Panama.
Theresa Goulet Wright, 76, passed away
November 3, 1997 in a nursing home, suffering for
several years with complications of arthritis after she
retired in 1988. She was born in Gorgas Hospital to
Mr. & Mrs. Arthur Goulet, General Manager of the
Commissary Division. She was a CHS'38 graduate
and CZJC'40. She was employed by the Special
Engineering Division for several years, then attended
the FSU Graduate school, earning a Master of
Science degree. She was then employed at The
National Aeronautics and Space Administration H.Q.
for 30 years. She received an Exceptional
Performance Award at retirement, and moved to
Alamagordo, NM to be near her sister, Mary Zagone
who died in 1990.
She is survived by two sisters, Macel Thomson,
Memphis, TN., and Rita Goulet, Madeira Beach, FL
and a sister-in-law, Carol Goulet, Naples, FL. and
several nieces and nephews.
Joseph H. Young, 77, a retired mechanical
supervisor from the Panama Canal died January 1,
1998. He and his wife "Connie" resided in Titusville,
Florida since 1975 when he retired from the Locks
Division with over 34 years of service. He was
Balboa High School graduate, Class of 1940, and
then became a U.S. Navy veteran during World War
II. He subsequently retired from the US Naval
Reserve as a Chief Petty Officer. He was a member
of St. Teresa Church in Titusville and a member of
the Veteran of Foreign Wars. Joe and his wife
"Connie were both avid motorcyclists.
Survivores include his wife, Maria "Connie"
Young of Titusville; daughters Diane Parrotino of
Apopka, FL., and Elinor Huey of Pembroke Pines,
FL; a son, Gary of Davie, FL.; a sister, Sylvia Stern
of Hollywood, FL., and three grandchildren.
Mary Milloy Zemer, 97, died peacefully in her
sleep at home in Santa Clara, California on
September 6, 1997. She was born in Somerville,
Mass. and went to the Canal Zone during WWI to
join her parents after her graduation from high
school. Early in her career, she was employed by the
Commissary Division, Balboa, and the Port Captain's
Office, Cristobal. On July 15, 1922, she married
Emmett Zemer at the Balboa Union Church. She
retired in 1965 from the Department of Engineers,
US Army, Ft. Amador with 23 years of service. In
1957 she and her husband moved to the Rep. of
Panama, following his retirement and in 1988 they
returned to the U.S. to make their home in Santa
Clara. She was a member of the Balboa Union
Church and a Past Matron and lifetime member of
Orchid Chapter, O.E.S. She was preceded in death
by her husband, Emmett Zemer and sisters:
Gertrude, Helen and Isabella Milloy.
Survivors include her children; William Zemer,
Capistrano Beach, CA; Isabelle Z. Lively, Sonoma,
CA., Phyllis Z. Wright, San Jose, CA., and Shirley Z.
Swenson, Wilmington, NC., grandchildren: David
Zemer, Oslo, Norway, Connie Z. Baumgarner, La
Selva Beach, CA., James Wright, Orlando, FL., Julie
Wright, San Jose, CA., and John Swenson, Atlanta,
GA.; five great-grandchildren and one great-great-
grandson.
Z3 W JM 9 9 r9 9 9 99r9r J9 9 r9 9MEt929
Letters to the Editor
On November 11, 1997, twenty seven Zonian
Amigos arrived in Springfield, MO. at noon. Hailing
from Alabama, Florida, New Jersey and Texas, their
flights were coordinated to arrive within minutes of
each other.
The group quickly boarded their private
motorcoach which was waiting for them at the
airport. On the forty minute ride to Branson, they
were treated to the colorful scenery of the Ozarks
Fall Foliage which had kept its beauty late into the
season.
Upon checking into their hotel, the group began
the Branson Holiday Season Tour with dinner at
McFarlain's Restaurant (one of the tour's six
fabulous dinner restaurants) then it was on to the
Mel Tillis and Brenda Lee show. Following that, the
Zonian Amigos saw the eleven other Holiday Shows
which included: Lawrence Welk, Baldknobbers Hilbilly
Jamboree, Yakov Smirnoff, Shoji Tabuchi, Branson
City Lights, Wayne Newton, Country ToniteJim
Stafford, Bobby Vinton, Doug Gabriel and Andy
Williams Moon River Christmas and Holiday Shows.
To top it off, the group was delighted to have a few
hours of snow flurries.
2 P .. P B S
PANAMA TRIP
Kate Carey, her husband, Marc Kaufman, and
their children Ryan and Jillian Rose enjoyed a visit
in Panama with Kate's father. Ryan had a great time
snorkeling and sailing. Jillian, at six months, will have
to wait for another visit to take advantage of all the
wonders of Panama.
Kneeling: Pete & Marje Foster; 1st row: Al Maale,
Jack Taber, Huah Norris. Dom & Dorothy
Bruzzese, Shirley Boswell, Jeanne Wheeler,
Doris & Norm Dugas, George Wollmers, Marian
& Lee Kariger. Back: Bob & Dot Herrington,
Carlie Taber, Tommie Lou Horter, Edythe & Tony
D'Andrea, Elma Seiferlien, Jane Huldtquist, Aura
Erikson, Issy Gibson, Harriet Wollmers, Joy
Maale.
In between shows, the tour included casual tours
of the Branson area including the College of the
Ozarks, craft and specialty shops, museum and malls.
Having their private motorcoach gave them the
flexibility to be able to split up and let each
individual select their sightseeing/shopping preference.
On Monday, November 17, the group headed for
home full of the holiday spirit and looking forward
to 1998 and 1999 tours.
Pete Foster
Kate and Marc live in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Kate is the daughter of Capt. John Carey and Lani
Carey, formerly of Gatun.
Before we went to Florida this year, we had
Marcette (BHS'80) and Rex Kilgore's three children,
Matrix (9), Raquel (7) and Morgan (5) for a month
- the first ever (and the last time, according to
Marcette). We visited all the sites near and in San
Antonio, like Fiesta Texas, Splashdown, The Institute
of Texan Culture (where I volunteer), River Walk,
Boat Ride, Zoo, Train Ride through Brackenridge
Park, Skyride over Sunken Gardens, Wildlife Park,
and Schhtter Bahn. We also visited the Missions and
Retama Race Track! Michele's (BHS'78) daughter,
Shaunt6 was a big help since she spent a lot of time
there and knew her way around.
Mich6le spent the 4th of July there to celebrate
her bachelor's degree from Southwest Texas
University in San Marcos, Texas. We spent two
weeks in July there. My vacation was "extended" by
three weeks since Marcette had to have surgery and
needed help. She is doing well now and started back
teaching at Gustat-Hill Middle School and being in
charge of Cheer leading which she had done through
all her school years in the Canal Zone.
Gladys D. Saarinen,
Laurie Siltz & Family, Lynn S. Jahnke & Family
Albert Saarinen & Family, Michael Scullen & Family
Appreciate the many prayers, loving thoughts and
kindness shown for the recent loss of their loved
one
who rested in the Lord on August 18, 1997 at
Balboa Heights, Republic of Panama
TEXAS GOLF
The 5th Annual Balboa Invitational Golf Tourney
was held this year in Houston, Texas, October 1997.
Golfers attending are pictured, however, those
who teed off previously and missed the group photo
were Bobby Gibson, caddie, Paul Forest, Ray Kelley,
Ronald Bowman, Eddie Davis, Charlie Cantrell and
Alice Cooper.
A great time was had by all.
L-R: Mark Casteliani, Jim Duffus, Jim Fish,
Chuck Ruth, Glenn Seeley, Steve Patchett, John
Givens, and Philip Wolf.
John Disharoon, (BHS'68) and a third generation
Zonian, has worked National Football League games
for more than 20 years. John works for the major
television networks during Tampa Bay Buccaneer
football games. He has provided statistics for many
game announcers during that time. He takes pride in
this "hobby" and has particularly enjoyed working the
two Super Bowls in Tampa. In addition, he has
worked on all three Tampa Bay Buccaneer home
play-off games.
John has taught elementary school in Pinellas
County, Florida, for 26 years. He often invites a
"star" Buccaneer player to deliver an informal speech
or "message" to his students. Very few children are
absent on that day! He recently received a warm
letter from Mike Holmgren, head coach of the Green
Bay Packers, addressed to his class, thanking them
for their support and how it felt to bring the
Lombardi Trophy back to Green Bay last year.
A.
John Disharoon (BHS'68) with Malcolm Glazer,
owner of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, taken
the day the Bucs beat the Lions in their playoff
game.
Four generations, L-R: Danielle Cooksey, great-
granddaughter, Carolann Cooksey, granddaughter,
Linda Marshall, daughter, and Faith Brundage,
proud mother.
The Press Box of Houlihan Stadium in Tampa
Florida where John Disharoon works during all
Tampa Bay Buccaneer games. He also works the
New Years Day college Outback Bowl game here.
HAINES FAMILY REUNION
Attending the wedding of Amy Clayton, daughter
of Chuck and Margy (Samples) Clayton, on August
2, 1997 in Ft.Lauderdale, were all of the Haines
family brothers and sisters. Also attending this joyous
occasion were all six Samples brothers and sisters,
and first cousins.
L-R: John Haines, June (Haines) Israel, Claire
(Haines) Bryan, Dolly (Haines) Knauer, Margaret
Haines) Samples, Frank Haines, Mary (Haines)
Engelke, Betty (Haines) McKinney.
L-R: Margy Clayton (Samples), Eddie Samples,
Margie (Engelke) Gallardo, Teresa (Samples)
McCullers, Ginny (Samples) Mandell, Richard
McKinney, Susan Engelke, Maryanne (Samples)
Dresson, Sonny Samples.
The Kozlowski family has been on the move with
their suitcases still warm. In 1993, Modesta, along
with children, Anthony, Carmen and Sophia traveled
to the Canal Zone with Sofia's husband, Dean, who
visited Panama for the first time. Dean was thrilled
to see the Canal Zone and all its history and
especially enjoyed traveling outside the city to Pocri,
Aguadulce, to stay with all of Modesta's family and
to see her hometown. It was a beautiful trip.
1994 was a special year for Anthony (BHS'72) as
he married Lisa Stefan in Buffalo, New York. He
and Lisa look forward to visiting the Canal Zone
someday, too. Modesta is always on the go, and in
1995 she was off to Madrid, Spain to see the sites.
While she didn't run with the bulls, she did travel to
Segovia, Toledo, and had a great time.
Modesta Kozlowski family, children and
grandchildren; John, Nancy, Caleb, Lindsey,
Carmen, Anthony, Lisa, Frank, Paul Annette,
Elsa, Sophia, Dean and Joseph. Family reunion at
John and Nancy's home in Santa Rosa, CA.
The clan keeps growing and in May 1996,
Modesta welcomed a new grandchild. Her daughter
Sophia gave birth to a son, Joseph Matteo Kozlowski
Sciacca. Little Joseph has already learned to enjoy
traveling as in June, 1997, all the Kozlowski clan
(Modesta and six children, John and wife Nancy,
Carmen, Tony and wife Lisa, Frank, Poland wife
Annette and Sophia and husband Dean, gathered at
John's home in Santa Rosa, CA., for grandson
Caleb's high school graduation. It was great for
Modesta to have a chance to spend with all four of
her grandchildren Caleb and Lindsey (John's
children), Elisa (Paul's daughter) and little Joseph
(Sophia's son). It was a very blessed family reunion
and as Modesta says, "I am sure Joe is looking down
on me, and all his kids and he was always so proud
of "his gang." God is good.
MACDONELL'S VISIT
Here we are in front of Ben Nevis at Ft.
William, Scotland, on our way to Rod's ancestral
home in Knoydart up near the Isle of Skye. Our
first trip in May lasted only five days in London due
to illness and the bombing of trains. This time we
brought our youngest daughter Carol, as security in
case of problems. We spent 20 days by car and train
having a splendid visit to all the wonderful places
between London and Knoydart and even stayed at
the Glengarry Castle Hotel whose nearby castle ruins
are the ancestral home of the Macdonell Chiefs of
Glengarry and Knoydart.
A group of mostly ex-Canal Zone residents went
to Panama during New Year. They had a wonderful
New Year's celebration at the Corondao Resort as
well as touring the major sight-seeing spots in
Panama. The picture was taken in the lobby of El
Panama Hotel.
L-R: Lee Johnson, husband of Rochelle Head
Johnson and her son, Mark, Bob McCarrick and
Peggy Simpson of Ft. Walton Beach, FL., Marion
and Fitz Donnally of Palm Coast, June Barlow
Riesz and husband John, Wilma Vogt and John
Hood of Palm Coast.
Pictured: Roy and Charlotte Reyes, Lou and
Sandy Reyes, Diva Reyes, Maritza Reyes,
Hernan and Luz (Reyes) Sedda, Shawn and
Melissa (Sedda) McNair.
Thanksgiving '97 at Louis/Sandy's home. Pictured:
Derek Reyes, Erika Reyes, Rochelle Reyes,
Maritza Reyes, Ryan Reyes, Alex Reyes, Tony
Sedda, Melissa Sedda McNair
Visiting from Panama were Lou's sister and
brother-in-law, Luz (Reyes) and husband, Hernan
Sedda, and son Tony. The dinner was enjoyed by all.
Alex Reyes, son of Tom Reyes is not pictured.
PATT EARL ANDERSON
Two years ago my husband gave me a wonderful
Minolta camera for Christmas. Recently I asked
innocent by-standers to take pictures of me in them.
In the spring we took our 12 year old son
Meade to Germany for the first time. His Papa had
an exhibit at the Dental Trade Show in Cologne, so
Meade and I climbed up the dome of the Cathedral.
Then off to Bavaria to tour Heidelberg,
Neuschwanstein (Disney's) and Linderhof castles.
Also, he got to pilot a Chinook helicopter simulator
with old friends.
We toured London, took the Thames River
cruise, rode through the Cotswolds' beautiful
countryside to lovely Bath and bustling Oxford and
Oxford University. We were fortunate to get tickets
to tour Buckingham Palace. An old school chum ofA
mine now living in Wales, and Joyce's friend Jill,
who lives near Oxford, joined us one day in London
and we rode the tube to Covent Gardens.
j The next day we packed and headed for
-" a Heathrow Airport and the week was over too
quickly. The day we left, London was in shock it
was the day Princess Diana died.
We all loved England and hope to return in the
not-too-distant future. And hopefully, the rate of
Eal Aexchange will be better!"
West Coast Reunion, Sept. 20, 1997 a quorum
from the BHS Class of '66. L-R: Lorene Collister
Nichols, Jim DeLa Pefia, Toni Huff, Patt Earl
Anderson. MCRD O'Club. BAUMANS AND FRIEND
WALK THE BRIDGE
d tr Louise and Eugene Bauman with friend Sharon
Feher walked the second span of the Blue Water
t Bridge on July 13, 1997. The Blue Water Bridge
connects Port Huron, Michigan with Sarnia, Ontario,
Canada.
They expected 20,000 people to make the walk,
however, 200,000 showed up and walked it!
I -The first Blue Water Bridge was built in 1938,
and construction on the second bridge was started on
April 12, 1995.
Fellow BHS'66 classmates: Joan Sartain Freesh,
a feline veterinarian in St. Louis, MO. and Patt .
Earl Anderson, an unpaid kid chauffeur from "
Gelndora, CA. October 4, 1997. *,
In September, through the efforts of Toni Huff, "
Jim de la Pefia, Lorene Collister and I spent an
evening together at the PCSSC West Coast
Reunion.It was a lot of fun to remember the good Louise and Eugene Bauman with haro eher on
old days at BHS and realize we'd all turned out to Louise and Eugene Bauman with Sharo Feher on
be good citizens, despite growing up in Panama. the second span of the Blue Water Bridge
Lastly, I visited Joan Sartain Freesh who was one of
my best friends those days (and with whom I had
lost contact for twenty years). She is a vegetarian
who has a feline clinic in St.Louis, MO.
Anyway, the camera takes excellent photos no
matter who presses the button. It made some
wonderful memories for me.
A TRIP ON THE QEz 2
Laverne Larrabee and her daughter Joyce Russell
of Bernardsville, NJ had an unforgettable vacation,
thanks to the generosity of Laverne's mother.
"We sailed from New York aboard the QE2 for
a fabulous six days of luxury, disembarking in
Southampton, England. We headquartered in London
at the conveniently located Grosvenor Thistle Hotel.
Joyce's fiancee flew over and joined us for the week 'Tony's Folly", a Rolls Royce 1974 Silver Shadow,
in England. and Maria and Tony Ramirez, Menlo Park, CA.
CHRISTMAS TREE BURN
On December 27, 1997, a local group of Zonians
held the 12th Annual Christmas Tree Burn at Eckerd
College, St.Petersburg, Florida. The group was
spearheaded by Gary O'Connor, Dave Rankin, Jim
Hele, Tom Engelke and Steve Nehring, all former
residents of the Canal Zone. Despite the worst
weather the area had seen in years, the burn was
successful and a crowd of around 50 people showed
up to help us celebrate the old and very fond
tradition.
Steve Nehring and Gary Connor, two of the
originators of the Annual Tree Burn.
Some of those in attendance were Gary and
Colleen O'Connor, Tom and Alice Engelke and
family, Butch and Lynn Nehring and family, Bob and
Nellie Engelke and family, the Date family also had
a family reunion, Dave and Allegro Rankin, the
Furlong family, Ted and Mel Henter and family,
Janice, Jason and Shannon Foster, and other friends
and guests. We are in the planning stages for the
Christmas Tree Burn of 1998, and a tentative date
has been set for December 26, 1998 at Eckerd
College, St.Petersburg, Florida.
Coila Gooden Maphis, Sam Maphis, Joanie
Sprague Kilgallon spend a few hours together as
the Maphis' pass through Washington D.C. after
visiting Shirley McKibben and her daughter,
Marsha and Al Sprague.
From St.Luke's, Ancon, Canal Zone to St. Paul's.
San Diego, California. "Choir Girl", an oil painting
by Catsy Taylor Schafer in 1956/57 of her daughter,
Susan Taylor, is viewed by Sue 40 years later at the
juried Art Show at St.Paul's.
Sue's daughter, Layne Pitney, also had two
photographs in the exhibit, running until October
1st.
Susan Taylor with painting of her 40 years ago by
Catsy Taylor Schafer.
The Menges family (formerly of the Atlantic
side) got together in Aiken, South Carolina over the
Thanksgiving holiday.
Mel Menges retired from the Atlantic side
Maintenance Division in 1980 and has resided in
Aiken, S.C. since that time.
Missing from the picture are four other
grandchildren along with their families who were
unable to attend the gathering in Aiken.
"- ...:- :-; ,
The Menges four, L-R: Judy (Menges) Sigmon
(CHS'73), Bob Menges (CHS'79), Evelyn (Menges)
Sellers (CHS'68), Paul Menges (CHS'67).
SANTA ROSA GATHERING
A group of former residents of Panama and the
Canal Zone living in Northern California gathered
this summer at Santa Rosa for their fifth annual
picnic. As usual, we enjoyed talking about our lives
in Panama, the activities and acquaintances which we
had shared.
We again enjoyed the "raspaduras" which were
made from a shaved ice machine provided by Lance
Hughes. Zonites of a wide variety of ages were
present, graduates of Canal Zone schools from 1937
to 1982.
If there are any other Northern Californians (or
otherwise) who would like to join our picnics, please
call Jane (Kaufer) Cochrane at 707-537-1924 or
Nancy (Kaufer) Lanfranco at 650-712-8769, or e-mail
Nancy at nano33(S)aol.com.
Kneeling: Lance Hughes, Pat (Leach) Koenig,
Jane (Kaufer) Cochrane, Myrna (Boynton)
Erickson, Helen Aanstoos. 2nd row: Lilia Freed,
daughter Maria Charlson and grandson Andrew,
Bobbie (Styles) Field, Carline Lindgren, Norine
(Kaufer) Crnich), Cecilia Bito, Lorraine Juvet, Kit
Whitney. Back row: Louise (Glut) Maher, Jean
(Stilwell) Crook hidden, Roger Kelly, Liz
Minton, John Freed, Al Bito, John Lindgren,
Noella Lindgren, Mike Young, Don Hughes,
Nancy (Kaufer) Lanfranco, Duncan Ballenger, Jim
Cochrane, Bob Crnich. Attending but not in foto:
Martin Lanfranco, Harold Erickson.
Recognize this "Matador"? The only Zonian, if
memory serves, to ever become a professional
bullfighter. His professional life as a Matador began
while still in Balboa High at the age of 16. He
fought at the Plaza de Toros La Macarena in
Panama and also traveled to Spain and Mexico to
face the toros and novillos there during the summer
vacations. He was seriously gored in Sevilla, Spain
and after recuperating, continued his part-time career
and hobby. After more than 70 encounters in the
sand ring at the various corridas throughout Spain,
Mexico and Panama, and several minor injuries, he
hung up his "Traje de Luces" and settled down to a
more sedentary life. While in the arena, his
performances were such that he received the ear of
the bull on several occasions.
He went by the name of "El Americano." Yes,
his name is Robert (Bobby) Lopez of Balboa. He
now resides in Laredo, Texas and is still an avid
bullfighter, but only as a spectator at the Corridas de
Toro in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. He is a 1956
graduate of Balboa High School.
7 S t '' ^"'?
Robert Lopez, BHS'56, in his 'traje de lucas" in
Seville, Spain.
Barbara and Seymour Paul in front of their new
home, the Sea Barb. They have been in San Diego
for a month preparing to go to Mexico before
heading down to the Canal Zone.
They expect to be there by Christmas of 1998.
Seymour's father was head of the Personnel Division
before his retirement in 1945.
Picture was by Catsy Taylor Schafer who had the
Pleasure of taking them sightseeing.
Barbara and Seymour Paul.
Gerry Simon Gagnon and Jim Gagnon go to
Antarctica for Christmas and New Years. They flew
from Miami to Buenos Aires where they boarded the
ship Marco Polo for their Antarctic Expedition.
The first stop was in West Point Falkland Islands
where they saw their first penguins. Then on to the
Drake Passage and Antarctic Strait and their first
stop in Antarctica was Deception Island. All
passengers were taken ashore on Zodiac runner rafts.
They are dressed for the adventure with knee high
runner boots, waterproof pants over their jeans and
the red parka. They made several other stops while
there and saw many different kinds of penguins,
whales and seals. Even though it was summer, it was
still cold.
The 7th Annual Weenie Ride took place in New
Braunfels, Texas during the first weekend in October
1997.
All arrived Thursday and into Friday, during
which time an evening get-together was hosted by
Jim and Sherrie Slice. It seemed like we were all
back at Margarita or Balboa Clubhouses, munching
on empanadas and seviche.
The Weenie Ride took place on Saturday
morning. Total time was about 3 hours and all with-
out incident. A good time was had by all.
After a nice day, all were treated to a delicious
Lasagna dinner, hosted by Phyllis and LJ. Christoph.
Thanks to K. Cooper & Bill Weigle for their input.
-/. -" 1W "" -
Jim and Gerry Gagnon in Antarctica.
On their return trip they passed Cape Horn and
their final destination was Ushuaia, Argentina.
Ushuaia in the most southern city in the world. It is
a beautiful little city surrounded by the Andes
mountains. It was a fabulous trip with spectacular
scenery everywhere they looked.
MEET AT FORT SAM HOUSTON
EsU-
L-R: Jeanette Fernandez, ex-president of Inter-
American Women of Panama, Jeanne Flynn
Stough, Tita Brid Smith and Glenda Kochel
enjoyed a reunion luncheon at Fort Sam Houston
last November, 1997.
7th Annual Weenie Ride, Kneeling L-R: Terry
Webster, John & Vera Hanna, Rod Snyder, Jim
Slice, L.J. Christoph, Phil Sanders. Standing L-
R: Al Steiner, Don Nungaster, Kenny Cooper,
Dick "Rio" & Carol Ester, Ed "Bobo" & Ann
Marshall, Louis French, Bill & Rhonda Kerns,
Billy Weigle, Richard Bailey, George "Algo"
Cotton, Ed "Mr.Nice" Dolan, & Chris Christoph.
STEINER FAMILY REUNION
Kathleen (Steiner) Bennett, Huntington Harbour,
CA., reports that her mother, Marian "Dolly" Steiner,
Seal Beach, CA., is doing just great. At 88 years
young she still walks 1V mile one-way to church -
hops a ride on the "Leisure World Chiva" back
home.
She attended the Steiner Family Reunion in
Alabama in May before visiting daughter, Patty
(Steiner) Kearns of Williamsburg, VA. Also attending
the Steiner Reunion in addition to Dolly's children,
John Steiner of Tallahassee, Allen Steiner of
Houston, Joanne Steiner of Westlake, CA, were
cousin Larry Siegel of Reston, VA., sister Edna
Allen) Slusher and husband, and Court and Kathleen
(Steiner) Bennett. Dolly is still attractive to the male
gender who carry her parcels and add an occasional
pinch for good luck in parting. She is a staunch fan
of the Atlanta Falcons and prays not for a win but
that they don't embarrass themselves no luck as of
this writing. Kathleen is hoping to take her mom on
a Caribbean cruise in the near future.
Kathleen's husband, Court had cardiac by-pass
surgery (five arteries) in July; he is getting along
fine. They are now proud grandparents of a baby
girl, Brigid, daughter of Teresa and Steve Godfrey.
Brigid is surrounded by doting parents and family.
SOCIETY ANNOUNCEMENTS
Plans are being made to hold a BHS Class of
1949 50th Anniversry Reunion in 1999. It's never too
early to start planning. We would like to hear from
classmates who have any suggestions or advice on
the reunion. We would like to hear whether to have
the Reunion in conjunction with the Panama Canal
Society Reunion or to arrange a trip to Panama
(probably in the spring of 1999). The year 1999 is
not only our 50th anniversary but it is the last year
of Balboa High School and the U.S. involvement
with the Panama Canal. Volunteers interested in
assisting in arrangements for the reunion may
contact:
A Hospitality Suite is reserved, the class dinner
location and menu are selected, the 5th issue of El
Loro Viejo (reunion newsletter) is to be mailed
shortly and BHS '48 will soon be heading for
Orlando and their big 50-year get-together. As the
July 1-5 reunion dates approach, firm commitments
must be made by the committees and that means the
time is NOW for BHS'48ers to get it all together
and send final registration forms to chairman Russ
Drew. Details are in the soon-to-be-mailed El Loro
Viejo.
Although the Search Committee has accounted
for almost 3/4 of the classmates, there are still some
missing persons. (See "Where Are You" section of
this Canal Record) Society members have been very
helpful with providing addresses. Many thanks for
your help and keep the ideas coming.
Barbara Fritz Reyle
We would appreciate receiving current addresses
of all classmates. The last mailing sent, many letters
were returned marked "undeliverable". If you know
addresses of classmates who are not members of the
Society, please include those as well.
EYEGLASSES
Collection has begun for 1998 and some glasses
have already been received. Please look around the
house, gather up your old eyeglasses and send them
to Patt Roberson, 2801 Allen Court, Baker, LA
70714-2253. Over the past five years PCS members
have donated 869 pairs of glasses to those less
fortunate in Latin America. You can make a
difference. Please do your part today.
The 36th ANNUAL
The 1998 Canal Zone Poconos Reunion is
scheduled for Friday afternoon, September 11, 1998,
to Sunday, September 13, 1998, at the Hill Motor
Lodge (Best Western), Tannersville, PA. The Motor
Lodge is located at Exit 45 on 1-80 in Tannersville.
The cost is still $70 per person double occupancy
and includes dinner on Friday and Saturday night.
Telephone reservations may be made after
January 1998 by calling (717) 629-1667. This is an
ideal time and place in which to hold Mini-Class
Reunions and a great place to relax and enjoy the
company of fellow Zomans. Golf is also available. If
additional information is needed, call Bob Whitam at
(330) 725-5087 or Bill March at (609) 772-9458.
BHS 1957 NEW YEAR REUNION
Due to the "super" response to the 1957 Class
Reunion trip in February, I have been asked to
organize one for a New Year's "Bash" which will
take place at the Coronado Hotel and Resort in the
interior of Panama. Anyone interested in joining this
group which is "Gateway to the World 'Viva Panama"
for December 30th to January 5th, 1999 inclusive
with additional tours and many sightseeing ventures
such as Barro Colorado Island and a half-day trip
through Miraflores Locks, please get in touch with
June Barlow Riesz, 8 Crossway Court West, Palm
Coast, FL 32137 or phone (904) 445-2839 for a
complete itinerary and details.
BHS Class of 1996 invites classmates as well as
BHS classes of 1965 and 1967 to join us on a cruise
immediately before (June 30 to July 2, 1998) the
Panama Canal Society Reunion.
"Take the Boat" to the '98 Reunion and join in
our "Turning Fifty" celebration. Please join us for a
4 night 3 day Carnival Lines cruise out of (and
back) to Port Canaveral, Florida. Lots of fun,
dancing and activities. Now everyone can "Take the
Boat" to the States (i.e., the Reunion). Group rates.
A classmate is a travel agent and is making
arrangements. Special events planned Call Bob
Askew, (208) 788-2253 or write to P.O.Box 2511,
Hailey, ID 83333. E-mail: [email protected].
ATTENTION BHS/CHS'63
The combined classes of BHS/CHS of 1963 will
have a 35 year reunion in conjunction with the
Panama Canal Society of Florida Reunion.
For more information please contact Lesley
Hendricks Litzenburger (803).524-1082 or through
[email protected].
30th Reunion Summer of 1998
The Class of 1968 will hold its 30th Class
Reunion with the Panama Canal Society's Annual
Reunion in Florida during 1-5 July, 1998. Bob
Hughes and Marshall Harris, still nursing their
twisted arms, need to hear from you soon to plan
this spectacular event you have come to expect.
CHS'ers are encouraged to write as well our last
joint reunion was a great success. Let us hear your
ideas and plan to attend. Contact Darlene Hunt,
1050 Starkey Road #305. Largo, FL 33771. (813)
584-3192 or those listed below:
Bob Hughes Marshall Harris
5209 Nanticoke Ct. 16640 Cypress Road
Centreville, VA 20120 Summerland Key, FL 33042
(703) 830-3522 (305) 745-2908
BHS Class of '69-30th REUNION!!
Plans are underway for summer 1999, and we
want YOUR ideas; Stateside or Panama? Daytime or
evening (or both)? Putting together a database and
mailer. Call or e-mail suggestions, etc. ASAP to:
Mel Henter
Plans are underway for our 20th Year Reunion
get-together in Orlando during July 1-5, summer of
1998 weekend, with a dinner tentatively scheduled for
Saturday, July 4, before the Society's Annual Ball.
We'd also like to organize an El Panama Casino
Night. Virginia (Vargas) Gasta has been in Las
Vegas since graduation and will lend a hand to help
make Casino Night a hit.
Diane (Lester) Sanchez and others have been
helping coordinate names, addresses, phone numbers
and e-mail's of our BHS'78 classmates. Drop us a
line, pass the news around and let us know who
you've been in touch with so we can get the word
out to everyone! Diane Lester Sanchez, 1197
Kinsmen, Auburndale, FL 33823. (941) 967-1899.
Office: (941) 597-0220, ext 220. FAX 941-597-3026.
BALBOA HIGH SCHOOL
July 4, 1998 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.
During the Panama Canal Society Reunion.
Prices will be announced on the official website cf
the Class of '88
Sign on, check out the pictures of the week, and get
the latest information for the reunion. OR: Contact
Ren6e (Rowley) Friedel at (407) 858-0677. Address;
2632 Heron Landing Court, Orlando, FL 32837.
e-mail: [email protected]
CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU!
COCOLI WEST BANK REUNION
(during the Annual PCSofFL Reunion)
We're getting together to renew friendships and
enjoy happy memories. Bring your family and photos
of school events, ball teams, swim meets, Scouts,
everything. We have a list of over 70 families, and
it won't be complete without you. Call, or write, or
e-mail us as soon as possible:
Fred & Kay Walker
The annual Gulf Coast no-host potluck picnic
will be held starting at 11 a.m., Saturday, October 3,
1998 at the Davis Bayou Campground of the Gulf
Islands National Seashore, off Hwy. 90 at Ocean
Springs, Mississippi. For overnight camping details,
contact the Assistant Superintendent, Gulf Islands
National Seashore, 3500 Park Road, Ocean Springs,
MS 39564. For additional picnic details, contact
Gerda or Owen Smith (601) 567-9870.
YEARBOOKS and UPDATES
Old yearbooks and the yearbook updates often
distributed at class reunions in Florida are being
collected in the interests of future historical research
and preservation. They will end up in the Pan Canal
Museum. So, if you have any old yearbooks or if your
class prepared an update for your class reunion, please
send them to: Patt Roberson, 2801 Allen Court,
Baker, LA 70714-2253. Thank you!
MASONS and OES LUNCHEON
There will be a Panama Canal Masons and
Eastern Star luncheon on Friday, July 3, 1998 at the
Orlando World Center Marriott in conjunction with
the Panama Canal Society of Florida Reunion.
The luncheon will begin at 12:00 Noon
immediately following the Society's Annual Business
Meeting. The cost of the luncheon is shown below.
All those Panama Canal Masons, Eastern Stars,
spouses and friends of the Fraternity are invited.
Dress for the occasion will be semi-formal.
r ---------------------------------------------
Your Phone Number with Area Code:
Information Resources: (All phone numbers are in (619) area code unless
otherwise noted. For Directions to the Bay View Restrauant and Lounge, call one of
the numbers listed below.)
General Information: Jack & Kathy Taylor: 277-5000
David Hollowell: 424-5704 Bill & Nana Roberts: 440-3071
Norma Horine: 472-6693 Jean Pence: 566-1831
Ted & Beth Sundquist: 669-1127 Ken & Celine Stone: (818) 361-1964
WHERE TO STAY: Please make hotel room reservations directly with the hotel.
The following are suggestions only. No special arrangements have been made.
SHERATON (Harbor Island Dr., by airport & bay): (619) 291-2900 Q HOLIDAY
INN BAYSIDE: (619) 224-3621 o RAMADA HARBORVIEW: (619) 225-9461 U
VALUE INNS: (619) 224-3166 o DAYS INNS: (619) 224-9800.
O MILITARY: Don't forget to look into Military Lodging.
E-MAIL ADDITIONS
Panama Canal Society Home Page:
http://w3.one.net/~ matthewa/societylink.html
How about a final GRAND Class Reunion in
Panama in 1999? We are thinking of putting together
a final class reunion in February of 1999. It will be
the beautiful dry season weather, and a great time to
visit the Canal before it is turned over on
December 31, 1999.
Davis Stevenson has had experience in putting
together great tours to Panama and is already
making plans for one final last "splash." We will
spend 7 full days in Panama, plus a day for traveling
each way, making a total of 9 days. Davis will make
all the arrangements for 7 wonderful fun-filled days,
to include a grand Reunion dinner dance for all
classes, plus a lot of other activities, i.e, picnics, a
day at the beach and the El Valle Indian Market.
This will be a trip of a lifetime and not to be
missed. If interested, please call us at 1-800-783-
8847.
We are compiling a data base for all interested
parties, regardless of whether you went to BHS or
CHS. Even if you didn't graduate from either of the
two schools but still want to to come, please let us
know. And if you have any ideas of what you would
like to do or visit while in Panama, let us know that
also.
Davis is going to Panama again on his annual
Dry Season Tour, and will make some of the
arrangements at that time. His trips are always "all
inclusive," to include your air fare out of Miami and
back, your hotel, food, transportation to all functions,
and Exit and Entry fees. Since Davis is completely
bi-lingual, you can relax and let him do all the work
for you.
Does this sound like a great trip? You bet it
does!! Call or write us and let us know you are
interested so that we can keep you up to date on
the plans and the final cost.
WEIRD MOLE OR SKIN
Will McConaughey and I (Janet Keeney Marr)
were lifeguards in Balboa in the 70's. We have
something else in common we've had melanoma,
the one of three kinds of skin cancer that is most
likely to spread, and may be fatal, if not caught in
time. We strongly recommend that anyone that lived
in Panama (regardless of skin color or tanning
ability), and loved the sun (wasn't most of us?), do
a regular monthly check of your skin for signs of
skin cancer. Have someone look at your back, neck,
scalp, for you. Look for a change in size, shape or
color of an existing mole or appearance of a new
mole or growth; a sore that doesn't heal, and other
symptoms. For complete information about the three
kinds of skin cancer and what to look for, call 1-
800-4-CANCER (Cancer Information Service) for very
useful FREE brochures on skin cancer including
color photos of examples of skin cancer ("What You
Need To Know about Skin Cancer" and "What you
need to know about Melanoma".) Always see a
doctor immediately if something on your skin doesn't
look right.
We are searching for descendants of John
Corrigan (married 1/1872) Anne Tiernan, namely
family members of Peter Francis Corrigan (M) Anna
Therese Quinn, John Paul Corrigan, Sr. (M-
4/24/1902) Mary Cecelia O'Connor, Jane F. Corrigan
(M-12/26/1900) Patrick J. Quinn, Joseph Aloysius
Corrigan (M) Terersa M.Murray and May A.
Corrigan (M) Edward F. Welch.
Recently, we published a family lineage book
(loose-leaf notebook style) and hope to expand and
update our lineage.
Please contact Pete Jr. and Rosie Corrigan at
5122 Harpers Croft, Sarasota, FL 34235. (941) 371-
6726.
December, 1921. France Field Cristobal Pistol Team: L-R: W.B. Campbell, J.V. Cariffe, Captain, M.R.
Boggs, W.W. John, E.J. Gregg, J.B. Harrell, Miss Eaton, J.S. Palmore, B.J. Burgoon.
Mabel Kimmel's Canal Transit by Cayuco
The following is my mother, Mabel Kimmel's description of her August, 1947 transit of the Canal in a
dugout canoe named Las Nubes. I believe that she and her friend, Dorothea Watkins, were the first women to
accomplish this feat.
-" I lived right on the Canal in Gamboa and ever
since I'd been there, I'd thought about going through in
a canoe, but I'd never talked to anyone about it. Then
one day in 1947 I had a friend visiting me, and I said,
e 'Wouldn't it be fun to go through the Canal in a
t:e. .- c3,canoe?' A week later I came home from work and she
told me it was all settled. She had gotten permission. I
bought a cayuco and named it Las Nubes. It is one of
the best boats there is. You couldn't upset it. It was a
wonderful little boat.
We put in at Limon Bay and paddled to Gatun
Locks, a distance of about 6 miles. Because the swirling
water coming into Gatun Locks was too dangerous for
a small craft, we portaged to Gatun Lake. This next was
the worst part of the trip.It was rough, and hard to
avoid tree stumps and stay in the channel. Our cayuco
was swamped once, but it didn't go under. We had to
bail out a lot of water. The channel length of Gatun
Lake is 24 miles. We spent the night part-way through
on Barro Colorado Island, and then set out early the
next day for Gamboa where we spent the second night.
We had to set out very early the next morning
because we had to be through the Gaillard Cut and out
of the way before the big ships started coming through.
We watched the sun rise as we were paddling. It was very beautiful. Once through the 8 mile cut, we transmitted
the Pedro Miguel Locks and were lowered 31 feet to a small lake, and then paddled on to Miraflores Locks
to be lowered to sea level.
From there it was another 8 miles to the Bay of Panama. When we got there, all the men who worked with
me at Madden Y Signal Depot were on the docks yelling. There were reporters and photographers, and we got
into newspapers all over the world. Back then, the average fee for a vessel passing through the Canal was
$4,000, but we did it for 720 for one ton in ballast. We got wet, sunburned and blisters, but it was worth it!"
Submitted by Janet Kimmel Kinnier. Mabel lived to be almost 97 (see her obituary in this issue) and spoke
proudly and fondly of this adventure to the end of her days.
74
T7e St of 7Te Muwa
The story of the heroic effort that produced one
of the supreme achievements of all time -the
construction of a water passage between the world's
two greatest oceans across the Isthmus of Panama -
is powerfully depicted in graphic detail in the
Panama Canal murals, mounted in the rotunda of
the Panama Canal Administration at Balboa Heights,
Republic of Panama, the murals have been a major
Canal area attraction throughout the years.
The murals tell the overall story of the building
of the Panama Canal in four main scenes, which
show Gaillard Cut at Gold Hill, where the Canal
passes through the Continental Divide; the building
of the spillway at Gatun Dam, which dams the
Chagres River to create Gatun Lake; construction of
a lock miter gate; and the construction of Miraflores
locks near the Pacific entrance to the Canal. The
frieze below presents a panorama of the excavation
of Gaillard Cut. The power of these vividly portrayed
scenes has the effect of linking all who view them in
an unbroken chain with those engineering masters
and the heroic work force that created the Canal.
S"' It '1P
W, ,_73-9%40101 "W I1M*NWldNIR=C ZWI 1 IR am
Canal Chief Engineer George W.Goethals is
credited with having the foresight to ensure that a
record of the monumental labor involved in the
building of the Canal was preserved in this art form,
so that all who come after might not only marvel at
what was accomplished and appreciate its grandeur,
but might share in the sense of pride and
commitment that this magnificent achievement has
always evoked, not only in those who built the
waterway, but also in all who have been involved,
throughout the years, in its operation and
administration. Goethals chose carefully the person
who would be entrusted with this special project,
selecting William B. Van Ingen of New York, an
outstanding artist who had achieved considerable
fame for his murals in the Library of Congress in
Washington D.C. and the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia.
:.' -
Van Ingen agreed to produce the murals at $25
per square foot, which was the way such work was
contracted in those days, and the finished murals
cover about 1,000 square feet. Van Ingen and two
assistants, C.T. Berry and Ira Remsen, make charcoal
sketches of Canal construction activities for the mural
during two visits to Panama in 1914 while on the
latter part of the construction work. Van Ingen then
painted the murals on separate panels in his New
York studio. The panels were shipped to Panama
and installed over a 3-day period in January 1915
under the artist's personal supervision. The paintings
have the distinction of being the largest group of
murals by an American artist on display outside the
United States.
Van Ingen identified completely with Canal work.
In discussing the murals at that time, he said that he
had become so caught up in the construction of the
effort that he felt that he, too, was a Canal Worker.
He said, "I forgot I was an artist and had genuine
regret at not being entitled to a number and a brass
identification badge."
According to Van Ingen, his challenge in
producing the murals had been how to portray the
magnitude of canal construction. In explaining his
approach to the task, he said, "I tried to compose
75
into one picture the views to be seen from different
standpoints, but united in the mind. It enabled me to
combine different periods of time in the constriction
work." Commenting on his perspective in composing
the paintings, he added, "Any success the paintings
may have had, came, I believe, from an endeavor to
see with the eyes of the man in the ditch."
The murals were restored in 1993 by art
conservator Anton Rajer, of Madison, Wisconsin, and
rededicated in a special ceremony on September 29,
1993.
The Panama Canal murals in the Administration
Building rotunda are the masterpiece of their creator,
artist William B. Van Ingen. The light impressionist
colors reflect the atmospheric quality of Panama and
the bold compositions commemorate in pictorial form,
the actual building of the Panama Canal.
Over the years, mold and dirt settled on the
murals necessitating cleaning in 1929, 1932, 1939,
1960, and 1993. During the 1993 conservation project,
over 22,000 cotton swabs were used to clean the
murals of dirt and grime, as well as old overpaint
that was covering many areas of the mural,
particularly the sky of the frieze. The cleaning was
accomplished with a combination of cleaners that
removed old grime and old varnish but did not harm
the murals. A few areas of touch-up were needed,
though not many, as the murals were in good
condition despite previous cleaning.
The entire project was documented with video
and hundreds of photos, with black and white and
color, and an extensive written report was prepared
in English and Spanish to serve as a guide for any
future restorations.
This poem has been mentioned in three
separate articles of this issue, and we
give credit to all three. This is it.
THE GHOST
When I think of the town of Pedro Miguel
I think of that town at the foot of the hill.
I see streets lined with houses of well dressed wood,
A friendly place to be that neighborhood.
I see porches that are shaded by tall palm trees
Screened in to keep out all but the breeze.
Each house, large or small, stands on creosoted posts
Keeping ants from finding willing hosts!
The clubhouse on guard at the top of the rise,
The Matriarch/Patriarch of all of our lives.
The circle in front where the school buses parked,
A bench for sitting at night it was dark!
The swimming pool beside it for having fun,
Many hours there enjoying the sun.
The playshed, ball diamond, with grandstands for all,
We did archery there too, as I recall.
The Locks where all our dads worked are there,
Pedro Miguel/Miraflores yes, that was a pair.
I look around now and wonder where things are,
As I look around now, I see only a scar.
Goodbye houses, people, that life in Pedro Miguel,
Now houses sit on the ground at the foot of the hill.
The clubhouse is gone and the heart has gone too,
When time changes things, what are we to do?
We live with it and whisper a toast,
Pedro Miguel lives but we know it's a GHOST!
Norma Stillwell Martin, BHS'37
Page size is 7" wide and 10" deep. Send all ads and
make all checks to the Panama Canal Society, Inc.,
8050 Seminole Mall, Suite 334, Seminole FL. 33772-
4712. Ads accepted from members only.
CANAL ZONE STAMP COLLECTORS: Join the
world's leading organization specializing in Canal
Zone stamps and other postal history topics related
to the Canal Zone. Founded in 1952 and with over
800 members strong it also has an annual Mail Sale
of Canal Zone stamps, post cards and books with a
value over $100,000. Send one dollar for a sample
issue of the quarterly Canal Zone Philatelist or $8.00
for a full year's membership to David Zemer, P.O.
Box 1432, Aptos, CA 95001.
Jim Manning
2663 Louisiana Blvd. NE Albuquerque, NM 87110
888-3360 888-8838 Fax Tax ID No. 02-262157-001
GREAT PANAMA CANAL ZONE
That's what we want from you, for a
book to be published in time for
Christmas. Got a funny, outrageous,
memorable, or just plain unforgettable
story that happened to you in Panama
or the Canal Zone? Tap those memory
banks and send it in, please the best
ones will appear in Turn Right at
Chagres River: The Greatest Panama
Canal Zone Stories of All Time. We'll let
you know (through mail, e-mail, and the
Canal Record) when it's available. The
editors are Jim Fish (no introduction
necessary) and Jim Donovan (published
author and Literary agent). Send your
stories (typewritten or on disk) to;
Fish Tales
Blue. $15 + $5 ship/handling. Send Check or Money
Order to: Jon Hanna, 1493 Carolyn Lane,
Clearwater, FL. 34615
S Rough and polished diamond dealers 1
Fine Panamanian jewelry in 14kt or 18kt gold
Wide selection of Huacas available soon.
Custom orders are welcome.
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I
Asyou know, on the first second, of the first minute,
of the first hour, of the first day, of the year 2000,
control of the Panama Canal will be handed over to
Panama nearly a century after it's construction by
the Americans. Only three more years until the
"Changing of the Guard" and our special Christmas
on the Isthmus tour. If you can't make the tour of
the century, let us plan your next homecoming, class
reunion or special get together in Panama. See it
and savor it now before it changes FOREVER.
1-800-813-3115
booking will be donated to the
CANAL RECORD
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In Morse code, what was the radio distress signal used before the adoption of SOS in 1908? | SOS, CQD and the History of Maritime Distress Calls
To Telegraph Office Main Page
Welcome back to the Telegraph Office. This month we are going to diverge a little from talking about wire and wireless artifacts and talk about wireless telegraph distress signals.
Mystery, intrigue as well as misinformation surrounds the origin and use of maritime distress calls. The general populace believes that "SOS" signifies "Save Our Ship." Casual students of radio history are aware that "CQD" preceded the use of "SOS." Why were these signals adopted? When were they used? Why did one replace the other? What is one likely to find by digging a little deeper?
The practical use of wireless telegraphy was made possible by Guglielmo Marconi in the closing years of the 19th century. Until then, ships at sea out of visual range were very much isolated from shore and other ships. A ship could vanish from the high seas, and no one would know until that vessel failed to make a port connection. Marconi, seeing that wireless would not compete with wire telegraphy for land based communication, concentrated his efforts on ship to shore communications. Ships equipped with wireless were no longer isolated.
The first use of wireless in communicating the need for assistance came in March of 1899. The East Goodwin Lightship, marking the southeastern English coast, was rammed in a fog in the early morning hours by the SS R. F. Matthews. A distress call was transmitted to a shore station at South Foreland and help was dispatched.
By 1904 there were many Trans-Atlantic British ships equipped with wireless. The wireless operators came from the ranks of railroad and postal telegraphers. In England a general call on the landline wire was a "CQ." "CQ" preceded time signals and special notices. "CQ" was generally adopted by telegraph and cable stations all over the world. By using "CQ," each station receives a message from a single transmission and an economy of time and labor was realized. Naturally, "CQ" went with the operators to sea and was likewise used for a general call. This sign for "all stations" was adopted soon after wireless came into being by both ships and shore stations.
At the first international congress of wireless telegraphy in 1903, the Italians recommended the use of "SSSDDD" to signal an emergency. "D" had previously been used internationally as the signal for an urgent message. The origin of "S" is not known, but it may have come from the first letter of the word ship, indicating a ship in distress. The sending of "SSSDDD" would signal all other stations to stop sending and leave the channel open for emergency traffic. Though discussed, it was not adopted. Deciding on a distress signal was put on the agenda for the next meeting in 1906. "DDD" would later be adopted for the silent signal, indicating all stations must cease sending.
In 1904, the Marconi company filled the gap by suggesting the use of "CQD" for a distress signal. It was established on February 1 of that year by Marconi Company's circular No. 57. Although generally accepted to mean, "Come Quick Danger," that is not the case. It is a general call, "CQ," followed by "D," meaning distress. A strict interpretation would be "All stations, Distress." In the U.S. Senate hearings following the Titanic disaster, interrogator Senator William Smith asked Harold Bride, the surviving wireless operator, "Is CQD in itself composed of the first letter of three words, or merely a code?" Bride responded, "Merely a code call sir." Marconi also testified, "It [CQD] is a conventional signal which was introduced originally by my company to express a state of danger or peril of a ship that sends it."
At the second Berlin Radiotelegraphic Conference of 1906, the subject of a distress signal was again addressed. The distress signal chosen was "SOS." (The American distress signal "NC" for "Call for help without delay" was not adopted, although it remains as the international flag symbol for distress to this day.) Popular accounts portray the adoption of "SOS" as being derived from "SOE," which the Germans had used as a general inquiry call. These accounts suggest there was objection because the final letter of "SOE" was a single dot, hard to copy in adverse conditions. The letter "S" was substituted accounts say, for three dots, three dashes and three dots could not be misinterpreted.
Popular accounts of the origin of "SOS" fail to mention that the Germans had used "SOS" for a distress signal. They adopted the signal "SOS" for distress as well as "SOE" for inquiry on April 1, 1905, a year before the Berlin conference. The Electrician, May 5, 1905 published "German Regulations for the Control of Spark Telegraphy" which stated:
"...---..., "Distress" signal (Notzeichen). This is to be repeated by a ship in distress until all other stations have stopped working."
Unfortunately, the 1906 Conference proceedings do not give an account of the discussions nor the origin of SOS. The proceedings merely specify what the signal will be. In the Service Regulations Affixed to the International Wireless Telegraph Convention, paragraph 6a, "Signals of Transmission" states::
"Ships in distress shall use the following signal: ...---... repeated at brief intervals."
The Marconi Yearbook of Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony , 1918 states, "This signal [SOS] was adopted simply on account of its easy radiation and its unmistakable character. There is no special signification in the letter themselves, and it is entirely incorrect to put full stops between them [the letters]." All the popular interpretations of "SOS," "Save or Ship," "Save Our Souls," or "Send Out Succour" are simply not valid. Stations hearing this distress call were to immediately cease handling traffic until the emergency was over and were likewise bound to answer the distress signal.
Although the use of "SOS" was officially ratified in 1908, the use of "CQD" lingered for several more years, especially in British service where it originated. It is well documented in personal accounts of Harold Bride, second Radio Officer, and in the logs of the SS Carpathia, that the Titanic first used "CQD" to call for help. When Captain Smith gave the order to radio for help, first radio officer Jack Phillips sent "CQD" six times followed by the Titanic call letters, "MGY." Later, at Brides suggestion, Phillips interspersed his calls with "SOS."
In SOS to the Rescue, 1935, author Baarslag notes, "Although adopted intentionally in 1908, it [SOS] had not completely displaced the older "CQD" in the British operators' affections." Marconi in his U.S. Senate testimony on the Titanic disaster said, "I should state that the international signal [SOS] is really less known that the Marconi Co.'s [CQD] signal." (It is interesting to observe that Marconi was waiting in New York to return home to England on the Titanic.)
The first use of wireless in the rescue of an American ship was in 1905. Off Nantucket, the operator of Relief Ship No. 58, a light ship, sent "HELP" in International Morse and American Morse. (Trans-Atlantic ships used International Morse and coastal ships used American Morse. The use of American Morse on seagoing vessels ceased in 1912 although it survived for many years on the Great Lakes.) A Naval Radio Station in Rhode Island answered the "HELP" call.
The rescue of 1,500 passengers and crew from the Republic and the Florida by the Baltic in January of 1909, was the defining moment in wireless rescue history. The White Star liner Republic was rammed in a dense fog by the Italian Florida. Wireless operator Jack Binns of the Republic, sent out a "CQD." (The Florida was not wireless equipped.) The Baltic came to the rescue after hunting for the Republic in the fog for many hours. Those concerned with the maritime industry now realized the importance of equipping ships with wireless.
The number of ships equipped with wireless grew rapidly after the Republic disaster. For example, at the end of 1909 the Marconi Co. owned and operated 143 wireless stations on the high seas. By the summer of 1911, the number grew to 303 stations. By the end of 1912, there were 580 shipboard wireless installations.
The U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Navigation publication, Important Events in Radio telegraphy, 1916, recorded maritime disasters in which wireless played a part in rescue on the seas and the Great Lakes. From 1899 to 1908, there were nine such events. In 1909 there were 18 rescues and in 1915, 35 rescues. The following quote, though not directly rescue related, demonstrates the extreme importance of shipboard wireless:
"November, 1914 -- Great Lakes storms destroyed 19 vessels, none of which were equipped with wireless. All vessels having radio apparatus installed received warning of the coming storm and sought safety."
The first recorded use of "CQD" by an American ship was in 1908 by the steamer Santa Rosa off the coast of California. Commander Richard Johnstone records this in his memoir My San Francisco Story of the Waterfront and the Wireless, 1965. The first recorded American use of "SOS" was in August of 1909. Wireless operator T. D. Haubner of the SS Arapahoe radioed for help when his ship lost its screw near Diamond Shoals, sometimes called the "Graveyard of the Atlantic." The call was heard by the United Wireless station "HA" at Hatteras.
A few months later, the SS Arapahoe received an "SOS" distress call from the SS Iroquois. Radio Officer Haubner therefore has the distinction of being involved in the first two incidents of the use of "SOS" in America, the first as the sender and the second as the receiver. Being slow to adopt international wireless standards, the U.S. did not officially adopt "SOS" until 1912.
Besides "CQD" and "SOS," "XXX" was used as an urgent signal, being less urgent than "SOS." "XXX" was used when there was concern for the safety of a ship or the safety of person on board or a person sighted from on board. "TTT" was used as a safety signal to precede ice, storm and other navigational warnings including coastal artillery practice. "MEDICO" was used by ships without a doctor seeking medical advice from another ship or shore station. During W.W.II, the signal "SSSS" was used for "submarine sited".
The distress call by radio telephone is the two words "MAY DAY." This corresponds to the French pronunciation for "m'aider", which means "help me." On voice, the "XXX" (urgent) equivalent is the word "PAN." This corresponds to the French pronunciation for "panne", which means "mishap" or "accident." The "TTT" (safety) equivalent is "SECURITY." This corresponds to the French pronunciation for "sécurité", which means "safety." The calling frequency for voice was 2182 kilohertz.
During the investigation into the Titanic disaster, Guglielmo Marconi stated that he was experimenting with a device that could be used as an automated alarm for distress signals. Upon hearing a series of signals, an alarm bell would ring. Some European nations put these alarms into service. A sequencing device was connected to the output of the receiver. Upon the reception of four or more dashes of exactly four seconds duration, a device rang an alarm bell in the radio shack, the radio officer's quarters and on the ship's bridge. The system was employed as a substitute for a second operator. Because the system could miss a call under adverse conditions or ring the bell in error, American radio authorities deemed it unreliable and not a substitute for another on duty operator. Americans later mandated the used of automatic alarms with the Communications Act of 1934.
At the third international radiotelegraph conference in 1912, it was agreed that ships would listen for distress signals on a wavelength of 600 meters. This is a frequency of about 500 kilohertz. (The calling and distress frequency for the Great Lakes was 410 kilohertz.) International law required each ship to cease transmitting for three minutes at 15 and 45 minutes past the hour. During this interval they were required to listen for distress calls. At this conference, the recent Titanic disaster was fresh on the minds of the delegates, particularly the British. Consequently, many advances were made concerning the cooperative use of wireless for safety at sea.
It is interesting that the use of "CQ" as a general call was displaced by "QST" in 1911. Radio amateurs, or hams as they are more commonly called, continue to use both. "CQ" is used as "calling any station" and "QST" is used as "calling all stations"
Wireless and radio literature of the early and mid 20th century is rich in documenting the use of maritime distress signals. Only the surface of the subject is covered here. Yet, perhaps next time a reference to "SOS" is seen, there will be a little more appreciation of its lineage.
Special thanks to Thomas White for providing electronic copies of German Regulations for the Control of Spark Telegraphy, Important Events in Radiotelegraphy and International Wireless Telegraph Convention. Without them, this article would not have been complete.
Bibliography
Baarslag, Karl. SOS to the Rescue. New York: Oxford University Press, 1935.
DeNeuf, Don. SSSDDD? SOE? CQD? SOS?. Telecommunications, Old Timer's Bulletin, Vol. 30. No. 2, Antique Wireless Association, 1989.
End of SOS Recalls Early Origins. Dots and Dashes - Official Publication of the Morse Telegraph Club, Inc. Vol. 27. No. 1, 1999.
"German Regulations for the Control of Spark Telegraphy." The Electrician, May, 1905.
Hancock, H. E. Wireless at Sea, The First Fifty Years. Chelmsford, England: Marconi International Marine Communications Company, 1950.
Important Events in Radiotelegraphy, Department of Commerce, Bureau of Navigation, Radio Service, Washington: G.P.O., 1916.
International Wireless Telegraph Convention. Washington: G.P.O., 1907.
Johnstone, Richard. My San Francisco Story of the Waterfront and the Wireless. Larkspur, California: Richard Johnstone, 1965.
Kuntz, Tom. (editor) The Titanic Disaster Hearings: The Official Transcripts of the 1912 Senate Investigation. Pocket Books, 1998.
"Marconi's Latest -- Wireless Distress Signal That Rings a Bell -- Titanic Commission Hears of New Invention." Daily Sketch (British newspaper) 19 June 1912. from The Titanic Disaster - As Reported in the British National Press April - July 1912. compiled by Dave Bryceson. New York: Norton, 1997
Morgan, Alfred P. Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony. New York: Henley, 1920.
Nilson, Arthur R. and Hornung, J. L. Radio Operating Questions and Answers. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1940.
Olson, Hank and Orr, Bill. The KFS-Federal-MacKay Story: From CW Arc to Silicon Valley. The AWA Review, Vol. 8, 1993.
Schroeder, Peter B. Contact at Sea, A History of Maritime Radio Communications. Ridgewood, N.J.: The Gregg Press, 1967.
Strichartz, M. H. Marine Radio Manual. New York: Cornell Maritime Press, 1944
The Year-Book of Wireless Telegraphy & Telephony 1918. London: The Wireless Press, LTD., 1918.
Image
Collins, Francis A. The Wireless Man His Work and Adventures on Land and Sea (Boy Scout edition). Grosset & Dunlap, 1912
| CQD |
The singer known as Moby got his nickname because what famed writer was his great-great-great-granduncle? | S.O.S
S.O.S
For other uses, see SOS (disambiguation) .
sdfhgidl
is the commonly used description for the international Morse code distress signal ('
· · · — — — · · ·
). This distress signal was first adopted by the Germangovernment in radio regulations effective April 1, 1905, and became theworldwide standard under the second International Radiotelegraphic Convention,which was signed on November 3, 1906 and became effective on July 1, 1908.SOS remained the maritime radio distress signal until 1999, when it was replacedby the Global Maritime Distress Safety System
[2]
From the beginning, the SOS distress signal has actually consisted of acontinuous sequence of three- dits / three- dahs /three-dits, all run together without letter spacing. In International Morse Code , three dits form the letter S, and threedahs make the letter O, so "SOS" became an easy way to remember the correctorder of the dits and dahs. In modern terminology, SOS is a Morse " procedural signal " or "prosign", and the formal way to write it is with a bar above the letters,i.e. SOS.In popular usage, SOS became associated with phrases such as "Save Our Seamen", "Save our Ship", "Survivors On Shore" or "Save Our Souls". Thesewere a later development, most likely used to help remember the correct letters(something known as a backronym ).
Formalization
he use of the SOS signal was first introduced in Germany as part of a set of national radio regulations, effective April 1 , 1905 . These regulations introduced three new Morse code sequences, including the SOS distress signal:
1.
("Cease-sending signal"), consisting of six dahs(
— — — — — —
), sent by shore stations to tell other local stations tostop transmitting.
2.
("Quest signal"), composed of three-dits/three dahs/one-dit,all run together (
· · · — — — ·
), used by ships to get the attention of shorestations.
3.
("Distress signal"), consisting of three-dits/three-dahs/three-dits (
· · · — — — · · ·
), also in a continuous sequence, to be repeated by aship in distress until all other stations have stopped.SOS was developed from the general German radio call "SOE", with the 3 dits of a "S" easier to hear in under noisy conditions than the one dit of an "E". Also, theotherwise meaningless string of letters was selected because it is easilyrecognizable and can be sent rapidly. Comparing SOS (di-di-di-dah-dah-dah-di-di-dit) with the older CQD (dah-di-dah-dit dah-dah-di-dah dah-di-dit) (
— · — · /
— — · — / — · ·
) it is obvious how much simpler the new code was. Also, it wouldnot be mistaken for CQ, the radio code for "calling anyone" used in casualcircumstances.In 1906, at the second International Radiotelegraphic Convention in Berlin, anextensive collection of Service Regulations was developed to supplement themain agreement, which was signed on November 3 , 1906 , becoming effective on July 1 , 1908 . Article XVI of the regulations adopted Germany's
Notzeichen
distress signal as the international standard, reading: "Ships in distress shall usethe following signal:
· · · — — — · · ·
repeated at brief intervals". The first ship totransmit an SOS distress call appears to have been the Cunard liner
Slavonia
on June 10 , 1909 , according to "Notable Achievements of Wireless" in the September, 1910
Modern Electrics
. However, there was some resistance amongthe Marconi operators to the adoption of the new signal, and, as late as the April,1912 sinking of the RMS
Titanic
, the ship's Marconi operators intermixed CQDand SOS distress calls. However, in the interests of consistency and water safety, the use of CQD appears to have died out after this point.In both the April 1 , 1905 German law, and the 1906 International regulations, the distress signal was specified as a continuous Morse code sequence of three-dits/three-dahs/three-dits, with no mention of any alphabetic equivalents.However, in International Morse, three dits comprise the letter S, and three dahsthe letter O. It therefore soon became common to refer to the distress signal as"SOS." An early report on "The International Radio-Telegraphic Convention" inthe January 12 , 1907
Electrical World
stated that "Vessels in distress use thespecial signal, SOS, repeated at short intervals." (In American Morse code , whichwas used by many coastal ships in the United States through the first part of thetwentieth century, three dahs stood for the numeral "5", so in a few cases thedistress signal was informally referred to as "S5S").In contrast to CQD, which was sent as three separate letters with spacesbetween each letter, the SOS distress call has always been transmitted as acontinuous sequence of dits-and-dahs, and not as individual letters. There wasno problem as long as operators were aware that "SOS" was technically just aconvenient way for remembering the proper sequence of the distress signal'stotal of nine dits and dahs. In later years, the number of special Morse symbolsincreased. In order to designate the proper sequence of dits-and-dahs for a longspecial symbol, the standard practice is to list alphabetic characters whichcontain the same dits-and-dahs in the same order, with a bar atop the character sequence to indicate that there should not be any internal spaces in thetransmission. Thus, under the modern notation, the distress signal becomesSOS. (In International Morse, VTB, IJS and SMB, among others, would alsocorrectly translate into the
· · · — — — · · ·
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Long before being canonized on 16 May, 1920, which historical figure, known as The Maid of Orleans, was burned at the stake in Rouen, France in 1431? | Joan of Arc - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com
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Joan of Arc’s Early Life
Born around 1412, Jeanne d’Arc (or in English, Joan of Arc) was the daughter of a tenant farmer, Jacques d’Arc, from the village of Domrémy, in northeastern France. She was not taught to read or write, but her pious mother instilled in her a deep love for the Catholic Church and its teachings. At the time, France had long been torn apart by a bitter conflict with England (later known as the Hundred Years’ War), in which England had gained the upper hand. A peace treaty in 1420 disinherited the French crown prince, Charles of Valois, amid accusations of his illegitimacy, and King Henry V was made ruler of both England and France. His son, Henry VI, succeeded him in 1422. Along with its French allies (led by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy), England occupied much of northern France, and many in Joan’s village, Domrémy, were forced to abandon their homes under threat of invasion.
Did You Know?
In a private audience at his castle at Chinon, Joan of Arc won the future Charles VII over by supposedly revealing information that only a messenger from God could know; the details of this conversation are unknown.
At the age of 13, Joan began to hear voices, which she determined had been sent by God to give her a mission of overwhelming importance: to save France by expelling its enemies, and to install Charles as its rightful king. As part of this divine mission, Joan took a vow of chastity. At the age of 16, after her father attempted to arrange a marriage for her, she successfully convinced a local court that she should not be forced to accept the match.
Joan’s Journey to Orléans
In May 1428, Joan made her way Vaucouleurs, a nearby stronghold of those loyal to Charles. Initially rejected by the local magistrate, Robert de Baudricourt, she persisted, attracting a small band of followers who believed her claims to be the virgin who (according to a popular prophecy) was destined to save France. When Baudricort relented, Joan cropped her hair and dressed in men’s clothes to make the 11-day journey across enemy territory to Chinon, site of the crown prince’s palace.
Joan promised Charles she would see him crowned king at Reims, the traditional site of French royal investiture, and asked him to give her an army to lead to Orléans, then under siege from the English. Against the advice of most of his counselors and generals, Charles granted her request, and Joan set off for Orléans in March of 1429 dressed in white armor and riding a white horse. After sending off a defiant letter to the enemy, Joan led several French assaults against them, driving the Anglo-Burgundians from their bastion and forcing their retreat across the Loire River.
Downfall of Joan of Arc
After such a miraculous victory, Joan’s reputation spread far and wide among French forces. She and her followers escorted Charles across enemy territory to Reims, taking towns that resisted by force and enabling his coronation as King Charles VII in July 1429. Joan argued that the French should press their advantage with an attempt to retake Paris, but Charles wavered, even as his favorite at court, Georges de La Trémoille, warned him that Joan was becoming too powerful. The Anglo-Burgundians were able to fortify their positions in Paris, and turned back an attack led by Joan in September.
In the spring of 1430, the king ordered Joan to confront a Burgundian assault on Compiégne. In her effort to defend the town and its inhabitants, she was thrown from her horse, and was left outside the town’s gates as they closed. The Burgundians took her captive, and brought her amid much fanfare to the castle of Bouvreuil, occupied by the English commander at Rouen.
Joan of Arc: From Witch to Saint
In the trial that followed, Joan was ordered to answer to some 70 charges against her, including witchcraft, heresy and dressing like a man. The Anglo-Burgundians were aiming to get rid of the young leader as well as discredit Charles, who owed his coronation to her. In attempting to distance himself from an accused heretic and witch, the French king made no attempt to negotiate Joan’s release.
In May 1431, after a year in captivity and under threat of death, Joan relented and signed a confession denying that she had ever received divine guidance. Several days later, however, she defied orders by again donning men’s clothes, and authorities pronounced her death sentence. On the morning of May 30, at the age of 19, Joan was taken to the old market place of Rouen and burned at the stake. Her fame only increased after her death, however, and 20 years later a new trial ordered by Charles VII cleared her name. Long before Pope Benedict XV canonized her in 1920, Joan of Arc had attained mythic stature, inspiring numerous works of art and literature over the centuries and becoming the patron saint of France.
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| Joan of Arc |
Killing 57 people and causing over $3 billion in property damage, the eruption o f Mount St. Helens occurred on May 18 of what year? | St. Joan of Arc - Saints & Angels - Catholic Online
St. Joan of Arc
Author and Publisher - Catholic Online
Facts
Patron of soldiers and France
Birth: 1412
Take the Saints Trivia Quiz now!
St. Joan of Arc is the patroness of soldiers and of France.
On January 6, 1412, Joan of Arc was born to pious parents of the French peasant class in the obscure village of Domremy, near the province of Lorraine. At a very early age, she was said to have heard the voices of St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret.
At first the messages were personal and general, but when she was 13-years-old, she was in her father's garden and had visions of Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret, each of whom told her to drive the English from French territory. They also asked that she bring the Dauphin to Reims for his coronation.
After their messages were delivered and the saints departed, Joan cried, as "they were so beautiful."
When she was sixteen-years-old, she asked her relative, Durand Lassois, to take her to Vaucouleurs, where she petitioned Robert de Baudricourt, the garrison commander, for permission to visit the French Royal Court in Chinon.
Despite Baudricourt's sarcastic response to her request, Joan returned the following January and left with the support of two of Baudricourt's soldiers: Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy.
Jean de Metz admitted Joan had confided in him, saying, "I must be at the King's side ... there will be no help if not from me. Although I would rather have remained spinning [wool] at my mother's side ... yet must I go and must I do this thing, for my Lord wills that I do so."
With Metz and Poulengy at her side, Joan met Baudricourt and predicted a military reversal at the Battle of Rouvray near Orléans, which were confirmed several days later by a messenger's report. When Baudricourt realized the distance of the battle's location and the time it would have taken Joan to make the journey, he concluded she had seen the reversal by Divine revelation, which caused him to believe her words.
Once she had Baudricourt's belief, Joan was granted an escort to Chinon through hostile Burgundian territory. For her safety, she was escorted while dressed as a male soldier, which later led to charges of cross-dressing, but her escorts viewed as a sound precaution.
Two members of her escort confirmed they and the people of Vaucouleurs gave her the clothing and had been the ones to suggest she don the outfit.
When she arrived in the Royal Court, she met in a private conference with Charles VII and won his trust. Yolande of Aragon, Charles' mother-in-law, planned a finance relief expedition to Orléans and Joan asked to travel with the army while wearing armor, which the Royal government agreed to. They also provided Joan's armor and she depended on donations for everything she took with her.
With a donated horse, sword, banner, armor, and more, Joan arrived to Orléans and quickly turned the Anglo-French conflict into a religious war.
Charles' advisors worried Joan's claims of doing God's work could be twisted by his enemies, who could easily claim she was a sorceress, which would link his crown to works of the devil. To prevent accusations, the Dauphin ordered background inquiries and a theological exam at Poitiers to verify Joan's claims.
In April 1429, the commission of inquiry "declared her to be of irreproachable life, a good Christian, possessed of the virtues of humility, honesty and simplicity." Rather than deciding on whether or not Joan was acting on the basis of divine inspiration, theologians at Poitiers told the Dauphin there was a "favorable presumption" on the divine nature of her mission.
Charles was satisfied with the report but theologians reminded him Joan must be tested. They claimed, "[t]o doubt or abandon her without suspicion of evil would be to repudiate the Holy Spirit and to become unworthy of God's aid."
They suggested her test should be a test of her claim to lift the siege of Orléans, as she originally predicted would happen.
In response to the test, Joan arrived at Orléans on April 29, 1429, where Jean d'Orléans, the acting head of the ducal family of Orléans, ensured she was excluded from war councils and kept ignorant of battles.
During the five months prior to Joan's arrival to Orléans, the French had only attempted one offensive assault, which resulted in their defeat, but after her arrival, things began to change.
Though Joan claimed the army was always commanded by a nobleman and that she never killed anyone in battle since she preferred only to carry her banner, which she preferred "forty times" better than a sword, several noblemen claimed she greatly effected their decisions since they accepted she gave Divinely inspired advice.
On May 4, the Armagnacs captured the fortress of Saint Loup and the next day led to fortress Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, which was deserted. With Joan at the army's side, English troops approached the army to stop their advance but a cavalry charge was all it took to turn the English away without a fight.
The Armagnacs captured an English fortress build around the Les Augustins monastery and attacked the English stronghold Les Tourelles on May 7. Joan was shot with an arrow between her neck and shoulder as she held her banner outside Les Tourelles, but returned to encourage the final assault to take the fortress. The next day, the English retreated from Orléans and the siege was over.
When Joan was in Chinon and Poitiers, she had declared she would show a sign at Orléans, which many believe was the end of the siege. Following the departure of the Englihs, prominent clergymen began to support her, including the Archbishop of Embrun and the theologian Jean Gerson, each of which wrote supportive treatises.
After the Orléans victory, Joan was able to persuade Charles VII to allow her to march into other battles to reclaim citis, each of which ended in victory. When the military supplies began to dwindle, they reached Troyes, where Brother Richard, a wandering friar, had warned the city about the end of the world and was able to convince them to plant beans, which yields an early harvest. Just as the beans ripened, Joan and the army arrived and was able to restore their supplies.
Following their march to Troyes, Joan and the French military made its way to Paris, where politicians failed to secure Duke Philip of Burgundy's agreement to a truce. Joan was present at the following battles and suffered a leg wound from a crossbow bolt. Despite one failed mission - taking La-Charité-sur-Loire" - Joan and her family were ennobled by Charles VII in reward of her actions on the battlefield.
A truce with England came following Joan's ennoblement but was quickly broken. When Joan traveled to Compičgne to help defend against an English and Burgundian siege, she was captured by Burgundian troops and held for a ransom of 10,000 livres tournois. There were several attempts to free her and Joan made many excape attempts, including jumping from her 70-foot (21m) tower, landing on the soft earth of a dry moat, but to no avail. She was eventually sold to the English for 10,000 gold coins and was then tried as a heretic and witch in a trial that violated the legal process of the time.
Clerical notary Nicolas Bailly, who was responsible to collect testimony against Joan, was unable to find any evidence against her. Without evidence, the courts lacked grounds to initiate trial but one was opened anyway. They denied Joan the right to a legal advisor and filled the tribunal with pro-English clergy rather than meeting the medieval Church's requirement to balance the group with impartial clerics.
When the first public examination opened, Joan pointed out that the partisans were against her and she asked for "ecclesiastics of the French side" to provide balance, but her request was denied.
Jean Lemaitre, the Vice-Inquisitor of Northern France, objected to the trial from the beginning and many eyewitnesses later reported he was forced to cooperate after the English threatened to kill him. Other members of the clergy were threatened when they refused as well, so the trial continued.
The trial record includes statements from Joan that eyewitnesses later claimed astonished the court since she was an illiterate peasant who was able to escape theological traps. The most well-known exchange was when Joan was "[a]sked if she knew she was in God's grace, she answered: 'If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.'"
The question is a trap because the church doctrine was that no one could be certain of being in God's grace. If she answered yes, she would have been charged with heresy, but if she answered no, she would have been confessing her own guilt. Notary Boisguillaume later testified that "[t]hose who were interrogating her were stupefied."
Many members of the tribunal later testified important parts of the transcript were altered.
Joan was held in a secular prison guarded by English soldiers, instead of being in an ecclesiastical prison with nuns as her guards per Inquisitorial guidelines. When Joan appealed to the Council of Basel and the Pope to be placed in a proper prison, Bishop Cauchon denied her request, which would have stopped his proceeding.
While imprisoned, Joan wore military clothing so she could tie her clothing together, making it harder to be raped. There was no protection in a dress, and a few days after she started wearing one she told a tribunal member that "a great English lord had entered her prison and tried to take her by force." Following the attempted rape, Joan returned to wearing male clothing as a precaution and to raise her defenses against molestation.
Jean Massieu testified her dress had been taken by the guards and she had nothing else to wear.
When she returned to male clothing, she was given another count of hersy for cross-dressing, though it was later disputed by the inquisitor presiding over court appeals after the war. He found that cross-dressing should be evaluated based on context, including the use of clothing as protection against rape if it offered protection.
In accordance to the inquisitor's doctrine, Joan would have been justified in wearing armor on a battlefield, men's clothing in prison and dressing as a pageboy when traveling through enemy territory.
The Chronique de la Pucelle states it deterred molestation when Joan was camped in the field but she donned a dress when men's garments were unnecessary.
Clergy who testified at the posthumous appellate trial confirmed that she wore male clothing in prison to deter molestation.
Though the Poitiers record did not survive the test of time, Joan had referred the court to the Poitiers inquiry when questioned about her clothing and circumstances indicate the Poitiers clerics approved the practive. She had also kept her hair short through the military campaigns and during her imprisonment, which Inquisitor Brehal, theologian Jean Gerson and all of Joan's supporters understood was for practical reasons.
Despite the lack of incriminating evidence, Joan was condemned and sentenced to die in 1431.
Eyewitness accounts of Joan's execution by burning on May 30, 1431 describe how she was tied to a tall pillar at the Vieux-Marché in Rouen. She asked Fr. Martin Ladvenu and Fr. Isambart de la Pierre to hold a crucifix before her and an English soldier made a small cross she put in the front of her dress. After she died, the English raked the coals to expose her body so no one could spread rumors of her escaping alive, then they burned her body two more times to reduce it to ashes so no one could collect relics. After burning her body to ash, the English threw her remains into the Seine River and the executioner, Geoffroy Thérage, later said he "... greatly feared to be damned."
In 1452, during an investigation into Joan's execution, the Church declared a religious play in her honor at Orléans would let attendees gain an indulgence by making a pilgrimage to the event.
A posthumous retrial opened following the end of the war. Pope Callixtus III authorized the proceeding, which has also been called the "nullification trial," after Inquisitor-General Jean Bréhal and Joan's mother Isabelle Romée requested it.
The trial was meant to determine if Joan's condemnation was justly handled, and of course at the end of the investication Joan received a formal appeal in November 1455 and the appellate court declared Joan innocent on July 7 1456.
Joan of Arc was a symbol of the Catholic League during the 16th century and when Félix Dupanloup was made bishop of Orléans in 1849, he pronounced a panegyric on Joan of Arc and led efforts leading to Joan of Arc's beatification in 1909. On May 16, 1920, Pope Benedict XV canonized her.
Centuries after her head, Joan became known as a semi-legendary figure. There were several sources of information about her life, time on the battlefield and trials, with the main sources being chronicles.
Many women have seen Joan as a brace and active woman who operated within a religious tradition that believed a person of any clas could receive a divine calling.
Joan of Arc has been depicted in several works by famous writers such as William Shakespeare (Henry VI, Part 1), Voltaire (The Maid of Orleans), Mark Twain (Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc), and many many more.
Images depicting Joan of Arc often show her with short hair adorned in armor.
There are several prayers to Joan of Arc, including the "Prayer of Thanks and Gratitude to St. Joan of Arc," written by Andrea Rau:
Dear Patron Saint,
Thank you for accompanying me throughout the day, and in the work that I did. Thank you also for your guidance and your counsel. Please help me to listen to God and to you, dear Saint, that I may do what I am called to do. Please intercede on my behalf and beg God to take all my faults and turn them into virtues. I thank you for all you have done for me, and all the things you have interceded for on my behalf. Please continue to pray for me and for all the souls who need it.
St. Joan of Arc, Pray for us.
Amen.
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May 20, 1873, saw a patent granted to Jacob Davis and what San Francisco business man for using copper rivets to strengthen the pockets of work pants? | Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive patent for blue jeans - May 20, 1873 - HISTORY.com
This Day in History: 05/20/1873 - Blue Jeans Patented
This Day in History - May 20, 1873, was the day Levi patented the first pair of blue jeans. Jeans were unique at the time because of the metal rivets that reinforced the stressed areas. Workers found jeans to be very practical and last longer than normal cloth pants.
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Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive patent for blue jeans
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On this day in 1873, San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss and Reno, Nevada, tailor Jacob Davis are given a patent to create work pants reinforced with metal rivets, marking the birth of one of the world’s most famous garments: blue jeans.
Born Loeb Strauss in Buttenheim, Bavaria, in 1829, the young Strauss immigrated to New York with his family in 1847 after the death of his father. By 1850, Loeb had changed his name to Levi and was working in the family dry goods business, J. Strauss Brother & Co. In early 1853, Levi Strauss went west to seek his fortune during the heady days of the Gold Rush.
In San Francisco, Strauss established a wholesale dry goods business under his own name and worked as the West Coast representative of his family’s firm. His new business imported clothing, fabric and other dry goods to sell in the small stores opening all over California and other Western states to supply the rapidly expanding communities of gold miners and other settlers. By 1866, Strauss had moved his company to expanded headquarters and was a well-known businessman and supporter of the Jewish community in San Francisco.
Jacob Davis, a tailor in Reno, Nevada, was one of Levi Strauss’ regular customers. In 1872, he wrote a letter to Strauss about his method of making work pants with metal rivets on the stress points–at the corners of the pockets and the base of the button fly–to make them stronger. As Davis didn’t have the money for the necessary paperwork, he suggested that Strauss provide the funds and that the two men get the patent together. Strauss agreed enthusiastically, and the patent for “Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings”–the innovation that would produce blue jeans as we know them–was granted to both men on May 20, 1873.
Strauss brought Davis to San Francisco to oversee the first manufacturing facility for “waist overalls,” as the original jeans were known. At first they employed seamstresses working out of their homes, but by the 1880s, Strauss had opened his own factory. The famous 501brand jean–known until 1890 as “XX”–was soon a bestseller, and the company grew quickly. By the 1920s, Levi’s denim waist overalls were the top-selling men’s work pant in the United States. As decades passed, the craze only grew, and now blue jeans are worn by men and women, young and old, around the world.
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Levi Strauss , originator of America’s best-known contribution to the fashion industry, was born on February 26 in 1829 in Bavaria, Germany. At the age of 18 he immigrated to New York City to join his brothers, who had already established a family owned and operated wholesale dry goods business known by the name “J. Strauss Brother & Co.” This was the era of the California Gold Rush, and Levi—a trained tailor—saw the potential to make his own fortune by producing tents and wagon covers for the hundreds of “49ers” heading West to seek their fortune. Unfortunately the demand for such items was limited, and Strauss was left searching for another way to make a name for himself in the new American frontier.
In 1850 he headed west, to San Francisco, the heart and soul of the California mining scene, to establish a West Coast branch of the family dry goods business. He opened the store in his own name, and tried a variety of locations near the waterfront, until 1866 when he settled at 14-16 Battery Street and formally named the store “ Levi Strauss & Co .”
Strauss, who preferred to be called “Levi” by everyone including his employees, was becoming a well-known and active member of the San Francisco community. He was a supporter of Temple Emanu-El , the first synagogue in San Francisco, and numerous charities that provided care for orphans. He was thought of as an honest businessman and a good person, an image that he valued and hoped to perpetuate.
In 1872 a Reno, Nevada tailor named Jacob Davis contacted Strauss regarding a type of men’s work pants he had been making for the miners, farmers and laborers that were his customers. Davis was a regular customer of Mr. Strauss, and had been purchasing bolts of heavy blue denim fabric—known as “jeans”—to make pants that could withstand the kind of abuse that came with manual labor. Davis had developed a way to make the pants even stronger by placing metal rivets at the “points of strain” on the pants; the corners of the pockets and the base of the button fly. The pants were hugely popular with his customer base, and Davis was interested in patenting them, but knew that he needed a well-established businessman to help market and produce them successfully. Strauss was intrigued by the idea, and eager to be involved. So it was that on May 20, 1873 Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received United States patent # 139121 that called for the use of copper rivets to strengthen the pockets and fly of denim work pants. It was the birth of an American icon: the blue jean.
What followed was, in a word, history. The American Industrial Revolution had brought about a dramatic increase in labor and manufacturing jobs. The need for durable and affordable work clothes grew with the work force, and Strauss and Davis saw their business flourish. While the company sold a variety of riveted denim products, the most popular item was the basic riveted denim “waist overall,” known as the “XX.” It wasn’t until 1890 that Levi Strauss & Co. gave the pants a lot number, “501,” the name that is so famous today.
Levi Strauss never married, and had no children, but hoping to keep the business in the family he encouraged his nephews to join him and they ultimately had the business incorporated in 1890. By then Levi Strauss was a widely diversified and successful businessman, and a very active philanthropist. He was a charter member and served as the treasurer of the San Francisco Board of Trade. He served as a director of the Nevada Bank; the Liverpool, London and Globe Insurance Company; and the San Francisco Gas and Electric Company. He was a major donor to the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Home; the Eureka Benevolent Society; and the Hebrew Board of Relief. In 1897 he provided the funds for twenty-eight scholarships to the University of California, Berkeley. His reputation for being an honest businessman and a good person had never wavered, and he instilled those same values in his company.
In 1991, nearly 90 years after his death, Levi Strauss & Co. became the first company to establish a “corporate code of responsible contracting,” known at the Terms of Engagement. It clearly defined the work place standards required by both the Levi Strauss & Co. company, and by the companies that manufactured the products used by Levi Strauss & Co. They were the first company to establish standards to ban the use of sweatshops, and to this day remain vehemently opposed to such poor work place conditions.
In a statement about the Terms of Engagement, Levi Strauss & Co. chairman Robert Haas —the great, great grandnephew of Levi Strauss—said of the business, “A company is also the values that shape its conduct in the marketplace.” This was a deeply held belief of Levi Strauss, and a testament of his character. Upon his death in 1902, Strauss was remembered by the San Francisco Board of Trade with a fitting statement:
“ . . . the great causes of education and charity have likewise suffered a signal loss in the death of Mr. Strauss, whose splendid endowments . . . will be an enduring testimonial of his worth as a liberal, public-minded citizen and whose numberless unostentatious acts of charity in which neither race nor creed were recognized, exemplified his broad and generous love for and sympathy with humanity.”
—Carrie Carter
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Resulting in being tied to a rock and having his liver eaten on a daily basis by an eagle, the Greek Titan Prometheus stole what from the Greek Gods and gave it to mortals? | Full text of "Man's descent from the gods;"
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LIBRARY UNIVFR ..TV Of CALirONNM: SAN DIEGO r (W e^ MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS OR, THE COMPLETE CASE AGAINST PROHIBITION BY ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI AUTHOR OF "A DEFENCE OF ARISTOCRACY," ETC. LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN LONDON: WILLIAM HEINBMANN. 1921. TO MR. AND MRS. EDMOND HUNT WITH THE AUTHOR'S AFFECTIONATE REGARD PREFACE THIS book has a strange history. The last event in the chain which brought it into existence was a debate on the question of Total Prohibition held at the Sesame Club in London on November 3rd, 1919, to which I was invited by the Committee in order to oppose the Bishop of Willesden, who was to advocate Total Prohibi- tion for these islands. I mention this most recent event first, because it was on the occasion of this debate that various thoughts and conjectures relating to prob- lems apparently as far apart as Greek mythology and modern diet, with which my imagination had been occupied for some considerable time, first crystallised into the theory which I have thought worthy of the serious treatment given to it in this essay. Among the other events connected with this book, I may mention: (1) The last great war and the enforced leisure, with its opportunities for meditation, which it frequently provided in the firing-line and out of it to a field-gunner like myself; (2) the writing of my Defence of Aristocracy in the years 1912, 1913, 1914, and the attention which I was compelled to pay, in the preparation of this book, to such questions as the drink and food of the people of England from the seventeenth century onwards; (3) the perusal of a friend's book in MS. on Dietetics, which first awakened my curiosity about accessory food factors; (4) the publication by the Medical Research Committee of their Report on the viii PREFACE Present State of our Knowledge concerning Accessory Food Factors; and finally (5) the first account I received, as a child, of the myth of Prometheus. The ancient Greek story of the Fire-stealer had always fascinated me. I did not, like Byron, ever make it the subject of a youthful literary essay, but it was not the less prominent in my thoughts on that account. Certain features connected with it always puzzled me, and as I grew older I became less and less satisfied with the various learned explanations of the myth and its principal figure, with which I became acquainted. The mystery surrounding it seemed to increase rather than to disperse beneath these scholarly dissertations, until latterly I even sympathised with the late Mr.. Andrew Lang in his reluctance to accept the most learned, the most ingenious, and certainly the most daring of all these explanations, the exceedingly erudite and ex- haustive work of Dr. Kuhn. It struck me then, and it strikes me still, that in any case Dr. Kuhn's interpretation must be rejected at all costs, even at the risk of doing violence to etymology, though this last extreme measure I do not believe to be in the least necessary, seeing that it fails to elucidate some of the most vital and therefore most interesting features of the myth. For many years, moreover, and despite repeated failures, I have been unable to repress a strong feeling that it must be possible to discover an explanation of the Fire-stealer legend, which would not only give a logical place to every important element in the myth, but also perhaps shed a little valuable light on the early history of mankind. A child can see that the stealing of fire from the gods must have been not only a vital, but perhaps the most vital PREFACE ix event in the early history of the human race. But what always puzzles a child, at least what always used to puzzle me was, (1) that it should have been necessary to steal fire from the gods; and (2) that the gods should have been apparently so immoderately angry once the theft had been committed. I need hardly say that learned mythologians and classical scholars* have heretofore offered no satis- factory explanation on these two points. Nay, worse, it scarcely ever seems to have occurred to them that these matters might require a certain amount of elucidation, even if we took the whole myth, as most of them do, simply as a harmless, partly unintelligible, though cer- tainly entertaining fairy-tale. But it is not altogether surprising that learned and scholarly commentators on the myth should be guilty of this omission. A certain emotional prepossession, such as that which Byron, Shelley, Goethe, and lesser men have evinced towards Prometheus as a heroic figure, is a serious obstacle in the way which leads to the truth in this matter; and this prepossession has, I believe, been shared almost uni- versally by modern European scholars and those among us who have been their students. I must confess that from the very beginning I have never been influenced by any such prepossession in favour of Prometheus, in fact, to speak quite frankly, I have never felt altogether satisfied concerning his reputed great virtues; perhaps that is sufficient to account for my setting out now to offer a more thorough and I believe more satisfactory interpretation of the old Greek myth than has been presented hitherto. It will be seen, moreover, that, as most fairly intelligent * I would exclude Professor J. S. Blackie from this generalisation. x PREFACE children would anticipate, a thorough and searching interpretation of this myth does indeed shed a tremendous amount of light upon man's beginnings, and on many other problematic questions which, at a first glance, appear to have no connection with Prometheus whatso- ever; but that which even the most intelligent child could scarcely have foreseen is, that the fire myth of the ancient Greeks is intimately connected with the question of diet and drink, and that these two departments of modern, as of ancient life, can scarcely be studied apart from the life-history of the crafty Titan. It is this unexpected connection, among other matters, that I propose to investigate in the following pages. Briefly stated, the thesis I propose to elaborate, and if possible to substantiate, is as follows : The myth of the Titan Prometheus and of his theft of fire from the gods represents a traditional record of an actual event in the history of the ancestors of the ancient Greeks. Assuming on Spencerian grounds that the gods of the ancient Greeks were human beings of flesh and blood belonging to a race very much superior to the ancestors of all European peoples, I suggest that Prometheus's theft of the secret of fire-production from these so-called gods proved a great calamity to the people to whom he handed this secret (the inferior race with which the god-like race had mingled). The in- ternal evidence of the myth itself points to its having been a calamity, and I see no reason for doubting this evidence, but rather every reason for believing it to be true. The only question which remains imperfectly decided by the myth is the precise nature of the cala- mity. Prometheus, far from being a great benefactor of mankind, as modern thought, owing to a deliberate PEEFACE xi misunderstanding, supposes him to have been, was therefore, as the myth reveals him, a creature who out- raged both gods and men. Not until Dionysus appeared with his medicines, and particularly his dispensary of fermented liquors, were the appalling evils resulting from Prometheus 's theft of fire-production mitigated and neutralised. The chemical changes that take place in the cooking of food, as also the physiological effects of these changes, are adduced to show how deleterious are the results of the application of fire to natural products used as human food; and in the chapters dealing with Dionysus I show how these deleterious results have been checked, and may still continue to be checked, by the use of fermented liquors. Prometheus versus Dionysus is thus the theme of the book Prometheus, with his unhealthy civilisation, being the evil genius, and Dionysus, with his healthy dietaries, his mead, his wines and his ales, being the Saviour of mankind. The conclusion of my thesis is, therefore, that if men propose to abolish Dionysus, they can do so with safety only on the understanding that they return to the conditions of a pre-Promethean civilisation an impossible alternative ! My thanks are due to the Controller of His Majesty's Stationery Office for kindly granting me permission to reproduce certain extracts from the Medical Eesearch Committee's Keport on Accessory Food Factors, and also to the firm of William Heinemann for allowing me to quote from the Loeb Classical Library. All translations of classical authors in this work, unless otherwise stated, have been taken from this excellent series. A. M. L. FOLKESTONE. CONTENTS CHAPTER PREFACE - INTRODUCTION: ON MYTHS IN GENERAL, AND ON THE PROMETHEUS MYTH IN PARTICULAR - 1 I. PROMETHEUS THE MYTHICAL HERO - 25 H. PROMETHEUS THE MAN - -42 in. FIRE AND FOOD PART I. - - 64 IV. FIRE AND FOOD PART II. - 85 V. DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD - - - 117 VI. DIONYSUS THE MAN - - - 139 VII. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD - 172 VIII. PANDORA AND EVE - - 212 IX. REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING - 223 INDEX ----- 248 Sill MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS INTRODUCTION WHEN, according to Greek myth, the Titan Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind, it will be remembered that Zeus is reported to have been so much enraged that he condemned this apparent bene- factor of humanity to the savage penalty of being chained to a rock in Scythia while his liver was devoured by an eagle. Furthermore, in order to make his sufferings more lasting than they would normally have been, the devoured portions of his liver were miraculouslyl:estored every night. In the Preface I mentioned two points in connection with this myth, the necessity of stealing fire, and the apparently immoderate anger the theft provoked on the part of Zeus, which I declared received no satisfactory explanation at the hands of modern or even of ancient scholars. Why is this? Anyone uninfluenced by a study of the various theories mythologians have ad- vanced on the whole subject might well be excused if they attached at least as much importance to the ap- parently immoderate anger of Zeus over the theft as they did to the theft itself. The proper explanation of the anger, it might be thought, would provide a clue to the reason why the fire had to be stolen, and why it was 1 2 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS originally withheld.* And yet the matter, far from being explained, is frequently not even mentioned. In the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, for instance, which is ostensibly a purveyor of informa- tion to everybody, the late Mr. Andrew Lang makes no reference under " Prometheus " to the possible reasons actuating Zeus in his seemingly extravagant indignation over this culture-hero's deed, and impelling the ruler of the heavens to inflict upon his refractory subject so cruel and savage a punishment. When the Christian is told that the " old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan " was " cast out of heaven " and that " his angels were cast out with him,"t he imagines that the punish- ment more or less fits the crime, because Satan " de- ceiveth the whole world "; nor does the Christian question the Almighty's justice even when he learns that " the angels which kept not their first estate . . . he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."{ But Prometheus apparently conferred a benefit upon mankind. He gave them a very much coveted power, the power of con- verting energy into fire. Was this a deed that could be justly rewarded with punishment at all, not to * That is to say, it might further elucidate the reason already adduced by Hesiod to explain this. See Works and Days, 50. f See Rev. xii. 9. J See Jude 6. Shelley was conscious of the comparison that could be drawn between Satan and Prometheus. See his Preface to the Prometheus Unbound: "The only imaginary being resembling in any degree Prometheus is Satan, and Prometheus is in my judgment a more poetical character than Satan, because in addition to courage and majesty, and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent force, he is susceptible of being described as exempt from the taints of ambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for personal aggrandisement." It will be seen that this view of Shelley's is as shallow as that of the scholars. INTRODUCTION 3 mention the excruciating punishment inflicted upon Prometheus ? It is difficult to understand the general silence that prevails in the various textbooks over a matter which I believe to be quite as important as the fire-stealing itself, and it is still more difficult to realise how the very men who profess to interpret the myth can leave this interesting part out, without at least some apology, some confession of their perplexity, mystification, or ignorance. One would be prepared to forgive almost anything in regard to all this shelving of the question of Zeus's anger, except the implication which it appears de- liberately to make that Zeus's anger is not material to an understanding of the myth. I have in my Preface already suggested one reason which would account for this attitude on the part of scholars. I shall now proceed to offer three more reasons. I suggest secondly as a reason for the deliberate silence on the subject of Zeus's anger in this instance, that the modern mind is wont to approach antiquity in general too superciliously. It deigns ponderously and with an elaborate exhibition of graciousness to peer into the "childlike" mind of its remote ancestors; but it is too deeply conscious all the while of the mag- nanimity it is displaying to be in a fit state to learn any- thing from its enquiry. You can almost see the smile of superiority beaming through the stilted prose peculiar to the customary textbook on mythology. It is not merely a smile of superiority, it is one of incredulous contempt, as if to say: "I am about to deal with children's fairy-tales ; I am going to condescend to treat them seriously; don't laugh ! don't be alarmed ! It 4 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS is only in order to show you how innocent, how charm- ing, but how empty they are !" Now I suggest that it is this immense modern conceit, this ungovernable latter-day insolence in regard to the ancient world, which is the greatest obstacle in the way of any real advance in culture ; because it is those stand- ing in the gateway of culture, and guarding, as it were, its holy of holies, who are without exception the most guilty of this failing. It is an attitude of mind which takes for granted the very idea which I am hoping I shall do most to discredit in this essay: the idea that we certainly ought to be, that in any case we must be, in fact, that we are superior to the ancients. It is part and parcel of a belief as foolish as it is inveterate in the modern European, particularly the Protestant Englishman and his spinster aunts, sisters and cousins, that children are innocent, that at all events childhood is the age of innocence, whatever individual children may be, and therefore that the childhood of mankind must be the age of irresponsible fairy-tales, with which wiser and less innocent generations may be permitted to deal at least cavalierly. That is to say, if anything in antiquity appears to be a little too " puerile " or " repulsive/' it can be ignored. If any aspects of the mind of primitive man strike us as obscure, obscene, or unchildlike, we are allowed by the rules of the game to leave such aspects out. As the whole is more or less jejune why attach particular value to a part ? Thus the mass of apparently irrelevant details that cling to the old myths some of which are distinctly disturbing to our sense of propriety may be conveniently set aside as immaterial. This is certainly most convenient. But should we dare to behave in this way with anyone INTRODUCTION 5 except a child ? Thus the alleged virgin-birth of many great figures of antiquity strikes the average mytho- logian as a gratuitous and fantastic invention of the " childlike " mind, and he does not trouble to enquire into it further. The Puritanical bias of the Christian investigator explains this recurrent feature of certain myths on the ground that sexual intercourse being rightly regarded by the innocent childlike mind as impure, the idea of virgin-birth arose to circumvent the difficulty. But whether it be an atheistic or a Christian interpreter who confronts this alleged virgin- birth of certain notable types of the past, you may be quite certain that he will miss the real, the true, the human interpretation of it, and why ? Because the real, the true, the human interpretation of it would be thought incompatible with his fatuous preconceived notion of the " innocence of childhood," and therefore incompatible with his stubborn certainty about the innocence of " childlike " mankind. The same remarks apply to the alleged occurrence of cannibalism and incest among the early Greek gods, and to almost every detail, unpleasant or obscene, traditionally reported of them. Observe Professor Gilbert Murray, for instance, in his acrobatic antics, stalking loftily across the unsavoury swamp of the Uranus - Cronus myth. What could be more edifying ? Here is a professor mounted on stilts in order to avoid the mire, and professing nevertheless to have sufficiently examined its substance to be able to tell us all about it !* * It should be remembered that Socrates, the inveterate moralist and Puritan, was also shocked by the details of the Cronus myth, and could not believe that a god Cronus mutilated his father 6 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS " Cronus arose and conquered him [Uranus]/' says Professor Gilbert Murray complacently; and then he proceeds: " the exact meaning of the mutilation I leave aside."* This is typical. The exact meaning of the mutilation may be discomfiting, it may be indelicate, it may even be unfit for the ears of lady-students ; but it is impossible to understand the myth unless you understand the meaning of the mutilation. It is nonsense to pretend to interpret these ancient legends if you are bent on selecting only the pleasant, the savoury and the immediately com- prehensible aspects of them. Any young lady can do that. I am not going to offer readers of this book any explanation of the virgin-birth myth, or of the Uranus- Cronus myth they are not my present concern though what I believe to be the correct explanation of these myths is to hand.f I merely mention them in order to Uranus. Socrates seems evidently to have set the tone in this matter as in many others in modern Europe. See Plato, Euthyphron. * Anthropology of the Classics, p. 84. f The reader is, however, recommended for his own amusement to glance at the " alleged " interpretation of this myth offered by Sir James Frazer, or the gentleman who shares with him the re- sponsibility for the article Saturn (Saturnus) in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It must be admitted that Mr. Andrew Lang's interpretation, which is hinted at by Sir James Frazer, or his colleague, is not satisfactory either. It omits to explain the mutilation, and Mr. Andrew Lang does not conceal the fact that he regards this part of the myth as too abominable to be referred to except with hasty perfunctoriness. See Custom and Myth, particularly p. 59. However, Mr. Andrew Lang does us a great service in showing us in his chapter on the Cronus myth the hopeless disagreement between such scholars as Max Miiller, Kuhn, Brown, Preller, Hartung, etc. regarding the etymology of the word Cronus, and therefore regarding the etymological source of the myth. See pp. 57-63. INTRODUCTION 7 show briefly that what I allege is not imaginary, and that too much conscious superiority is indeed displayed by the qualified investigator of the mind of antiquity, who repeatedly shows himself over-ready to exercise his own discretion in judging what is important and what is unimportant in the creations of the " childhood " of man's mind. Only an attitude of conscious or unconscious contempt towards the primitive mind could possibly account for such liberties being taken. If it invariably led to the truth, one would not quarrel with it; but I am convinced that more useful, more satisfactory, and certainly more reasonable interpretations are to be found by the diametrically opposite attitude the attitude of rever- ence, in which an endeavour is at least made properly to account for every detail in the legend, because every detail is taken seriously. I suggest thirdly as a reason for the resolute silence on the part of mythologians respecting the apparently im- moderate anger of Zeus in the Prometheus myth, a curious prejudice which may be regarded as distinctly modern: I refer to the doubt that most peoples, since the invention of the printing-press and the general spread of shortness of memory in which it has resulted, have been wont to cast on the reliability and accuracy of traditions that are dependent upon memory alone for their survival. Indeed, this prejudice is almost as remarkable as the conscious shortness of memory to which it owes its existence. After a contemplation of himself and his fellows, modern man certainly cannot fail to recognise one extra- ordinarily pronounced feature which unites him and them in one common category. Indeed, if a Brotherhood 8 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS of civilised man may be believed to exist at all, it is surely this feature which constitutes its most powerful bond, and chiefly distinguishes civilised man from the horse, the elephant, the savage, and the man of the past. I refer, of course, to bad memory. This is surely one of the most unmistakable signs of "progress"; for wherever " progress " appears it is accompanied by this characteristic. Modern conditions might even be said to have reared a new and hitherto unknown type of man : Homo sapiens sine memoria. His politicians, his enter- tainers, his exploiters, his most flourishing criminals aye, even his traitors frequently depend for the success of their careers upon this very failing in him. His huge and flatulent press reckons and speculates upon it; for how, indeed, could the average modern European read his morning, midday and evening papers if he possessed anything remotely resembling a memory ? In fact, the whole of modern life is organised on the assumption that the memory of civilised man will not survive a few hours, not to mention a few days. Hence the sudden vogue of a system like that of Pelman, which undertakes to extend this period beyond its normal limits. This would be all very well, and I, too, would gladly join in the general applause over such an important achievement of progress, were it not that modern man is so much inclined to take himself as the norm, as the pattern, that he strongly suspects of charlatanism or of bluff anyone who appears to have a memory that is capable of retaining impressions not only for months, but for years. As for a memory which can last throughout several generations, for hundreds and hundreds of years, and still be accurate and historically reliable at the end of INTKODUCTION 9 that long spell of time, civilised man simply scoffs at such a possibility; and rightly too, as far as he is con- cerned. Where his scoffing arrogance leads him astray, however, is at the point when he approaches the problems of ancient memory, and of the beliefs and legends which owe their survival to this more vigorous brand of the function in which he is so deplorably deficient. Then, with the same impudence with which, as we have seen, he condescends to enquire into the spiritual creations of mankind's so-called " childhood," he becomes pompously and obdurately incredulous. He knows nothing of the robust powers of retention that men possessed before they could print, and is even more ignorant of the inex- tinguishable memory that was theirs before they could even write. Speaking of the customs of the Druids not to commit their sacred verses to writing, Julius Caesar says: " And they do not think it proper to commit these utterances to writing, although in almost all other matters, and in their public and private accounts, they make use of Greek letters. I believe that they have adopted this practice for two reasons that they do not wish the rule to become common property, nor those who learn the rule to rely on writing and so neglect the cultivation of the memory." And then Caesar adds: " And, in fact, it does usually happen that the assistance of writing tends to relax the diligence of the student and the action of the memory."* Thus, according to Caesar, who was as a rule a careful and accurate observer of his fellows, the ancient Druids not only knew the devastating effects of writing upon the memory, but also actually guarded against them. * De Bello Galileo, vi., 14. 10 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS Delitsch, Dillmaim and Lenormant all believed that a basis of historical truth underlay the various traditional flood legends handed down for thousands of years by most ancient peoples; the anthropologist, A. H. Keane, has also pointed out how accurate was the " vague tradition " concerning the succession of the ages, Copper, Bronze and Iron, which survived amongst the ancients* down to historical times ;f while Tylor has given innumerable amazing proofs of the general re- liability of unwritten tradition among people not yet able to record their history except upon the tablets of memory, J and has also shown what a number of ethno- graphical truths lie concealed in old proverbs, folk-lore and songs . Two of the instances given by Tylor appear so extra- ordinary to the modern mind that I feel they must be reproduced here, even at the risk of postponing the discussion of the main theme, seeing that they are ex- tremely helpful in supporting the point of view I am advancing. " It is related by Mr. Whitmore the missionary/' says Tylor, || " that in the island of Rotuma [South Sea Islands], there was a very old tree under which, ac- cording to tradition, the stone seat of a famous chief had been buried ; this was lately blown down, and sure enough, there was the stone seat under its roots, which must have been out of sight for centuries." And here is another instance of an historical fact having been handed down accurately without * Man Past and Present, pp. 16, 17. f See for instance Hesiod, Works and Days, 110-178. J Primitive Culture, vol i., chap. iii. Ibid., pp. 83-85, and also Anthropology, p. 375. || Anthropology, p. 374. INTRODUCTION 11 the assistance of written record, for hundreds of years : " In the Ellice group [South Sea Islands]/' says Tylor,* " the natives declared that their ancestors came from a valley in the distant island of Samoa generations before, and they preserved an old worm-eaten staff, pieced to hold it together, which in their assemblies the orator held in his hand as the sign of having the right to speak ; this staff was lately taken to Samoa, and proved to be made of wood that grew there, while the people of the valley in question had a tradition of a great party going out to sea exploring, who never came back/' Now if savages of the South Sea Islands, who are presumably of a race inferior to that of the ancestors of European peoples, can be capable of such stupendous feats of accurate memory, what are we to expect of the ancient ancestors of the Indian, Persian and Greek peoples themselves ?f Even among the civilised people of antiquity who had long possessed the art of writing, however, the survival of a remarkably vigorous memory in certain noted individuals helps us to form some idea of what their original endowment must have been before writing had begun to effect its deleterious results. We are told, for instance, that Cyneas, who was sent by King Pyrrhus on an embassy to the Romans, learnt * Anthropology, p. 374. For some further remarkable instances of an accurate memory of events that happened centuries before in the history of a race, see W. Kidgway, M.A., The Early Age of Greece (London, 1901), pp. 127-151. Prof. Ridgway mentions one case in which an accurate record of an event was kept by tradition for 800 years. f See C. 0. Muller's Introduction to a Scientific System of Mytho- logy, chap, ii., for some interesting instances of remote historical facts being retained in Greek myths. For historical fact unwittingly concealed in Homer, see Appendix I. in the above. 12 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS so perfectly in the course of one day the names of all those persons whom he had seen that on the following day he could name all the members of the Senate, and all the Romans who had assembled round them. It is also said that King Cyrus was able to name all the soldiers of his army, and L. Scipio all the citizens of Rome. Mith- ridates, the King of two-and-twenty nations, held courts in as many languages, and could converse with each nation in its own tongue without using an interpreter. Themistocles is said actually to have been oppressed by the strength and tenacity of his memory; and in the course of a year he learnt to speak Persic with perfect accuracy. Crassus, while governor of Asia, learnt the five Greek dialects so completely that he was able to give judgments in each. Hortensius, the Roman orator, is reported to have been able to deliver a whole oration in the words in which he had originally conceived it, without committing it to writing, and to go through all the arguments of an opponent in their proper order. It is alleged that he once attended a whole day at a public sale, and at the end of it recited in regular order the names of all the buyers, the articles sold, and their prices, with perfect exactitude. Finally, Seneca, in his youth, is believed to have been able to pronounce two thousand given words in their proper order, and having got a verse from each of his school-fellows, he re- peated more than two hundred of them correctly. And many other instances could be given. Whatever the truth may be regarding the feats of memory of which these individual ancients were capable, it seems fair to assume that the further one recedes from the age of printing, and the nearer one gets to the age when even writing was either an exceptional craft (like INTRODUCTION 13 sculpture to-day), or else totally unknown, the more vigorous and more reliable is likely to be the memory of the people one encounters; for, seeing that so much of very great interest to men, no matter how small their social community, depends upon antecedent events, it may be regarded as most highly probable, even if we had not other good grounds for believing it, that where the power of recording these events, except in memory, does not exist, memory will be proportionately developed. If the reader doubts the alleged interest of antecedent events in the lives of every fresh generation of men in a people not possessed of the power of writing, let him for a moment think of the number of privileges and prerogatives that are secured by bygone happenings alone, rights of property, rights of rank, titular rights, etc., all holders of which must be prepared, if need be, to produce some historical foundation for their claims, and while being most anxious to supply the necessary proofs, would only have memorised tradition to fall back upon in establishing their positions. To argue that such men would not be driven by the most powerful incentives to develop their memories, and to make them inordin- ately retentive and accurate, is deliberately to discount the extreme importance which may reasonably be attached to the issues depending upon tradition in such circumstances. It has been shown by a well-known anthropologist, his name does not occur to me while I write,* that the territorial claims of the ancient inhabitants of New Zealand, together with all the genealogical trees connected with them, were faithfully recorded by the memory of the people alone, and that when any dispute arose, it was settled by reference to * Quatrefages, I believe. 14 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS these memorised traditions and family pedigrees. There was no other authority. Bearing these considerations in mind, there can be little doubt that not only are we, a people that has long been in possession of the power of writing and printing, incapable except with great difficulty of imagining the full depth and force of the incentives which led ancient peoples to cultivate their memories, but we are also unfavourably constituted for grasping the power of the memories thus cultivated. It is in view of this that I think it right to insist upon an attitude of greater respect and more generous confidence in approaching the myths of antiquity, particularly those that have their first written record very early in the history of a people. It is unscientific for modern man to apply his own inade- quate standards of a dwarfed memory, and probably of a shrunken intellect to boot, to the solution of the prob- lems presented by these myths. He ought to assume from the start, not that myths and traditional legends are wild and irresponsible creations, or fantastic poetic nights, of an infantile human mind, comparable to the grotesque fancies of our babies of to-day (although the infantile mind, even of the modern child, does not create nearly such wild and fantastic notions as the modern adult fondly imagines); but that they most probably are records of actual occurrences, slightly coloured, it may be, by repeated reiteration, but substantially true, and having their basis in the feats or experiences of some notorious ancestor, or some extremely gifted stranger who greatly impressed the remote forebears of the race or people responsible for the myth.* * Can anyone really suppose that it is only by chance, only by a trick of fancy such as may occur in the elaboration of a fairy-tale INTRODUCTION 15 Such an attitude, I repeat, is only fair; because it discounts the degeneration that has occurred both in our own memories, and, I believe, our own intellects as well ; and, what is even more important, forces us to regard every detail of the particular myth or legend with reverence, and therefore with an honest effort at understanding; instead of leaving us free, as at present, to reject and select as we please, and conveniently to leave out of account, as mythologians are wont to do, an essential portion of a fable, simply because it appears to be irrelevant to a sun, dawn, wind, or lightning interpretation, or because it is an awkward subject to discuss. And this brings me to the fourth reason accounting for the determined silence on the part of mythologians respecting the apparently immoderate anger of Zeus in the Prometheus myth. I refer to the well-meaning kindness of endowing the mind of " childlike " man with a nice, clean, poetical and middle-class drawing- room tendency towards the personification and deifi- cation of natural phenomena. I agree with Herbert Spencer who I think has satisfactorily disposed of this comforting school of mythology, and has shown the general unreliability of their conclusions that the weight of the evidence is all on the side of ancestor- worship as the origin of myths, and not of the personi- that the Muses who " celebrate in song first of all the reverend race of the gods from the beginning, those whom Earth and wide Heaven begot, and the gods sprung of these, givers of good things. . . . And again . . . chant the race of men and strong giants . . . [and] sing the laws of all and the goodly ways of the immortals," can anyone really suppose, I say, that it is merely by chance that the Muses are said to have been the daughters of Mnemosyne (Memory)? See Hesiod, Theogony, 43-67. 16 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS fication and deification of the wind, the sky, the sun, the moon and the dawn. Consider the practice of cannibalism, for instance, mentioned in the very early Greek myths in connection with the first gods. Now imagine yourself possessed of a strange reluctance to believe anything so horrible as cannibalism of the ancestors of the noble Hellenes, and you will find distinct comfort from the thought that all these stories arose from the deification of the sun and the dawn. Let us suppose it possible to interpret the occurrence of cannibalism as follows : The sun (deified) rises in the heavens to find the moon or the earth (both deified) surrounded by all her children (the stars deified) . The stars disappear, that is, they are eaten up by the sun; but the moon sinks down behind the horizon to find a fresh brood of children with which to fight and defeat the sun on the following evening. Clearly this explanation, while satisfying your scruples against imputing so vile a practice as cannibalism to the remote ancestors of the noble Greeks, acquires quite unexpected plausibility from the fact that the very names occurring in the myth to be interpreted belong to the heavenly bodies or natural phenomena. Now if cannibalism were an impossibility; if it had never been heard of; if it were totally unknown except among modern civilised peoples (who may be regarded as indirect cannibals, seeing that so long as undeserved deaths by starvation occur in modern civilised countries, the bodies of the industrious poor may rightly be said to have been absorbed by the rich), we should find ourselves compelled to adopt some such fanciful and pretty story as the one outlined above, to account for its occurrence among the ancient gods of the Greeks. But seeing that INTRODUCTION 17 cannibalism still occurs among certain savage races, that on occasion the Eskimos of the present day are " driven to this terrible resort,"* and that in any case there are reasons for believing not only that it is more fre- quently practised because of the great palatableness of human flesh than because of religious motives, but also that human flesh should be the physiologically best food for men;f it is surely not difficult to believe that the remote ancestors of the Greeks indulged in this form of diet. Unless, therefore, you happen to be averse from imputing so grave a malpractice to the remote ancestors of your noble Hellenes, it seems more reasonable to attempt first of all an interpretation of the myth as a statement of fact, than as a poetical fancy as far-fetched as the one outlined above. The school which favours the theory of the deification and personification of natural phenomena is ably and learnedly represented by Professor Max Miiller, and, stated in his own terms, its attitude is as follows : " Most of the Greek, the Roman, the Indian, and all other heathen gods are nothing but poetical names, which were gradually allowed to assume a divine personality never contemplated by their original in- ventors. Eos was a name of the dawn before she became a goddess, the wife of Tithonus, or the dying day. . . . Zeus originally meant the bright heaven, in Sanscrit Dyaus ; and many of the stories told of him as the supreme god, had a meaning only as told originally of the bright heaven, whose rays, like golden rain, descended * Sollas, Ancient Hunters, p. 146. f Sollas, ibid., p. 145: " It is asserted on the evidence of some recent experiments that human flesh should be the physiologically best food for men." 2 18 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS on the lap of the earth, the Danae of old, kept by her father in the dark prison of winter. No one doubts that Luna, for " losna," originally " louxna," was simply a name of the moon; but so was likewise Lucvna. Hekate, too, was an old name of the moon, the feminine Hekatos and Hekatebolos, the far-darting sun; and Pyrrha, the Eve of the Greeks, was nothing but a name of the red earth, and in particular of Thessaly."* And again : " I look upon the sunrise and sunset, on the daily return of day and night, on the battle between light and darkness, on the whole solar drama in all its details, that is acted every day, every month, every year, in heaven and in earth, as the principal subject of early mythology. I consider that the very idea of divine powers sprang from the wonderment with which the forefathers of the Aryan family stared at the bright (deva) powers that came and went no one knew whence or whither, that never failed, never faded, never died, and were called immortal, i.e., unfading, as compared with the feeble and decaying race of man. I consider the regular recurrence of phenomena an almost indis- pensable condition of their being raised, through the charms of mythological phraseology, to the rank of immortals, and I give a proportionately small space to meteorological phenomena, such as clouds, thunder and lightning, which, although causing for a time a violent commotion in nature and in the heart of man, would not be ranked together with the immortal beings, but would rather be classed either as their subjects or their enemies /'f Thus most mythological accounts of the divine powers * See Lectures on the Science of Language, vol. i., pp. 12, 13. f Max Miiller, op. cit., vol. ii., pp. 565-566. INTRODUCTION 19 are, according to Professor Max Miiller, either solar myths or dawn myths; but while the monotony of this form of interpretation is frankly admitted by the learned Professor himself,* this, it strikes me, would constitute no fatal objection to the method, if a more human, more natural, and more universally applicable myth- genesis were not already to hand. Other mythologians, such as Professors Kuhn and Schwartz, proceed very much in the same way; but instead of laying the bulk of the burden of origin on the sun and the dawn, they enlist the assistance of meteoro- logical phenomena. Against this attitude towards ancient myths, Herbert Spencer, whom I follow in these pages, devotes several chapters of his Principles of Sociology ; and with his customary lucidity and masterly command of facts, satisfactorily, I believe, disposes of it.f He feels a certain difficulty, shared, I confess, by myself, in believing that men could thus personalise " transitory appearances as unlike humanity as can be conceived/' and regards the points of resemblance between certain performances of the heavenly bodies and those of certain legendary human beings as a pro- jection into nature of personal, i.e., ancestral doings, through the coincidence in names. Thus, a certain ancestor, or distinguished neighbour, or strange visitor, or conqueror, J let us suppose, of a race * Max Miiller, op. tit., vol ii., p. 548. f See particularly Principles of Sociology, 3rd ed., vol. i., pp. 363- 384. J It is important to notice here that Herbert Spencer advances many cogent arguments and produces much convincing evidence to show that, in cases where the difference between the distinguished neighbour or neighbours, strange visitor or visitors, conqueror or 20 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS of hunters, receives at birth, or later, the name of " Sun." There is no reason why he should not receive such a name. We speak even to-day of " sunny countenances," " cloudy looks," etc. A child born when the sun was high in the heavens, might easily for want of a better name be called " Sun." In later life he shows remarkable powers either of speed, accuracy of aim, inventiveness, virile procreativeness, strength, wisdom, or what not, so that he quickly becomes an important member of the race, vividly remembered both by the men and the women . At his death he is wildly lamented . It is sought to reincarnate his spirit by offering his dead remains freshly shed blood, either of animal or human victims. He becomes the subject of magnificats, the conquerors of a given race, and that race, is sufficiently great to make the former appear very much more exalted than the latter, the superior are immediately deified, or regarded as gods by the inferior race. See Principles of Sociology, 3rd ed., vol. i., pp. 396- 398: "The immigrant member of a superior race," says Spencer, " becomes a god among an inferior race. ... It is said by Bushmen, ' Those white men are children of God ; they know everything.' The East African exclaims: ' Truly ye are gods,' and Europeans are thus spoken of in the Congo. . . . When Thompson and Moffat wished to see a religious ceremony peculiar to the Bechuana women, the women said : ' These are gods, let them walk in. . . .' When the Spaniards went to Mexico the Mexicans exclaimed that their god Quetzalcoatl had come back with his companions." There is a good deal more evidence on these pages which I omit. " With such evidence before us," says Herbert Spencer (p. 400), " what shall we think about the ' gods and men ' who figure in the legends of higher races ? . . . We shall conclude that these ' gods and men ' were simply conquering and conquered races: all mythological interpretations notwithstanding." I must remind the reader here that all conquest is not " bloody " conquest. For instance, it is said that the Incas of Peru conquered without the sword. This is also said of the Chinese invasion of the territory now called the Middle Kingdom. INTRODUCTION 21 object of sacrifices, the highest appeal in cases of racial traditional authority for certain observances, modes of action, manner of dress. In time, through a confusion of the two names, his qualities are transferred to the sun, and the sun's qualities to him. But it is his personal peculiarities that stamp the myth concerning him with its indelible identity, and it is human powers that are glorified in his memory. It is impossible here to reproduce even in a condensed form the elaborate arguments which Spencer advances against the mythologians of the Max Miiller school, and in support of the origin of myths outlined above ; I can but recommend the reader, who questions the wisdom of my adoption of the Spencerian theory of interpreta- tion, to consult his treatise on the subject, which I have mentioned only to indicate and justify the lines upon which I myself propose to discuss the myth of Pro- metheus. Assuming, as I believe with good reason, that all religions, all deities, and all kinds of worship, have arisen from the glorification of certain ancestors and their achievements (including their most unpleasant deeds), Herbert Spencer comes much nearer than the Max Miiller class of theologian to a respectful attitude towards the traditional myths of antiquity, while at the same time, he clears away most of the glaring per- plexities which otherwise have to remain unravelled, if we trace the origin of the myths to deified natural phenomena. For instance, according to the Spencerian mode of interpretation it is not improbable that Cronus did mutilate Uranus in the manner related in the myth ; but how can the son of the sky be understood as mutilat- ing the sky in this manner ? Also, according to the 22 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS Spencerian theory, and according to the latest anthro- pological research, it is not improbable that the ancestors of the Greeks did pass through a stage of cannibalism and incest; but how can we reasonably or even un- reasonably evolve incest out of the observed relationship of heavenly bodies ? Max Miiller, holding, as he did, the sun-myth and dawn-myth theory, was naturally compelled, in order to explain all these unsavoury details about the gods, to speak of the " disease " that overtakes all religious ideas,* and also felt it necessary to apologise for the deities of Homer and their peculiar practices. He writes : " The gods of Homer, though, in their mythological aspect, represented as weak, easily deceived, and led astray by the lowest passions, are nevertheless, in the more reverent language of religion, endowed with nearly all the qualities which we claim for a divine and perfect Being, "f Thereupon he proceeds to quote from the Odyssey to substantiate his view. But this apology from Max Miiller is in itself the best acknowledgment that his interpretation cannot satis- factorily place all the facts ; for there is no such need for apologies or for emphasising the " disease that overtakes religious ideas/' if one knows one is dealing with the recorded actions of human beings quite well able to behave not only unsavourily, but even inhumanly in certain circumstances. After showing that the religion of the Fijians was the outcome of the glorification of certain exceptional in- dividuals who had existed from time to time among them, Herbert Spencer proceeds: * Op. cit., vol. ii., p. 455. | Op. cit., vol. ii., p. 459. INTRODUCTION 23 " Beyond all doubt the Fijian pantheon has arisen by that apotheosis of men which was still going on when travellers went among them : and if we say that by the Greeks, who also apotheosised men, a pantheon was generated in like manner, the interpretation is consistent. We are forbidden to suppose this, however. These Greek gods, with their human structures, dispositions, acts, histories, resulted from $he personalisation of natural objects and powers. So that, marvellous to relate, identical conceptions have been produced by diametrically opposite processes."* Whereupon Spencer concludes : " And so the univer- sality of anthropomorphism has the sufficient cause that divine man as conceived, had everywhere for antecedent a powerful man as perceived.^. . . There is no ex- ception then. Using the phrase ancestor- worship in its broadest sense as comprehending all worship of the dead, be they of the same blood or not, we conclude that ancestor- worship is the root of every religion. "J The satisfactory nature of this position becomes at once apparent, whether we contemplate the Greek theogony, the Christian theogony, or the theogony of the Hindus. Such attributes as Jealousy (ascribed to the Christian god), Lechery (ascribed to the Greek gods), Vanity and Pride (ascribed to the Hindu gods, though not exclusively to them), become compre- hensible when it is remembered that these gods are glorifications of once existing ancestors of the race ; they are incomprehensible nonsense when applied to omni- scient and almighty gods derived from the deification of the forces of nature. In addition, therefore, to the purely human misdemeanours, such as rape, incest, * Op. cit., vol. i., p. 403. f Op. tit., p. 409. % Op. tit., p. 411. 24 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS emasculation, etc., which are best explained by the Spencerian theory, the moral attributes of the gods are more easily derived from human than from natural origins. The Spencerian position, moreover, as I have already hinted above, leads to a more respectful attitude towards the incidental details of each particular myth, than does the other theory ; for instead of these theories constituting minor characteristics and vagaries, more or less negligible, of irresponsible clouds, storms and stars ; according to the Spencerian method, they represent the traditional record of the actual idiosyncrasies and per- formances of particular individuals who once belonged to the race in which the myth was found. Mythology, in this way, acquires a much deeper meaning, and a much more general interest . It almost becomes Anthropology ; indeed, if we make allowances for the inevitable dis- tortion which must result from constant repetition, even admitting a phenomenally accurate memory in the narrators (for we must allow for the artistic element of over-emphasis), it is anthropology pure and simple. It is in the attitude of mind derived from these con- siderations, that is to say, (1) with a feeling far from favourable for Prometheus, (2) with a spirit of uncus- tomary respect for the traditional myths of antiquity, (3) with a consciousness of the immense vigour and general accuracy of ancient man's memory and intellect, and (4) with a firm belief that the origin of ancient mythology is to be found in the worship of the dead, and that therefore all mythology is largely concealed anthropology, that I now propose to approach the legend of Prometheus. CHAPTER I PROMETHEUS, THE MYTHICAL HERO THE story of the Titan Prometheus and his doings are perhaps too familiar to be repeated here. As, however, a detailed discussion of the myth connected with his name is to constitute the burden of this essay, I must at the risk of wearying the reader, repeat it in this chapter, at least in outline. For this purpose I shall give the commonly accepted account of the myth, following more or less closely the oldest version which is to be found in Hesiod, and for the 5th division of the myth, drawing upon ^Eschylus. I shall classify the myth into five divisions in order to facilitate future reference. 1. Genealogy and General Family Relations. By the marriage of Uranus, the god of the sky, with Ge, mother earth, there were procreated among others, Cronus, the father of Zeus, the ultimate head of the Greek Pantheon, and lapetus, the father of Prometheus. Thus Prometheus is the grandson of Uranus and the first cousin of Zeus. (These questions of relationship will prove more im- portant subsequently.) Prometheus is, moreover, the brother of Atlas, Menoetius and Epimetheus. His name signifies " Forethought/' and he was traditionally be- lieved to have surpassed mankind in cunning and fraud. He is variously reported to have had as wife either Pandora, Hesione, Axiothea, or Asia. He probably 25 26 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS married all four. The fact that his brother Epimetheus had previously married Pandora would have presented no obstacle to his also doing so, particularly in his time. 2. Life and Works. Once in the reign of Zeus, when gods and men were disputing with one another at Mecone, Prometheus, with the object of deceiving Zeus, cut up a bull and divided it into two parts; he wrapped up the best parts and the intestines in the skin, and at the top he placed the stomach, one of the worst parts; while the second heap consisted of the bones covered with fat. When Zeus pointed out to him how badly he had made the division, Prometheus desired him to choose, but Zeus, in his anger, and seeing through the strategem of Prometheus, chose the heap of bones covered with the fat. The father of the gods then avenged himself by withholding fire from the mortals. 3. Life and Works continued. It was then that Prometheus stole fire from the gods in a hollow tube. But it was traditional among the Greeks to regard Prometheus as something more than the god who had stolen fire and given it to man. He was to them the original founder of their civilisation. It was he who had taught them architecture, astronomy, mathematics, the art of writing, the treatment of domestic animals, navigation, medicine, the art of prophesy, working in metals, and all the other arts. These additional achievements of his, while apparently of no importance to the fire-myth, or sun-myth, or lightning-myth, interpretation of his life, are essential to the interpretation I propose to offer, and that is why I must give them a prominent place here. Volcker PEOMETHEUS THE MYTHICAL HERO 27 actually regards them as the fundamental feature of the whole myth.* Perhaps the best account of this aspect of the myth is placed in the mouth of Prometheus himself in the Prometheus Bound of ^Eschylus, where the hero is made to speak as follows: "... The miseries of men I will recount to you, how, mere babes before With reason I endowed them and with mind ; . . . Who, firstly seeing, knew not what they saw, And hearing, did not hear ; confusedly passed Their life-days, lingeringly, like shapes in dreams, Without an aim ; and neither sunward homes, Brick-woven, nor skill of carpentry, they knew; But lived, like small ants shaken with a breath, In sunless caves a burrowing, buried life : . . . More is behind, more wonderful to hear : Skill and resource, contrived by me for men. This first and foremost : did a man fall sick, Deliverance was there none, or 'twixt the teeth, Or smeared, or drunken ; but for very lack Of healing drugs they wasted, till that I Showed them to mix each virtuous remedy, Wherewith they shield them now from all disease. . . . And 'neath the earth beside The hidden treasure for the use of man, Of brass and iron, silver and precious gold, What one can boast he found ere I could find ? No one, I wis, who would not idly babble. Nay, take the whole truth briefly, in a word, All skill that mortals have, Prometheus gave."f * Die Mythologie des Japetischen Geschlechts oder der Sundenfall der Menschen nach Griechischen Mythen (Giessen, 1824), p. 32 : " Diese Eigenshaft des Prometheus, dass er Kiinstler und Entwil- derer ist, macht den Grundzug und die Grundlage des mythus, und in alien Wendungen der Sage tritt dieser Zug wieder hervor." t Translation by Robert Whitelaw, Oxford, 1907, 456-519. 28 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS 4. The Anger of Zew, Part 7. In order to punish men (apparently for having been the receivers of Prometheus's theft) Zeus bade Hephaestos to mould a virgin, Pandora , of earth, whom Athena adorned with all the charms calculated to entice mortals. Prometheus had cautioned his brother Epimetheus (whose name, by-the-by means Afterthought) against accepting any gift from Zeus, but Epimetheus, heeding not his advice, accepted Pandora. Pandora then lifted the lid of the vessel in which the foresight of Prometheus had concealed all the evils which might torment mortals in life, and diseases and suffering of every kind now issued forth, deceitful Hope alone remaining behind. 5. The Anger of Zeus, Part II. Prometheus himself was chained to a rock in Scythia, in the presence of Might and Force (Cratos and Bia), two ministers of Zeus ; whereupon, for refusing to reveal a certain secret to Zeus, he was hurled with the rock into Tartarus. After a long lapse of time, Prometheus returned to the upper world to endure a fresh course of suffering; for he was now fastened to Mount Caucasus, and tor- mented by an eagle every day devouring his liver which was restored in the night. The fact that Prometheus is ultimately released from this excruciating torment by Heracles, who, with the consent of Zeus, kills the eagle, though it will concern us ultimately, is at present only mentioned as forming an end to the story. Now here we have a most complicated story, pur- porting to explain one of the greatest, if not the greatest of man's discoveries. Obviously it has a deep historical interest, and if in the main true, ought to shed a con- siderable amount of light on the remotest past of PROMETHEUS THE MYTHICAL HERO 29 humanity. It is a story full of curious detail, repeated by Hesiod, particularly in regard to the meeting of gods and men at Mecone, with an obvious effort to be faithful to traditional hearsay, and yet to produce what appears to be a connected and logical narrative. This was no doubt difficult. Tradition handed down numerous apparently unconnected particulars about the figure of the hero; we must suppose that the connecting stories were either forgotten, as being less vital, or were not repeated to Hesiod; but he certainly appears to jump from one portion to another of the fable as if he were more intent on fidelity to tradition than on proving either that he understood the whole myth, or that he heard it as a consecutive and logical account. The difficulty of explaining this myth purely as a sun-myth consists chiefly in accounting for these apparently unconnected details which Hesiod faithfully records without comment: the meeting at Mecone, the gift of Pandora, the concealing of fire, then the stealing of it. The details of the Mecone assembly, the chaining of Prometheus to a certain spot where an eagle consumed his liver, the more these features are examined, the more intricate does the problem appear. Besides, there are certain moral attributes, such as cunning and craft, ascribed to the hero, which are so human and so persis- tently repeated, that they appear to cling to Prometheus, as essential characteristics identifying him, quite apart from the role he plays. In fact his whole figure seems to live independently of the myth, and to disengage itself from it, in a manner hard to reconcile with the belief that he was created from a natural phenomenon to explain a certain earthly phenomenon. Other events of his life, which it did not seem necessary to enter into for the 30 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS purposes of this treatise, show him to be a turncoat and a traitor. In the Theogony, even before his tricks are disclosed, Hesiod refers to him as a matter of course as " clever Prometheus, full of various wiles/'* and Zeus would scarcely have been reported to say to him at Mecone, after the performance of what in the narrative is the first act of deception, " So, sir, you have not forgotten your cunning arts/'f if a previous history of fraud and artfulness had not been known against him. It is difficult to understand, moreover, how the sun- myth mode of interpretation can find as satisfactory a place for the Pandora incident and the box of evils, as the Spencerian interpretation can; and, seeing in any case that the discovery of fire by primitive man is obviously an anthropological question of primary importance, and that whenever the event occurred it must have created such a complete revolution in human life as to stamp itself indelibly upon the memory of primitive man, we are almost compelled, apart from the reasons already adduced in the Introduction, at least to attempt an interpretation, or rather a substantiation of the truthful elements of the myth on anthropological lines. J If we regard Prometheus merely as a deified sunbeam or stroke of lightning, we can obviously dispense with more than three-quarters of the hero's life story as a * 510-511. f 559-560. J For the emphatic view of distinguished anthropologists on the extreme importance of the discovery of fire to primitive man, see W. J. Sollas, Ancient Hunters, pp. 97-98; 0. Peschel, Volkerkunde, V. Aufl., 1875, p. 144; while Robert Munro in Prehistoric Problems (London, 1897), p. 102, writes: " The art of fire-making had a greater influence on human civilisation than the modern discovery of electricity." PROMETHEUS THE MYTHICAL HERO 31 negligible but pretty fairy-tale. If, on the other hand, we regard Prometheus as a remote ancestor of the ancient Greeks, who lived in their memories because of his stupendous deed, then every detail about him is per- tinent, even his relationship of first-cousin to Zeus. E. E. Sykes and Wynne Willson, in their introduction to the Prometheus of .ZEschylus, express the view that " the myth of the Fire Stealer, like the myth concerning Uranus and Cronus, and many other puerile or repulsive stories, belongs to the very oldest stratum of Greek mythology/'* They must be forgiven the epithets " puerile " and " repulsive," because apart from the fact that we have grown used to this sort of fatuous deprecation of important anthropological data by accredited classical scholars, the information they give is useful. It is, however, only what might have been expected. As will be seen later on, the discovery of the means for producing fire must have taken place thousands of years before Hesiod wrote his Works and Days ; it is not at all surprising, therefore, to find that the Pro- metheus myth belongs to the " very oldest stratum of Greek mythology." Dr. Volcker adds to this informa- tion by asserting that all understanding of the true meaning of the myth was forgotten from the time of Homer and Hesiod on wards .f Thus we are to assume that this extraordinary story was accepted on trust, without understanding, by the whole of the Greek people, from about the eighth century B.C. This fact, if it be a fact, throws an interesting light upon the religious humility of the ancient Hellenes. Before attempting on Spencerian and anthropological * The Prometheus Vinctus of JEschylus (London, 1898), p. xv. f Op. tit., p. 41. 32 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS lines a reconstruction of what probably happened to give rise to the Prometheus tradition, it will be necessary to dwell on certain aspects of it, which, with the exception of Professor J. S. Blackie, seem to have escaped the modern mythologian. Next the actual discovery, or rather theft, of fire, the most striking feature of the myth, is that Prometheus, after behaving seemingly like a self-sacrificing hero and conferring an apparently inestimable and lasting benefit upon mankind, suffers for this act of incalculable friendliness to the human race countless centuries of the most excruciating torture that the imagination can conceive. Why is this ? Has anyone offered a satis- factory explanation ? Nobody; not even Professor Blackie himself. Professor Blackie exclaims: "Chained to a rock in wintry Scythia for a crime that appears no crime !"* Just so ! He then proceeds to tell us that so deeply have some people been impressed by the heroism of Prometheus that they have compared him to Christ .f I can well understand it. If people will persist in taking just those portions of an ancient myth that strike them as most pleasant and romantic, and ignore the rest, it is not surprising that such misconceptions should arise. The wonder would be for any truth to be discovered by such methods. But I maintain that if the whole myth is approached reverently and modestly I mean by " modestly," free from the habitual stupid arrogance of the modern mind not only will the serious truth underlying it most certainly come to light, but also the absurdity of these extravagant and odious comparisons * Classical Museum, vol. v., No. I., p. 2. f Ibid., p. 9. PROMETHEUS THE MYTHICAL HERO 33 For, strange as it may seem, the scholars are no worse in this respect than the poets, who though usually suc- cessful in arriving at the truth by a sudden flash of divine insight, in regard to the figure of Prometheus have shown themselves exceptionally obtuse. Let us refer to the best of them. Byron, we are told, was a worshipper of Prometheus as a boy ! He writes in one of his letters: " The Pro- metheus, if not exactly in my plan, has always been so much in my head, that I can easily conceive its influence over all or anything that I have written/'* In his poem Prometheus, he makes his hero exclaim: " My Godlike crime was to be kind, To render with thy precepts less The sum of human wretchedness."! He conceives Prometheus to have been a martyr wan- tonly tortured by a godhead that cannot kill him, but " Which for its pleasure doth create J The things it may annihilate." It is Byron in his worst vein, Byron showing no penetration, but only full-throated, almost lachrymose sentimentality. It shows not even the beginnings of an understanding of the myth. Shelley takes the same schoolboy view of the Greek Titan. In fact, if we can think of Byron and Shelley as referring to Prometheus in the same language, we can imagine their both calling him " a good sportsman " in the accepted schoolboy sense. Goethe is indeed a little more profound; but while he emphasises what he believes to be the atheistic trait in Prometheus, he also entirely leaves out of account * Letters, 1900, iv., p. 174, October 12th, 1817. f Third stanza. J Second stanza. 3 34 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS the Greek view both of Prometheus and Zeus. Thus Goethe makes Prometheus address his distinguished cousin as follows: " I know nothing more pitiable' Under the sun than ye gods ! "* Ye feed your majesty* Most miserably* By means of sacrifices 8 And votive prayers ; Ye would e'en starve, If children and beggars Were not trusting fools. . . . I honour thee, and why ? . . . Here sit I, shaping men* After my image; A race resembling me. To suffer, to weep, To enjoy, to be glad, And thee to scorn, As I!"* This is all very well, and it sounds magnificent and virile enough; as I have already pointed out above, it is a little more profound than Byron's or Shelley's view; but Goethe, like his fellow-bards, fails utterly to grasp the Greek attitude towards the Promethean character. So to imagine for one moment that either Goethe, Byron or Shelley, f show in their conception of * The translation is from E. A. Bowring's English rendering of Goethe's poems (London, 1880), pp. 181-182; but I have taken a slight liberty with the Bowring version, as in the lines marked thus ', I do not think Bowring's words give a good impression of the original. f Shelley so far misunderstood the Greek conception of the myth as to speak of Zeus as the " successful and perfidious " adversary of Prometheus ! Such " interpretation," if it may be so called, reflects little credit upon the insight of the man who is responsible for it. See his Preface to Prometheus Unbound. PROMETHEUS THE MYTHICAL HERO 35 Prometheus even the remotest resemblance to the ancient Hellenic view of the myth would be utterly and hopelessly wrong. It may be argued that ^Eschylus himself is answerable for these misconceptions, and that in his Prometheus Bound he rather gives the impression of a blameless hero, indignant in his innocence at his chastisement by the arch-oppressor Zeus. But, as Professor Blackie pertinently observes: Disaccording [to this view], Prometheus appears as the most oppressed of martyrs, and Zeus as the most unjust of tyrants, the question arises how an Athenian audience, proverbially remarkable for SetcrtSat/xovta at a solemn religious festival on the public stage, could tolerate such a represen- tation ?"* This question is remarkably to the point. But some- how it never seems to have occurred either to the majority of the scholars or the best of the poets. It is so much to the point, indeed, that it starts out as the one bright ray of light from all the mass of dull and learned dis- sertations on this subject. Of course, if Zeus had meant no more to the Greeks than he means to our modern scholars and poets, we can well conceive of the ancient Hellenes enjoying, as much as our present day Hellenists seem to enjoy, a drama in which Prometheus appears as an ill-used hero and martyr, defying, despite his agony, the cruel, despotic, but almighty villain Zeus. But unfortunately for our modern Hellenists, the truth is exactly the reverse of this. The Greeks loved and revered Zeus very much more than they loved and revered Pro- metheus, very much more indeed, as a community, than modern society loves and admires the putative father of * Classical Museum, vol. v. (i.), p. 15. 36 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS Christ. Does not Hesiod speak of Zeus as " the most excellent among the gods,"* as the " wise Zeus/'f as the " father " who " distributed fairly to the immortals their portions and declared their privileges, "J etc., etc.? Max Miiller has been careful to collect a good deal of evidence showing the attitude of profound reverence and love with which the ancient Greek confronted his supreme deity, Zeus; and Sikes and Wynne Willson assure us that " although Prometheus had due honour in myth, he won little recognition in cult."|| If then ^Eschylus's Prometheus Bound had meant to the ancient Athenians all that it means to some cultivated modern Europeans, we cannot conceive of the former having tolerated it for one instant. We must therefore conclude that the punishment of Prometheus, cruel as it was, appeared just and well- deserved to the ancient Greek mind. And why ? In the first place, because of the infinite trust the ancient Greek had in the wisdom and justice of Zeus. Secondly, because from Hesiod he had learnt of the career of crime imputed to Prometheus, in which Zeus figures not only as an outraged god, but also as a bene- volent power who ultimately pardons the deceiver (which is more than the Christian god ever does for the mutinous angel he cast into eternal fire).^f And thirdly, because while in the Prometheus Bound * See Theogony, 48-49. f Ibid., 56. J Ibid., 73-74. See also Homer, Od. xiv. 83, and II. ix. 49. See also the reverent manner in which Euthyphron is made to refer to Zeus when addressing Socrates. And this was probably typical of the cultivated Greek of the period. " For all men believe," says Euthyphron, " that Zeus is the best and most just of the gods," Plato, Euthyphron. Op. cit., chap. x. || Op. cit., p. xix. ^| See Classical Museum, vol. v. (i.), p. 34. PROMETHEUS THE MYTHICAL HERO 37 of ^Eschylus we have only one section of a trilogy one section which admittedly gives only one point of view and that very forcibly the Greeks not only knew but must frequently have witnessed the whole. How do we know what the other parts of the trilogy contained, what balance they struck between the two principal figures of the myth Zeus and Prometheus and how much they modified the impression made by the Prometheus Bound ? Is it not possible that if we pos- sessed the whole, on the showing of .ZEschylus alone, quite apart from Hesiod's story, we should regard the relationship of Zeus to Prometheus very differently ? Thus Professor Blackie, with exceptional and laudable insight, concludes: "The general impression of the tyrannical character of Jove is the mere offspring of modern partial conceptions, formed in the total disregard both of Hesiod and of the Trilogy/ 3 * This settles the question so satisfactorily that it appears as if there were little to add. How about Volcker's observation, however, that the true meaning of the myth had been forgotten ? In this true meaning, if we can find it, it is possible that we may discover yet another justification for the meek acquiescence of the ancient Greek in the conduct of Zeus. For, although we are told that the Greeks, from Homer and Hesiod on- wards, did not know the true meaning of the myth, the indignation of Zeus may have appeared so amply justified in the light of the true meaning, at the time when it was known, that this very justification, full and complete as * Op. cit., p. 40. The italics in the quotation are my own, A.M. L. F. G. Welcker also faces the problem of Zeus and Prometheus, and admits that it presents a great difficulty. His discussion on the subject, however, is not nearly as useful as Professor Blackie's. See Die Aeschylische Trilogie " Prometheus" pp. 90-111. 38 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS it was, may have come down as an essential part of the myth itself with the force of a blind and yet powerful higher sanction for the anger of Zeus, and placed the rectitude of this anger by tradition beyond question. If this were so, and I believe there are very cogent reasons indeed for believing it, there would be yet a fourth explanation of the ancient Greek's cheerful and reverential acceptance of the part Zeus played in the myth; though this fourth explanation might well be included under the first reason, which I give as being the infinite trust of the ancient Greek in the wisdom and justice of Zeus, which in any case was also a matter of pure tradition. Summing up, then, we have seen that there is no warrant whatsoever for assuming either that Prometheus suffered an injustice, or that Zeus acted in any way calculated to forfeit either the love or the reverence with which the ancient Greeks regarded him. To suppose this, as hundreds of scholars and many poets have done, is to be guilty not only of a misunderstanding of the deep religious character of the Greeks, but also of a deliberate neglect of certain documents, some of which appear in the case, others of which existed in the past, but as to the nature of whose contents we can now only make a shrewd guess. Nevertheless, bearing in mind the character of the Greeks, this guess points in a direction very different from that in which Goethe, Byron, Shelley, and the majority of scholars about them, have persisted in looking. Finally, seeing that according to no less an authority than Volcker, the true meaning of the myth appears to have been forgotten by the Greeks from Homer and PROMETHEUS THE MYTHICAL HERO 39 Hesiod onwards, I suggest that in its true meaning perhaps lies the greatest justification of Zeus, and that this greatest justification came down without details (merely as a traditional higher sanction for his conduct) with the myth itself, and constituted part of the essential atmosphere surrounding it, or an essential part of the spirit animating it. It is this " forgotten " reason with which I am chiefly concerned in this essay. But in this matter I shall tread what I believe to be absolutely virgin soil; I shall wander utterly alone, I shall leave even that enlightened scholar Professor Blackie far behind me. Only Volcker and C. 0. Miiller will accompany me part of my way, and then, wishing them also good-bye, I shall, with my new discovery, run the gauntlet of the critics, and of those men who no wiser than your Drs. Petiscus and your Shelleys could not even see so far as correctly to master the actual documents in the case. Before I take my journey alone I must, however, first clear the ground still further, by replying to what I have described in my Preface as " the most learned, the most ingenious, and certainly the most daring of all the ex- planations " hitherto offered about the Prometheus myth the work of Dr. Kuhn. I say that, at all costs, this explanation must be rejected, because it deliberately discards parts of the story. If there is anything in all I have maintained in my Introduction, surely this would be as good a reason as any. But I believe there are speedier methods than mere analysis, point by point, of all Dr. Kuhn's arguments, of ridding ourselves of his erudite sophistry. And for this speedier method of slaughter I am indebted to Mr. Andrew Lang, whose 40 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS weapons I shall now proceed to borrow if only for the sake of brevity. Briefly Dr. Kuhn's thesis is more or less as follows : The Greeks were wrong in deriving Prometheus from Trpo/ATj&fo provident, and connecting it with such other words as Trpo^Oov^aL, IT POMELO. . Prometheus is really a Greek form of pramantJm (Skt.), the fire-stick of the Hindus, with which they kindle fire by means of friction. Pramantha, however, is also suggestive of robbing. The robbery of fire was called pramatha, pramathyu-s is he who loves boring or robbery, a borer or robber. From the latter word, according to the peculiarities of Greek phonology, is formed TipopyOev-s, Prometheus.* Thus Prometheus is simply a fire-god. It is impossible to reproduce the elaborate arguments, etymological and mythological, advanced in support of this theory. Suffice it to say that it alleges that the Greeks, having forgotten the meaning of words, allowed the compound pramathnami to acquire the meaning of robbing, hence the idea that Matarigvan robbed fire from the gods, and the Greeks are supposed to have derived their fire-stealer myth from this Indian source. Now it seems to me there is one fatal objection to this interpretation, and Mr. Andrew Lang raises it. He points out that the Thlinkuts, Ahts, Andaman Islanders, Australians, Maoris, South Sea Islanders, Cahroes and others all believe that fire was originally stolen, and then he proceeds: " Is it credible that, in all their languages, the name of the fire-stick should have caused a confusion of thought which ultimately led to the belief that fire was obtained originally by larceny ? If such a coin- cidence appears incredible, we may doubt whether the * See Encyclopedia Britannica, llth ed., article " Prometheus." PROMETHEUS THE MYTHICAL HERO 41 belief that is common to Greeks and Cahroes and Ahts was produced in Greek minds by an etymological con- fusion, in Australia, America and so forth by some other cause."* I really think that, quite apart from the origin of the notion of fire-stealing as further explained by Mr. Andrew Lang, this objection, as it stands, is fatal to Dr. Kuhn's theory, particularly as, according to Mr. Andrew Lang's showing elsewhere, " contradictions [as between high authorities] are, unfortunately, rather the rule than the exception in the etymological inter- pretation of myths."f When one bears in mind that scholars no less eminent than Kuhn, Max Miiller, Preller, Brown, etc., entirely disagree in regard to the etymology of the name Cronus, and consequently in regard to the meaning of the myth, one feels inclined, with Herbert Spencer, to refrain from relying too confidently upon this method of interpreta- tion.} * Encyclopedia Britannica, article " Prometheus." f Custom and Myth, p. 57. J Roscher also refutes Kuhn's theory of the fire-stick origin of the Promethean myth. But he proceeds somewhat differently. See Ausfuhrliches Lexicon der Griechischen und Romischen Mytho- logie, pp. 3033-3034. CHAPTEK II PROMETHEUS THE MAN I SHALL now attempt on Spencerian and anthropological lines, an interpretation of the Fire-Stealer myth of the Greeks, and shall accordingly assume that, not only Prometheus himself, but also Zeus, and the other gods of Olympus, were ancestors of the ancient Greeks powerful ancestors who became perpetuated in the memory of their descendants, owing to the brilliance of their deeds, the great wisdom of their rule, and the beauty of their bodies and their lives. By way of experiment I shall proceed in my inter- pretation, as if all the details of the myth were material to the understanding of its secret, and on the assump- tion that, although all the truth is not contained in the traditional account of the myth, all the traditional account of the myth is true. It will be interesting to see whether, on this plan, I arrive at an explanation of the mystery, at once more intelligible, more probable, and more consonant with recognised anthropological data, than by the method which believes from the start that the whole body of the story is a poetic, pleasant, but empty fairy-tale. I think the experiment worth trying. 1.* Believing it to be true that great neighbours, visitors, or strange conquerors, of a race, are deified just as readily, and (owing to their more marked differen- * These numbers will correspond to my arbitrary subdivisions of the myth given at the beginning of the previous chapter. 42 PROMETHEUS THE MAN 43 tiating characters) frequently more speedily than actual ancestors, however much distinguished, of the same blood, I express it as my belief that the gods of the Greeks, like the gods of the Indians and Persians, and the gods of some western Asiatic peoples, were derived rather from deified strangers than from ancestors of the same blood . My principal reason for holding this belief is the tradition contained in the early myths themselves. Thus Earth i.e., the people of the earth, the creatures known and familiar are the men and women who are regarded as every-day occurrences to the race perpetua- ting the myth. They are the given quantity. The god, or the " sons of the gods/' that mingle with the daughters of the earth, are the new arrivals, the new stock possessed of unaccustomed brilliance, wisdom and beauty, who are deified either immediately or subsequently, by virtue of these qualities. Thus the alleged crossing of the gods with the earth (or the women of the earth), records an actual cross which took place between an inferior race (in this case the remote ancestors of most modern European peoples), and a race so very much superior as to .appear divine to the inferior race. Thus in Greek mythology, Uranus, first ruler of the world, marries Ge, the Earth.* In Indian mythology, Dyaus (Heaven) marries Prithivi (the Earth). In Semitic mythology, "the sons of god saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. "f Now, as I have been to some pains to show elsewhere, before a superior race condescends to effect any union * It is characteristic, however, of Greek mythology, which is by far the most lucid and most reliable of all, that even the gods of the sky were originally born of earth. This shows exceptional insight. f Gen. vi. 2. 44 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS with an inferior race, the former must have suffered some degeneration.* The natural attitude of a healthy superior race towards an inferior race, however healthy and attractive in its own way, is one of aloofness and contempt. Broadmindedness manifested in inter- racial or inter-class unions, as in every other department of life, may be said always to constitute degeneration. It is the broadmindedness of the present day in all matters (and I say this in the teeth in the false teeth of a huge majority of modern men and women) that is its most convincing symptom of de- generation. Despite the fact, therefore, that they were regarded as gods, the strangers who appeared in the midst of the remote ancestors of most European peoples, and of some western Asiatics, although vastly superior to these races, had already suffered probably many hundreds of years of degeneration. They were probably unusually tall, led a simple, tasteful and healthy life, and were too gentlemanly in their instincts, too cultured in their marrow, to abandon the freedom and beauty of a life of hunting, for the more sordid occupations of agriculture and manual industry. But of this anon. Why do I suggest with so far only the myth to guide me that they were probably tall ? Because the cross between them and the inferior race produced men very much bigger than the people of the inferior race itself. I do not wish to be suspected of assuming for the pur- poses of my interpretation that the Titans were neces- sarily giants, or the giants; though even if I did so I should be sinning in excellent company. Some have even called the myth of the Titans a parallel myth to * See my Defence of Aristocracy, chap. vii. PROMETHEUS THE MAN 45 the myth of the giants. In Greek myth itself, however, we hear that Atlas was supposed to have been condemned by Zeus to support the Heavens on his shoulders; this tradition points to his having been an exceptional monster of a man,* while Heracles, who was also the result of the same cross, was notoriously a man of in- ordinate size and strength. Now Atlas was the brother of Prometheus. Heracles was the son of Prometheus "s first cousin; so I do not think it is even stretching the internal evidence of the myth, to assume that the Titans were a mighty race of people. I therefore conclude that the superior race was a tall race. Some, of course, of the offspring of the cross bred true, either to the one stock or to the other. Zeus was probably one of these true-bred offspring of the cross, who resembled in every particular the superior, immigrant race. Prometheus, on the other hand, first cousin to Zeus and brother to Atlas and referred to by many as the mighty Titan was probably a perfect blend of the two races, and therefore very much bigger than the men either of the superior or the inferior race. This frequently happens. Darwin has shown sufficiently convincingly how often crossing adds to the size of offspring .*j" But the feature of tallness would be likely to be exaggerated in the cross, if the parents on one side were unusually tall. As therefore the immigrant race was a superior race in this case, I take it that the unusual tallness was on their side, and this would explain the might and probably the size of such men as Atlas, Heracles and Prometheus. The Bible tells us that after the sons of god had taken * Homer, too, seems to have the idea of a giant when he mentions Atlas. See Odyssey, i. 52. f See The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol.* ii., pp. 74-158. 4:6 MAN'S DESCENT FROM. THE GODS the daughters of men as wives: " There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of god came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."* Dr. Skinner's comment on this important verse is strangely in keeping with what I am now contending. He says: " The idea undoubtedly is that this race [the giants] arose at that time in consequence of the union of the divine ' spirit ' with human ' flesh/ "f I would add : not the idea is, but the fact was. Dr. Tuch's view agrees with Dr. Skinner's, but Dr. Tuch would have it that the word " giants " in the text should be understood as " extraordinary " men, or " big " men (Ausserordentlichen, Grosseri).% I can see no objection to this, provided that " extraordinary " size is implicit. Luther translates " Ne Phe Lim " by " tyrants," but I can nowhere find the slightest justi- fication for this exceptional translation. Our own Revised Version has " or giants " in the margin, by the side of the " Ne Phe Lim." It rather makes me suspect that Luther was simply endeavouring to circumvent what appeared to him to be a prickly problem ;. for, to the Christian, I should imagine that this mention of the " sons of god " appearing so early in the Old Testa- ment, and followed by " giants," must present a some- what grave difficulty. However, that is not my present business. The text in any case affords me another and probably independent example of an occurrence similar to that which we find at the opening of Greek mythology. * Gen. vi. 4. f A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (Edinburgh, 1910), p. 146. J See Kommentar uber die Genesis (Halle, 1838), p. 159. PROMETHEUS THE MAN 47 It is curious, moreover, that in the ancient north, according to legend, there was a great mingling of the people after the immigration of Odin, and the giants took to themselves wives from Mannliezen; but some married their daughters there.* However, I only mention these allied myths in order to assist the understanding of the principal myth with which we are concerned ; just as, if anyone did not possess any information about Englishmen, and only had the record of the savages Englishmen had visited or con- quered to assist him in visualising them, he would naturally endeavour to compare as many of these savage records as possible. As I believe that the race which, in the present union of races with which we are concerned; was fairly widespread, I think it not at all unlikely that these various accounts of their cross with the " Earth " and the " daughters of men," relate to similar but not identically the same experiences. In the case of the Aryan family, for instance, it is possible that the various accounts all refer to one original cross. This, however, is by no means certain. But to return to the subject of our enquiry. Having considered the probable physical characters that resulted from the union of " gods " and " men," what are we to suppose were the moral characters that were the outcome of the blend ? Now we know very definite things about the moral effects of racial crosses. We know that whereas fertility and size are increased, character is destroyed. This matter I have gone into with sufficient detail elsewhere, to spare myself the pains of a further statement of the arguments here.f Thus Eurasians and Mulattoes and * See the Hervarasarja. f See my Defence of Aristocracy, pp. 298-323, etc. 48 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS cross-bred Europeans and Chinese are proverbial for their unreliability, shiftiness and even dishonesty. Where the blend is perfect, obviously both moral characters are destroyed; both inherited moral attributes tend to neutralise each other, and leave but a residuum of some- what savage primary instincts behind, denuded of their usual overlay of social and aesthetic inhibitions. Thus in the race of giants we should expect to find, owing to their not having bred true to either race, moral imperfections of the worst order. We should expect to find the Titans unreliable, crafty, deceitful, " full of wiles/' and even inclined to treachery. It is not out of keeping, therefore, that Prometheus should appear as a creature of no moral character in the myth. On the other hand, his first cousin Zeus who, owing to the fact that he must have impressed the memories of his contemporaries most by his wisdom and brilliance, was made the head of all the gods I believe to have bred true to the superior race. The Titans, I claim, had a bad character. For a con- firmation of this, look at the parallel myths ! Immediately after the appearance of the " giants " in Genesis, " God saw that the wickedness of man was great on earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord."* Yes, but Noah had had nothing to do with the crossing of the " sons of god " and the " daughters of * Gen. vi. 58. PROMETHEUS THE MAN 49 men." His immaculate pedigree is given in full in the preceding chapter. Likewise in another stray fragment of a similar myth in India, it is Hajagriva, one of the giants, who by stealing the sacred books of the Vedas, brings on the Flood.* From the fact that they were the result of a cross between widely divergent races, it seems correct to infer that, wherever they represented a complete blend (different from either race) they would show a certain looseness of principle and general moral depravity; but seeing that the myths actually tell us definitely, as in the case of Prometheus f and Hajagriva, that this was so, and in the case of the Old Testament giants, certainly implies that it must have been so, we have a curious coincidence between a biological truth and an oral tradition, which goes a long way towards helping us to suppose that this tradition found its source in a singularly accurate memory. Very well then, we can now return to the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks, and try to picture what had actually happened to them. I have already suggested that the superior race with which they had come in contact had suffered degenera- tion, probably for many centuries. I gave as my reason for this that they were broadminded enough to see beauty and attractiveness in the females of another obviously inferior race. But there is another reason also reported in the myth. Their advent into Greek life * See Fried. Tuch, op. cit., p. 154. Tuch is of opinion that the giants mentioned in the mythology of India are comparable to the giants of the sixth chapter of Genesis. f It should also be noted that Atlas and Menoetius, brothers of Prometheus, are both reported in the myth to have come to a bad end, whilst Epimetheus is represented as almost half-witted. 50 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS reveals the fact that their degeneration had just recently culminated in a period of anarchy. For two generations the throne had been contested by both King and Crown Prince by father and son probably owing to the incestuous desires of the two sons for their respective mothers, on the one hand,* and owing to the lack of ruler ability, humanity and wisdom in the dethroned kings on the other. With the arrival of Zeus, however, everything gets into order again, feuds quiet down, the throne is stabilised, and nobody appears to dispute his right to sovereignty. Now, while this is another reason for supposing him to have bred true to the noblest elements of the very superior stock from which he hailed on his male ancestors' side, it also affords some support for the belief that an actual mingling of races had recently occurred. For clearly if a mingling of races had taken place, fresh territory had most probably been acquired by the dominating race. This would mean immensely in- creased responsibilities, and a greatly magnified demand for determination, rigour and wise rulership on the part of the governing sovereign. As history shows us, how- ever, long after the existence of Zeus, such exalted demands have frequently stimulated corresponding high qualities in the distinguished individuals who have happened to co-exist with them, and to occupy a position in which they could effectively display their great gifts, the case of Frederick the Great of Prussia is typical, as is also that of Napoleon. In fact, very often it is pre- cisely the apparent hopelessness of the situation which impels those who are witnesses of its recovery to per- * Hence the famous " mutilation "; but I cannot enter into this matter here. It is alien to the myth with which I am primarily concerned. PROMETHEUS THE MAN 51 petuate and glorify the memory of him who was respon- sible for the improved state of affairs. Whereas there was every incentive for Zeus to act with determination, rigour, and the highest political skill, therefore, we cannot help assuming, ex hypothesi, and in accordance with the internal evidence of the myth itself, that he succeeded in meeting the very difficult demands of the moment in the first place, because he must have so consolidated his position as to remain in the memories of his contemporaries the greatest of the superior people of his time, and secondly, because the superior people themselves of his period appear to have remained loyal to him, and to have acquiesced in his rule. Until Heracles, Zeus's own son, pleads on behalf of Prometheus, there was evidently no concerted action on the part of any group in Zeus's entourage to release Prometheus from the great Chief's judgment, cruel as it was. And even when his release takes place, Heracles, Prometheus's first cousin once removed, effects it only after having received the sanction of Zeus for so doing. How foolish Shelley's words, " successful and per- fidious adversary " as applied to Zeus, already appear in the light of this reasoning. We shall see how still more utterly ridiculous they seem later on. Now among the entourage of Zeus, there can be little doubt, from the renown he enjoys for acumen in the myth, that Prometheus was probably the most powerful intellectually; or rather the most unscrupulous, while being at the same time generously endowed with brains. He was not necessarily more richly endowed in this respect than the rest of the minor gods, and he was certainly very much less gifted than Zeus himself, but 52 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS we can safely assume that he was highly intelligent and also unscrupulous. This, however, only made his gifts the more formidable to Zeus. Now the fact that, according to the myth, he was traditionally believed to have surpassed mankind in cunning and fraud (" man- kind " meaning here, of course, the inferior race), shows him, from the first, to have been curiously associated with the inferior race. We suspect, as we continue the story, that he was even playing for popularity among them ; but we are anticipating. Let us anticipate to this extent, however, that seeing how subsequent events confirm our suspicions regarding his aspiration to lead the inferior people in a revolt against Zeus, we may now, with the help of a little insight into psychology and humanity, set it down as only natural and probable that Prometheus was enormously jealous of his brilliant first cousin. Their close relationship made them equally ambitious for the highest honours. It could only have been the overwhelming superiority of Zeus that estab- lished him in the eyes of all as the proper claimant. But we can well imagine that Prometheus would not have taken the same view particularly as he esteemed himself no fool. Besides, is it not recorded in the myth, that Prometheus had already twice changed his mind about Zeus, that he had fought against him and then rallied to his side ? That there were elements of hostility towards Zeus in the heart of Prometheus we therefore know without going beyond the actual wording of the myth. We may consequently safely assume that he bore to Zeus the rankling, bitter jealousy that all gifted mediocrity feels towards genius. He loathed him and most probably cherished the deliberate intention of turning the circumstance of the recent mingling of the PKOMETHEUS THE MAN 53 two peoples to account by leading a popular party of the inferior race against his first cousin. As subsequent European history was to show, first cousins are certainly not averse from similar hostile tactics towards each other, and as the evidence in the other divisions of the myth confirm our present suspicions, and the develop- ment of the story reveals the bottomless hatred existing between these two, I think it reasonable nay impera- tive at this stage in the analysis, to regard their relationship at the beginning of the reign of Zeus more or less as I have outlined it above. So much for the examination of Division I. 2. We now come to Division II. (Life and Works), the precise interpretation of which will not be as easy as that of the previous division, in the first place because we have so very few details about the religious practices and ceremonies of the superior people themselves, with which I believe it possible to identify the race that supplied the deities of the ancient Greeks ; and secondly, because we cannot be certain that even had religious practices existed among them, more or less similar to those we are familiar with in very early Greece and Egypt the sacrifice of human beings, animals, etc., to the gods we don't at present know who the gods of this superior race were, or whether they were ever transmitted as deities to the inferior race. This makes the interpretation of Division II. very difficult, if we take the meeting at Mecone to have been a religious assembly, and I may therefore appear to the reader to assume very much more than is actually warranted either by the text of the myth, or by my own reasoning. In my interpretation of Division I., at least, I kept strictly to the myth, never once departed from rigid 54 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS Spencerian principles, and always endeavoured to observe those well-known rules of human conduct and human commerce, which an enlightened psychology would hold to be inevitable if not eternal. In this Division, however, I may, as I say, in the opinion of the reader, surmise more than the traditional story justifies. I need hardly say that my opinion in that case will differ from the reader's, and on the following grounds : (a) My reasoning will follow out the reasoning of Division I. (6) The explanation I offer of the meeting at Mecone does not really affect my main thesis, because the actual meaning of the assembly is less important than what, according to the myth, actually took place at it. (c) Unless we know on what terms fire was granted by Zeus, we cannot understand all his reasons for with- holding it; but once more the reasons are not so im- portant as the act itself, unmistakably reported in the myth. (d) Whatever may be said for or against my explana- tion, it is obvious that more people were punished after the Mecone meeting than Prometheus himself, other- wise the withholding of fire would not be said to have been " from the mortals." (Again Prometheus is con- nected with the inferior race.) (e) No explanation as satisfactory as my own has hitherto been offered. We are told that on a certain occasion the gods and men contended together at Mecone, that at this meeting a certain offering or tribute was prepared for Zeus, and Prometheus was responsible for the subdivision of this offering or tribute, out of the body of a huge bull or ox. We are not told what the nature of this conference was. PKOMETHEUS THE MAN 55 I cannot help feeling, however, seeing that the word eKpivovro is used, and that the idea of contending or disputing is therefore meant, it could hardly have been a religious function for which they were assembled.* Otherwise why does this word eKpivovro seem to hang unexplained amid the other details given about the meeting ? That it should have come down by oral tradition seems to point to the fact that this conference, where the gods and men contended, was not convened for a religious ceremony. And apart from the subdivi- sion of the ox, why should we conclude that it was a religious meeting, particularly as we know nothing of the religion of the superior race which represented the gods on this occasion ? We do not even know whether they had a religion at all. Bearing in mind all that had recently occurred the mingling of the two races, and the falling of the inferior race under the rulership of Zeus, it is not surprising, however, that a general meeting between the superior race and the inferior, or the representatives of each, should have been convened. This was only to be expected. It had certainly happened before perhaps often before ; because certain conventions, certain inter- pretations of the law had obviously to be agreed upon between the two races. There is even evidence in Hesiod's account of the myth that there had been such meetings before, otherwise it would have been impossible for Zeus to " withhold fire " as the result of what took place at the meeting of which we have the account. Surely at a previous meeting, fire, or access to fire, had been granted by Zeus on certain terms. It is impossible to conjecture what precisely was * See Hesiod, Theogony, 535, 536. 56 MAN'S DESCENT FEOM THE GODS being settled at the time when Zeus was deluded by Prometheus. It may have been a matter of tribute; it most probably was tribute due to Zeus and his govern- ment in return for various benefits and privileges one of which was very likely the privilege of being ruled over by a man as wise as Zeus must undoubtedly have been, and another of which was evidently the right to fetch fire from sacred or public fires kindled and kept alive by Zeus's own people. There are innumerable very cogent reasons for supposing that this right to fetch fire by means of a firebrand or a fennel-stalk, from the superior race, which was at that time alone in possession of the secret of kindling it, must have been subject to various rules and conditions wisely laid down by Zeus and his counsellors. (This point will be elaborated later on.) Now it seems plain from the narrative, that the at- titude of Prometheus was certainly not conciliatory on this occasion. In fact it is definitely stated that he attempted to deceive Zeus over the partition of the tribute. Seeing, however, that Zeus's retaliation for this attempted swindle fell not only on the head of Prometheus, but, as we are told, on the heads of " mortal men," it does not require much ingenuity to conclude that Prometheus was at this meeting championing somebody else's cause. For we have seen that " mortal men " or " men " in the myth were the inferior race. So here we have further confirmation of our suspicion that he was associating himself with these, and what is more actually striving for popularity among them, by advocating their rights, or supposed rights, against the better judgment of Zeus. I suggest that being anxious to head a movement of the lower people against Zeus, he PROMETHEUS THE MAN 57 was at this meeting endeavouring to enlist their support and affection by trying to rid them of the yoke of the onerous claims or regulations imposed by Zeus. He may even have been contemplating a revolution to rid them of Zeus altogether. As I think it most probable that fire was granted by Zeus to the inferior race only on certain very wise terms, Prometheus may also have been trying to get the apparent harshness of these terms modified. Surely, however, this much at least is certain : if Prometheus had been attempting to deceive Zeus only on his own account, for his own advantage, the punishment would have been so devised as to chas- tise no one but himself. To an inferior people, ignorant of all that the superior race in this instance must have known about fire (and I am convinced myself, that this superior race knew more about fire than we do, as we shall see), any restric- tions or conditions imposed upon their privilege of fetching fire would naturally after a time appear in- tolerable in fact, the less comprehensible the restric- tions were to them, the more intolerable would such conditions seem. The fact that fire is withheld as a result of the at- tempted deception rather points to the supposition that one of the most important subjects debated at this meeting of the " gods " and " men " was probably the question of the supply of fire. Prometheus, however, playing the part of demagogue, had possibly promised the inferior race to extract from Zeus certain substantial concessions, either by open contract or fraud. The lower race, therefore, must have watched Prometheus's progress with the keenest interest at this meeting; they must even have shown their sympathy with the Titan 58 MAN'S DESCENT FEOM THE GODS quite openly, otherwise Zeus could hardly have included them in his general condemnation. Now either Prometheus was himself aware of the immense wisdom of the restrictions imposed by Zeus regarding the fire-supply, and yet professed not to know it so as to appear an innocent champion of the groaning inferior race, and thus gain popularity (in which case he was utterly abandoned and despicable) ; or else and this is unlikely he was himself genuinely ignorant of the meaning of Zeus's restrictions, and being jealous of him, thought the occasion a good one for furthering his cause with the lower people. In the latter case he was simply a vulgar demagogue devoid of scruple. 3. We now arrive at Division III., which is the kernel of the whole myth, though only a preliminary step in my general thesis. Outwitted by Zeus at Mecone, and finding himself even less popular than before with the lower people, because by identifying himself with them he had made their position worse than it had been previously a situation most probably envisaged by Zeus when he designed the punishment Prometheus now makes his highest bid for popularity among the ignorant and inferior race. Thwarted and desperate, he resolves to reinstate himself in their favour by any means, at all costs. He is related to the gods. He could not therefore have been ignorant of their secrets, although he was not possessed of the wisdom of Zeus. Among the secrets at present held by the gods was that of kindling fire. What did he do ? He divulged this secret of fire-making, fire- kindling, to the inferior race blurted it out nay, actually demonstrated it to them, and probably stole the implements for so doing from one of the superior people's PROMETHEUS THE MAN 59 fire-kindlers. In a trice the harm was done; for the feat is so simple, that once it is demonstrated, it is possessed for ever by those who have witnessed it.* And thus the inferior race got to know the secret of fire-kindling for all time ; they were free from the onerous restrictions imposed by Zeus under the old fire-supply contract ! It is possible that the superior race produced fire very much as the present Brahmins of India and the Indians of America still produce it to this day for sacred and religious purposes that is to say, by friction, either by means of the fire-drill, or by rubbing two dry sticks together until they throw out sparks and ignite some dry grass or fluffy substance held in close proximity to them. It was probably this mechanical device, or possibly the fire-drill that is, a vertical piece of wood revolved rapidly to and fro by means of the string of a bow, and pressed against another piece of wood, into which it bores and creates heatf which Prometheus was respon- sible for having introduced among the lower people. Being, as I have said, either ignorant or unscrupulous, he did not impart, with the power of producing fire, the essential conditions under which it could be safely used, and the consequence was that the results were disastrous so disastrous indeed that whatever the punishment * That is the reason why Zeus could not recall the gift once taken. Dr. Petiscus actually remarks that Zeus could not recall the gift ; but, of course, gives no reason. See his Olympos (trans, by K. A. Raleigh, London, 1892), p. 177. f Personally, I doubt whether it could have been this method, because there is no reason for supposing that the superior race had even invented a bow, though it is always possible, of course, that while they used it for fire-making, they eschewed it as a weapon. 60 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS was which Zeus imposed on Prometheus for his act of dia- bolical brutality to the unfortunate inferior race, this race itself and its descendants suffered so terribly from the consequences of the Titan's act, that no possible, human punishment seemed in their tortured imagina- tions sufficiently excruciating for the expiation of his crime, and they who were ostensibly the " beneficiaries " of his deed, were only satisfied when they could picture him suffering torture beyond the power of man to impose the torture described in the myth. This torture is impossible. It is the first introduction of a supernatural element in the tradition. Neither Spencer's theory nor any other can explain it for how can the human liver be consumed by day and restored by night ? But in the imaginations of an outraged and suffering people any agony that was not miraculously diabolical, any agony that was 'possible, would have been insufficient, inadequate. To satisfy their loathing of the great malefactor they must think of him as undergoing pains so terrific that supernatural agencies must be enlisted; and thus the measure of miraculous horror in the punishment of Prometheus becomes the criterion of the suffering for which he was responsible. This, I think, is the only way of accounting for the sudden magic turn that the myth here takes. For Zeus would probably have apprehended Prometheus after his crime this would have been possible and feasible ; he would also have punished him with the utmost severity. He might even have left him, as he deserved, to die chained to a rock while a vulture or an eagle devoured his liver. But the torture would have lasted only a few hours if that, and Prometheus would have PEOMETHEUS THE MAN 61 died. This would have been too easy a death, even for the faithful oral tradition of a people gifted with a wonderful memory to transmit. Hence the introduc- tion of the magic element : the restoration of the liver by night, for centuries, for thousands of years ! And seeing that it was the people whom Prometheus is supposed to have benefited who were responsible for the oral tradi- tion, I think it safe to conclude at present, on the evidence of the myth alone, that his supposed benefit must have caused them unspeakable suffering. 5. And this brings me to Division V. of the myth (I am leaving out Division IV. for a separate chapter), which I shall now examine from Zeus's point of view, having anticipated the point of view of his subjects in the analysis given above. I have said that Zeus was immensely wise. I hope to identify his stock with an immensely wise race later on; but for the moment the facts of the case convince us sufficiently of what he must- have been. He is the chief of a superior race, to whose memory the Greeks remained faithful down to historical times. The impression he originally made upon them, therefore, must have been immense. Now in view of the fact that his wisdom remained traditionally the greatest thing of the kind that the ancestors of the Greeks had ever encountered, while the wisdom of Prometheus was not merely eclipsed by it, but stamped oral tradition only with a memory of cunning, fraud, and the desire (expressed in the supernatural punishment) of the people that he might linger in inexpressible agony, it is incon- ceivable to me that Zeus should not have had very serious grounds for withholding fire from Prometheus and his followers, or the people he championed, after what had occurred at Mecone. To suppose that he had not proper 62 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS and even very serious grounds would, on the showing of the myth alone, imply that in stealing fire Prometheus showed greater wisdom than Zeus, and that he rightly overcame the restrictions imposed by Zeus in regard to fire. But in that case how can we explain : (1) That Prometheus was nowhere worshipped in Greece.* (2) That the conception of his punishment in the imagination of the people responsible for oral tradition grew to the supernatural dimensions of eternal agony ? Assuming, as I believe quite rightly therefore, from the internal evidence of the myth alone that Zeus had grave, wise and beneficent reasons for withholding fire from the inferior race after Mecone, he must have been aware of the dangers to which a people would be exposed if they obtained fire, not only in spite of his express will to the contrary, but also free from the conditions he had previously imposed. Apparently, however, although he was able to secure the person of Prometheus and punish him drastically, he was unable to arrest the trouble the Titan had originated. The most he could do was to attempt to mitigate the severity of its conse- quences. The grief and anger that Zeus must have felt over Prometheus 's blackguardly betrayal can therefore scarcely be estimated. In any case the wiser and more beneficent his rule was, the greater must this anger and grief have been; for he would have realised in an instant how much suffering the disaster was certain to bring about, and how deeply his subjects would learn to regret their easy and unquestioning acceptance of Prometheus's blandishments. * See C. 0. Miiller, op. cit., p. 60; also E. E. Sikes and St. J. B. Wynne Willson, op. cit., p. xix, which has already been mentioned. PKOMETHEUS THE MAN 63 But even his anger, great as it must certainly have been, doubtless suffered exaggeration also in the imagina- tions of his people. Conceiving him, as Greek religion proves they did, as a beneficent deity who meant well by them, they must have over-emphasised his anger, just as they over-emphasised the suffering of Prometheus hence, I believe, that suggestion of a higher sanction to Zeus's behaviour in the myth, which was faithfully transmitted by tradition, long after the true meaning of the myth had been forgotten. We know from the history of other peoples on what occasions their " God " is inordinately angry. It is almost always on occasions when they too have reasons for being indignant with the source of their deity's wrath. We have but to think of the seven plagues of Egypt that smote the Egyptians, to understand this psychological process, and to realise why magic is invoked to sate the revengeful appetite of such anger. Bearing such cases in mind, all becomes clear in regard to the anger of Zeus, despite the fact that, in this case, it most probably had a very real existence as well. The ultimate forgiveness of Prometheus by Zeus, as well as all those matters which in this interpretation I may have appeared to take rather for granted than as proven, I shall discuss in the sequel. I would only at this stage call the reader's attention to the fact that while a reasoning based upon the myth alone has provided me with the greater part of my interpretation, it remains rather to confirm by means of anthropology and other sciences the conclusion reached above, than to supply by means of other studies fresh hints as to the signifi- cance of the myth. CHAPTER III FIRE AND FOOD PART I. I THINK that the reader will perhaps agree with me that the experiment tried in the last chapter has proved worth while. By approaching the myth of Prometheus with sufficient reverence to regard at least its main features as true, I believe we have arrived at very much more useful results than if we had adopted the time- honoured plan of doubting the whole story from the start, and then had proceeded to interpret its more pleasant and " innocent " incidents on the lines laid down by a false and utterly unfounded conception of the child mind, and the " poetic " pretensions of the nineteenth century. At all events we may consider ourselves on safer ground in departing from nineteenth- century principles than in abiding by them whatever our ultimate goal may be ; because if ever there was an epoch which deserved to be thoroughly denounced, even at the risk of reviling, rejecting, and cursing our fathers and grandfathers, our uncles and great-uncles, it is surely the Nineteenth Century, the true Dark Age of History, the genuine ugly duckling among the centuries, the Alexandrian Age of Stupidity. Not only did those most sacred institutions of man, Property, Leisure, and Power, become utterly discredited in the nineteenth century, owing to the abuse to which they were subjected by the wretches who held them, but Thought itself the most fastidious among human 64 FIRE AND FOOD 65 gifts actually stooped so low as to include a Tenny- son, a Carlyle, and a John Stuart Mill among its aspirants to laurels, and to brand with the fraudulent signature of " progress " every kind of blackguardism and abuse which the mechanical minds of the worst and most successful Englishmen, Germans and Frenchmen were able to contrive. This being so it is almost a necessity, not to say an honour, to depart in every possible way from the methods, the beliefs and the practices of the nineteenth century, and if Euhemerism seemed ludicrous to our fathers and grandfathers, that is all the more reason why we should treat it seriously here. The conclusions we have arrived at by our method are the following: 1. That at some time or other in the dim past, the remote ancestors of the Greeks encountered a people so very much superior to themselves that they deified this strange race though they mingled with them. 2. That two factions the ruling faction and the subject faction among their ancestors, were led by two men, who though they may have borne different names from those that have come down to us by tradi- tion, were probably related to each other very much as the myth describes. 3. That the man whom tradition calls Zeus was a wise and superior person, bearing a close resemblance to his superior forebears, and that the other, whom tradition calls Prometheus, was a depraved, foolish and ambitious man, with just that amount of gutter smartness which the nineteenth century regarded and crowned as superiority. 4. That Zeus wished to impose certain wise restrictions 5 66 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS upon the common and ignorant people (the inferior of the two races) under his rule particularly in regard to the use of fire and that these restrictions probably appeared onerous to them. 5. That Prometheus, championing the cause of the inferior people, attempted by means of a ruse to circum- vent the power of Zeus to impose the aforementioned restrictions, but failed. 6. That finally Prometheus gave the secret of pro- ducing fire to the inferior people, unconditionally, and that this gift far from proving a benefit, turned out to be a calamity, the appalling nature of which can still be read from the internal evidence of the myth itself. It will now be my concern to discover what historical or anthropological confirmation can be found for the above contentions. Or, seeing that these conclusions themselves must be regarded as but clumsy gropings into the pitch darkness of prehistoric mankind, I shall be content if the records of neolithic and palaeolithic man offer no insuperable objections to the interpretation of the Prometheus legend on these euhemeristic lines. As our principal objective in this enquiry is to in- vestigate the act of giving the secret of fire-production to a people who, owing to the lack of previous experience, must be supposed to have been ignorant of its legitimate use, and to determine in what respect the myth is correct in regarding this act as a most terrible calamity, we shall perforce have to concentrate upon the question of fire and its relation to the civilisation and daily life of human beings. Now the first prejudice to be abandoned on the thresh- old of this enquiry is the foolish nineteenth-century belief that all discoveries, all new appliances and contri- FIRE AND FOOD 67 vances, which issue from the unscrupulous Promethean mind of the Chemist or the Engineer, necessarily con- stitute an improvement, a degree of " Progress," an advance in the assumed upward march of mankind. The amazing fact is that, despite the obvious crude- ness of this belief, and the total absence of any founda- tion for it, the majority not only held it,* but still hold it. It is one of the many nineteenth-century absurdities that have been transferred bodily to this century. For, despite its appalling cruelties and all its inhuman exploitation of the economically inferior, the nineteenth century was a very Christian century. In many respects it was perhaps the most Christian century that has ever existed. The resolute optimism with which it accepted every innovation, every new complication of life, as a sign of progress, was therefore religious optimism the most stubborn and ineradicable of its kind. With the masses groaning under an exploitation more cruel than has ever been seen in the world before; with the oppressors of these masses growing every day more vulgar, more luxurious, more dishonest, more pleasure- loving and more convinced that they were the chosen of God; with distrust increasing so rapidly on either side that, at the end of the century a war to the death was secretly declared by each side against its opponent; with ill-health, degeneration, insanity, and the multi- plication of undesirables increasing by leaps and bounds (by " undesirables " are meant people who had been made undesirable by the system) ; with the character and the mind of the masses being deliberately deteriorated * There can be no doubt that the majority of those who, like Byron, Shelley and the scholars, start examining the Prometheus myth with a prepossession in favour of the Titan, are influenced by this nineteenth-century assumption. 68 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS by besotting labours; that typical Christian, Browning, was still able to lisp: " God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world." All's right with the world ! when Browning and his class, a small minority in the land, were the only people who were " all right." If it were not possible to suspect our bard of the grossest latter- day religiosity, we should be compelled to charge him with indifference more refined than any of which human beings have been capable before.* A few voices, those of Ruskin and Matthew Arnold (and of Cobbett and Byron at the beginning of the century), were raised in protest against the deafening cheers of the nineteenth-century Christian optimists, over all the fast accumulating complexities of life; but they were of no avail. The ruling minority were " all right," consequently the Christian God must be supposed to be behind the forces of " progress." f * Lovers of Browning may object that it is unfair to hold him responsible for an expression of opinion which he was careful to place in the mouth of a thoroughly irresponsible person. This objec- tion would be valid if the general spirit of his writings did not lead one to believe that, on the whole, Browning would have been pre- pared heartily to endorse Pippa's optimism. Browning, however, was not so bad as Tennyson in this respect. See, for instance, the very foolish lines composing the 59th to the 62nd couplets of Locksley Hall. See also the conclusion of The Princess. In fact, Tennyson's works abound in optimistic sentiments about the nineteenth cen- tury and its " progress." f It is always a matter of wonder to me that the nineteenth century was not sufficient to make the whole of the working-classes of this country atheists for all time. I suppose that the sixth and seventh verses of the twelfth chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews did good service in preventing this. Nevertheless, it is gratifying to see that more and more of the proletariat are growing indifferent to Christianity every day. An intelligent alternative would have been for the working-classes to disbelieve, as the Greeks did, that their FIKE AND FOOD 69 Now, is it possible that the Greeks were wiser than ourselves ? Is it possible that they did not accept so unquestioningly the alleged benefits of their civilisation ? Is it possible that with a deeper humanity even the happiest among them were unable to believe that their " Zeus " could possibly be behind a system that made the majority miserable; and preferred to regard him as actively hostile to the founder or founders of their culture ? It is certainly possible, if not probable; but is the fact demonstrated ? Can we believe that, as conditions became worse for them, as the result of a civilisation based upon the unlimited use of fire, they grew more and more convinced that their good god " Zeus " must be opposed to the arrangement ? Far from believing that all was " right " with their world because their Zeus happened to be in " His Heaven " did they imagine him even as tolerating the creators and founders of their civilisation ? * god could have anything to do with their civilisation, or to believe that he was actively opposed to it. In this way they might reasonably have remained believers as the Greeks did, while abhorring their civilisation. * In this respect it is interesting to note that there are windows in Westminster Abbey dedicated to the civil engineers, Stephenson, Locke, Brunei, and Trevithick. There is also a statue to James Watt, and the graves of Telford, the builder of the Menai Bridge, and of Eobert Stephenson (the same as the above), the designer of the tubular bridge across the Menai Straits, are in the nave. There are also statues to Francis Homer ! and Richard Cobden ! Cromwell, thanks to the efforts of Charles II., is only honoured outside the Abbey. St. Paul's holds the remains of two engineers, John Eennie, the designer of Waterloo Bridge, London Bridge, Southwark Bridge, and Plymouth Breakwater, and Robert Mylne, designer of Black- friars Bridge, the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal, etc. These men were characteristic of the type responsible for our modern civilisa- tion, and the fact that they receive due honour in the two leading 70 MAN'S DESCENT FBOM THE GODS Truth to tell the Greeks would most probably have been more staggered by the heartlessness of the modern age in supposing that its good god was on the side of its complex and pointless civilisation, than by any other aspect of life at the present day. They would have inspected our sweated industries, our coal-mines, our tube railway attendants, our stokers on large liners, our besotted factory hands, our steelworkers whose lives are seriously curtailed by their work, our drain in- spectors in fact, all those who really bear the brunt of modern " Progress/' and when they heard that the orthodox belief was that a good god was behind it all, would have cried " Blasphemy !"* temples of the Christian god in England, shows, I think, at least that the Established Church and the governing classes of England are, or were, satisfied that their god approved of modern civilisation. * For an illuminating but exceedingly depressing account of the ill-health brought about by modern employments alone, not to mention modern conditions, reference should be made to Dr. Thomas Oliver's Diseases of Occupation (Methuen and Co., 1908). Thus we read (p. 37) that in the latter part of the nineteenth century there were 105 cases of phosphorus necrosis of the jaw caused in match factories by the handling of industrial phosphorus, 20 per cent, of which ended fatally. And this industry is by no means an important one. In 1907 the match industry employed only 4,000 people. I imagine that even these figures for phosphorus necrosis in England must be slightly underestimated, or else the period which they cover must be very small, as we find (p. 39) that between the years 1866 and 1875, 126 cases of phosphorus necrosis occurred in Vienna. Again, in the French match works near Paris, in 1894, 32 cases of phosphorus poisoning were reported; in 1895, 125; in 1896, 223, or one-third of the effective force of the factory. In 1896 the French State paid out 400,000 francs in compensation for this evil. In the bridge-building branch of engineering the death-rate is heavy from " compressed air illness." At the St. Louis Bridge, on the Mississippi, 600 men were employed in sinking the foundations; 119 suffered from caisson disease, 14 of whom died. At the Brooklyn Bridge FIEE AND FOOD 71 Believing, as most fairly sane people do, that the god they love means well by them, the Greeks could not conceive of their Zeus being on the side of the creators of even their own civilisation and its miseries. On the contrary, they conceived him as being so actively hostile to both as to keep the chief originator of all their culture in eternal and most humiliating agony. This is at least an interesting reminder that although in many respects we are the direct outcome of Greek errors, they, our predecessors in stupidity, were a little bit wiser than ourselves in one material respect. 110 cases were reported, 3 of which died (p. 94). Chemical workers appear to withstand the bad conditions of their work until thirty-five years of age, but after this the death-rate rises so much that by the time they have reached the age of forty-five to fifty-five the death- rate is double that of men who follow an outdoor occupation (pp. 123- 124). During the ten years ending 1899, 263 workpeople were killed in explosive factories alone, and 1,064 injured (p. 132). During the year 1906, 632 cases of lead-poisoning occurred in various works connected with the working of lead (p. 149). In 1902 the figure was 629. The death-rate among diamond-cutters through lead- poisoning is also very heavy. Still-births and abortion are very high among women who work in lead. The statistics on p. 232 about the steel-workers are appalling. See also figures given for deaths due to occupations involving the breathing of dust (p. 247). The deaths from phthisis among pottery-workers and cutlers are three times those occurring from the same cause among agricultural- ists. The file-makers' death-rate from phthisis is almost four times that of the agriculturalist from the same cause. The death-rate among miners from all causes, including phthisis, is, of course, ex- ceedingly high from accident alone in 1907 it was 1,216. The deaths among workers with rock drills are much higher, particularly among the gold-miners in Africa. They scarcely last five years (see pp. 284, 285). It is impossible to enter into all the particulars of death and disease due to modern occupations ; I can but recom- mend the reader to study Dr. Oliver's able treatise on the subject. Commenting on the consequences of Prometheus's gift of fire to men, Hesiod says: ' For ere this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills and hard toil and heavy sickness, which brings the Fates upon men; for in misery men grow old quickly. ... Of themselves diseases came upon men continually by day and by night, bringing mischief to mortals silently."* Describing the last age, moreover, or the Iron Age of mankind, with which he happened to be fatally con- temporaneous, Hesiod says: " For now in truth is the iron race, neither will they ever cease by day, nor at all by night, from toil and wretchedness, corrupt as they are."| The reader will not be surprised to hear that these passages have from time to time caused some consterna- tion in the minds of those moderns who take for granted the desirability of all innovations. It has even been suggested that the first passage, at least, must be an inter- polation ;{ while Clericus, among others, has pointed to the inveterate human weakness of regarding past ages as superior to any present age, and has thus tried to account for Hesiod's gloom by charging him with romantic illusions about the times that had preceded him. Romanticism is, however, in any case, the very last charge that could justly be brought against our shepherd poet, and Volcker vigorously defends the passages in question against the suspicion of having been interpolated. * WorJcs and Days, 90-93, 102-104. f Ibid., 177-178. J Goettling thinks that the second passage is also an inter- polation. Op. cit., pp. 11-14. FIRE AND FOOD 73 But Volcker goes further, and in my opinion his analysis of HesiocTs pessimism is perhaps the most penetrating that has been attempted hitherto. He very reasonably calls attention to the fact that, in all cases where life's activities are extended or multiplied, there is a corresponding increase in life's needs, and that this condition in its turn leads to a softening and an enerva- tion of man as man. Complexity supersedes simplicity, morals become corrupted, and ostentation and display, luxury and debauchery quickly follow.* Hence the odious comparison with a former and simpler age ! Now although I do not believe that this analysis goes quite deep enough, it is excellent. It does at least attempt to discover a little of the " forgotten " meaning in the Prometheus myth, and to explain the odium tradition appears to have heaped on a supposed bene- factor to mankind. C. 0. Miiller is also helpful. He says: " Now anyone who perceived that all human industry depends on the possession of fire, but who was, at the same time, often faint and weary with the curse of labour, and who, moreover, dreamt, like all antiquity, of a lost paradise, a golden age of rest and peace, must have readily ascribed the gift of fire to the hero of skilful industry, and easily imagined, too, the indigna- tion it excited in the gods who punished the restless and presumptuous strivings of man with the loss of pristine happiness, and even laid in bonds and fetters his daring * Op. cit., p. 23. " Mit der fortgeschrittenen Ausbildung des Lebens aber, mit Erweiterung der Lebensbediirfnisse kommt Ver- weichlicliung und Erschlaffung, Mannigfaltigkeit fiir die Einfach- heit, Verderbniss der Sitten, Aufwand und Pracht, Uppigkeit und Ausschweifung." 74 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS intellect, which is ever apt to soar beyond its bound- aries."* In both Volcker and Miiller, but particularly in the former, we are therefore led to suspect that all was not well with mankind after the stealing of fire ; and that is why Volcker deliberately compares the Greek myth of Prometheus with the Semitic story of the fall of man. In each case a golden age, a paradisaical existence, pre- ceded the anger of the gods ; in both cases woman plays an important part in bringing the mischief upon man, and in both stories there appears to be a fear on the part of the gods that man may seize the secret of eternal life unless he is severely chastised. In Genesis, after the stealing of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, we read: " And the Lord God said, Behold the man [Adam] is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat and live for ever, therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden."f While Hesiod says: " For the gods keep hidden from men the means of life."J Nietzsche and Byron|| are among the more famous * Op. cit., p. 62. It is interesting to see how Miiller, towards the end of the passage quoted, cannot help implying that it is the gods' jealousy of man's intellect that brings down the curse on mankind, and not the hero of civilisation himself by his innova- tions. This shows how even an enlightened scholar, hot as he is upon the scent, is blinded by the nineteenth-century prepossession in favour of modern civilisation. f Gen. iii. 22 and 23. J Works and Days, 44 et seq. See The Birth of Tragedy, pp. 77-78: " Indeed, it is not impos- sible that this myth [Prometheus] has the same significance for the Aryan race that the myth of the fall of man has for the Semitic, and that there is a relationship between the two like that of brother and sister." || Don Juan, Canto I., cxxvii. FIEE AND FOOD 75 of the poet thinkers who have also seen the similarity between the two myths. I think, however, that I have drawn a more interesting parallel in comparing certain aspects of the Prometheus myth with the circumstances which, in the Old Testa- ment, precede the flood, and since both the story of Adam and Eve and the account of the events immediately preceding the flood are, according to such eminent scholars as Schrader, Dillmann, Wellhausen and Schultz, to be regarded simply as alternative solutions of the same problem the origin of evil,* I think, in selecting the account from Genesis vi. 1-4, I have seized upon a legend more historically possible than that of the Garden of Eden. Be all this as it may, Volcker and Miiller evidently appear to agree in this, that the stealing of fire, with all its consequences, was by no means an unmixed blessing to those for whom it was stolen. And, indeed, we have only to think a moment in order to realise how stupen- dous the innovation was. With the means to produce fire, 'pottery became possible, the working of metals was made easy, more time was obtained for industries tending to complicate life, because less time was occupied for meals,f and finally the nomad life, which must to some extent have followed the seasons, could be changed for a life that * Dr. Skinner is of opinion that there is little plausibility in the view that the story of Adam and Eve and the account of the events immediately preceding the flood are solutions of the same problem. He is, however, careful to add: "It would be equally rash to affirm that it [the story in Gen. vi. 1-4] presupposes such an account [the story of Adam and Eve] " (op. tit., p. 141). f Owing, of course, to the fact that complete mastication is more easily shirked when food is cooked. 76 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS was not only more stable, but actually stationary. As the rigours of winter, even close to the coldest zone, could now be faced and endured, life could be continued during the cold months in the same locality where the spring and summer had been enjoyed. The pastoral life, agriculture and industry followed as a matter of course, and in their train, commerce. These are certainly changes sufficiently far-reaching to justify Volcker in assuming that innumerable ills must have attended those who originally attempted to adapt their lives to them, and to explain the powerful hostility to Prometheus that is still to be read from the internal evidence of the myth. Even illness and disease are not hard to trace to the changes arising from the abandonment of the nomadic in favour of the stationary mode of existence. A moment's reflection suffices to show how inevitably such consequences would come about. To take the most obvious first, it is clear that a nomadic people can leave a place, or a district, they have befouled. A stationary people, however, have to remain in the midst of their befoulment. While still new to the life, therefore, they must have suffered a good deal as the result of unhygienic surroundings, and bitter experience alone could have taught them the urgent need of even the most elementary sanitation. Again, as Volcker points out, agriculture and the pastoral life lead to a softening and a debilitation of the body (as compared with a life of hunting, for instance). But a change such as this is not effected without serious results. Mysterious ailments, particularly of the alimentary canal, must have begun to appear; women must have found that the stationary life modified the former ease and regularity of their functions (child-birth in parti- FIRE AND FOOD 77 cular) and violent deaths and probably manias and madnesses may have been the result. Apart from the further, and I believe most important, consequences which I shall now proceed to consider, surely those I have just outlined must have proved sufficiently alarming to stamp themselves indelibly on the memories of those who suffered from them. It will be urged, perhaps, that none of these consequences could have been immediate, that they would have been a matter of gradual growth, passing in their development over innumerable generations, so that the ultimate sufferers would have consisted of people totally unacquainted with the conditions prevailing previous to the introduction of fire. This objection is a very sound one. But those who wish to make it may be reminded of two considera- tions : 1. That tradition would, in any case, account for the keeping of the memory of former times green in the minds of later generations. 2. That since primitive medicine and surgery (in- cluding, of course, midwifery) and primitive drugs, must also have been handed down by oral tradition, their sudden collapse in the presence of the novel and obscure complications and difficulties would surely in itself have sufficed to indicate a development in a bad direction, as compared with former times, though these might never have been known by the actual sufferers themselves. But I must leave it to the reader to imagine the further obvious and manifold evil consequences that may strike him as having arisen from the unlimited use of fire. Unfortunately I cannot join him in these in- 78 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS teresting speculations, for I must now confine myself only to those evil results of Prometheus's theft which constitute an essential step in the discussion of my main theme. I can sympathise with any reader who, though he may not wish to advance the objection dealt with above, yet experiences some difficulty in admitting that the evil results already referred to should have been directly connected by the ancient Greeks with the discovery of fire production. I feel also that while these evil results might have been ascribed by the ancient Greek to the conditions of an elaborate civilisation, their immediate connection with fire is not so obvious as to be able to account for the very definite association of Prometheus 's theft with a calamity which we find unmistakably revealed by the myth. And here, I think, Volcker's reasoning breaks down, as of course does also Miiller's rather far-fetched image of an old Greek in the act of deliberately fancying the connection between civilisation and fire. It seems to me that in order to account for so positive an association between Prometheus's theft and a calamity compatible with such a tremendous outbreak of wrath on the part of Zeus, a closer connection must be found between fire and disaster than that which is traced through an intermediate phenomenon as complex and as multifarious as civilisation. For a complicated civilisa- tion may be traced to knowledge, as in the case of the Garden of Eden myth, or to the desire for immortality, as in the myth of Osiris and his sister Isis; it does not necessarily occur to one immediately that it must be due to the unlimited use of fire . I think, therefore, that in order to account for so emphatic a connection between fire and disaster more FIRE AND FOOD 79 immediate results of the unlimited use of fire must be sought.* I have said that Prometheus was nowhere worshipped in Greece ; there was, however, a sort of altarf consecrated to him at Athens by the ancient guild of potters (/ce/Da/Aets) as patron of their craft. It is said to have been located in the sanctuary of Athena and Hephaestus, between the Academy and the Colonus Hippius.f Now this is a definite proof of the connection by the ancient Greeks of the three ideas Prometheus, Fire, Pottery and constitutes the most convincing evidence we have of a certain aspect of civilisation being traced directly by tradition to fire. It is interesting, moreover, from this point of view, that it forms the one connecting link I most require in order to take the next step, which is the association of fire and food ; for it is this association which I claim to be the most important feature of the forgotten meaning of the myth. I propose to substantiate this view by calling at- tention to the effects, some of them as tragic and disastrous as they are mysterious, which result from the cooking of food. It is only quite recently, within the last decade, that certain facts have become known about food, in regard to which man's ignorance hitherto is as inexplicable as * It would appear as if the negroes had also suffered some terrible disaster in connection with their early use of fire; for, according to a negro tradition, their beatific state was ended by Til (God) sending them fire in his anger for some crime they had committed. The fire destroyed all except one named Musikdegen. See Rev. S. Baring-Gould, Legends of the Old Testament Characters, p. 36. | C. 0. Miiller seems to doubt that it really was an altar, op. cit. y p. 60. J See F. G. Welcker, Die Aeschylische Trilogie, "Prometheus" pp. 120-121. 80 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS his escape from the full consequences of that ignorance has been miraculous. Looking back, as we can now, upon the thousands of years of error that have culminated in the present Age, we are, to our astonishment, com- pelled to acknowledge that it can have been only by the chance efficacy of rule-of-thumb wisdom, that the races of the northern temperate zone have been able to survive at all (if those who originally used fire illegitimately in northern regions actually did escape, which is very doubtful), and that before the rule-of-thumb wisdom es- tablished something approaching sanity in the kitchens of primeval man, the most appalling suffering and probably madness must have raged not to mention the agonies of mystification in the presence of a curse which, owing to the standard of knowledge of the time, could not have been traced to food. It was therefore most probably only the juxtaposition in time of the unlimited use of fire and the terrible physical scourges and apparent " plagues " which followed upon it, that caused the ancient Greeks to associate the two. I do not mean to suggest here that because, in the light of recent research, their treatment of their food appears to have been the cause of the chief of the great disasters that followed on the unlimited use of fire, that the ancestors of the ancient Greeks were therefore aware of this. Disaster and the unlimited use of fire were simply connected distinctly as apparent cause and effect, because they followed upon each other closely in the order of time. It is not generally known, even to-day, how much harm is done to food by exposing it to heat. As I shall show later on, apparent " plagues " have been caused even as recently as during the last great war, by the FIEE AND FOOD 81 ignorance which prevails in regard to this question, and the very people who are likely to feel most sceptical about the suggested appalling consequences of such ignorance are themselves most probably half-witted, foul of breath, debilitated, and even disfigured, precisely owing to this very ignorance. It must have occurred to many, however, that man is the only animal that eats most of his food in a cooked condition, and that, therefore, the procedure is by no means dictated by nature. It must also have been observed by some, that such articles of diet as oysters, apples, milk, lettuce, are so different to the palate when cooked, that they are scarcely recognisable. Is this alteration merely an illusion, and is the palate possibly mistaken in noticing so great a difference ? Or have some essential properties, constituting the identity of these articles of diet, actually been changed or lost in the process of cooking ? And if these articles of diet have not escaped unscathed from the fire, why should we suppose that others enjoy an exceptional immunity ? Maybe that some very valuable properties of the food have been lost properties without which life cannot be maintained at a healthy or even a happy standard or cannot be maintained at all. Is this possible ? It is not merely possible, it is abundantly proved. It is now demonstrated beyond doubt that not only characteristics of mere identity, such as colour, shape and smell, are altered in the cooking process, but also that properties of the extremest value to the consuming animal properties, too, that are strangely susceptible to heat are partially or wholly destroyed by fire, so that unless by some accident (an accident which happens frequently enough to be regarded as a rule, where the 82 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS diet is extremely varied, as in the case of the modern European) compensation is obtained through other articles of food, life either cannot continue, or else dis- ease quickly sets in. And since the diseases of faulty diet are as obscure as they are terrible, they are usually the last to be traced to their proper cause. Even in the case of the modern European, however, who can fre- quently obtain compensating diet without knowing that he is doing so, the evil effects of an injudicious treatment of food give rise to all manner of vague dis- orders which greatly impair his enjoyment of life. For some considerable time in modern Europe, doubts have been entertained and expressed about the advisa- bility of cooking certain foods. The Holy Catholic Church, in its incomparable wisdom respecting all the material side of human life, was probably the first institution to point to the necessity of a partially raw food diet at specified moments in the year; and, with all the pomp and mystery of a religious rite, to encourage its adherents to adopt such a diet at certain stated periods. As late as the sixteenth century, for instance, the Italians are said to have observed the rules of their faith so strictly that, during the forty days of Lent, they went without any cooked food on three days in the week, and lived on fruit and vegetables . * The beneficial results of this periodical abstinence from cooked food were doubtless ascribed to the circumstance that religious obedience is providentially rewarded ; but whatever may have been the suspected cause of the good effects in the minds of the ignorant faithful, the problem could * Dr. med., H. Moeser (Frankfurter Zeitgemasse Broschiiren), Bd. xxvi., 1907, Das Kirchliche Fasten und Abstinenzgebot in gesund- heitlicher Beleuchtung, p. 164. FIKE AND FOOD 83 certainly not have been obscure to those responsible for the discipline. In later years, of course, with the decline of faith, and the advent of Protestantism, the Catholic Church, which is the storehouse of mediseval and ancient wisdom in all important matters connected with human life, began to exercise less sway, and therefore found itself constrained, even in the countries that were not lost to it, to relax the rigour of its control; while in Protestant countries, the reformers, not satisfied with renouncing the Pope, unfortunately for posterity were foolish enough to divorce themselves for all time from those very religious observances and exercises for which their new revolutionary programme offered them no adequate substitute. Indeed, the observance of fasts, and the practice of differentiating between certain foodstuffs, was regarded by the majority of the ignorant reformers as " pure superstition " and " idolatry." Problems of human importance, however, are not to be set aside with impunity in this cavalier fashion. Hostile as you may be to the Catholic Church, this does not render you immune from the consequences of your own stupidity, and Catholic solutions of certain problems are either to be accepted, or fresh solutions supplied in their place. But no such obligation was ever recognised by the reformers and their followers. No such obliga- tion has even been felt by any Protestant people until quite recently. And even now it is not humanity or brotherly piety that is directing the methods of the modern dietetic movement, but sheer panic in the face of all the appalling consequences of centuries of neglect. Thus it will surprise no one to find that the science of dietetics is essentially the creation of Protestant coun- 84 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS tries and that England, Germany and America, while producing the worst cooks, both male and female, from Alfred the Great downwards, are the peoples who have contributed most towards this new department of know- ledge. Run your eye down a list of the names of men prominently connected with dietetics, and you will find that the natives of Protestant countries far outnumber those of any other part of the world . This is not a curious coincidence, but just exactly what one would expect. When muddle, suffering and grave physical degeneration arise through neglect of the Art of Life, it is the scientist who is called upon to advise, and to advise quickly nowadays. In all States with a purely mechanical and Promethean civilisation, complicated by the absurdity of Protestantism and its monster offspring Puritanism, it is the poor, clumsy, heavy-footed scientist who has to take the place of the artist, of the man who knows. Unfortunately, however, the scientist's ways are so devious, so uncertain, and he takes such an amazingly long time to arrive at even approximately correct results, that humanity almost perishes on his doorstep before he rushes out from his laboratory, grizzled by age, with a phial in his hand containing the necessary restorative. The science of dietetics, in spite of the urgency with which its results have been needed for scores of years in England, is a young science, a recent science. All its most important conclusions are scarcely a decade old ! CHAPTER IV FIRE AND FOOD PART II. THERE is a big school in England to-day, headed by certain medical men of ability and renown, who became aware many years ago of the deleterious effects of cooking certain foods. I cannot enter now into an analysis of all their views. I shall, however, select from among their ranks the man whom I believe to be at once the most able, the most courageous, and the most independent of them all, I refer to the eminent specialist who until lately was Senior Physician to the Glasgow Hospital for Women, and is now Superintendent of Cancer Research, Battersea Hospital, Robert Bell, M.D., F.R.F.P.S., etc. Although Dr. Bell's investigations appear to have led him to observe particularly the relationship of diet to the etiology of cancer in the human body, I do not think that this need necessarily prevent us from attempting a general application of his principles to our daily life; more especially as he reiterates again and again the great importance of keeping the body healthy, and not merely safeguarding it against positive disease. Dr. Bell recognises a great vitalising agent in human life* which he calls nuclein. He points out that " the * It is interesting to note that Dr. Bell's views were formed long before the last and most valuable contribution to this subject was even thought of, and it must be a source of great satisfaction to 85 86 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS most powerful antiseptic in the pharmacopoeia will not prevent bacteria establishing themselves in a wound, and it is only the independent action of the vital energy of the cellular tissue which prevents infection and pro- motes healing. . . . Now this healthy vitality can only be assured by supplying the cellular tissues freely with pabulum, derived from vital elements contained in the products of the vegetable kingdom, to which may be added, milk, eggs and cheese."* He warns us that " the animal organism is in constant conflict with disease, which, however ... is impotent ... so long as the cells which make up the human microcosm are fortified and nourished by vivifying material."! Dr. Bell then proceeds: " Chemically it [the vitalising agent] is nuclein, and is identical with that substance which is contained in every fruit, vegetable, seed and nut in their ripe condition, and therefore are adapted for the food of man. Cook these, however, and this vital and vivifying constituent ... is nullified."! Elsewhere Dr. Bell refers to " the vital principle of ripe vegetables and fruits " and " a vital quality in vegetables and fruit which is destroyed by heat."|| We shall see that the existence of this " vital principle " or " vital quality " is abundantly demonstrated by the most recent research. I am unfortunately unable in the small compass of this him to find that the doctrines he has advocated so persistently all through a busy life should at last be recognised and confirmed by the highest authorities of the day on Dietetics. * Dietetics and Hygienics versus Disease, p. 6. t Ibid., p. 7. J Ibid., p. 8. Cancer : Its Causes and Treatment (George Bell and Sons), p. 193. || Health at its Best versus Cancer (Fisher Unwin), p. 274. FIRE AND FOOD 87 work to deal adequately with Dr. Bell's able treatment of this subject; I can but recommend the reader to refer to his original treatises ; and by way of summing up his case I cannot do better than quote verbatim a few convenient digests of his views which I have been able to find in his most recent works. While making certain suggestions about diet, the learned Doctor writes as follows: " It is essential that the food should, to a large extent, consist of uncooked fruits, nuts and vegetables, and that butcher meat be completely abstained from. I do not insist that no cooked vegetables or fruit be partaken of, but these should never predominate, as it is essential that the vital principle and unaltered condition of the chloro- phyl be retained in their natural state, and that the vegetable salts contained in all vegetable matter remain as Nature has provided them. Therefore vegetables should never be boiled but cooked by steam, and should never be overcooked. Cooking has the effect of reducing, not only the nutritive value of these articles, but renders them more indigestible, and induces the habit of neg- lecting complete mastication, which is a most important factor in the process of digestion. Moreover, the living principle, and the natural salts of fruits and vegetables, are indispensable to the healthy vigour of the cells of our body, and, without which it is impossible for them to retain or regain their physiological activity. Milk, eggs, either switched up with milk or in milk puddings, or very lightly cooked, also cheese, are excellent adjuncts, but never to the exclusion in any way of salads, fruit and nuts. Even unfired bread is to be preferred."* * See The Futility of Operations in Cancer with Proofs, p. 8. See also Cancer : Its Cause and Treatment, chap, xxvii. 88 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS I do not quite follow Dr. Bell in his sweeping condem- nation of butcher meat; I incline more to the moderate view of the Catholic Church, that butcher meat should be avoided only at frequent intervals, and sometimes for long periods at a stretch; but I entirely agree with his strictures against cooking (some of which we shall see confirmed in a somewhat startling manner in what follows), and I also believe that his contention that most diseases, cancer and rheumatism particularly, are nutri- ment diseases, whose best prophylactic is a sane diet, is true and has been demonstrated beyond doubt.* A few more very helpful passages from Dr. Bell's books will assist in emphasising this question of the cooking of food. In Health at its Best versus Cancer, Dr. Bell says: ' We will ascertain, if we consider the subject carefully, that the nutritive properties of vegetables and fruits are materially modified in the process of cooking. Not only is their value as an article of diet reduced, but their digestibility also. Besides these, in no small degree, their nourishing constituents are removed, and what is of equal moment, their therapeutic^ activity is thereby diminished. " Let us consider what effect boiling produces upon vegetables or any other of the various articles included in our dietary. * Dr. Bell, writing in 1916, estimates that the death-rate from cancer in this country has increased 200 per cent, since 1868. See The Futility of Operations, etc., p. 3. In Health at its Best versus Cancer, p. 254, he says: " What we are pleased to term civilisation has a good deal to answer for, and certainly cancer is an evil which is attributable to a very considerable extent to flagrant errors of diet for which civilisation is directly responsible." f In this case the italics are mine. A. M. L. FIRE AND FOOD 89 " Does the albumen present remain in its natural condition with its latent vital energy still unimpaired ? Certainly not; its essential characteristics are entirely destroyed, its composition altered and its nutritive value reduced pro rata. Then it must be conceded the thera- peutic and also the sustaining value of the vegetable or fruit is seriously reduced by the removal of the soluble salts which are carried away in solution during the process of cooking."* Here Dr. Bell proceeds to describe a simple experi- ment by means of which his contention is demonstrated .f " Does it not follow, then," Dr. Bell continues, " that cooking not only diminishes the food value of vegetables and fruit, but also destroys those qualities which are evidently essential as factors in the maintenance of healthy cell metabolism ? I am certain it does/'f Dr. Bell then argues that the same effect is produced on meat by cooking, and concludes by pointing out that the only articles of food which do not appear to be deteriorated by cooking are eggs and milk, and those which contain a large amount of farinaceous material, such as the cereals, potatoes, etc.Jl In dealing with the whole of this subject it should, moreover, be borne in mind that while there can be no question about the positive and recognised dangerous diseases which are induced by dietetic errors, there are also a host of obscure, unclassified and frequently un- diagnosable disorders and indispositions resulting from the mistakes which we make with our food, which though * p. 265. t P- 266. J p. 267. p. 269. || p. 272. As we shall see, Dr. Bell is not quite right here; but in the main he has ably anticipated the results of the most recent research. 90 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS they may not be fatal, lower vitality, produce an atonic condition in which, as I have shown elsewhere, sexual potency in particular is very much reduced, if not sus- pended, and generally lessen the capacity for enjoying life.* It seems to me these results of dietetic errors are almost worse than the former, because, being obscure, they are not traced to any particular cause and cling to the sufferer until he is mercifully released from an existence he has ceased to regard as a pleasure. When it is remembered that the determination of a type as also that of individual characteristics, is now believed to be dependent largely upon the secretion of certain internal glands of the human body, the impor- tance of the chemical constitution of our diet in regard to health and immunity from disease would not appear * For interesting and authoritative confirmation of some of Dr. Bell's views see Dr. Hutchinson's famous work, Food and the Principles of Dietetics (Edward Arnold, 1906), chap. xxii. The learned doctor says (pp. 390-391): " It is an error to suppose that cooking increases the digestibility of food. . . . The digestibility of animal food is diminished rather than increased by cooking. . . . The fats of food are not so much affected by heat as the proteids and carbohydrates. . . . The effect of heat on the proteids of the food is to coagulate them." For losses resulting from cooking see pp. 398-399. Comparing the time taken in digesting raw and cooked meat respectively Dr. Hutchinson writes (p. 66) : " It has been found by experiments on men that 3 oz. of beef disappears completely from the stomach in the following times, depending on the method by which it has been cooked: Raw ... 2 hours; half- boiled ... 2^ hours; wholly boiled ... 3 hours; half-roasted . . . 3-J hours; wholly roasted ... 4 hours." Discussing the cooking of vegetables Dr. Hutchinson writes (p. 248) : " The effect of cooking upon green vegetables is still further to reduce their already poor stock of nutrients. They gain water and lose part of their carbo- hydrates and proteid, most of their mineral matter, and nearly the whole of their non-albuminoid nitrogenous constituents." FIRE AND FOOD 91 to require much demonstration; and yet so powerful has been the influence of a creed that despises the body and its needs, and unduly exalts the soul, that the tendency has been, particularly in countries defiled and blighted by Puritanism, to regard the whole question of food as a painful subject, as something gross and material, to pay too much attention to which is tanta- mount to pagan worldliness. I have shown elsewhere* the havoc the Puritans made of the Englishman's food and drink in the seventeenth century; but this is only one of the many heavy prices we have had to pay for our negative creed in this country. A still more insidious and yet less apparent consequence, is the prejudice which now seems to reign everywhere in modern European communities in regard to enjoying the pleasures of the body. And among these pleasures, of course, eating and drinking come in for their share of censure. What the healthy palate approves of and enjoys, you would have thought, would be likely to prove beneficial to the body; and this instinctive critic of our means of nourishment, far from being flouted, ought to have been the first authority to receive not only respect but also obedience. This fact notwithstanding, it is only too true that, in many wide circles to-day, it is believed that provided that a meal is filling that is to say, provided that it gives a feeling of repletion it is regarded as sufficient and adequate. To demand any more is to be stared at with grieved astonishment by bilious and pious eyes, blurred and dulled by years of indigestion, constipation, and every other modern means of mortifying the flesh. This may appear to many readers an exaggeration. * See ray Defence of Aristocracy, chap. v. 92 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS Maybe it is a little exaggerated in regard to the present world. But unfortunately the present world is the out- come of the nineteenth century. And even if it wished to live more rationally and in a less pious fashion now, it has neither the means, the traditions, nor the health to do so. Throughout the nineteenth century my remarks would have applied, and it was during this century, particularly, that the greatest errors were made in regard to our drink and our feeding generally errors for which we are only now beginning to realise the enormous price we have paid. But cooking an article of food once is bad enough although in my opinion in the case of certain foods not wholly to be deprecated or avoided* there is, however, absolutely nothing to be said for the habit, almost universal in Europe and all countries like Europe to-day, of cooking foodstuffs twice and sometimes three times. This process simply reduces the whole product, whatever it may be meat, vegetable or cereal to so much waste matter, frequently poisonous, and always in- jurious; and yet so deeply rooted is the belief that food only requires to be filling, and so great is the ignorance which Protestantism particularly of the Puritan breed, has cultivated in regard to all questions of the body, that millions of the working and poorer middle classes of Europe are now allowed to perpetrate this dietetic crime, year in, year out, and no one says them nay. I shall now attempt to show how, in the light of the most recent research, and in regard only to certain highly important but relatively very minute constituents * Provided, of course, in regard to meat in particular, that a time-limit is rigorously imposed. FIRE AND FOOD 93 of our food, cooking may not only be bad, but at times positively fatal. But I should like to remind the reader, before I start, that while all that follows does not in any way affect the general arguments of Dr. Bell, which in the main I believe to be acceptable, it affords an extra- ordinary confirmation of the importance he attaches to that element in meat, vegetables and fruit, which he calls roughly " the vital principle." It is not generally known that the body requires not only nourishment in bulk, that is to say, ounce for ounce compensation for solid substances and liquids expended and otherwise lost every twenty-four hours, but that it also needs to absorb certain imponderables, consisting of minute but vastly important constituents of plants or animal matter, which make the nourishment it absorbs profitable and useful. The importance of these con- stituents is enhanced by the fact that the animal body is apparently incapable of synthesising them itself, and therefore depends entirely upon an external source for its supply. The absence of these minute but important constituents from diet may, according to their nature, either arrest growth or expose the human subject from which they are absent to disease and death. It is now no longer a matter of conjecture, but of positive proof, that while a man or an animal may be feeding on a diet which appears exactly to compensate for losses in bodily con- stituents, that man or animal may actually have ceased growing, may be gradually dying, or may be threatened with the most foul diseases if these imponderabilia are absent from its diet. In the words of the distinguished Committee respon- sible for the Report on the Present State of Knowledge 94 MAN'S DESCENT FEOM THE GODS concerning Accessory Food Factors (Vitamines):* " For many years past it lias been customary to estimate the nutritive requirements of the animal organism in terms of what have been for long regarded as the four funda- mental food units, namely protein, carbohydrate, fat, and inorganic material, and to underestimate, if not entirely neglect, the possible significance of other less clearly defined dietary constituent s."f Thus it was customary to measure the amount of food required by a human being or an animal in calories ; and if there appeared to be a sufficiency of calories in a diet, it was deemed adequate not only for keeping the body alive, but also for keeping it healthy and vigorous. We were solemnly assured, for instance, by the glib scientist, that since margarine was equivalent in calories to butter, therefore, since things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, margarine must equal butter. Our stomachs, our palates, our digestions, in fact a whole chorus of our tissues, protested against this bland scientific falsehood. But the authority of Science is such nowadays that a poor human stomach stands but a small chance against it. It is gratifying to be able to record the fact, however, that in the end the stomach proved right that between the common margarine, made from vegetable oil, and butter there is a difference, and a difference so great that whereas a man can survive on a diet in which his fat consists of butter, he could not survive, and a child could not even grow, on a diet in which the fat constituent con- sisted of vegetable margarine. The difference between margarine, as generally sold * Published by His Majesty's Stationery Office, November, 1919. . 5. FIRE AND FOOD 95 to-day, and butter is that in the latter a certain very essential property is present, which is absent from the former. That essential property C. Funk has called " Vitamine." To quote again the report above mentioned, the Com- mittee writes: " What can be said precisely at present is that if minute amounts of certain constituents are re- moved from natural foods, such foods wholly fail to support nutrition, and grave symptoms of disease may supervene."* These vitamines, or essential accessory food factors, are of two kinds: 1. Growth-promoting. 2. Disease-preventing. But even the vitamines of the first group may also be regarded, in a sense, as prophylactic, seeing that their absence from food not only arrests growth, but also exposes the body to bacterial infection of every kind. Thus, to the shortage of animal fats during the winter of 1918-1919, was undoubtedly due the rigorous in- fluenza epidemic which carried away such large numbers of people in Europe. While, as I shall show later, the absence of one class of vitamines of this group may directly cause one or two specific diseases. The diseases known to be caused by the absence of the disease-preventing vitamines from diet are scurvy, beri-beri and rickets in infants. Group one, or the growth-promoting vitamines, have been termed by Collum and Davis: " Fat-soluble A," and " Water-soluble B."f " Practically all investigators in this field of research," * p. 1. t P- 12. 96 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS says the Committee I am quoting, " have now admitted their belief in the indispensability of the two accessory factors, ' fat-soluble A ' and ' water-soluble B ' for growth and nutrition of the animal organism."* When Fat-soluble A is absent from a diet, this deficiency leads to (a) Gradual cessation of growth. (b) The breaking down of resistance to bacterial in- fections of all kinds, particularly those affecting the lungs. (c) Rickets in infants. (d) A general lack of tone, debility, depression, skin troubles, conjunctivitis. When water-soluble B is absent from a diet, this deficiency leads to (a) Immediate cessation of growth. (b) Rapid decline, which may terminate fatally. (c) Beri-beri. (d) A general lack of tone, debility, nervous trouble, depression. As will be seen from (d) in each list and this fact is most important a number of vague disorders, none of them amounting actually to a dangerous disease, though sufficiently debilitating to reduce vitality, spirit and sexual potency, may arise from an insufficiency of either vitamine from the diet, this insufficiency not amounting to a dangerous deficiency. Fat-soluble A is in all probability synthesised by the plant,f and is found in green leaves and the embryos of seeds. It was first detected in butter and egg-yolk, which are still believed to be the richest sources of it.f It is also present in oils and fats derived from the animal * p. 13. f P- 19- t P- 21 - FIRE AND FOOD 97 kingdom, such as cod-liver oil, shark-liver oil, beef fat, the fat of kidneys, heart muscle and liver tissues, herring oil, cod oil, salmon oil and whale oil.* Water-soluble B is widespread. It has been detected in almost all the natural foods. Its principal sources proved to be the seeds of plants and eggs of birds. But since the largest deposit of it lies in the embryo, or germ, and the bran of grain, the same symptoms may be in- duced in the human being by a diet of grain deprived, through milling, of the embryo and the bran, as through a total absence of water-soluble B from the diet.f It is plentiful in rice germ, wheat germ (hence the value of whole-meal bread), linseed, yeast, egg-yolk, and ox- liver. It is less plentiful in wheat bran, fresh peas, fresh carrots, dried carrots, meat muscle, milk and potatoes. J We now come to the anti- scorbutic vitamine, which, from the point of view of this treatise, I believe to be very much more important than any of the others. Scurvy in itself is such a distressing disease, so alarming, revolting and complex in its symptoms, that it has been for thousands of years the nightmare of the mariner, the explorer and all those who, for some reason or other, may have been compelled to live on a restricted diet either totally lacking the anti-scorbutic vitamine or else insufficiently supplied with it. It is a disease attended by increasing weakness, * For a complete list of foods in which fat-soluble A is present, and for the proportion in which it is present, I refer the reader to pp. 22-23 of the Committee's Report. f p. 31. J p. 35. Hippocrates and others among the ancients described it, though they had not the faintest suspicion of its true cause. Even as late as 1896 it is stated in Twentieth Century Practice, vol. vii., p. 492: " The essential cause of scorbutus is still a matter of doubt." 7 98 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS gastro-intestinal disturbances of all kinds, great pallor, inflammation and necrosis of the gums, until they pro- ject as a soft or mushy and friable tissue, bleeding at the slightest touch. There is pain during mastication, and the saliva, usually increased in quantity and mixed with blood, may dribble from the mouth. The tongue is coated and the breath is horribly foetid. Haemorrhage, chiefly in the legs, near the ankle, usually occurs after the changes in the gums have began, both legs being involved. Extensive ulcers sometimes occur at the spot where the haemorrhage has taken place. Bleeding from the mucous membranes constitutes one of the frequent and more serious manifestations of the disease. There is also swelling of the joints, the knee and ankle joints being most frequently involved. The bowels are constipated and may be obstinately so. Circulatory dis- turbance and disorders of the respiratory system are prone to develop in proportion to the degree of anaemia present. Death may occur from gradually increasing weakness and inanition, from the development of large serous effusions, oedema of the lungs, or pneumonia. A rapid end may be brought about by haemorrhage.* Now these symptoms are sufficiently distressing and nauseating to account for any amount of horror and alarm on the part of those who have either suffered from the disease in a mild form, particularly as deep depression is a further characteristic symptom of it, or who have witnessed others dying of it. I maintain, however and I think authoritative medicine will support me in this that there are a hundred weaker forms of the disease which, though not recognised as mild mani- festations of it, could nevertheless be cured or removed * These details concerning scurvy have all been taken (sometimes verbatim) from vol. vii. of Twentieth Century Practice, pp. 491-505. FIRE AND FOOD 99 by the very same treatment as that which cures scurvy. And I cannot insist too emphatically on this point, because not only does it affect the argument in this book, but it also affords, I believe, an interesting explanation of a great many modern disorders which are as vague as they are distressing, and as incurable by ordinary doctor's drugs as they are susceptible to immediate modification by the time-honoured scurvy treatment. Let me give a few instances. A friend of mine, who had reasons for relying on my judgment in matters of hygiene and diet, came to me one day with serious inflammation of the conjunctive, and asked me what he should do for it. The eyeballs were also a little in- flamed, and there was a slight beginning of suppuration. I told him to eat at least four oranges a day for a week, and to drink still lemonade. In three days the inflam- mation round the eyelids had completely gone. On another occasion a dentist whom I had consulted about some trouble with an inflamed gum told me that I had much better have the tooth removed around which the gum was inflamed, and he hinted darkly at pyorrhoea . Not wishing to lose a good tooth, I disregarded his advice, and treated myself as for a mild scorbutus. I ate plenty of uncooked vegetables, and consumed about four oranges a day. At the end of the week my gums no longer troubled me. I am firmly convinced that whereas thousands of people to-day are having all their teeth removed owing to pyorrhoea, this disfiguring and painful operation could be avoided if they treated themselves as for scurvy, and at the same time removed from a low to a high altitude.* * Dr. Robert Bell mentions somewhere that at one time when he was suffering from gum-boils, a friend told him to try eating several oranges a day, and that this treatment quickly and entirely cured him. 100 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS The anti-scorbutic vitamine is plentiful in some of our most common food-stuffs, provided that it be not destroyed. Scurvy may be arrested and cured by raw cabbage leaves and the raw juice of swedes.* These are the most potent of anti-scorbutics among vegetables. Raw carrot-juice and raw beetroot juice are compara- tively feeble, while the potato (after half an hour's boiling) would appear to occupy a mean position .f Among the fresh fruits the orange and lemon easily take the first place . Dried vegetables and fruits are practically useless . Milk and meat come last in the order of merit, and have to be consumed in enormous quantities in order to afford protection from scurvy .f Foodstuffs offering no protection from scurvy are: Eggs, cereals, malt (dried and kilned), preserved lime juice, autolysed yeast extract, pickled cabbage. I shall not deal with the numerous ways in which purely modern methods of preparing food succeed in killing both the vitamines of group (1) and those of group (2) in the products constituting our daily diet. Because since these methods cannot be supposed to have been used by the ancestors of the ancient Greeks, they do not concern us here. I shall therefore only discuss the action of heat upon these vitamines, leaving the question of prolonged or short-period exposure to the sequel. Mrs. Rink, discussing the liability of vitamines to partial or total destruction under the influence of heat, * Committee's Report, p. 44. Raw dandelion leaves, sorrel, carrot and cranberries are apparently also potent anti-scorbutics. f Ibid. J p. 45. Anyone, however, wishing to discover further evidence in support of " progress " will find some cheering facts in regard to this aspect of the question. FIRE AND FOOD 101 says that this may occur in one of the two following ways : " (a) Prolonged exposure to dry heat (be it sunshine or an artificially raised temperature), sufficiently high to remove the moisture from a food. " (6) Prolonged exposure to moist heat." Summing up, she says: " A prolonged exposure to heat is always prejudicial to the existence of accessory factors. " The boiling and stewing of food is calculated to impoverish and eventually to destroy them. Roasting, baking and grilling resulting in the production of under- done meat are naturally preferable methods in this connection. Even the steaming of vegetables an admirable means of preparation from every other point of view does not guarantee the preservation of vita- mines intact."* Turning now to the Committee's Report, we find the following particular details about the effect of heat upon certain foods: Fat-soluble A, the chief vehicles of which, as we have seen, are butter, egg-yolk and animal fats and oils, has been shown to be gradually destroyed when the butter is exposed to heat.| This is also true of fat-soluble A in milk, cabbages and potatoes five such common articles of food that they might be regarded as forming the bulk of the staple diet of England. Thus, in regard to fat-soluble A, we have arrived at a very definite result. Seeing that a deficiency of this * What we Ought to Know about Food: Chapter " Vitamines." I have only seen this book in manuscript, so that I cannot give page references. 1 It is the book mentioned in the Preface. A. M. L. f p. 23. The experiments dealt only with butter, but it is unlikely that egg-yolk and the animal oils would enjoy a special immunity that butter does not share. 102 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS vitamine in a diet removes the protection from bacterial infection of all kinds, arrests growth, and, in children, leads to rickets, the evil effects of cooking, on the foods containing this vitamine, cannot be too strongly em- phasised. Nor should it be forgotten that in cases where the deficiency is not marked enough to produce disease, a general lack of tone, debility, depression and skin trouble (conjunctivitis particularly) will be sure to result when the compensation obtained from other foodstuffs is insufficient completely to correct the deleterious effects of cooking on the products which are the chief vehicles of this vitamine. Water-soluble B, or the anti-beri-beri and anti- neuritic factor, is more hardy, and can survive heat very much longer than fat-soluble A. It has, however, been found that one to two hours' exposure to 120 C. destroyed this vitamine in unmilled rice, Katjang-idjo beans, and buffalo meat. Other experiments have shown that beef heated to 110 C. for thirty minutes also loses its anti-neuritic properties, and that, generally speaking, while the destruction of this vitamine takes place very slowly at 100 C., it is very much more rapid in the neighbourhood of 120 C.* Now bearing in mind that a deficiency of water-soluble B in a diet leads to a cessation of growth, to decline, to beri-beri, and in mild cases to a general lack of tone, debility, nervous trouble and depression, we are again confronted by an example of the grave danger which the body incurs when certain foods are cooked, or cooked too much. In regard to the anti-scorbutic factor, the evidence is overwhelming, and seeing that, in its milder forms, when it is unrecognised as scurvy, scorbutus has a * Committee's Report, p. 34. FIRE AND FOOD 103 number of manifestations which are as disagreeable as they are mystifying, there is in all probability, owing to the prevalence of erroneous methods of cooking all over Europe, very much more " mild " or " undiagnosed " scurvy about than anyone, least of all the average medical man, can possibly suspect. In the words of the learned Report prepared by the Committee whose conclusions and statistics I have already quoted so extensively in this chapter: "With regard to exposure to high temperatures, the anti- scorbutic factor is also much more sensitive than the anti-beri factor, or the fat-soluble A factor."* And further: "Seeing that the anti-scorbutic factor is sensitive to high temperatures, it is clear that the value of fresh vegetables and fruit must of necessity be greatly impaired by cooking. When there is scarcity of fresh food, either by actual deficiency or by difficulty in transport or distribution, it is well to realise that raw fruit and salads have a value, weight for weight, far exceeding that of cooked fruit or cooked vegetables, and that a smaller ration will suffice to afford protection from scurvy. . . . The bulk of the population in this country takes its anti-scorbutic food in the cooked condition, and this being so, the methods adopted for cooking become of great importance."! The anti-scorbutic property in milk is reduced 50 per cent, by cooking; that of cabbages is reduced 66 per cent. It is probably the great quantity of potatoes that are regularly consumed by the average working family that alone compensates for the loss of the anti-scorbutic vitamine in the potato through cooking, but unfortunately experiments with raw potatoes have not been made to prove this. * p. 45. f p. 64. 104 MAN'S DESCENT FEOM THE GODS The Committee's Report gives two interesting examples of recent outbreaks of scurvy, which were due entirely to the process of cooking: " Scurvy broke out in a camp in Scotland in the spring of 1917, and eighty-two men were affected. At the time potatoes were scarce, but the ration contained a fair proportion of fresh meat, and 2 ounces of swedes were available daily." (As we have already seen on p. 100, swedes are among the most potent anti-scorbutic vegetables we possess, and ought, if cooked in the proper manner, to have afforded ample protection.) " The cause of the outbreak was investigated by Pro- fessor L. Hill, who discovered that the meat was always served as a stew, the vegetables were added, and the whole cooked for about five hours. This circumstance was considered by Professor Hill to be sufficient ex- planation of the outbreak."* Another outbreak occurred in a Kaffir labour battalion in France between May and July, 1918, in which there were 142 cases of pronounced scurvy. " In this case there was a ration of fresh vegetables equal to 8 ounces daily, these were cooked with the meat and boiled for a period of at least three hours. In the opinion of the medical officer by whom the circumstances of the out- break were thoroughly investigated this fact was an important contributory cause. "f In an outbreak of very mild and subacute infantile scurvy which occurred at the Hebrew Infant Asylum, New York, it was found that the malady was confined to infants who had been fed for several months upon a diet of cow's milk previously heated to 63 C. for thirty minutes. Though this diet had been found safe if accompanied by a little orange juice, the discontinuance * pp. 65-66. f P- 66. FIRE AND FOOD 105 of this ration of orange juice " as a result of the pro- nouncement of the American Medical Milk Commission, (1912) that for the purposes of infant feeding heated milk might be considered the equivalent of raw milk," led in the course of two to four months to the outbreak in question.* For future reference, it is highly interesting also to note the following fact: thatf " if fresh vegetables or fruit are scarce or absent, an anti- scorbutic food can be prepared by moistening any available seeds tyvheat, barley, rye, peas, beans, lentils), and allowing them to germinate. . . . The seeds should then be soaked in water for twenty-four hours, and kept moist with access of air for one to three days, by which time they will have sprouted. This sprouted material possesses an anti- scorbutic value equal to that of many fresh vegetables. "J With reference to this most important fact, it is furthermore desirable in view of what is to follow for the reader to bear in mind this additional valuable informa- tion: that the Kaffir beer, " leting " or " joala," is " the product of rapid fermentation of partly germinated millet and is consumed quickly after preparation. The Kaffirs are in the habit of taking large quantities when living in their own kraals in South Africa, and it is believed to be a valuable anti-scorbutic. . . . Outbreaks of scurvy have been reported by Dyke among companies of Kaffir labourers in France, where this ' jaola ' was replaced by a second type of beer, * mahew/ a fermented drink also made from millet and maize, but in the pre- paration of which the grain is not previously germinated. " Meat when it is fresh, not when it is frozen, also possesses anti-scorbutic properties, but apparently great * p. 79. f p. 100: the italics are mine. A. M. L. J p. 100. See also p. 41. p. 61. 106 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS heat or great cold destroys the essential vitamine. Very large quantities of it, however, have to be eaten in order to afford protection; hence the enormous amount of meat consumed by people who rely chiefly on meat for their immunity from scurvy in its acute or sub-acute form. It is also best eaten raw for this purpose. This is probably why the Eskimo, who suffer from such a dearth of anti-scorbutic vegetables, are not only heavy meat-eaters but also raw-meat eaters.* The qualities of raw meat, however, are still ap- preciated by so-called " civilised " Europeans, and this kind of food is now recommended by some medical men, both for rachitic infants and nursing mothers. Now to sum up the foregoing, we have seen that (1) in addition to the old and recognised chemical constituents of our daily food, there are in the products we eat certain ingredients known as accessory food factors or vitamines, which not only complete the value of the remaining compound of which the food consists, and render it profitable and useful to the body, but also constitute indispensable elements for keeping the body healthy, immune and vigorous. * See Encyclopaedia Britannica, llth ed., article " Eskimo " : " The Eskimo are enormous meat-eaters; two will easily dispose of a seal at a sitting ; and in Greenland, for instance, each individual has for his daily consumption, on an average, 2| Ibs. of flesh with blubber, and 1 Ib. of fish. ... 10 Ibs. of flesh in addition to other food is not uncommonly consumed in a day in time of plenty." See also J. Deniker, The Races of Man, p. 149 : " Some few northern tribes, the Eskimo, the Cukchi, eat . . . reindeer's flesh and fish quite raw." See also Nansen, Eskimo Life, pp. 89-92: " They can consume at a sitting astonishing quantities of meat, blubber, fish, etc. . . . Meat and fish are eaten sometimes raw. . . . The blubber of seals and whales is generally eaten raw. . . . The Greenlander is also very fond of raw sealskin with the blubber." See also Vilhjalmur Stefansson, My Life with the Eskimo, pp. 170, 278, etc. FIRE AND FOOD 107 2. These accessory food factors or vitamines are of two kinds: growth-promoting and disease-preventing, and a deficiency of them in our diet quickly leads to stunted growth or disease. 3. As might have been anticipated, they are found chiefly in those primary products which nature has intended as a whole food for living creatures: egg-yolk, milk and its by-products, grain, vegetables, including grass (on which sheep and cows and all grazing animals keep thoroughly fit) and, of course, such secondary natural products as honey, which serve as whole-foods. 4. The anti-scorbutic vitamine occurs most plenti- fully in fresh fruit and vegetables; but it may also be made to occur abundantly in seeds, if these are partly germinated hence the great anti-scorbutic value of all beers prepared from the partly germinated grain of millet, barley, etc. 5. The effects resulting from an acute deficiency are as alarming as they must have seemed mysterious to those who could not possibly have traced them to their proper cause. We have only to think of stunted growth, wasting and decline, neuritic troubles such as beri-beri, loss of immunity against bacterial infection, and, worst of all, the loathsome disease scurvy all ending in premature death. 6. The effects resulting from subacute deficiency are quite as distressing as the former, because though they may not prove fatal, they are less marked and less pro- nounced, and therefore less easy to deal with and to diagnose, and surpassing the former in the vagueness and mystery that surrounds them. We have only to think of conjunctivitis, leading frequently to blindness, general debility, depression, indigestion, constipation, sleep- lessness, neuritis, rheumatism, all the unrecognised and 108 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS milder forms of scurvy (from which it is certain millions of the modern world now suffer without the smallest notion of the true nature of their indisposition), loss of sexual potency and consequently of high spirits and good-cheer,* in fact a general poisoning of the body which turns all the good things of life to naught, and blights the brilliance of the sunniest day. 7. The exposure of certain foodstuffs to heat in the process of cooking has, we have been assured on the high authority of Dr. Bell, such deleterious effects that he believes rheumatism, cancer, and a host of other ills to which the flesh of man is heir, are in a great measure due to this method of food preparation. We have also seen in confirmation of Dr. Bell's beliefs, that some vitamines are certainly destroyed by exposure to heat, and that the anti-scorbutic are the most sus- ceptible to this form of deterioration and extirpation. 8. It has been pointed out that the only reason why modern Europeans do not suffer more acutely (that they all suffer subacutely is fairly certain) from their wholesale destruction of vitamines, either through cooking, or through the various commercial processes by which eggs, meat-extracts, malt-extracts, meats and oils are prepared, is that, owing to the great variety of food they consume, they accidentally compensate in one direction for losses incurred in another. 9. If a people restricted to a limited number of food- stuffs, as soldiers are in camps, for instance, cook food in such a way as to destroy the essential vitamines in their diet, epidemics, as we have seen, quickly break out and men die like flies. Thus, where accidental compensation * I showed the dependence of high spirits and good cheer upon the vigour of the sexual powers in my Defence of Aristocracy, chap, v., pp. 175-183. FIRE AND FOOD 109 in the form of a great variety of foodstuffs is prevented by the circumstances incidental to the life of any parti- cular community, the cooking of certain products may and will prove fatal to all those endeavouring to maintain themselves on a restricted diet. If there is partial com- pensation, the consequences, though not fatal, may be both distressing and alarming. I think I have now said enough on this question to be able to return to my main thesis, and to begin to apply the conclusions at which I have arrived to my interpreta- tion of the Prometheus myth. If we pause to ask ourselves how it is that we modern Europeans are able to frame our dietaries upon such an enormous variety of foodstuffs, and to light, as it were, by accident upon a regimen that allows for compensation in one direction, while grave deficiences occur in another, we must remember that modern commerce and the world trade has placed the whole storehouse of the globe at the disposal of our markets; our meals reach us not merely from all the corners of our own lands, but literally from all points of the compass. Not a day goes by, particularly in England, without the product of some foreign land, some British colony, some de- pendence, being offered to us at our tables. The fact is now such a commonplace, that it has ceased to be regarded as strange, much less as marvellous. If, then, with all this variety, we are nevertheless unable to maintain ourselves in health, owing to the gross errors of our own taste and culinary methods for thousands upon thousands are suffering to-day purely from dietetic mistakes how much more grave must the situation be among a people who have not our variety to draw upon. The moment the great war reduced us to the condition of such a people, we realised, 110 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS by being deprived of our accidental compensations, how precarious our living had been before. As I have already pointed out, the serious influenza epidemics that swept Europe during the latter years of the war were largely due to deficiencies in the diet of her people (fats, for instance), which deprived them of their normal resistance against bacterial infection. We know, however, that all primitive peoples are, by virtue of their simple civilisations, foredoomed to a very restricted number of foodstuffs. The balance of health and disease is therefore susceptible to more rapid, more immediate disequilibration, owing to the circumstance that it may be destroyed by a famine in one particular product alone.* But a condition equivalent to a famine may be arti- ficially brought about, as we have seen, if the essential accessory factors in a food are persistently killed or destroyed by exposure to heat. And the effects of such destruction would be felt the more rapidly, the less extensive was the variety of foodstuffs from which a people were able to draw. It is not difficult to conjecture the constituents com- posing the bill of fare of the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks. We can frame it upon the dietaries of most primitive hunting peoples. That it was com- posed largely of meat is most probable meat eaten grilled, roasted, or baked, when good-fortune provided a natural fire,f and eaten raw at other times. To this may have been added various grasses, seeds, berries, roots * Even in such relatively highly civilised countries as Ireland and Norway, scurvy followed a failure of the potato crop in the former country in 1847, and in the latter in 1904. f See Deniker, op. cit., p. 149: " The preservation of fire produced by natural forces (conflagration, lightning, volcanoes, etc.) must have preceded the production of fire." FIRE AND FOOD 111 and fruits, when they were available, and wild honey when it was found. It is possible that the milk of wild cattle was also obtained long before pastoral conditions were actually established, and that the milk of mares was drunk before the horse had been thoroughly domesticated. These primitive people were certainly nomadic. Having exhausted any particular area of game or other food, they would wander into other parts of the land. They would also plan their wanderings according to the seasons, and venture further north in the summer than they would dare to go in the winter. If, however, through some mishap hostility on the part of another people, floods, or a spell of ill-luck in hunt- ing foodstuffs ran short, while actual famine might still be warded off, deficiency diseases must have been of frequent occurrence and sometimes devastating. Forced to take up winter -quarters in an area further north than was the custom, the usual supply of fruit, berries, grasses, seeds, might fall short, and disaster would quickly follow. For centuries, if not millenniums, habit must have confirmed what appetite and taste first created, in the dietaries of these primitive peoples, so that they sought their compensating or " protective foodstuffs," not from a knowledge of their virtues, but from a blind rule of thumb which tradition all but sanctified. Imagine now the sudden possession by such a people of a power so far-reaching in its effects, so subversive of their whole order of life, and so infinite in its possible applications, as the means to produce fire at will. Everything which had not been realised when chance " natural " fires had been used, could now be tried and 112 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS introduced into a new order of life. We have seen that the name of Prometheus was associated in the minds of the ancient Greeks with the manufacture of pottery. It may be assumed, therefore, that among a people refusing to recognise any limits to the use of fire, thanks to the Promethean spirit which animated them, pottery was one of the first things to be produced once the means for kindling a fire at will had become a common pos- session. With pottery, however, the easiest form of cooking comes into being the cooking you can leave for hours to itself, while you go about other business, the cooking that in a sense may be called automatic and self-per- forming I mean boiling, simmering, stewing and braising. Incidentally, as we have seen, this is the worst kind of cooking, the most deleterious to the food, and the most harmful, therefore, to the body; but the tremendous ease with which it is effected, the simplicity of an operation consisting merely of setting a variety of products in a pan with water, and leaving it to the action of heat, has, I am afraid, made it the classical method of cooking ever since the Promethean crime. All the time we were in the line on the Somme, for instance, scarcely a day passed that the food, at least of the men, was not stewed;* but then, as the officers and men of my battery will be able to remember, our casualties from boils and scabies (a sort of dermatitis revealing at the very least a low state of resistance to bacterial infection if not subacute scurvy itself) were pretty heavy throughout the latter months of 1916 . Nor could this be ascribed to dirt alone, as one of the smartest * I am speaking of C Battery, 79th Brigade, R.F.A. FIEE AND FOOD 113 and cleanest N.C.O/s of the left section now alas! dead suffered from it most severely. The temptation to stew, when other means of cooking are rendered difficult owing to the rough-and-ready apparatus which is available in the field, shows that it is, of all methods, the easiest. It is the line of least resistance in the culinary art. I have, however, quoted sufficiently from the Expert Committee's Eeport to show how dangerous it is, and how, even during the last war, forces not actually in the line developed scurvy after a long spell of stewed food, even though this food contained ample protection in its unstewed state against the malady. But, as we have seen, although scurvy in its acute and subacute and frequently unrecognised forms may be the worst, the most alarming and nauseating of the deficiency diseases, it is by no means the only one. Other vitamines besides the anti-scorbutic are destroyed by exposure to heat, and other diseases are the outcome of such destruction. When, therefore, it is remembered that the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks were a primitive people, that the range of their foodstuffs was restricted, and that such chance compensation as we achieve to-day was certainly impracticable with them; when, moreover, we bear in mind that with the discovery of the means of fire-production not only did pottery become a possibility, but with it also the worst, the easiest, the most deleterious and utterly destructive form of cookery,* it requires no * Some anthropologists will object, perhaps, that long before pottery existed, the process known as " stone-cooking " or " stone boiling " was probably practised by all primitive peoples. This is possibly true, but to such objectors I reply, that they know as well 8 114 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS fantastic flights of fancy to picture the results, some immediate and others more remote, of the introduction of fire-production among them. Epidemics of the cruellest and most devastating kind probably raged for generations, without anyone being able to point to any cause save perhaps Jove's anger. Crippledom, stunted growth, tooth-trouble, eye- trouble,* pronounced and acute scurvy, beri-beri, pellagra, indigestion, skin disease, rickets in children, verily, in fact, a Pandora's casket of evils must have fallen upon these ignorant, early users of fire, par- ticularly as the Promethean spirit would have drawn no limits to its use. When we add to this, that the possibility of kindling fire probably induced whole tribes to face the colder months in regions which they would formerly have deserted, and that, therefore, to the natural restrictions of their usual regimen must have been coupled the common restrictions imposed by the cold of winter; when we also recollect that these people, far from con- necting their troubles and illnesses with the actual use of fire, were taught by tradition merely to ascribe them to Jove's wrath over the stealing of fire just as the Syrian to-day ascribes his eye-trouble to Allah's particular attentiveness to him it is difficult to con- as I do the tediousness of stone boiling and stone cooking, and that, therefore, the very difficulty of the process itself would remove the chief advantage which stewing possesses over other methods of cooking, which is ease; and thus leave no inducement to primitive man to practise it. * The eye-trouble in the near East is still very noticeable. When I was in Greece, Palestine, and Egypt in 1910, it struck me that it was almost universal, and I have often wondered since whether it might not be largely a deficiency disease. FIKE AND FOOD 115 ceive of the state of utter desperation and horror to which they must have been driven. Mothers bewailing the loss of their children or what was worse in those days, the deformity and botchedness of their children men and girls taken away in the prime of life, sexual potency radically impaired and causing more consternation among the women than the men,* mouths becoming unsavoury, unpleasant to look upon; eyes losing their lustre and their keenness of vision. But it is impossible to describe the picture of such misery much less to overdraw it. And to all those who doubt that such appalling calamities are remembered for thousands of years, to all those who question the historical truth behind this mythical association of fire and frenzied suffering, I can but recommend as a pastime for a week or so the task of imagining the effect upon the primitive mind of man, of such a sudden avalanche of ills and woes. We who, to-day, are so used to illness, botched- ness and ugliness, that we scarcely know ourselves as Europeans and civilised men unless we have at least one cripple, one cretin, one lunatic, one neurasthenic or one consumptive in our family; we who are so accustomed to the foetid atmosphere of the sick-chamber, that we no longer regard our own or anybody else's physical short- comings with shame or disgust, and who are forced to imagine some post-mortem methods of compensation for the tragic suffering that is now quite a normal occurrence with us we, of modern progressive Europe, can form, it is true, but a shadowy conception of the horror with which primitive man must have regarded * Elsewhere, I have shown how, at another and much later epoch in history, it was the women who raised the greatest outcry against the sex-destroying drugs which became prevalent in England after the Puritan Eebellion. See my Defence of Aristocracy, chap. v. 116 MAN'S DESCENT FEOM THE GODS such a shower of physical calamities as fell upon him after the first indiscriminate application of fire to food; but those of us who still have a clean breath left, those who still are healthy and robust enough to feel a frank dislike and contempt for the invalid, the " sufferer," and the half-witted, and who regard the cripple, the cretin, the misshapen and the physiologically bungled and botched with undisguised loathing, will know what I mean, and will realise that Hesiod was an accurate though unconscious historian when voicing the tradition of centuries, he declared: " Of themselves diseases came upon men continually by day and by night bringing mischief to mortals silently. . . . For ere this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills and hard toil and heavy sicknesses which bring the Fates upon men ; for in misery men grow old quickly. But the woman took off the great lid of the jar with her hands and scattered all these, and her thoughts caused sorrow and mischief to men."* He who has not the flair to scent history behind this, he who is too modern, too Promethean, to believe that a scientific development that is accompanied by a decrease of vitality and health, may be an outrage on humanity, can scarcely picture the anguish which must have existed to give rise to such a tradition as this. It explains the miraculous torture to which posterity condemned the " benefactor " of mankind; it accounts for the belief in the supposed wrath of Zeus over the stealing of fire, and, above all, it reveals the relationship between the ancient Greeks' infinite trust in their supreme deity, while at the same time they felt the gravest doubts about the civilisation which had developed in spite of his most wise and benevolent ordinances. * Works and Days, 90 et seq. CHAPTER V DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD THE last chapter ended on a note of tragedy and despair. This one opens with glad tidings and the promise of great joy. Hesiod tells us that after the Promethean crime and all its consequences to man, only Hope remained, and that Hope, too, was the gift of Zeus the Almighty Benefactor. But Hope was not the only mitigation of their suffer- ing which Zeus reserved to primeval men. And here we light again upon a new interpretation of another section of the Prometheus myth which hitherto has been passed over without comment by the majority of scholars. It will be remembered that at the end of my own subdivisions of the myth, I referred to the tradition that Zeus ultimately relented and forgave Prometheus in fact, that he sent one of his own sons, Heracles, to release him from the torment of the eagle. What is the psychological explanation of this ? How do a people, responsible through generations for an oral tradition in which a supposed enemy of the race is subjected to infinite and miraculous torture, come to suppose that their god has relented ? How do they arrive at the conclusion that the Arch-criminal can be forgiven by the deity whom they trust as their bene- factor and protector ? It seems to me that the answer is a simple one. They can do so only when the evils to which this Arch-criminal 117 118 MAN'S DESCENT FBOM THE GODS gave rise appear to have been overcome, modified, corrected, or neutralised. I suggest that, as the ills and woes directly associated with the possession of fire- production came to be relieved, the anger of the pro- tecting deity was conceived as dying down, as vanishing, so that it was possible for his proteges to imagine that the severity of his punishment of Prometheus must have a term. Hence the relenting of Zeus, and the merciful mission of his son Heracles. But how did the ills and woes come to be relieved ? I mean, of course, the worst ills and woes that befell mankind after the unlimited use of fire: disease, premature death, decline in sexual potency, etc., etc., not the ills to which C. 0. Miiller and Volcker allude these could scarcely have been relieved once a Promethean civilisation had been established; but then, as I have shown, they were neither as alarming nor as insufferable as the other ills. I suggest that the ills and woes gradually abated from the moment when Zeus gave his only begotten son by Semele, the god Dionysus, as a Saviour to mankind. From that time everything began to mend in the lives of the archaic Greeks. From that time life became once more possible on earth; sexual potency, the source of one of the greatest joys, was restored; disease was overcome, and the disfigurement of faulty and arrested growth passed away. This is a bold interpretation of the great myth of Dionysus. Is it possible that an analysis of the myth itself, and of the mysteries attending the cult, will confirm its general validity ? This remains to be seen. In any case it covers most of the facts, includes most of the mysteries, and in lucidity and plausibility DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD 119 leaves the other attempted interpretations leagues behind. We must now turn to the myth of Dionysus itself and deal with it piecemeal as we dealt with the myth of Prometheus. But to begin with, who was Dionysus ? His name tells us who he was. He was the son of Zeus. He is the only god who is definitely connected with Zeus by name. In fact, so close is the connection between father and son in this case, that like the Christian god and the Saviour, they are frequently identified one with another a kind of one in two, two in one, identity, which found expression in the earliest products of Greek art.* This is only a further proof, if one were needed, of the perfect trust the ancient Greeks had in their supreme deity, as a benefactor and bestower of happiness, health and vigour. 1. According to common tradition, Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele, and was born at Thebes. Hera, the sister and wife of Zeus, having grown jealous of Semele, owing to her attraction for Zeus, visited her in the disguise of a friend, an old hag, or Semele's own nurse, and prevailed upon her to request Zeus to appear to her in the same glory and majesty in which he was accus- tomed to approach his own wife Hera. To press her point Hera suggested that Zeus was a false lover to Semele, and that this would be a means of testing his devotion. * Pausanias, viii., 31-32. Speaking of the precincts sacred to Demeter and Persephone at Megalopolis, he says : " And inside the precincts is the temple of Friendly Zeus, the statue is like Dionysus and is by the Argive Polyclitus. The god has buskins on, and a cup in one hand, and in the other a thyrsus, and an eagle perched on the thyrsus. This last is the only thing which does not harmonise with the legendary Dionysus." Translation by A. R. Shilleto, M.A. Bohn's Classical Library). 120 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS 2. Semele fell into the trap laid for her, and begged her lover Zeus to appear before her as he appeared before his real wife a very human and comprehensible desire, which Hera showed some penetration in suggesting. When all entreaties to desist from this request were fruitless, Zeus is said to have ended by complying, and he appeared to her in thunder and lightning. 3. Semele was apparently terrified and overpowered by the sight, and being seized by the fire, she gave premature birth to a male child.* Zeus, however, saved the child from the flames; he was sewed up in the god's thigh, and thus came to maturity. 4. Many stories are told about his education. It was entrusted to various nymphs. Mystis, for instance, in- structed him in the mysteries; Maoris, the daughter of Aristaeus, is said to have received him from the hands of Hermes and fed him with honey. When Dionysus had grown up, Hera, still suffering from jealousy, threw him into a state of madness, in which he wandered about through many countries. He is supposed to have travelled through Egypt, Syria and Asia, preaching the Gospel of the Vine wherever he went, in spite of oc- casional opposition of the bitterest kind and instructing those he met in its cultivation and care. 5. Another important legend about him is to the effect that both as Sabazius (Dionysus Sabazius) and as Zagreus, he was torn to pieces by the Titans, who, in some accounts, are alleged to have been incited to the deed by Hera. He is said to have been restored and cured by Rhea or Demeter. 6. After he had made his divine nature known to all * Some accounts say he was a six months' child, others that he was a seven-months' child. The latter account is probably correct. DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD 121 the world, he led his mother out of Hades, called her Thyone, and rose with her to Olympus. Now though this is a very ancient myth,* we know that Dionysus was adopted into the Hellenic pantheon very much later than the myth of Prometheus. This, however, is only what we should have expected. The salvation cannot precede the fall. Dionysus as the Saviour, or Releaser of mankind, must appear at a time subsequent to man's tribulation as a result of his un- limited use of fire. Thus we find Dionysus called variously: Charidotes, or the Joy-giver. Eleuthereus, or the Bestower of Freedom. Hygiates, or the Healer. Lampter, or the Light. Liknites, or the Purifier. Luaios, or the Deliverer from Care. Lysios, or the Releaser, f and Soter, or the Saviour. Truth to tell, the number of his epithets and the legends concerning him would lead even the uninitiated to suspect that he is either the embodiment of a variety * Creuzer shows, I think, satisfactorily that a mysterious and secret cult of Bacchus reached back into the remote prehistoric age of Greece. See his Symbolik und Mythologie der Alien Volker, vol. iii., p. 142, where he concludes his argument with the following words: " Immer bleibt der unumstossliche Satz stehen. Der alteste Geschichtschreiber Herodotus, ein Forscher, der seinen geraden, hellen Blick, wie seine grosse Einsicht allenthalben beurkundet, der in der Streitfrage iiber das Alter der Orphischen Gedichte selbst als Zweifler erscheint, dieser selbige Geschichtschreiber weiss sehr Vieles von Lehren, von Geheirnlehren, von Bacchischen Lehren zu sagen, die weit in die Griechische Vorzeit zuruckgehen." See also p. 168, note. f Pausanias mentions a temple at Thebes consecrated to Dionysus as the Releaser or Deliverer (Boeotia, xvi., 4). 122 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS of deities, all probably older than himself, but connected with the same functions as those with which he is con- nected ; or else and this is the belief to which I incline that although he represents a very old cult and worship, and a very old fact as well (the fact of a remedy having been found for the ills resulting from the unlimited use of fire), his name was probably changed through the ages, just as that of Prometheus and Zeus may have been changed, although denoting the same original ancestor; and the cult connected with his name may have been influenced from time to time by Egyptian as well as by Indian and Persian legends connected with parallel deities. That different Greek tribes called him by different names, and held fast to slightly different versions of the myth, would also be sufficient to account for the numerous appellations, virtues and adventures connected with the notion of his majesty and divinity. The root-idea underlying all his virtues, however, was that he reigned as the divinity and the protector of the fructifying moisture of nature the guardian deity of the productive, invigorating, overflowing and intoxicating powers of life. In modern language, which is more colourless and less figurative, he might aptly be surnamed, in memory of Dr. Robert Bell, the protector of " nuclein," or in memory of Funck, the dispenser and custodian of " vitamines." I do not mean this as a joke. I firmly believe that, as far as modern scientific jargon has any meaning at all, these epithets borrowed from the modern science of dietetics reveal precisely what he signified to the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks. They worshipped him as a bestower of mysterious strength and health, as a DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD 123 healer, as a #eo? crwnfp against raging disease.* The fact that the frantic orgies connected with his worship appear to have been introduced somewhat late, is no argument against the antiquity of this god, as a deified ancestor who discovered the panacea against most of the ills and woes resulting from the unlimited use of fire. It is contended, for instance, that he is not known to Homer as the discoverer of wine; also, that the fanatical service of Dionysus, although to some extent known to Homer, finds in him only a passing mention. But if we are going to argue in this way from instances of omission in works which in any case are alleged by some to be a compilation of fragments, then, as I believe Mr. Robert Brown has pointed out,f there is scarcely a myth or legend of Greek antiquity that would survive the test. His worship is said to have been introduced from Thrace. This also is not surprising. Other myths and legends, besides that of Dionysus came along this north- eastern route. The myth of Prometheus itself pro- bably came via Thrace from the region of the Caucasus, nor is it unlikely that the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks followed this same route. What I feel certain about is this, that after generations, maybe centuries, of intense suffering, following upon the unlimited use of fire, a great man, born of a simple Greek maiden, appeared among the Greeks, who, realising with a poet's instinct, and not by means of a scientist's tedious, endless and elaborate studies, that all his people needed was a corrective against debility, a cure for the * At his oracle at Amphlicleia, in Phocis, Dionysus cured diseases and is called larpos or vytar^s. f See his Great Dionysiak Myth, vol. ii. 124 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS maladies which a deficiency of the vital juices of nature had created in them, taught his fellows the virtues of the foodstuffs which their bodies lacked; taught them the regenerating quality of the fermented semi-germinated seed, whether of barley, oats, millet, or what not ; taught them the tonic and invigorating properties of the fermented fruit of the vine and the ivy, and, above all, instructed them in the life-giving principle of honey, fermented and unfermented.* That the insignificant though real father of this great man was ultimately buried in oblivion is not an in- superable objection; such total eclipses of fathers is not an uncommon occurrence in the history of geniuses. Who hears of the father of Confucius, or of Muhammed, or of the real father of Jesus Christ ? Once his greatness was established, his father could have been none other than Zeus himself; because how could so great a bene- factor fail to be the offspring of the greatest benefactor of all ? Posterity, therefore, pre-dated his birth, made him the son of Zeus, and ultimately deified him too. But that this process of deification was gradual and not immediate, as in the case of the clash of a superior with an inferior race, is shown by the fact that we can trace his promotion from the rank of one of the minor deities to one of the greatest of all. Indeed, this gradual promotion may account for the fact that in the Homeric * Wine only became the symbol of all these elixirs because it happened to be the most potent drink. See Mr. Robert Brown's remarks on this, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 104: "But the Theoinos, or god of a mystic drink of immortality, is an almost world-wide con- cept; and wine signifies not merely grape -wine, but barley wine the juice of the Haoma or Soma plant, or any other intoxicating or exciting drink which by an artificial stimulus carries man for a time beyond himself, and so seemed a type of immortality or con- scious strength delivered from weakness and languor." DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD 125 poems Dionysus does not appear as one of the great divinities at all. Let us now return to the myth and discuss it in sub- divisions. 1 and 2.* As the reader will have observed, I take Dionysus to be a divinity of the kind resulting from ancestor worship, and not, like Zeus, as a divinity re- sulting from the deification of a member or members of a superior race. It is obvious that as he came very much later than Prometheus, he must have appeared long after all trace of the original superior and inferior races had disappeared, and when one had entirely absorbed the other. He was not, therefore, like Zeus, a member of the superior race. He received post- mortem honours, and was raised to the rank of the highest gods only centuries after his death. In his case, therefore, there was a subsequent deification of his parentage also. Thus, as I point out, his real father was probably entirely forgotten, and when his pedigree had to be prepared, as he was already too great to be conceived as having had a mortal father, paternity was traced to Zeus. Likewise, Semele. She was, as I suggest, probably a simple Greek maiden, just as the Virgin Mary was a simple Jewish maiden. It was only subsequently that her pedigree was adjusted to include the ancient family of Inachus of Argos, and Poseidon himself, on the one side, and on the other, through Harmonia, the old divinities of Samothrace, as her forebears. The story of Hera's jealousy of Semele may have had some foundation in fact, although Hera could not have * The figures correspond to my arbitrary subdivision of the myth above. 126 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS been the woman concerned. But seeing that most women are jealous of one another, either for one pos- session or another, the fact is really not important. It is far more likely that here we have a piece of fiction intercalated in the story of Dionysus's life in order to account for what folloivs. 3. This, as the reader will probably have divined already, is by far the most important and most interest- ing subdivision of the fable. Here, as in the case of the punishment of Prometheus, we encounter the miraculous, and, as I have pointed out before, in such cases it is impossible to apply the Spencerian, the euhemeristic, or the anthropological method of inter- pretation. In the face of the miraculous, psychology is the only science that can come to our assistance. Let us therefore look into this story a little more closely. We have seen that Hera could not have been the woman concerned, because she only becomes a party to the domestic scandal owing to the deification of Dionysus. But on the same principle Zeus could not have been the lover concerned, because he was only made the father of Dionysus owing to the stupendous greatness to which the latter attained during his lifetime. Hera and Zeus, therefore, both fall out of our story. But if Zeus falls out of the story, the facts about the premature birth, the burning of Semele, and the saving of Dionysus from fire, have no satisfactory explanation. Is it possible, then, that in addition to Zeus serving as the putative father of Dionysus, he served another important purpose in the myth that is to say, his personality provided the necessary stage-properties for accounting for an awkward though vital part of it, for which no explanation could be found by those who, DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD 127 in the remote prehistoric period of Greece, were responsible for the oral tradition by which the whole story was transmitted to us ? Altogether the story is not satisfactory, and bears the stamp of having been twisted into its present shape, or forced to account for what was otherwise an incom- prehensible though genuine fragment of the myth. For if Zeus by appearing before Semele in all his glory consumes her, why should he not consume Hera in the same way ? It is clear that some fact must here have required explanation and that a rather clumsy story has been invented to explain it. Of course, once Zeus is intro- duced as the father everything becomes possible ; never- theless, there is the suspicion that his consuming glory is required by the stage-manager to overcome a difficulty which is certainly not either the premature birth of Dionysus or the death of Semele. For both could have been achieved by more simple and less miraculous means. Neither is the premature birth of Dionysus essential to his life-story. As far as his subsequent career is concerned it might never have occurred, except, perhaps, that it lent him distinction in the eyes of the ancient world, as a person who had been " twice born/' Semele 's death is also gratuitous. The life-story of the hero appears to have been in no way affected by it. We are reduced then to one fact a fact for which all this domestic upheaval appears to have been contrived as a clumsy explanation by a generation of men who, though possessed of the leading features of the myth, were too remote from the time in which Dionysus lived to be able to account satisfactorily for them. And what is this one fact ? Clearly it is this: that 128 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS Dionysus was saved from fire. In some mysterious way, for which it is now difficult to account, the fable was amazingly and profoundly true in this respect. Diony- sus, surnamed Hyes, or the Lord of fertilising moisture, the custodian and resuscitator of that precious principle in nature, which fire and its unlimited use had killed for the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks, comes down through tradition as himself having had a miraculous escape from fire. The connection, as we are now able to see, is so true and so undeniable, and the confusion of the person of the deity with the good or the bounties he dispenses is so common in oral traditions,* that there can be no mistake regarding the meaning here. Dr. Kuhn, in his famous work on the Prometheus myth, is one of the few scholars who sees an inevitable connection between the theft of fire and the vivifying and invigorating drinks associated with the name of Dionysus and Soma, although I must admit that he sees this connection more on etymological than on anthro- pological grounds, f However, here is the connection described plainly enough in the myth itself the fact that I had antici- * The Soma of the Sanscrit Vedas is at once the drink and the god himself. The Haoma of the Persians is also a divinity and a nectar. Ceres was sometimes called " bread " and " corn," while Bacchus sometimes signifies wine. t See his Herabkunfi des Feuers und des Gottertrankes (Berlin, 1859), p. 257, where he concludes: " Den ursprung des himmlischen feuers sehen wir zweitens aber vielfallig in verbindung mit den vorstellun- gen von einem himmlischen trank auftreten, als dessen alteste bezeichnung wohl amrta und ambrosia aufzufassen sind." It is interesting here to note that a certain great mythologian of world- wide renown, whose name I am unable to mention, when asked recently whether he saw any connection between the myth of Prometheus and that of Dionysus, replied that he saw absolutely none ! DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD 129 pated it by setting forth my reasons for regarding Dionysus as the Saviour of the Greeks, after the worst consequences of the unlimited use of fire had fallen upon them, merely adds weight to the further evidence I shall proceed to adduce in the sequel in support of my thesis. The marvellous feature of this fable, however, is the manner in which this essential fact about Dionysus has been preserved, apparently by means of a most clumsy and transparent fiction. (4) This section of the myth depends upon such a multitude of different and frequently conflicting stories that it is difficult to interpret it plainly. It all depends upon which stories or story you care to concentrate. On anthropological grounds I incline to the account given in the twenty-sixth Homeric Hymn, because it is consonant with the principal elements in the subsequent career of the great man. If a great medicine chief, such as Dionysus probably was, is to be well versed in the mysteries of nature's most secret workings, he cannot study these better than in forests and wooded glades. Here he has the life of the birds, vegetation in its most luxuriant form, the small fauna of the undergrowth, and above all honey. These he can study ; using himself as an experimental animal, he can learn the secret of proper dieting and acquire the knowledge of plants and trees. The fact that one of his most important epithets is Dendrites, Lord of the Trees, the fact, too, that he is said to have been taught by Silenus, son of Pan, how to control the wild beasts of the forest; as also his epithet Brisaios (a name applied to Dionysus as the discoverer of honey),* all point not only to his having grown up * Dr. W. H. Koscher, in a deeply interesting little pamphlet entitled, Nektar und Ambrosia (Leipzig, 1883), says that it is possible 130 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS among the trees of the forest, but also to his having been well versed in plant, tree and animal life.* For as I have already suggested, I think, it was only the wild honey, the honey to be found in tree-hives, that the remote ancestors of the Greeks were able to obtain. The account in the twenty-sixth Homeric Hymn is as follows : " I begin to sing of ivy-crowned Dionysus, the loud- crying god, splendid son of Zeus and glorious Semele. The rich-haired nymphs received him in their bosoms from the lord his father, and fostered him and nurtured him carefully in the dells of Nysa, where by the will of his father he grew up in a sweet-smelling cave, being reckoned among the immortals. But when the goddesses had brought him up, a god oft hymned, then began he to wander continually through the woody coombes, thickly wreathed with ivy and laurel." Sabazius is also said to have been reared by a nymph Nysa. I take it that these nymphs are wood-nymphs or dryads. Nonnus, however, deliberately says they were water-nymphs; but he is scarcely to be relied upon. Pherecydes of Athens, on the other hand, calls them the Dodonean nymphs, f and seeing that the oak- forest of Dodona is famous, it is probable that wood- that Dionysus should be regarded originally not as the god of wine but of mead. See p. 10: " Moglicherweise ist Dionysos urspriinglich als Gott nicht des Weines, sondern des Methes aufzufassen." * We have seen that he is supposed to have been fed on honey by the daughter of Aristseus. Now, like Aristseus, he is regarded as the patron-saint of bees. Aristaeus was, of course, also alleged to have taught men to hunt and keep bees, and is said to have been initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus in Thrace. f See Creuzer, op. cit., vol. iii., pp. 102-103. nymphs are meant. In any case the probability is that Dionysus was an inhabitant of the woods throughout his childhood and youth, for the reasons I have already stated. There may even be truth in that part of the legend which implies that his mother died at his birth, and he may have been abandoned in the woods by his mother's relatives on that account. This was not an unusual procedure among primitive peoples, when a child was born whom nobody wanted, particularly if the child had no proper father. Whether Hera's alleged continued hostility to him, owing to Semele's relationship to Zeus, is worth troubling about, now that Hera has been dropped out of the fable, is very doubtful. I mean by this, that I doubt whether there is any more in the legend of his having been stricken mad by Hera, than an attempt on the part of oral tra- dition to account for those rumours of madness which have been, I suppose, in all ages, and will continue to be, associated with the early innovating feats of a creative genius. Hera's fictitious relationship to Semele happens to offer a good setting for the explanation of these rumours of early madness; hence, probably, they were accounted for in this way. His wanderings through many countries Egypt, Syria and Asia may be a true piece of history pre- served by the myth, or it may simply be an early attempt at explaining the parallel rites and observances of a Dionysian nature, known to have been found in those parts of the ancient world. That the cult of Dionysus spread from Greece is proved; but its Egyptian and Indian counterparts can scarcely be regarded as import- ations from Greece. Hosts of scholars, Creuzer among them, have maintained the reverse. In my opinion 132 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS the similarities are too superficial to have any claim to identity based upon them. There was probably inter- influence between all three the Shiva of India, the Osiris of Egypt, and the Bacchus of Greece which in historical times made them seem wondrously alike; but in its origin each had unique features that distin- guished it. A study of the Shiva of India and the Osiris of Egypt is sufficient, I think, to establish the truth of this contention. The various legends relating to the opposition the doctrine of Dionysus received while it was being spread are most probably founded on fact. We have ample evidence even in modern times of the difficulty with which a new doctrine makes any headway, and, as a rule, the bitterness of the opposition 4s in equal ratio to the soundness of the innovating creed. The accounts contained in various versions of the myth, of the extreme hostility Dionysus encountered while attempt- ing to spread his credo abroad, are, therefore, probably based upon actual historical truths, and only help to lend colour to the general plausibility of the whole fable. (5) We now come to subdivision five of the myth, which from my point of view is almost as important as subdivision three. It brings into prominence another link between the myth of Prometheus and that of Dionysus. It will be remembered that Prometheus was a Titan ; that, as I have tried to show, his crime proved a disaster to mankind, and that benevolent Zeus was conceived by his worshippers as being so deeply out- raged by their suffering and the cause of it that he sub- jected the arch-criminal Prometheus to a supernatural form of torture. Zeus, therefore, stands for the sound principle in Greek life, for the beneficent power meaning DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD 133 well by man ; Prometheus stands for the reverse, for the malign power the power that descends to any shift, however base, in order to satisfy the blind Promethean ambition, which is a fool's notion of " Progress." Zeus and Prometheus, therefore, are properly opposed in the fable. But we have seen that Dionysus also means well by mankind. We have seen that he also is a Saviour, a bestower of bounties, a beneficent deity. We have also seen that he is at times identified with Zeus himself. We should expect, therefore, that as the representative of the good principle, like Zeus he would be opposed to the Titans, and they to him. But is not this precisely what this important subsection of the myth reveals ? When Dionysus is said to be destroyed, it is the Titans who are alleged to have destroyed him. When Hera is depicted as casting about her for some ally with whom to pursue her feud against her hated rival Semele and her seed, she is described as appealing to none other than the Titans. The hostility of these to Dionysus, and vice versd, is taken for granted, it is accepted without further explanation, as if it were inherent in the nature of the two sides. Once again, therefore, we encounter this Promethean spirit, as the wrecker of mankind's happiness on earth. In the first myth, it manifested itself as a blind will to complication or to " Progress," and led to the poisoning of the human race. In the present Dionysian myth, with which a wonderful corrective is introduced, neutral- ising the evil effects of the first Promethean crime, another crime is perpetrated: the Saviour of man, who has come to release humanity from the torments result- ing from the first Promethean " progressive " enter- prise, is torn into pieces by the Titans. 134 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS It is significant, too, that those who are alleged to have restored Dionysus to life again, are two goddesses notoriously friendly to man Rhea, the mother, and probably lover of Zeus the All-benevolent, and Demeter the great, bountiful goddess of corn. Evidently the two myths contained from their very inception this common factor, the hostility of the race of Titans to any power beneficent to man ; and oral tradi- tion handed down the evidences of this hostility without further explanation, because it was probably too well known in early times to need any comment. (6) From my point of view, except that it places on record the ultimate apotheosis, or canonisation, of Dionysus and his mother Semele, this part of the myth is not of very great interest. If the date of its first appearance could be approximately determined, we should have some indication of the time when the great medicine man Dionysus was first deified ; but otherwise, as the reader will perceive at once, it neither assists me nor does it add very much to the general interest of the myth. It again introduces the miraculous or super- natural element to which, this time, we shall not go to the pains of applying any psychological analysis. Having disposed as briefly as possible of the outlines of the myth, there now remain two tasks, as important as that just performed, before I can leave Dionysus and round off my thesis. I must deal with the general aspect of Dionysus as a deity, and with the cult con- nected with his name. I have spoken of Dionysus as the Saviour of mankind, and shown that he was actually known in this aspect to the ancestors of the ancient Greeks. I have also hinted at the reason why he was regarded as their Saviour. But as this last point will receive elaboration later on, I will not pause to deal further with it at present. Suffice it to say that he discovered for them an art of life, including several important additions to their diet, such as mead, the juice of the ivy-berry, the fermented juice of the grape, and of partly germinated barley and other grain,* with which it became possible for them to face the future with more courage, spirit, and vigour, and to develop what was undoubtedly a high civilisation, upon beginnings which, thanks to Prometheus, were cer- tainly unfavourable. He may also have taught them how to ferment meat, mare's milk, and the milk of cows. These new additions to their diet corrected the poison- ing and the deficiency from which they were suffering owing to the exposure of these foods to fire, hence he was known as Hygiates, the great healer, and Luaios, the releaser from ills and woes. Owing to the fact that the juice of the grape when fermented yields by far the most striking, most potent, and at the same time most abundant product of all the natural sources which he tapped, it became, as I have already said, the typical attribute of his divinity, and so much overshadowed the other attributes that, particularly to the later Christian world, he became known chiefly as the god of wine. Of course there was another reason for the emphasis which, for the last two thousand years, men have thought fit to lay upon this single aspect of his godhead. The Christian religion is radically puritanical in tone. It differs from the Pagan * Barley and wheat were placed on the altar of the god in the time of Pausanias. 136 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS cosmogony principally in the attitude it has always adopted towards sex. Sex is sinful. Carnal knowledge is a necessary evil. It is tolerated only because there appears to be no means of circumventing it; but it is nevertheless deeply regretted by the true Christian, and in his heart of hearts he regards it as the one blot on the otherwise superb design of the universe. Now to the Pagan, such an attitude towards sex was inconceivable. He was, therefore, never obsessed by the purely bibulous aspect of his great god Dionysus. He retained, until the end, the wider view of the god, which I am attempting to make clear in this chapter, and by the cult which he developed around Dionysus, he revealed the full meaning which he ascribed to that god's powers. Wine was, therefore, but one among many ideas connected with the ancient Greek's concept of the myth and the cult associated with his name ; hence, although the epithets relating to this aspect of the divinity are the most numerous,* their number is not a very trustworthy index to the relative importance of the attribute they stand for. Among the most striking we find: Botryokosmos : The Grape-decked. Choopotes : The Deep-Drinker. Komastes : The Reveller. Lenaios : The Lord of the Wine Press. Methydotes : The Wine-giver. Oinops : The Wine-flushed, and Theoinos : The Wine-god. The list of phallic epithets, or names relating to sexual potency, are also numerous. Here are some of the more striking : * See L. R. Farnell, D.Litt., M.A., F.A.S., The Cults of the Greek States, vol. v., p. 120. DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD 137 Aigobolos : The Goat-smiter. Choir opsalas : The Sow-seeker. Ephaptor : The Caresser. Eukarpos : The Fruitful. Gunaimanes : The Erotic. Hymenios : The God of Marriage. Karpios : The Fruitful. Pantodynastes : The All-powerful. Phales : The God Phallus. Phlias : The Flowing One. Polyparthenos : The Maiden-loving. Priapos : The Power of Reproduction. Taurogenes : The Bull-sprung. Thyrsomanes : The Thyrsos-maddening. Thyrsotinaktes : The Thyrsos-shaker. What do all these epithets mean ? Why is so much importance ascribed to Dionysus on the sexual side ? Why was an erect phallus carried in the processions of the Dionysian festivals ? Why was there a phallus, frequently carved out of fig-wood, carried in the baskets filled with fruit, which were borne by the virgins known as Canephoria, who formed part of the procession in the Dionysia ? " How monstrous !" cries the modern investigator, male and female. " How unnecessarily gross \" " If these horrible things had to be carried, why select pre- cisely a virgin to perform the office ? Surely some male member of the working-classes of the period, a respect- able married man preferably, would have been willing, for a sum that did not require to be princely, to bear these unmentionable objects in the procession ! And need they have been exposed among the fruit ? Might they not have been carried concealed in a hand-bag ?" So questions the modern mind, the cultivated mind of 138 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS modern Europe, the stupid mind of Western civilisa- tion. But to ask these questions is to misunderstand the whole meaning of the Dionysian cult. Once this cult is understood, it is immediately clear to the meanest modern intelligence, that if a respectable married man of the working classes had been hired to bear this particular emblem in the Dionysia, the whole rite would have be- come an absurdity, an empty parade, a piece of modern buffoonery after the style of our celebrated pageants, that is to say, merely a pretext for an idle class to get pleasantly busy, without incurring the stigma of doing hard productive toil. The fact that maidens carried these emblems, that the emblems themselves were carved out of the wood of the fig-tree, in order to convey the idea of fertility and repro- duction, has never been satisfactorily explained. In fact very little about the whole of the great Dionysian myth has been satisfactorily explained. It is, of course, on its sexual side, one of those " unpleasant " aspects of Greek mythology which are slurred over as quickly as possible, particularly, I suppose, since there have been lady undergraduates at the Universities. Nevertheless, you would have thought that a few venerable old men between themselves, and unbeknown to their families, might have endeavoured to arrive at the correct ex- planation. I will deal with some of the attempts that have been made to explain it, and at the same time submit my own explanation in the next chapter. CHAPTER VI DIONYSUS THE MAN IT is a pity that I cannot allow myself enough room to deal with these mythological questions more fully. I have been obliged to give but the merest outline both of the Promethean and the Dionysian myth. I can only hope that the details I am able to give will prove suffi- cient to enable the reader, not only to learn something about the myths themselves, which other books on the subject do not tell him, but also to follow the reasoning which I have based upon the bold outlines given. In the Dionysian myth, I am faced with a peculiar difficulty, because so little of the scholarly explanation and interpretation of it appears to be of the slightest use. If all the stuffy archaeologists of the year 14,017, having found the remains of a machine-gun of the year 1917, insisted upon explaining it as an instrument for rapidly sowing a field with broad beans, because they refused to believe that the people of Europe in 1917, who were said to be so highly cultivated, could possibly have used such a disgusting instrument for warfare even against savages, much less against one another, it would be rather uphill work for one single individual, who was not an official archseologist, to prove that the instrument really was used for the purpose of killing young men, and that, moreover, in a certain war which occurred about the years 1914-1918, millions of healthy, brave and charming men were actually killed in this manner. Such allega- 139 140 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS tions against our ancestors, particularly when they are supposed to have been civilised and Christians, moreover, are so very unpleasant ! And since all thought and the formation of ideas is becoming more and more hedonistic every day, that is to say, propositions and beliefs are no longer accepted on their merits but according to whether they evoke pleasant or unpleasant fancies in the minds of the majority* we must assume that if " Progress " continues at its present rate, the only test of the validity or truth of a proposition in the year 14,017 will be whether the average old spinster or old washer-woman considers it a comforting thought or not. If she does not, it will be regarded as untrue. I feel in regard to my interpretation both of the Promethean and of the Dionysian myth, that I am somewhat in the position of the non-official archaeologist above mentioned, and that since the explanations I offer are not as " pleasant " as those usually presented to the lay public, they will run a considerable risk of being regarded by this same public as not quite as " true " as the customary ones. * As an instance of this, how many people, I should like to know, have ever tried to divorce from the idea of Heaven and an after- life the pleasant and comforting thoughts which cluster round it, and then proceeded to question honestly and searchingly whether it can possibly be true. Are not the pleasant associations of the thought responsible for three-quarters of the bias in its favour ? Let the reader by way of experiment tell his circle of friends a truth either about humanity or about the world which is distinctly un- pleasant. He will find that more than half the incredulity he encounters, particularly among smug sentimental women, will not be based upon an impartial examination of his evidence for the unpleasant truth, but upon the unpleasantness of the truth itself. If he would like a truth to experiment with, I recommend him to tell his middle-aged spinster-friends some of the truths discovered by psycho-analysis. DIONYSUS THE MAN 141 But I am inured to this attitude and I shall not allow it to deter me from proceeding with the interpretation of the Dionysian myth and cult on the lines I have laid down. In the first place , however, I must warn the unini- tiated reader against the danger of believing that the bare outline I have given of the Dionysian myth is anything more than a rough, deliberate, though pretty thorough, simplification of the vast complex of legends and fables with which the name of Dionysus is identified. So intricately involved with one another are these various aspects of the myth, that it would be impossible in the small compass of this book to deal with them adequately. I was therefore compelled to treat the question on simple and broad lines, leaving it to those who are interested to investigate the matter further in the mass of literature, whether German, French, English or clas- sical, which has grown up around the subject. All I could do was to select the essential features; they are sufficient for my purpose; and I have satisfied myself from my study of the authorities, that had I embarked upon my undertaking with the determination to present the myth with very much greater elaboration, I should have served no more useful purpose than to increase the bulk of the present volume. To return to Dionysus, the great medicine man, we have seen that he is called the Healer. But he is also called the Doctor (larpos), and not only because he dis- covered the most potent and most pleasant nostrum (Wine), but also because he taught men, as Plutarch says, to hold ivy in high esteem.* We have also seen above that he was the great patron of the bees and taught men * See Creuzer, op. cit., vol. ill, p. 92. 142 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS the therapeutic use of honey.* Thus we are to conceive of him primarily as a wizard in that art of life by which precisely the richest sources of vitality which nature possesses are tapped and turned to valuable account. We must disabuse our minds entirely of the impression that his connection with wine, the principal one in the popular mind for centuries, was anything more than one of the many attributes of his manifold character. He came some time after the world had grown im- possible as the result of the Promethean crime just as Noah, after the parallel disasters that overcame his people, once the sons of god had mingled with the daughters of men, himself regards it as one of his first post-diluvian duties to plant the vine.| But Dionysus's range of remedies covered almost everything that may properly be regarded as a source of vigour and a means of curing or resisting disease. Personally, I am not inclined to exclude even fermented milk from among the contents of his vast natural medicine chest, though the oldest of all these I believe to have been honey, fresh fruit and raw meat. It is possible that barley wine, millet wine, fermented milk, and even grape wine, may have been added to his supremely wise initial discoveries by himself later in his own lifetime, or by other men after he had died, and that possibly these later discoveries, if they were later dis- coveries, became through tradition incorporated in his original teaching, so that even the names of later medicine * According to a legend which was probably of primeval antiquity, although it is only handed down by Ovid, Dionysus was supposed to have discovered the use of honey as a food in Thrace. See Ovid Fast, iii., 735 et seq. f See Gen. x. 20: " And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard." DIONYSUS THE MAN 143 men became absorbed in his own and identified with it ; but what is of supreme importance in understanding him and his cult is, that he it was who, in a moment of extreme distress handed suffering mankind a number of first-class protective beverages and foods, which not only corrected the mistakes of their early Promethean civili- sation, but also gave them a new vigour, a new spirit, and a new intensity of sexual potency, unknown except to their pre-Promethean ancestors. I say honey was probably one of the first of these, because the use of mead was so universally distributed among all the peoples of primeval Europe, that it must have a very hoary antiquity.* Now it is interesting to note that the association of honey with the idea of medicine is also of very great antiquity. W. H. Roscher tells us that from the earliest times honey was thought to have properties which both secured good health and lengthened life, and that it was used in the curing of innumerable diseases. I am not a believer in etymological methods of de- monstration, but I quote the following as interesting in this connection. " The very Avestic word for wine shows that it was a drink sweet as honey. This Avestic word is madho, which corresponds to the Sanscrit madhu, Latin mel, and French miel. The root of the word shows its medicinal virtue. It comes from an old Aryan root, mad or madh Latin mederi, meaning * See W. H. Roscher, op. cit.: " Bin berauschender Honigtrank spielte bei den Griechen vor Einfiihrung des Weinbaues eine grosse Rolle." Article, " Necktar und Ambrosia." See also Roscher's remarks in the pamphlet on Nectar and Ambrosia already quoted, in which on p. 26 he says : " Ein solches berauschendes Honiggetrank nennt man bekanntlich Meth, und es ist nict zu bezweifeln, dass dieser, wie bei andern Volkern, so auch bei den Griechen der Urzeit, welche noch keine Weiukultur kannte, die Rolle des Weines spielte." 144 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS to make a remedy, from which comes our English word medicine."* Even in ancient India the drink Soma must probably have been introduced later than mead, as we find the former sometimes called madhu in the texts.f The ancients were well aware of the old association of mead and honey generally with therapeutic powers of a high order. Aristotle, speaking of honey and wine, etc., says: " To know how to apply them for the purposes of health, and to whom, and at what time, is as difficult as to be a physician. "{ Pliny, too, writes as follows: " As to honey itself, it is of so peculiar a nature that it prevents putrefaction from supervening, by reason of its sweetness solely. ... It is employed with the greatest success for affections of the throat and tonsils, for quinsy, all ailments of the mouth, as also in fever when the tongue is parched. Decoctions of it are used also for peripneumony and pleurisy, for wounds inflicted by serpents, and for the poison of fungi. In paralysis it is prescribed in honied wine, though the liquor also has its own peculiar virtues." And further: " [Hydromel] which is made of skimmed honey is an extremely wholesome beverage for invalids who take nothing but a light diet ... it reinvigorates the body, is soothing to the mouth and to the stomach, and by its refreshing properties allays feverish heats. I find it stated too by some authors that to relax the bowels it should be taken cold, and it is particularly * See Wine among the Ancient Persians, by Jivanji Jamshedji, Bombay, 1888), p. 4. t See Kuhn, op. cit., p. 131. j Nic. Ethics, V. ix. 16. Translated by K. W. Browne, M.A. (Bohn). Natural History, Book XXIL, chap. 50 (24). Translated by J. Bostock and H. T. Kiley (Bohn). DIONYSUS THE MAN 145 well-suited to persons of a chilly temperament, or of weak and pusillanimous constitution, such as the Greeks, for instance, call ' mycropsychi.' "* Pliny has other passages in which he refers to the value of honied wine as a " stimulant for failing appe- tite," as a " laxative," and gives the example of Pollio Romilius who lived to a great age, over a hundred years, on honied wine and bread alone.f Diogenes Laertius speaks of Pythagoras as being content with honeycomb and bread, J while in the Geoponica we read that honey makes men long-lived, and that a diet of bread and honey alone preserves all the senses perfect. " Democritus being indeed asked how men might become healthy and long-lived, said: ' If they supplied the external parts of the body with oil and the internal parts with honey.' " Hosts of other passages could be quoted. According to Spencer's explanation of sacrifices, which in his opinion were merely offerings to the great ancestor, either to feed his spirit or to propitiate him, we would expect sacrifices of honey to have been made to the gods of Greece by their worshippers, because since we are told that honey was the food of the gods (we are informed that Zeus was brought up on it) we should naturally expect it to be given to them in sacri- fice. And this is indeed what took place. Death offer- ings in Greece frequently consisted of honey. Pluto, Hecate and the Furies all received honey sacrifices. In fact honey is probably meant by nectar and ambrosia. * Natural History, Book XXIL, chap 51. f Op. cit., chap. 53. J Life of Pythagoras, xviii. Op. cit., xv., 7. Translated by Rev. T. Owen. According to Athenaeus, the Pythagoreans were saved from blindness and other eye troubles owing to their diet of bread and honey. 10 146 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS It was the oldest medicine of infallible effect, the first panacea, the food that secured a long life, and therefore the food of immortals. It is a pity that more experiments have not been made with honey by modern authorities on dietetics ; because as I have already pointed out, since it constitutes a satisfactory whole food for a certain section of the animal kingdom, it is safe to conclude that it contains all the necessary vitamines. It is probably on this account that it was found so useful by the ancients for every sort of ailment and bodily affection. I mention raw meat as one of the earliest products to be included among Dionysus's list of therapeutic and natural foods. I shall at present only refer to a few of my reasons for doing this. In the first place, I would remind the reader of what I have already said concern- ing the medicinal value of raw meat ; I would also recall the custom, even among such people as the Eskimo of the present day, of making raw meat an essential portion of their diet, bearing in mind that the Eskimo have a singularly restricted range of foodstuffs to draw upon and therefore that they have to be careful to absorb a sufficient quantity of " protective " food; and lastly I would refer to two of Dionysus's most perplexing epithets: Omestes and Omophagos, both of which mean raw-flesh-eating. How can we account for these epithets unless we suppose that he must have set the example of eating raw meat himself, or taught it as part of his wonderful thera- peutic doctrine ? It is in keeping with everything we have said about him and everything we know about him. It is consistent with his general doctrine of health and vigour, and we must bear in mind that he lived at a time probably near enough to the pre-Promethean era to DIONYSUS THE MAN 147 enable him to know that men must have lived on raw meat in the Golden Age. As far as raw meat was concerned, therefore, it did not necessarily constitute a very original portion of his doctrine. Arguing from his knowledge of the Golden Age, which tradition told him had preceded the Prome- thean era, he may simply have concluded that, at least experimentally, a return to one of the staple articles of diet of that age might be a good thing ; and in the event the experiment proved successful. It must, however, have constituted an important part of his dietetic doctrine, otherwise he would scarcely have been called, among other things, Omestes and Omophagos* His insistence upon the virtues of fresh fruit would also be the natural outcome of his upbringing and his knowledge of plant and tree life. It is said that his title Dendrites was given him because the notion of his being the cultivator and protector of the vine was extended to that of his being the protector of trees in general. I should be inclined to reverse this order and to say that the tending of the vine was only one of his functions as Dendrites. However, the point is not important. The fact to note is that fresh fruit must be included among the earliest of the products associated with his thera- peutic doctrine. He was probably a great eater of fresh fruit himself, and his followers became so likewise. The transition from the idea of mead, or fermented * Just as Volcker has pointed out that the true meaning of the Prometheus myth was forgotten from the time of Homer and Hesiod onward, I feel convinced that the true meaning of more than three- quarters of the Dionysian myth was forgotten long before historic times. I do not believe that Dionysus as the raw-meat-eating deity has ever been satisfactorily explained, even by ancient writers, and all kinds of far-fetched interpretations have been advanced, most of which strike too wide of the mark to be worth considering. 148 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS honey, to other fermented drinks, was doubtless an easy one, and even if Dionysus was not the inventor of them all, it is easy to see how readily he would have been credited with their discovery once his towering person- ality had been stamped on the minds of the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks through his great repu- tation as a therapeutist and therefore thaumaturgist. The two ideals, as the life of Christ shows, are closely associated in the mind of antiquity, and very rightly too. Now the therapeutic value of the wines brewed from the grape, barley or any other seed, have been known for centuries by science and for thousands of years by unscientific man.* Their tonic value has been recog- nised by medical men of all epochs, while their virtues * There is a curious old legend told of the Persian King Jamshed, the fourth monarch of the Peshdadyan Dynasty (the Yima Khshaeta of the Avesta, and the Yama of the Vedas), which curiously confirms this old association not only of wine with medicine, but of the first connection of fermentation with therapeutics. It relates how King Jamshed was so very fond of grapes which grew only in summer, that he once ordered a large quantity to be deposited in a jar for his use in winter when they were very rare. On sending for the jar after some time, he found the juice of the grapes fermenting, and, thinking it was turning into a poisonous liquid, he ordered the jar to be marked " Poison," and placed it in an out-of-the-way corner of the royal storeroom so as to be beyond the reach of anybody. A maid-servant of the royal household knowing of this, and feeling very much dejected owing to a distressing indisposition, resolved to commit suicide by taking some of this " poison." She stealthily repaired to the royal store-room at night, and took a generous helping of the contents of the " poison " jar. But to her surprise instead of its killing her, she found herself on the following morning so much better that she renewed the treatment until she was com- pletely cured. Thereupon she communicated the matter to the King, who was greatly pleased with the discovery. It is said that in memory of this event wine is sometimes called Zeher-i-khoosh, i.e., " pleasant poison " in Persia, even to the present day. See Jivanji Jamshedji, op. cd., p. 2. DIONYSUS THE MAN 149 as laxatives, aids to digestion (particularly needed when cooked food is partaken of plentifully) and stimulants both of the body and the mind, are proverbial. All the virtues of the fruit or the grain, intensified by fermentation, and, in the case of partially germinated grain, actually created by the process of preparation,* are absorbed in the resulting beverage, and protect not only against disease, but also add to the joys of life, enhance bodily vigour, neutralise the bad effects of injudicious cooking upon the digestive organs, strengthen the sexual powers, and lighten the heart generally. I think there can be no doubt that the great decline in the resistance offered to disease which has been notice- able in Europe in the last three hundred years, and has made careful sanitation, antiseptic washes, and disin- fectants of all kinds such an essential part of the life of modern man that without them he could scarcely be expected to survive, is largely due to a proportionate decline (a) in the quality of our fermented liquors, and (b) in the amount of fermented liquor that is consumed by the mass of the people .| For as we have seen in the case of King Jamshed, the enormous advantage of fer- mented liquors is this, not only do they offer the precious protective qualities of the fruit and the grain in an in- tensified form, but they make it possible for man to derive benefit from these precious qualities in all seasons and climes, that is to say, independently of the locality he happens to be in or of the time of year at which he feels he requires a restorative. This is the great virtue of the cordials Dionysus intro- * There are reasons for believing that the process of fermentation in itself is also responsible for the production of vitamines. f It is interesting to note in this connection that the Great Plague of 1665 in England occurred one generation after the Puritans had begun to play havoc with the people's great protective beverage Ale. 150 MAN'S DESCENT FEOM THE GODS duced : they made it possible for man to resist deficiency diseases, in spite of a diet that offers no compensations for the cause of the trouble) and they also enabled him to do this at all times of the year and in any clime. It has been argued again and again by authorities whose degrees and honours literally fill their title-pages, that alcohol is not good for the human body. I do not accept this view. There may be truth in the view that large amounts of alcohol are bad; but that alcohol taken moderately is bad, I do not believe. I would refer the reader to the Lancet of March 30th, 1907, where a large number of doctors repudiate the allegation that the medical profession are opposed to the use of alcohol. I would also refer the reader to Professor Attwater's* investigation into the liquor problem which was con- ducted with a Committee of fifty, and finally to Dr. C. Mercier's " Inaugural Address on Drunkenness and the Physiological Effect of Alcohol/' delivered before the Midland Medical Association in November, 1912. In all these papers the reader will find considerable doubt cast upon the glib assertion repeated so irre- sponsibly everywhere to-day that alcohol is of no value to the human body, or that it is directly pernicious. It would be a simple matter, if one could spare the time over such futilities, to show that the harmless gramophone, the innocuous piano, and the apparently innocent cinema, were also harmful when indulged in to excess; but what purpose would the demonstration of such a truism serve ? I am, however, not deeply concerned with this cam- paign against alcohol. I think it stupid, puritanical and misanthropic ; but it affects neither the credo of Dionysus * An excellent summary of the report of this investigation is to be found in A. L. Simon's In Vino Veritas (London, 1913). DIONYSUS THE MAN 151 nor my present argument. Its most pernicious and dangerous aspect is that it would fain throw a net wide enough to include the credo, the wondrous therapeutic doctrine, of Dionysus, and thus bring other things be- sides alcohol to nought. For what did Dionysus stand for ? In addition to the other products I have already mentioned he stood for wine, ale, cider, mead, perry and ivy -juice. But how much of this hated alcohol is there in the modern repre- sentatives of these liquors ? In champagne and burgundy: 10 to 13 per cent. In claret: 8 to 12 per cent. In cider and perry : 5 to 9 per cent. In strong ale: 5 to 9 per cent. In light ale : 2 to 5 per cent. (The figures for mead and ivy-juice, I have, for obvious reasons, been unable to obtain.) From this list the reader will be able to judge of the dishonesty of those who, under the cover of an attack on alcohol, would like, if they could, to rope in those precious liquors with which Dionysus may be said to have saved mankind under a Promethean civilisation. Even the strong liquors, such as gin and rum, only have 40 per cent, of alcohol in them. But I am not speaking of these. I am speaking of the great known wines and of the precious liquors brewed from barley, apples and pears. No one has yet advanced a sound scientific case against these. How could they ? seeing that there is not a civilisation on earth that has achieved greatness that was not built up on one or more of these ? But, as I say, under the dishonest cover of an attack on alcohol, against the abuse of which several scientists of repute have admittedly advanced cogent arguments, it has unfortunately become customary of late to assail 152 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS these precious beverages as well . Ignorance could not be exploited with more diabolical ruthlessness. The dictionary contains no epithet sufficiently in- sulting with which to dub the maniacs who endeavour to confuse so vital an issue as this in a manner so trans- parently unfair. When it is known that the growth of alcoholism in France was coincident with the phylloxera crisis which so seriously reduced the consumption of the natural wines in that country; when, too, we bear in mind that the evils of drunkenness in England are the direct results of the poisoning and vitiating of the once pure old ale that can, without romantic fulsomeness, really be said to have made England what she was at her zenith in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; when I say I am prepared to prove the proposition that two of the fairest civilisations the world has ever seen, that of England in the centuries of Elizabeth and Charles I.* and that of Egypt at the dawn of history, were the creation of ale-drinking communities, how can anyone who really values his reputation for fair-play not to mention historical accuracy still maintain that wine and ale are legitimately included in a campaign against alcohol ? It seems a waste of time to repeat all the arguments I have already brought forward elsewhere to show how great was the value of the old ale of England, and how unscrupulously its precious virtues were one by one destroyed, as the result of the reforms introduced by the Puritans in the seventeenth century, f I have shown how very much its qualities were impaired, in the first * One of the first occasions on which ale was mentioned in the laws of England, was during the reign of King Ini of Wesaex. | See my Defence of Aristocracy, chap. v. DIONYSUS THE MAN 153 place by adulteration with hops, later on by the intro- duction of inferior substitutes both for hops and malt, until finally it became the poisonous, health-destroying swill which we now call our beer,* and upon which we have allowed our working-classes the true backbone of England to besot themselves for over one hundred years. I have shown how the Kings of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries strove to keep this national drink pure and to supply it plentifully to the masses of the nation,f and what universal protest there was when, owing to the rise of the commercial and profiteering spirit after the triumph of those enemies of man, the vile Puritans of the seventeenth century, this precious national beverage was turned into a draught of poison. Our forefathers regarded ale with as much solicitude as bread; they were equally valued as necessaries of life,! and their proper distribution was the constant concern of English legislators. There was no temperance agitation against the use of old ale in England, any more than there was a temperance agitation in ancient Greece against the use of the fer- * Mrs. Kink has pointed out to me that besides the reasons given in my Defence of Aristocracy for the deterioration in the quality of old English ale the great wholesomeness of which she also demonstrates it should not be forgotten that the commercial spirit which led to the introduction of hops into ale brought about the necessity of cooking the wort, a process which satisfactorily destroys the valuable set of accessory factors which the malt con- tains. Thus the resulting beer is made practically valueless, as the Official Committee's Report on vitamines frankly admits. See p. 61 . f It was even given with success to infants and children. John Locke, the famous philosopher, actually recommends it to be given to children. See his Some Thoughts Concerning Education (ed., 1693), p. 16. J See W. T. Marchant, In Praise of Ale, p. 52. 154 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS merited drinks sacred to the name of Dionysus,* for the use of both was attended neither by ugliness nor ill- health. When the Puritans created a temperance movement it was, as I have shown, for very different reasons from those which animate the temperance movements of our own day. But what is so strangely unfair and so transparently corrupt in the whole of the modern temperance move- ment is that it never concerns itself with the purification of our national drinks, or of wine or of any fermented liquor. It is as if those behind the temperance crusade were glad to see the gradual deterioration of intoxicating liquors into poisons in order that their case might appear the more plausible. A truly patriotic temperance movement in this country would agitate for a return to the pure ale of old England, and in France it would concentrate upon the rigorous prosecution of all adulterers of wine; for, to inveigh against intoxication, or the evils of beer and wine-drinking, when the beer and wine available are admittedly adulterated,! is obviously to take advantage of an accidental feature not inherent in the products themselves, to deprive mankind of the advantage of those products in their pure condition for all time. Commercialism comes on the scene, unscrupulously * See Lewis Richard Farnell, D.Litt., M.A., F.A.S., The Cults of Greece, vol. v., p. 122: " Nor did wine- worship clash at all with the best morality or the hygienic doctrines of the people or the people's teachers, for drunkenness was never a serious social evil for Hellas, nor did the philosophers preach against intemperance as a national danger; nor again were the modern appliances known whereby wine has become a thing vile and corrupt." f The wines not universally so, but the beer almost universally so. Even Smollett, however, in his time, complained of the adul- teration of wines in England. DIONYSUS THE MAN 155 deteriorates our national drinks and turns them into harmful, or at least neutral drinks for its own base ends ; and then, if you please, has the impudence to declare (as it has done in America) that for commercial and industrial purposes the proletariat are more serviceable material if they are deprived of these beverages. Of course, this is admitted. But then who is respon- sible for the supply of these deleterious or valueless drinks to the proletariat in the first place ?* I wonder whether there is a single workman either in England or America who has ever drunk a draught of ale such as Queen Elizabeth and her ladies-in-waiting used to drink at every meal ! I know there is not one, not one ! But it should be remembered that the old ale of the Plantagenet and Tudor periods kept men in a state more exuberant, more spirited, more lusty, than mere everyday health ; it kept them above all unusually potent sexually. This was what the Puritans were clever enough to detect; and it was, I feel sure, by no means an accident that one of the chief adulterants of ale tolerated by the Puritans consisted of hops, from which lupulin one of the most potent anaphrodisiacs is extracted. It is impossible to believe that the great fermented drinks of antiquity could have been anything but a precious boon and a godsend to men, otherwise we are * The reason why a national movement for the purification of intoxicating liquors could never succeed in countries like England, France and America under present-day values, is obviously because it would by its very nature be tantamount to an anti-commercial or anti-profiteering agitation. And since the governing classes of these countries have for many generations consisted largely of the chiefs of commerce and industry, such a movement would never be allowed to effect any useful reforms. 156 MAN'S DESCENT FEOM THE GODS forced to regard as cynics and misanthropists the races who deified the supposed original creators of them. Eead how the ancient Indian speaks of his Soma, remember how the ancient Greek refers to his god Dionysus as the Saviour, the Healer, and the Liberator; study the history of mead in Scandinavia, in Persia and in Asia Minor; follow the civilisation of China up to the time when it ceased to be a wine-drinking country, and compare its subsequent with its former condition;* read of the Mexicans, the Peruvians, the great Baby- lonians! and Egyptians and even the artistic Bushmen of Africa, now alas ! almost extinct; everywhere, among all peoples, you will find civilisation, art, culture, only where the health and spirit-giving beverages of nature's fermented fruit and grain have made such achievements possible; for, as I shall show later, it is not only in Greek mythology that Prometheus and Dionysus are opposed this conflict permeates every aspect of life * According to the Rev. Justus Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, vol. ii., p. 30, the Chinese do not now make wine from the juice of the grape. See also Professor H. A. Giles, China and the Chinese (New York, 1902), p. 136: "Grape wine was used down to the fifteenth century, if not later." Now the cultivation of the poppy for the manufacture of opium began in China in the seven- teenth century. See Encyclopedia Britannica, llth edition, vol. vi., p. 177. f See Andre L. Simon's interesting work Wine and Spirits (Duck- worth, 1919), p. xi: " Quite recently the laws of Khammarubi, King of Babylon about 2250 B.C., have been discovered and deciphered, and have aroused a great deal of interest. This sovereign appears to have been the great legislator of his dynasty; his laws contain the most precise regulations concerning the sale of wine, and show us the poor retailer of wine to have been harassed by a very severe legislation even in those times. Fines were not in vogue, but loss of a limb or of life was the penalty incurred by the seller of wine who gave bad quality or short measure or allowed riotous conduct on his premises." See also pp. xiii and xiv. DIONYSUS THE MAN 157 ancient and modern, and it is not merely coincidence that the most Promethean of modern countries, America, should have been the first to suppress the cult of Dionysus among its people. On those who wish to argue that the great civilisations of the world would have been possible without the fermented liquor, which is an inseparable part of the diet of the people who were responsible for them, it is surely incumbent to prove that a form of beverage so distinctive and possessing such marked therapeutic value, was adopted universally without any regard whatsoever to the utilitarian ends served by its adoption. They must be prepared to show that the consensus of opinion among thinking mankind of all ages points to the conclusion that, although this form of beverage met no social or cultural need, its universality is due to some perversity, some superfluous and non-utilitarian appetite, which did not require to be gratified in order to produce the results with which we are confronted in all ancient and comparatively recent civilisations. To argue merely on the evidence drawn from modern conditions is vicious; in the first place, because beverages prepared from pure natural products (fermented) are no longer accessible, except perhaps to those who can afford to buy some of the good Continental wines;* and, secondly, because the standard of health expected from the average man and woman of antiquity and regarded as an essential factor of happiness in the past, is no longer recognised or upheld among Western peoples as the first necessity of a life worth living. Another and very important aspect of this question * The old ales of ancient Egypt and of pre-Puritanical England were, however, in one respect healthier beverages than wine, owing to their powerful anti-scorbutic properties. 158 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS to which one would like to see the Temperance agitators give some prominence, is that of the substitutes which modern conditions offer to those who are deprived of sound and invigorating fermented liquors. Head the books that have been written against alcohol. Where do you find a single author who is honest enough to lay stress on the dark side of his intended reforms ? Where do you find an author who is sufficiently in earnest about the welfare of his fellow-creatures to point to the disastrous results of drinking tea and coffee not to mention any more harmful drugs ? For every sound line that has been written against alcohol, I am prepared to point to two that have been written against these two pernicious beverages. As early as the beginning of the last century, William Cobbett, in his Cottage Economy, called attention to the evils arising from the increasing consumption of tea and coffee in England, and deplored, as all friends of humanity must, the corresponding decline in the production and consumption of good English ale. In my Defence of Aristocracy I devote a considerable portion of a chapter to this question of the pernicious substitutes to which the masses of a nation are driven when their most wholesome beverages are taken from them; and for the authorities whom I there adduce in support of my arguments I beg the reader to refer to the work mentioned.* When we recollect that tea, besides being in no respect a food, is also, owing to its two principal chemical con- stituents tannin and caffein directly harmful both to the digestion and to the nervous system; when, more- over, we bear in mind that over 255,000,000 pounds of * See particularly pp. 218-225. DIONYSUS THE MAN 159 tea are consumed per annum in the United Kingdom, and that it has been calculated that the poor in London spend at least one-eighth of their income in buying this drug, it behoves us to regard with considerable caution any movement which, while it makes no reference to this aspect of " Temperance," seeks under the cover of a scientific attack on alcohol to proscribe good wines and beers from the homes of a great people.* To sum up this all too brief outline of some of the leading features of Dionysus 's therapeutic doctrine, we have seen that the wine of the grape possesses the follow- ing virtues in a pre-eminent degree: 1. It is a good tonic. 2. It is a valuable stimulant, both of the mind and body. 3. It is an excellent aid to digestion and assimilation particularly in cases of constipation and dyspepsia caused by culinary errors. 4. It is a natural aphrodisiac. 5. It allows of the benefits derived from fruit being enjoyed at any time, in any clime, and therefore does not restrict the consumer to any locality or season. 6. And, above all, since the process of fermentation is believed to be, in itself, productive of vitamines, it con- * It is hardly necessary to add that tea and coffee do, of course, contain no vitamines either of the disease-preventing or growth- promoting kind. In view of this, and of the enormous popularity they have enjoyed since the decline in quality of English malted liquors, we must not conclude that the appalling statistics of ill - health recently published by the Ministry of National Service are to be ascribed entirely to industrial and urban conditions. In fact the report actually calls attention to this point, and shows that ill-health is also very great in rural districts. Seeing, however, that rural districts consume just as much tea and coffee as urban and industrial centres, this is only what we should expect. 160 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS stitutes a good compensation in cases when a diet is in any respect deficient, either through the exposure of a vital food to heat, or because the necessary vitamine- vehicles are not available. Ale also possesses all these qualities,* and in addition, a strong anti-scorbutic and nourishing virtue, owing to the fact that it is prepared from partly germinated grain, and, moreover, contains the most valuable form of sugar which is known as maltose. Modern beer,of course, possesses none of these qualities. It is unnecessary for me to continue the list, and to refer to mead, cider, perry, millet-ale, etc., all of which truly formed part of the Dionysian doctrine. I have said enough about the other beverages already, I hope, to convince the reader at least of this, that when the ancient Indian or Greek glorified his god Soma, or his god Dionysus, it was for genuine and lasting benefits,! the evidence of which he saw in himself and all his fellows, and that there can be no mystery, no childish or empty phantasy about the worship of such a divinity, least of all when the evidence of the myth connected with his name definitely points to the nature of the bounties he dispensed. Again, however, I feel I must lay stress upon an important aspect of this question which, particularly nowadays, is likely to be overlooked unless it is constantly reiterated. I refer, not to the cure of actual deficiency diseases, for which the Dionysian doctrine was respon- sible, though that was wonderful enough, but to the * For a fuller discussion regarding the therapeutic value of ale, see my chapter on the subject in my Defence of Aristocracy. f Even Daru, the later Persian word for wine, which is now com- monly used in Gujerati, also has the etymological meaning of medicine. See Jivanji Jamshedgi, op. cit., p. 4. DIONYSUS THE MAN 161 general alleviating and invigorating effect upon the body as a whole which results from correcting such slight though deeply depressing and debilitating disorders as indigestion, constipation and the like. One of the first functions to suffer in the case of faulty nutrition or in the event of blood-poisoning, however slight, owing to a bad diet, is the function connected with the joys of sex. And, when we think of how numerous and how intense these joys can be, both in the spiritual and the physical sphere, if the body is in a condition of exuberant health ; when we recollect, moreover, how many of the manly virtues and the womanly interests centre around these functions, it is difficult to lay too much emphasis on their importance, or to exaggerate the literally delirious enthusiasm which must have possessed a people who, suddenly bereft of the perfect exercise of these functions, found themselves after a long spell restored to their pristine state of happiness by Dionysus, and assured by his teaching against a relapse into their former misery. For, again, in regarding precisely these joys of sex, we must be careful not to contemplate them either through the glasses of this Age, or through the glasses of our own deteriorated vitality. We must try to imagine what sex and its joys must have meant to primi- tive beings, beings still unimpaired enough, despite their crude Promethean culture, to tower far above us in all matters of the body and its functions. Humiliating as it may seem, we must remember that we are below par in every respect, and that our standards are completely valueless except for measuring varying degrees of ill- health. Well then, if we bear all these things in mind, and in addition ponder for a moment the extreme importance 11 162 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS that healthy women must attach to healthy sexual potency in men, if we reflect for a moment how much the happiness of a robust, healthy woman's life depends upon tenderness, love and caresses from the male, and ultimately upon the bearing and rearing of children,* we will at once perceive how severely sound women are affected when men's sexual potency is impaired. At least men can get about other business : but what is woman particularly primitive woman to do ? The period following upon the Promethean crime must have been one of appalling tribulation for the women members of that primeval stock which consti- tuted the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks. With their men grown cold, unresponsive to their charms, and in some cases perhaps quite impotent, what could they do ? What had become of the beauty of their lives, the joy of their lives, the meaning of their lives ? Everything of value for them had at one stroke of the wand been turned to dross and to emptiness. Life was a husk at which their vigorous teeth gnawed in vain endeavour to discover the sweet kernel. They thirsted to be taken, to be overcome, to be ravished. Instead they probably had to woo, to cajole and to persuade. They were outraged in their deepest instincts, by the inability to perform a function that was the very essence of their being; they languished with but the spectacle of their * In pondering these questions the reader should bear in mind that all the bony, emaciated, intellectual women, with pyorrhoea, indigestion, constipation and deep learning, who truthfully assure him that they care neither for men nor children, are not to be con- sidered physiologically sound enough to be in a position to express a trustworthy opinion on this matter. It is merely equivalent to a dyspeptic assuring us that an excellent dinner is a matter of utter indifference to him. DIONYSUS THE MAN 163 gradually vanishing youth and beauty to distract them. The racial memories of a better age filled their fancy, so that they were thrilled by the pictures their imagina- tions depicted; but these pictures became realities to them only in their dreams, and but helped to heap up the enormity of the contrast which actual life presented. Then, suddenly, a great teacher appeared from the woods, who took pity on their lot. He saw with the eyes of a superior being the root of the trouble, the cause of their men's perennial lassitude and self-control; and with his deep knowledge of nature and her secrets ac- quired in the forest glades he had just left behind him, he set out to remedy the evil that he recognised, and to put an end to the suffering that offended his vision on all sides. He preached his doctrine swiftly and with authority, for there was no time to lose. He taught the women the magic virtue of herbs, of fruits, of raw meat, and above all of honey and of mead. They listened, for he was young and handsome ; and they obeyed, for they were desperate. Quickly the new teaching was learned, the kitchens hummed with unwonted business, the din of shattered pottery rent the air as superfluous stew- pans were flung for ever on the dust heap, and the forest rang with the voices of eager wives and virgins, trying to recall precisely what it was that the handsome young man from the woods had recommended. Fingers and arms were repeatedly stung by the infur- iated bees, legs and feet got caught and entangled in the pricking brambles, hair fell down and became woven with leaves and branches, night came on and some were lost, while others pursued their search with firebrands and bonfires. What did it matter now what did any- thing matter ? Zeus had promised only Hope : this 164 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS man, this wonderful, handsome, young man from the woods had promised something tangible, something almost forgotten, something immensely precious, could they be blamed for behaving like furies ? That night the first of the Dionysia was celebrated: dishevelled women, frantic with the promise of joy and already delighting over fulfilling a portion of their creed, made their supper of raw meat in the heart of the woods, while they searched and searched for the precious ingre- dients of the coming elixirs. Mad and wild women, forgetting both decency and humanity, rushing and darting hither and thither, like untamed animals, filling their baskets in the fury of delirium, and eager but for one great moment the moment of the experiment when they would test the truth of the wood- wizard's words sang, shouted and danced in a transport of joy. Imagine then their redoubled enthusiam when they found that he had not deceived them ! Picture the intensity of their ecstasy and gratitude when they saw that he was a true prophet ! Can it be wondered at that Dionysus was the exception among the Greek gods, and that he was served only by women ? Is there any mystery now in the " mysteries"? Does the reader understand why the virgins, and not the hall-porters of the period, bore the phallus among the fruit in their baskets at the Dionysia ? And is not even the fury of the rite explained, as also the fact that it was held in the darkness of night ? Are not these mad dishevelled women which we see depicted by Greek art as taking part in the festival of Dionysus just what we should expect ? Drunk with enthusiasm, mad with gratitude, wild with eagerness, even down to the eating of raw meat which was one of the essential features of the DIONYSUS THE MAN 165 festivals all is now surely clear enough. Omestes, Omophagos : the reader remembers these epithets ! Can he doubt now that this ceremony of eating raw meat at the Dionysia was intended to recall that essential portion of the great teacher's creed ? It was Dionysus against Prometheus, Life against Death, the erect obelisk against impotence, sickness and disease. And Dionysus triumphed ! No wonder the women were so grateful; no wonder they were so wild; but they were better and healthier women, they were also more wicked and more sinful, more positive and more hearty women, and, on that account, more desir- able women than the women of to-day. It is generally known that at the festivals of Dionysus, which were called Bacchanalia, Dionysia, or Orgies, the god was served by priestesses called Bacchantes, Lense, Msenades, Thyiades, Mimallones, Clodones or Bassaree. These women are usually represented almost naked, decked with garlands of ivy or vine-branches, a thyrsus, hair in frightful disarray, and wildly dancing and run- ning. They utter strange cries, rage with mad en- / <_> thusiasm, clash different musical instruments together, and hold swords or serpents (both phallic symbols) in their hands. In the processions they wore tamed serpents in their hair, while the Canephoria, as I have already mentioned, were virgins who carried baskets of fruit with a phallus, usually carved out of fig-tree wood, lying among the fruit. One of the most important rites at these festivals was the sacrifice of an animal sacred to Dionysus, and its carcass was usually torn frantically to bits by the Msenades and eaten raw. 166 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS This celebration of the Dionysian mysteries presents a number of problems which are hardly dealt with satis- factorily by the mythologians whether of antiquity or of the present day. In the first place, why should Dionysus be an ex- ception among the gods of Greece, and, contrary to custom, be served by priestesses instead of attendants of his own sex ? F. A. Voigt is one of the few who raises this problem; but he does not attempt to solve it. He simply says that it is characteristic of all the oldest practices of the cult.* Secondly, why should these women attendants be such furies ? Why should they behave like raving mad- women ? Voigt says: "The tearing of the sacrificial animal by the Maenads appears to be genuinely orgiastic, like the outcome of wild and Heaven-ordained mad- ness, "f What is the explanation of this ? Nor should the actual eating of the torn fragments raw be regarded as an unimportant part of the ceremony, simply because in plastic representations of this aspect of their cult the Maenads only appear with pieces of the mutilated beasts in their hands; for, as Voigt points out: " The fact that the eating of these raw fragments is not depicted, is simply owing to the aesthetic difficulty, or impossibility, of representing this plastically, and does * See his article " Dionysus " in W. H. Roscher's Ausfuhrliches Lexicon der Griechischen und Romischen Mythologie, p. 1035: " Char- akteristisch ist, dass dem Bakchos orgiastisch von Weibern gedient wird, von den Bax^ at MouvaSes, GviaSes, Avjvcu abweichend von der sonst iiblichen Bediennung der Gottheit durch Personen gleichen Geschlechts." f Ibid., p. 1038: " Echt orgiastisch, als das Werk eines wilden vom Gotte verhangten Wahnsinnes, erscheint die Zerfleischung von Opfertieren durch die Manaden." DIONYSUS THE MAN 167 not point to the relative unimportance of the omophagic feature of the celebrations/** Modern mythology offers no satisfactory replies to these questions. It attempts to explain the orgies by suggesting that they were an act of sympathising with life and of recapi- tulating life in nature, its movements and contrast, the joy and sorrow of life on earth. Or, again, it suggests that they constituted a periodic debauch to symbolise the fact that man is master on earth and is able to do everything he likes, and consequently that he can without scruple commit every act which law and order at ordinary times forbid. Neither of these suggested explanations is worth a moment's consideration, because they do not even account for the exclusively female attendants, let alone their characteristic demeanour. Modern mythologians suggest that the tearing of the sacrificial animal to pieces symbolises the tearing of Zagreus (Dionysus) to pieces by the Titans. f But surely, if that were so, the Msenades would scarcely have celebrated this tragic occurrence, so disastrous to the world, by eating the raw flesh of their god and eating it with such fury ! This obviously will not do. It is also suggested that the annihilation of the sacri- ficial animal (or man originally}) symbolised the de- * Op. cit., p. 1038. f In this respect they do not seem to have advanced much upon J. F. Gail, who, writing in 1821, said: " La destruction des viandes crues aux omophagies devait etre la commemoration de la mort de Bacchus." See Recherches sur la Nature du Quite de Bacchus en Grece, p. 176. J Themistocles, the celebrated Greek general, is said to have sacrificed three boys to Dionysus even in his time. See Creuzer, op. cit., p. 354. 168 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS struction of earth's vegetation by winter. But then, as Voigt very reasonably points out, if that were so why was the youth of the animal or man always insisted upon ? If the young animal or boy symbolised the earth's vegetation, it must have been the vegetation of spring, not of winter. But this was not the idea.* Again, the rural Dionysia, it has been suggested by modern mythologians, are no doubt to be compared to similar festivals which were traditional in France and in Germany, and are probably counterparts of them.f In France, for instance, on the Dimanche des Brandons, which is the first Sunday in Lent, the peasantry used to run through the fields, gardens and vineyards with lighted fire-brands " to call them to fertility and to rid them of weeds"; while bonfires were lighted in the market-place, and around these the people would dance. In Germany and the Tyrol the peasants also used on certain specified occasions to march in procession through the fields, clanging cymbals and ringing bells, in order to " awaken the corn." But I see not the faintest trace of resemblance between these rural festivals in France and Germany and the Dionysia. In the first place, if the Dionysia are counter- parts of these, why do women play the chief role in the Greek festival ? Have not men also good reason to awaken the corn ? And, furthermore, where is the all- pervading worship of the phallus which is inseparable even from the rural Dionysia ? These rural Dionysia, it has been said by certain other great authorities, were simply bucolic celebrations of the wine harvest. But as Mommsen points out, and I * Op. cit., p. 1040. f Even Voigt subscribed to this view, op. tit., p. 1040. DIONYSUS THE MAN 169 thoroughly agree with him, they were nothing of the sort. Kead what occurred at the festivals, note when they were held, remember what was drunk at them, and it becomes plain that they had nothing in common with the cele- bration of a wine-harvest.* Meanwhile, of course, a satisfactory answer to the most perplexing features of the Dionysia has not been found, and is not offered by modern or even ancient mythologians. If, however, we regard the whole of the Dionysian mys- teries as a traditional celebration of a stupendous event, an immense triumph the victory of a suffering, debili- tated and gradually disappearing race over the causes of all their misery; if we regard them as ceremonies symbolic of the mad joy and gratitude which must have been felt when Dionysus first conquered Prometheus, then, it seems to me, everything becomes plain. It is the women who suffer most from the asperities of a Promethean civilisation, just as it is the women who are suffering most to-day. It is the women, the very essence of whose nature is tortured and outraged when, owing to a Promethean civilisation, their men cease from being men, cease from being male, prehensile, virile, violent and even seductive. If, then, we can postulate, as we very well may, a creature more innocent in her desires, more unsophisti- cated in her appetites, less tolerant of male self-control and less enamoured of it, than modern woman ; if we can * See August Mommsen Heortologie (Leipzig, 1864), p. 329. See also p. 327 : " Die Feier der landlichen Dionysien hatte wenig Aehnlichkeit mit einem Weinlesefest. . . . Bei der Weinernte loschen die Arbeiter ihren Durst mit Traubeu oder daraus abgeflos- senen (siissem) Most, der sie nicht berauscht. Fur die landlichen Dionysien aber ist das wesentliche Erforderniss . . . Wein." 170 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS picture a creature frank and passionate enough to show mad enthusiasm when the deepest roots of her nature, from being poisoned to death, are suddenly liberated, nurtured and brought back to healthy life, and we are also able to imagine her wild gratitude to him who effected this salvation, then what mystery does there remain in these Dionysian mysteries, what difficulty, what problem ? As I have already said, even Dionysus's most perplex- ing epithets, Omestes and Omophagus, become once more quite clear, after having had their true meaning concealed for millenniums ; and he, the great god himself, emerges from the investigation, not as the patron of pointless lust, debauchery, drunkenness and licence, but as the Liberator, the Healer, the Great Doctor, the Saviour of mankind, who released the human race, and particularly the women, from the appalling consequences of the Promethean crime, and whose name will therefore rightly be associated for ever by grateful humanity with the magic cordials for which his great genius was pri- marily accountable. This was the first Renaissance, the first re-birth of health, beauty, vigour and joyful life; and by the side of the stupendous artist who was responsible for it, men like Donatello, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, appear as mere gnomes, pygmies, dwarfs or children. The Promethean civilisation was a failure, it was worse, it was a racking torment. Dionysus alone made it bearable; he alone overcame it, and so corrected or neutralised its evils as to make life not only possible under it, but also joyful, vigorous, spirited, glorious, and thrilling into the bargain. You cannot logically attack DIONYSUS THE MAN 171 Dionysus, therefore, and all he stood for, without also insisting upon going back to pre-Promethean days; for those were the only days that could dispense with his teaching, his therapeutics, his magic cordials in fact, his whole doctrine of salvation. To deprive us in post- Promethean days of the benefits Dionysus confers, is thus tantamount to the Promethean crime itself, it is even more heinous than the Promethean crime ; because now we know, and the people of those days did not know. Now we realise what all this means ; we are aware of the very doubtful blessings that hail from any Promethean quarter, and wherever we hear the cries " Abolish Dionysus !" or " Down with his creed !" we cannot refrain from thinking that we are once more in the presence of the most savage enemies of mankind. The antithesis is radical. Prometheus versus Dionysus. It is, as we have seen, a very old conflict. If you insist upon having a Promethean civilisation, you are in mercy bound to have Dionysus and all that his doctrine means. CHAPTEE VII THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD THE reader has probably been wondering all this time when I should return to the many questions which re- mained unanswered at the end of Chapter II., and with only a few of which I have been able to deal in the inter- vening four chapters. It is my intention to deal with them now, and straightway to begin by offering a solution of the problem of the identity of the gods and the sons of god. The question in a nutshell is really this: Who was Uranus ? To which race of mankind did he belong ? When did he live ? And what has become of the great race of beings of which he was probably only a degenerate offshoot ? Was he of the same race as the God of the Semites the Jehovah of the Old Testament ? And if, as I believe, he was so, was the race sufficiently large and widely distributed to have representatives both in Asia and Central Europe ? These questions are interesting enough, and if we accept Herbert Spencer's profound explanation of the origin of all gods, they must be answered; but first of all, by way of shedding some light upon the whole of the general question, it might be as well to discover when, or approximately when, all this happened. When did Prometheus defy Zeus ? It is a very strange and illuminating fact that although 172 THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 173 some Greeks, who were contemporaries of Herodotus, were actually foolish enough to imagine that they were only ten or twelve generations removed from the gods, a calculation which would have placed the original mingling of the superior with the inferior race in the seventh or eighth century B.C., ^Eschylus appears to have had but few illusions regarding the vast antiquity of the Age of Zeus and Prometheus. 0. Peschel informs us that in the lost finale of his trilogy, ^Eschylus made Prometheus say that he had languished 30,000 years in chains.* Thus, in the opinion of one of the most enlightened artists among the ancient Greeks, the crime of Pro- metheus must have occurred 30,000 plus an unknown number of years B.C. The figure looks ridiculous. In the popular mind, 30,000 years and more B.C. repre- sents a time when man was still a denizen of the trees, and not yet quite free from his caudal appendage. But truth to tell it is amazing how extraordinarily near to the probable facts ^Eschylus actually was. How did he guess ? Or was there perhaps a tradition in his time that the events described in the myth of Prometheus must have occurred many tens of thousands of years before the historical period ? Whatever the source of his knowledge may have been, we shall see that his calculation was singularly wise. One of the greatest authorities on the subject of the original discovery of fire, and other cognate anthro- pological problems, is a certain Belgian scientist of the name of A. Eutot. Other anthropologists have in- cidentally discussed the question of the discovery of fire and the approximate date when it is supposed to have occurred ; Rutot, however, is not only an eminent * Op. cit., p. 142. 174 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS anthropologist, but he has also given special attention to the question of fire. Now it is his opinion that the use of fire was certainly familiar to man in Europe at the dawn of the Quaternary Era.* The Quaternary Era is subdivided as follows : f 'Later Iron Age lasted 300 B.C. to A.D. 100. Early Iron Age, 1000 B.C. Bronze Age, 2500 B.C. Copper Age, 3000 B.C. Neolithic Age lasted 15,000 to 25,000 years. Pleistocene Paleolithic Age lasted 500,000 to 1,500,000 years. Professor Arthur Keith 's{ estimate of these periods does not differ materially from those given above. According to him the table should read as follows : Recent Period Recent Period - Pleistocene Metallic Age, 4000 years back. Neolithic Age, 25,000 years back. Late Paleolithic Age, 150,000 years on pic Early Paleolithic Age, 200,000 to 400,000 years back. Eolithic from 100,000 to 150,000 years back. Thus he would suggest as a minimum for the duration of the Pleistocene Period 450,000 years, and as a maximum * See Sur la Connaissance du Feu aux Epoques prehistoriques, in which the author concludes (p. 93): " En resume, pour le moment, 1'utilisation certaine du feu remonte jusqu'a 1'industrie reutelienne, contemporaine de 1'aurore des temps quaternaires." f These figures are based upon those given by H. v. Buttel- Reepen in Man and His Forerunners (translated by A. G. Thacker, 1913), p. 10. J See Ancient Types of Man (Introduction). THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 175 700,000 years; but he thinks it right to state that a much higher figure is given by most authorities. We have seen that H. v. Buttel-Reepen gives 500,000 to 1,500,000 years for this period. If we take Professor Keith's maximum figures, there- fore, and suppose the Pleistocene Period to have lasted 700,000 years, we shall not be so very far removed from H. v. Buttel-Reepen's estimate. Now adding to this about 30,000 years for the recent period that is to say, for the Neolithic and Metallic Ages together we arrive at a total of 730,000 years for the whole of the Quaternary Period, at the dawn of which Rutot tells us fire was first used.* But the use of fire, as I have already pointed out, although it constituted a big event in the history of man- kind, is not the same thing as the production of fire. Obviously, if natural agencies are depended upon for the use of fire, it cannot be said to constitute an habitual practice among men, because natural conflagrations, volcanic eruptions, etc., are not of daily occurrence. None of the more complicated adaptations of human life to the use of fire, which would appear to require careful trial and experiment, could therefore be expected to have developed while man merely depended upon chance for a flame. If we are to reckon the date from which a real civilisation of fire began, we must therefore endeavour to establish the time when man was first able to produce fire. Now since pottery is precisely one of those human adaptations of fire, which we would imagine required a period of evolution, during which careful trials and * Rutot 's conclusion rather coincide! with Buttel-Reepen 's, who maintains that the first use of fire occurred in the first inter- glacial phase of the Pleistocene Period. 176 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS experiments could be prosecuted with a constant supply of flame, the temptation would be to reckon the first discovery of the means of fire-production from the date of the first introduction of ceramics, or possibly a few centuries earlier. This, however, I am not prepared to do, because I refuse to believe that all men, all the world over, are always Promethean, that is to say, ever ready to push to its ultimate development, regardless of consequences, every fresh discovery that they make. Even in recent times we have the example of the Chinese, for instance, who never developed their discoveries of steam and gunpowder. It would not therefore be safe not to mention scientific to suppose that the discovery of fire-production was followed, even after a lapse of a few centuries, by the art of ceramics, among all races. It could only have been followed in this way by the art of ceramics, among a people animated by the Promethean spirit. Buttel-Reepen places the first appearance of ceramics in the Neolithic Period. We are justified in supposing, therefore, that, given a race animated by the Promethean spirit, who produced pottery say a quarter of the way through the Neolithic Period, or about 18,000 years B.C., the discovery of fire-production may have occurred among that race, say, in the year 19,500 B.C. A. H. Keane definitely states that it is his belief that the means of fire-production were first discovered within the Neolithic culture.* Since, however, according to an eminent authority fire was used 500,000 to 600,000 years before that time, * See Man, Past and Present (1899), p. 110. I am not inclined to accept this estimate against any of the other authorities; but the latter, unfortunately, do not commit themselves to any such definite statement on the subject. it seems difficult to believe that it took 600 millenniums for man to find the means of fire-production. Personally, after a careful study of the various authori- ties of England, France and Germany, I am inclined to believe that the means of fire-production were dis- covered long before the close of the Paleolithic Age an assertion with which I think the late Mr. Piette and many more anthropologists would agree ; but that the discovery probably never reached a type of man animated by the Promethean spirit until early in the Neolithic Period ; hence the relatively late appearance of pottery. When I use the expression " a type of man animated by the Promethean spirit," I should like to remind the reader that I mean a people rather like the Americans, the modern Germans and ourselves, who, with the minds of boy-scouts, enjoy speed for speed's sake, revel in mechanical contrivances of all kinds, retain until a very late age a keen interest in any device that complicates existence, and whose chief concern and joy in life is to press every possible discovery, chemical or mechanical, to its furthest possible development, without a thought of the consequences, that is to say, regardless of the misery, ill-health, ugliness or degeneration that they may be creating. It is a type that has no art of life, that cannot construct in life; it can construct only bridges, towers, engines, canals, material things and romances. In life it is only destructive and anarchical, loathing order as much as a school-boy does, and ignoring culture. Like the boy-scout, it does not understand women and is usually mastered by them. It is sentimental, very stupid, except in regard to mechanical and chemical questions, and always absolutely certain that the pur- suits wherein it finds its pleasure are the only pursuits 12 178 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS worth anything. The men of this type make good policemen, the women good charwomen; in fact, these two characters will probably survive as striking examples of the type long after all the engineers and the chemists have been forgotten. There is another type, however; though, unfortunately for mankind, its influence seems to make itself felt but very slightly in modern Western civilisation. It is a type of more benevolent, more wise and more adult thought. It is a type that produces men who develop beyond the boy-scout stage in taste and interests. It is a hypermetropic type, that has the capacity of looking ahead, and measuring the consequences of trifling mechanical innovations against the greater object, which is the happiness of mankind. It has little interest in complicating life for complexity's sake. Where human life does not seem to be promised any desirable advantage by a new mechanical toy, it discards that toy. It refuses to sacrifice one healthy child to the most magni- ficent mechanical invention that has ever been devised. (It has no respect for the engineer or the chemist. It regards them as unscrupulous schoolboys who must be kept in check, and who have the class of mind which never grows up and delights until the end of its days in tying a tin kettle to a cat's tail. It regards the civilisa- tion created by the engineer and the chemist, as pre- cisely humanity with a heavy iron boiler tied to its ankles. It sees no object in existence unless life is beautiful, healthy, vigorous and joyful. It values simplicity more than anything, in fact, it is the identi- fication mark of all those who belong to this type that they can flourish and develop their highest faculties in simple surroundings and with the gratification of simple THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 179 tastes. It practises an art of life, which as a rule it sets higher than artistic production; but once the art of life is mastered it turns its attention to the productive arts, and then creates the most beautiful masterpieces. It always gives birth to men who ultimately save their fellows from the absurd and hopeless muddles and miseries created by the boy-scout mind of the Promethean type, and these men have frequently been deified in the history of humanity. It understands women, and while mastering them makes them happier and keeps them healthier than the Promethean type does. For want of a better term, this type might be called the Dionysian, since their radical hostility to the Promethean type and the Promethean type's bottomless loathing of them is so well depicted in the ancient Greek myth. Now it seems to me only a matter of caution to reckon with the possibility that these types may have existed side by side long ages before the historical period, more particularly as we have in Greek legend, which records the life and people of prehistoric times, three men, Zeus, Prometheus and Dionysus, who are sufficiently ac- curately described in the fables for us to be able to classify each without the slightest hesitation, in one or the other class. Prometheus is obviously the prototype, the archetype, the beau-ideal of the Prometheans, while Zeus and Dionysus are clearly leading representatives of the other race, the Dionysians. Thus it is probable that all demons, devils, and loathed creatures that is to say, all creatures who have brought misery upon men are extremes of the Promethean type ; while all gods, saviours, good prophets, great legislators, sons of God, guardian angels, patron saints, etc., are of the Dionysian type, the 180 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS men-gods whom I have described with sufficient detail elsewhere.* If, then, Zeus belonged to the type of Dionysians, we not only understand that he may have had good reason for withholding fire from mortals (the inferior people) except on certain conditions, but we are also assured by the evidence of the myth itself, that he and his people the gods, the superior beings did possess the means of fire-production at the time of the confluence of the two peoples. But the myth tells us more. It leads us very strongly to suspect that while the superior beings, to which Zeus had bred true, possessed the means of fire-production, they had not apparently pushed its application to life even so far as to produce pottery. It tells us even more than this : seeing that the evils of the fire-civilisation came upon the ancestors of the Greeks only after the crime of Prometheus, it may be presumed that these evils had been avoided theretofore by the kith and kin of Zeus. That is to say, they had possessed fire, but had not developed its application to human life, because they appear to have foreseen the consequences of such a developed application. Also, on the evidence of the myth alone, we gather that they were infinitely wise, much wiser than the hybrid people that ultimately created the Promethean civilisation, so wise, indeed, that they were deified by the inferior race. We have to look, therefore, for a people which inhabited Europe and Asia early in the Neolithic era, who possessed the means of fire-production, but did not exploit these means to an unlimited extent ; who were infinitely wise ; who were, however, no longer at their zenith, seeing that they voluntarily mingled with an inferior people; who * See my Nietzsche and Art (Constable and Co.), Lecture ii., p. 63. THE GODS AND THE SONS OP GOD 181 were artistic and who led simple lives corresponding more or less to the outline given of the Dionysians above. Owing to the fact that they apparently did not produce pottery (according to the myth) and yet knew the means of fire-production, and in view of the belief that the art of ceramics first appeared early in the Neolithic era, we must place these people, not only early in the Neolithic era, but, seeing that they were degenerate at the time we encounter them as gods, we must place their zenith somewhere in the Paleolithic Age. Now, was there any people, infinitely wise and un- usually tall,* which reached its zenith in the Paleolithic Age, which was simple, artistic, degenerate in early Neolithic times ; which did not produce pottery despite the knowledge of fire-production; and which became absorbed by other peoples early in the Neolithic era ? Was there such a people, numerous enough to extend over Europe and Asia and to supply a representative who became the god of the Jews, representatives who became the gods of the Greeks, and still more representa- tives who became the gods of the Persians and the Indians ? Certainly there was such a people, and their descrip- tion by modern anthropologists corresponds exactly with the characteristics detailed above. This race was the Cro-Magnon race, than which prob- j ably there has never been any greater on earth. It was ' a tall, long-headed and infinitely wise race, the cranial capacity of some of its members being greater than the cranial capacity of any European examined during the historical period ; it was a highly artistic race ; it reached * We know they must have been tall, because, as shown in Chapter II., the result of their cross with the inferior race, when it was a complete blend, was the race of Titans. 182 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS its zenith in Paleolithic times, at the end of the Pleisto- cene Period, declined during early Neolithic times, when it became absorbed by the Aryans, or a round-headed race, and disappeared. It spread all over southern Europe and western Asia. There is, as far as I can judge, no reason whatsoever why the remote ancestors of the Greeks should not have " encountered certain branches of this race shortly before its complete absorption into other stocks. And since this complete absorption occurred during the early millenniums of the Neolithic Period, I think we are entitled in the light of other evidence, mythological and anthropological, to regard it at least as highly probable that the Cro-Magnons were the " gods " of all Western and Near Eastern civilisations. The negative evidence which we have not yet con- sidered is in itself sufficiently cogent. It can be mar- shalled as follows: (a) There was no race at that period, and never has been since, anything like the Cro-Magnon race for wisdom, simplicity, size and Dionysian virtues.* (6) The Cro-Magnon race is known to have disappeared through absorption. If they did not mingle with the remote ancestors of existing races, with whom could they have mingled ?f * The reader will, of course, have realised that it is not incumbent upon me for the purposes of my thesis to prove that this Cro-Magnon race was superior to ourselves. All I require to do is to show that they were superior to the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks. If, then, I repeat that they were superior to ourselves, I do so, not to assist my argument, but to state a fact which is of great interest and the truth of which I shall endeavour to prove. f See Isaac Taylor, The Origin of the Aryans, p. 129: " In no part of Europe has it been proved that there was any interruption of continuity between the ages of stone and metal, and there is no (c) The Aryan race is known to have gone through the later Stone Age in Europe, probably in Central Europe. If it did not encounter the Cro-Magnon race, how did it avoid them ? It is believed to have spread north, south, east and west during the Neolithic Period, and branches of it even reached the shores of Britain during the later Stone Age.* If certain branches of it avoided the Cro- Magnon race, all certainly could not have been so un- fortunate. On Herbert Spencer's hypothesis alone we are justi- fied, owing to the myth of Uranus and Ge, in concluding that the Greek branch of the Aryan family must at one time have encountered a people very much superior to themselves. We know of such a people having existed in Europe towards the end of the Paleolithic and the beginning of the Neolithic Period. We also know from the myth that the Greek Aryans mingled with this superior people, and that the likelihood of one or the other becoming completely absorbed after the mingling is demonstrated by other similar crosses o c? / with which we are familiar. Blends of two races tend to disappear and there is reversion to one of the two primitive types. | This is particularly so when there is a pronounced difference between the types. evidence whatever to show that the present inhabitants of Europe are not descended from the people of the Neolithic Age, whose civi- lisation was of a very rudimentary character." * Taylor, op. cit., p. 129. See also p. 133: "That the Aryans before the linguistic separation were still in the Stone Age may be inferred from the fact that no Aryan etymology has been found for the word ' metal.' . . . There is no common word in Aryan speech to denote the art of the smith, and many of the words relating to his trade refer primarily to stone." t See Taylor, op. cit., pp. 197-198: " Mixed races are not so com- mon as is sometimes supposed. ... It is alleged that in the case 184 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS Furthermore we know that this happened in the later Stone, or Neolithic Age. The fire-myth of the Greeks is also connected with the story of their mingling with the superior people, and follows close upon this event. Tradition associates the principal agent in this affair, Prometheus, with the introduction of pottery, another event belonging to the early millenniums of the Neo- lithic Age. Anthropologists tell us, moreover, that the long-headed Cro-Magnons were absorbed towards the beginning of the Neolithic Age by a round-headed race. Now the Aryans were a round-headed or brachycephalic race. It does not seem unlikely, therefore, that Uranus was a Cro- Magnon, and that he and his people first encountered the remote ancestors of the Greeks about 10,000 to 15,000* years before the metallic period, or about 20,000 years before ^Eschylus. When, therefore, ^Eschylus makes Prometheus say that he has lingered 30,000 years in chains, he shows that he was at least aware of the vast antiquity of the myth. If it was a guess, it was a singularly shrewd one. If a tradition, mysteriously illuminating. I have no doubt that a similar process of reasoning, applied to the first and second verses of the sixth chapter of conquest, when two races are diverse, or when the environment favours one race more than the other, it is found that the offspring are infertile, or that there is a tendency to revert to one of the parent types." . . . See also p. 203: "When two distinct races are in contact they may, under certain circumstances, mix their blood, but the tendency, as a rule, is to revert to the character of that race which is either superior in numbers, prepotent in physical energy, or which conforms best to the environment." * If the reader will refer to the tables given above, he will see that it may have been very much more or very much less than 10,000 to 15,000. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 185 of Genesis would lead us to the conclusion that the God of the Jews and the Christians was also a Cro-Magnon; but I am not concerned with this aspect of the question, nor have I the time or the space to discuss it. I can only allude to it en passant, as a suggestion which I think worth making, and leave it to others to follow it up if they think fit. My next business will be to reveal who were the people constituting the Cro-Magnons. It may seem to the reader a little odd, and even perhaps incredible, that there should have existed in Europe in late Paleolithic and early Neolithic times a race which was so infinitely superior to the highest-bred modern European as to justify me in claiming that no greater race has ever appeared on earth, to our know- ledge, either before or since. A glance at the tables I have given above reveals the fact that if such a race really existed, it must have reached its zenith, on the lowest estimate, about 30,000 years ago, and according to maximum figures, at least double that length of time before our era. Now Darwinism is so popular, and the belief that a few millenniums work radical evolutionary changes is so universal, that the tendency has been, even among scientists, to suppose that the further one recedes by tens of thousands of years from the present age, the more brutal, more bestial and more simian our ancestors must I / be found to have been. The modern European is so arrogant, and so deeply convinced of his immense superiority over the men of the past, even the recent past, that he is innocently incredulous if you tell him that he is probably very much inferior to a people that existed 50,000 years ago. I say 186 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS lie is innocently incredulous. I mean by that, that he is not even aware of being overweening or unjustifiably vain, when he protests scofnngly at the thought of such a possibility. He does not even require Darwin to help him in refuting you. He knows it must be impossible. This stupid conceit which characterises everybody at the present day, except perhaps the Chinese,* is not altogether the fault of the modern man. He is so much dazzled by the complications of a purely Promethean civilisation, that he has come to believe that such complications alone are inseparable from a state of high civilisation. In fact his newspapers, his books, even his nurses, tell him so daily. He is convinced that the Cro-Magnons did not have electric trams or tinned beef, and therefore concludes that they cannot have been better than himself. He is right in his conviction regarding the trams and the tinned beef; he is wrong in the conclusion he draws from it. By way of an introduction to our subject, it may be interesting to quote the following significant passage from S. Laing. He is not discussing the men of the Quaternary era (which includes the Cro-Magnon race), but, if you please, the men of an era even earlier than that men who must have lived at least 500,000 years ago ; and what does he say ? " In accepting, however, the evidence of Tertiary man, we must accept with it conclusions which are much opposed to preconceived opinion. In the two best authenticated instances in which skulls have been found in presumably Tertiary strata, those of Castel- * See 0. Peschel, op. cit., p. 145, where the author describes how obsessed the modern Chinese are by the belief that their remote ancestors were wiser and greater than themselves. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 187 nedolo and Calaveras, it is distinctly stated that they present no unusual appearance, and do not go nearly as far in a pithecoid direction as the Quartenary skulls of Neanderthal or Spy, or as those of many existing races. The Nampa image [found in Idaho] also appears to show the existence of considerable artistic skill at a period which, if not Tertiary, must be of immense antiquity. How can this be reconciled with the theory of evolution and the descent of man from some animal ancestor common to him and to the other quadrumana ? Up to a certain point, viz., the Quaternary period, the evidence of progression seems fairly clear. . . . But if we accept the only two specimens known of the type of Tertiary man, the skulls of Castelnedolo and Calaveras, which are supported by such extremely strong evidence, it would seem that as we recede in time, instead of getting nearer to the missing link we get further from it."* Since Laing wrote this passage a good deal has been discovered and written about prehistoric man which certainly makes one reject at once the idea that there has been progressive evolution, at least for the last 50,000 years; for, in view of the Quaternary Cro-Magnons, we cannot truthfully record anything but retrogression * during that period. I do not, however, think that these discoveries need necessarily make one reject the Dar- winian hypothesis altogether. All they do is to make one set the antiquity of Homo Sapiens further back in the history of the world. Even if we accept Klaatsch's view that the Gorilla, the Orang, and the Chimpanzee do not represent colla- teral branches of a remote ancestral human stock, but degenerate descendants of man, a view for which there * Human Origins (London, 1893), p. 387. 188 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS is a good deal to be said,* this does not necessarily refute Darwin, but merely shows, that while some of the original stock of men have degenerated into apes, others have developed into the superior species known as the modern jazz-dancers. It does not do, however, to face this question armed, not only with a belief in Darwin, but also with the idea that the evolution of man from an anthropoid ancestor has occurred within the last 100,000 years, otherwise it is impossible to account for the race of people to whom Laing refers, in the Tertiary era 500,000 years ago, and still more impossible to explain the existence of a race superior to the present European, which existed from 30,000 to 60,000 years ago. For the discovery of the Cro-Magnons was a revelation to anthropologists, and for a long while nobody would believe that they could possibly belong to such a remote age. Referring to the remains of this race found in caves in France and elsewhere, Professor Keith writes as follows : " In strength, in stature, in physique, as well as in size of brain, the Cro-Magnon race represents one of the most stalwart human races ever evolved. The dis- covery of such a race at so early a date ... is in direct opposition to all we anticipated."! And further: " The Cro-Magnon race was discovered at a period when, under Darwin 's influence, anthropo- logists expected to find man becoming more primitive in mind and body as his history was traced into the past. The discovery at Cro-Magnon showed that the evolution of human types was not an orderly one, for, in size of * See Buttel-Reepen, op. cit., p. 73. f Ancient Types of Man (London, 1911), p. 26. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 189 brain, and in stature, the race which flourished in the south of Europe at the close of the Glacial Period was one of the finest the world has ever seen."* I remind the reader that these are the words of an eminent authority who is speaking about a race that existed according to the lowest estimate 30,000 years ago. Now, to start with the brain of these people what was the capacity of their cranium ? Professor Keith tells us it was much greater than that of modern man. Their average cranial capacity was 1,660 c.c., or 180 c.c. above the modern average.f Their exceptional men had skulls with a cranial capacity, according to Verneau, the eminent French anthropolo- gist, of 1,800 to 2, 000 c.c. that is to say, higher than that of even the most eminent modern European scholar, statesman, scientist or poet. To give the reader some idea of what this means, I give below a table prepared by Dr. H. Charlton Bastian on the cranial capacity in different human races : { Capacity. Modern Parisians. Twelfth- Century Parisians. Negroes. Australians. Ancient Egyptians. 1,200 to 1,300 c.c. . 0-0 0-0 7-4 45-0 0-0 1,300 to 1,400 c.c. . 10-4 7-5 35-2 25-0 12-1 1,400 to 1,500 c.c. . 14-3 37-3 33-4 20-0 42-5 1,500 to 1,600 c.c. . 46-7 29-8 14-7 10-0 36-4 1,600 to 1,700 c.c. . 16-9 20-9 9-3 0-0 9-0 1,700 to 1,800 c.c. . 6-5 4-5 0-0 0-0 0-0 1,800 to 1,900 c.c. . 5-2 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 * Ancient Types of Man (London, 1911), p. 66. f The Antiquity of Man (London, 1915), p. 55. Sollas, op. cit., p. 158, gives 1,550 c.c. as a fair average for modern Europeans. J The Brain as an Organ of Mind (London, 1880), p. 353. 190 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS Thus we see that the highest percentage among modern Parisians, who may be considered quite the most culti- vated among present-day Europeans, occurs in crania with a capacity from 1,500 to 1,600 c.c., which is from 60 c.c. to 160 c.c. lower than the average Cro-Magnon skull ; while the capacity found by Verneau in the skulls of the highest Cro-Magnons tops all records.* Naturally these facts, by being, as Professor Keith says, " in direct opposition to all we anticipated," pro- voked a good deal of opposition from all those whose theories were not in accordance with them; but, owing to the difficulty of disproving the alleged remote anti- quity of the Cro-Magnon race, the method of attack was altered from one of dates to that of questioning the necessary relation between a large cranial capacity and superior brain power. Thus Dr. W. J. Sollas, in discussing the high average cranial capacity of the Mousterians (1,600 c.c.), a much more ancient people than the Cro-Magnons, who preceded these probably by several tens of thousands of years,f while admitting that " in this respect the Mousterian race was far superior to the Australian, and even, it would appear, to the European whose average capacity is not above 1,550 c.c.," J proceeds to point out that " the result of numerous investigations carried out during the last quarter of a century is to show that, within certain limits, no discoverable relation exists between the magnitude of the brain or even its gross anatomy and intellectual power. " * Kant's cranium only had a capacity of 1,715 c.c. f They are believed to have lived during the third Interglacial phase in Europe, while the Cro-Magnons lived in the fourth. See Buttel-Reepen, op. cit., p. 26. J Op. cit., p. 158. Op. cit., p. 160. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 191 This eminent authority, however, makes the following admission on the next page: " Whatever other signifi- cance the size of the brain may possess or lack it is, in any case, a morphological character of great impor- tance, and a difference of 400 c.c., or, say, 25 per cent, in average capacity, such as distinguishes the Australian from the Mousterian, cannot be disregarded. Judged from the cranial capacity alone, the surviving Australian evidently stands on a much lower plane than the extinct Mousterian."* This admission, however, does not go very far, and in view of the opinion of other authorities, one is inclined to question, with all due respect, whether Dr. Sollas has not allowed himself to be influenced by the Darwinian prejudice against believing that any race superior to ourselves could have existed so many thousands of years ago. Referring to the relation of large cranial capacity to brain power, Dr. Charlton Bastian writes as follows : " Should it be asked whether the proportion of megalocephalous brains among highly cultured and intelligent people is likely to be greater than among un- cultured and non-intelligent people, the answer to this question may be unmistakably in the affirmative and this, as Le Bon has pointed out in regard to ' cranial capacities,' is the real direction in which we ought to look for evidence of class or racial superiority, "f Dr. Carlton Bastian, moreover, adds: " Apart from the existence of actual morbid change, the large size of an organ such as the Brain gives, perhaps, a more than average warrant that its inner development will be ade- quately carried out, and that the organ will be highly endowed with its own proper kind of vitality. If, how- * Op. tit., p. 161. t Op. tit., pp. 371-372. 192 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS ever, it does not fall short in either of these respects, an increased size of Brain ought to be a distinct advan- tage to its owner; and, should the general and special conditions of life be at all propitious, would be likely to favour the development of great mental power or the acquisition of much learning."* Professor Keith is, however, an authority precisely on the human skull. He has made a life study of the question, and his deeply interesting works, The Antiquity of Man and Ancient Types of Man, deal almost ex- clusively with the problems enunciated in their titles, from the standpoint of skulls. Now this is what he says on this very question of the Cro-Magnon crania : " The brain capacity is much greater roughly 1, 660 c.c., being 180 c.c. above the modern average. We have to remember that a certain amount a small amount of that is due simply to a big body; a big body needs a bigger brain for its animal administration. We have come across, in these heads, a puzzling and unex- pected fact ; we are naturally astonished to find that men who have preceded us so long ago men of a former geological epoch should so far outstrip their successors to-day who regard themselves as the ' survival of the fittest,' and believe the fittest to be the race with the biggest brains. We cannot quarrel with the facts, but * Op. cit., pp. 372-373. See also Mind and Body by Alexander Bain, M.D., pp. 20-21: "The concomitance of size of nervous system with mental power, throughout the animal series, is suffi- ciently admitted for the purpose of our general argument." The general argument in question being: " When extensive statistics are taken, the conclusion is established that great mental superiority is accompanied with a more than average size of brain. . . ." And further: " There would be no exaggeration in saying that while size of brain increases in arithmetical proportion, intellectual range increases in geometrical proportion." THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 193 how to explain them ? The conclusion to be drawn is, not that brain mass, on the average, is to be rejected as an index of brain power, but that there are other virtues or characters which go to ensure success [Promethean success, for instance] of a human race in the struggle of life, other than brain power. A philosopher may be miserable or die childless, when a brainless savage or an industrious labouring man may be happy and have a large- family."* This is excellent. The doctrine of success is one of such widespread acceptance to-day, and it is so difficult to convince the average man particularly if he be a Promethean that success does not necessarily imply high, noble or even desirable qualities or qualifications, that practically the whole world retires every night to bed believing that success whether by racial survival or in individual life must be a sign of superiority, and desirable superiority. Now, as Spencer pointed out long ago, so many loath- some parasites, such as the microbe of tuberculosis and all bacteria, the tape-worm, all intestinal worms, and in fact all parasites, are examples of successful adaptation, that success alone cannot possibly be a criterion of desirability. And this modern belief in success is one of the most vulgar errors of the Age.f * The Antiquity of Man, p. 55. f Ten years ago, in my Nietzsche : His Life and Works, I wrote (p. 72): "Given a degenerate, mean, and base environment and the fittest to survive therein will be the man who is best adapted to degeneracy, meanness, and baseness, therefore the worst kind of man. Given a community of parasites, and it may be the flattest, the slimiest, and the softest, will be the fittest to survive." See also my Who is to be Master of the World ? pp. 91-93, and Herbert Spencer, Collected Essays, vol. i., p. 397, and Huxley's Romanes Lecture, Evolution and Ethics (ed., 1903, p. 32). 13 194 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS The fact, then, that the Cro-Magnons have not sur- vived in the struggle for existence, despite their superior brain power, and probably all the nobility, high moral qualities, and immense capacity, that accompanied it, may be, as Professor Keith so ably points out, because other virtues and characters may go to ensure success in the struggle of life. A man, for instance, may be too noble to succeed nowadays, too un-Promethean, too reluctant to plunge into the market-place or the forge, and wrest material prosperity from those of his fellows whom he finds there. And thus, although individual material failure in the eyes of the modern world is not always a proof of superiority, it frequently may be such a proof, as the lives of so many great men convincingly demon- strate. Likewise in a race : with the Bushmen of Africa, it was their nobility, their superiority vis-a-vis the foreign invader, which led to their extermination, not their inferiority.* The same holds good of many people * See Sollas, op. cit., pp. 300-301 : " They loved their country and showed an unfailing devotion to their chiefs; they possessed all the noblest of the primitive virtues, and, not least, unflinching bravery and unquenchable love of freedom. It was this last which came to be accounted to them as their greatest crime. They found it impossible to become slaves to strange masters in their own land. Equally impossible was it for a hunting race to maintain its existence in proximity to an encroaching agricultural people of European blood. A terrible war of extermination was waged against them by the Boers. The stories that are told of this war are shocking to our humanity; and we cannot refuse a tribute to these brave people, who in almost every instance preferred death to surrender." Dr. Sollas adds a note to the effect that the Cape Government regarded the extermination of the Bushmen for a long time as a matter of State policy. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 195 either subjugated or exterminated directly by our- selves.* Taking all these matters into consideration, and par- ticularly in view of the weighty words of Professor Keith, I think I have been justified in assuming, as I have all through these chapters, that the great race which I had in mind, and with which I proposed to identify the gods of ancient Greece the Cro-Magnon race, of mighty stature, of huge brain, which lead us " naturally to expect signs of a high mental development,"! were greater than any race that has ever appeared on earth before or since. Their artistic works, facsimile reproductions of which I have inspected, are in many respects superior to those of the Egyptians, and in my opinion certainly superior to those of the Greeks of the Hellenic Age. Dr. Salomon Reinach has expressed the view that two at least of the examples of their sculpture which he examined " are superior to all the artistic productions of the ^Egean and Babylonia."} Speaking of their culture Marett says: :< The third and last main stage of the Paleolithic epoch developed by degrees into a golden age of art." Robert Munro on the same subject writes as follows: " But what is still more remarkable, under the circumstances, they developed a wonderful taste for art, and left behind them a collection of sculptures and engravings which, for spirit and artistic effect, would not disgrace our modern Landseers."|| * See The Downfall of Zululand, by the daughter of Bishop Colenso; also read the horrible accounts of early English settlers in New Zealand. The superiority of the European race is by no means demonstrated by the submission of the Zulus and the Maoris. f Keith, Ancient Types of Man, p. 69. J Sollas, op. cit., pp. 262-263. See Anthropology, p. 47. II Prehistoric Problems, p. 48. 196 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS The late M. Piette, the renowned French anthropolo- gist already mentioned, published a wonderful volume* containing coloured plates representing some of their more striking artistic productions, and this book is prob- ably the most interesting in the whole literature of art. It is a volume full of wonders, but such is the prejudice created by the belief that the evolutionary process is necessarily progressive, that I can sympathise with any reader who, on examining the plates it contains, refuses to believe, except on the highest authority, that these productions are the work of a race that belonged to a former geological epoch.f M. Piette explains the prevalence of pregnant women among their figurines on the grounds that, as the Cro- Magnons probably left their children and pregnant women at home with the sedentary members of the tribe (the artists, the artisans and the scribes) when they roved the country, the artists naturally took for their adult models women in a condition which, for some reason or other, has been eschewed by the aesthetic sense of the present geological period.J He has, however, another and better suggestion to * I? Art pendant VAge du Renne (Paris, 1907). f See, for instance, the wonderful bas-relief of a neighing horse, the swans and the horse heads (p. 72); the beautiful statuettes of reindeer carved in mammoth tusks (Plates III. and IV.); the horse in mammoth tusk (Plate VI.); the exquisite fragment of a fa't woman (not pregnant) carved in ivory (Plate LXXI.); and the statuette in ivory (pregnant woman, Plate LXXIII.) ; the fine engrav- ing of chamois on reindeer antler (Plate LXXXIII.); and the sphinx- like creature (Plate LIL). The pregnant woman on Plate XXVII. (Fig. 5) is also interesting ; while there are various halters of reindeer antler, and mammoths, all of which show wonderful accuracy of representation with the simplest possible means of expression. J Op. tit., p. 21. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 197 make. He says that the prevalence of pregnant women among their subjects may have resulted from a nobler motive, that is to say, from a sort of religious sentiment awakened in them by the mysteries of motherhood.* Personally I am inclined to reject both these explana- tions. They are conceived too obviously through the optics of this age. I acknowledge M. Piette's extremely sympathetic treatment of the whole subject, and we are immensely indebted to him for the pains to which he went in preparing this collection for us ; but I feel there is a deeper meaning still to these wonderful representa- tions of women with child. We must remember that we are speaking of a people who lived in a pre-Promethean Age, when all the ills and woes of which Hesiod speaks had not yet come upon mankind. Is it not possible, therefore, that the whole of their attitude towards pregnancy even towards the aspect of a pregnant woman was entirely different from our own ? Since beauty is only a convention arising from certain fundamental values,! is it not more probable that, among a people into whose lives very little sickness and ugliness had as yet entered, the promise of life, bigness with a guarantee of the multiplication of life, was the most beautiful thing of all ? The virgin ideal, which has been prevalent now for thousands of years in the art as well as the morality of the recent geological period, is at least a negative ideal. It permeates Greek as well as Christian art. Even when they depicted Hera, the Greeks frequently made her * Op. cit., p. 21 : " Mais il est possible aussi que ce soit par un plus noble motif, sous 1'influence d'une sorte de sentiment religieux, eveille en eux par les mysteres de la maternite." | See my Nietzsche and Art, Lecture II., Part ii., Section 6, for an explanation of this. 198 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS appear as a virgin, while the sanctity of the virgin ideal in the Christian era is well known. Now although I am prepared to admit that a good deal of this idealisation of virginity may have arisen out of the deep unconscious and ineradicable dislike of their fathers which is felt by most men who have been very much attached to their mothers, I cannot help suspect- ing also that, where the virgin figure is held up for general admiration, there is also a good deal of unconscious pessimism abroad. We know the deeply pessimistic strain of the ancient Greeks ; we also know the pessimism of Modernity, which Schopenhauer converted into a system. We are aware, too, of the causes of a good deal of this pessimism: ill-adaptedness, ill-health, nervous irascibility, etc. Now to the conscious pessimist, to the man who knows this vale of tears simply as a station of the cross, the spectacle of pregnancy must be a cause of positive sadness if not horror. Again, from the women's point of view, pregnancy in countries of the Western civilised world has become so very far removed from any idea of beauty, pleasure, easy and joyful functioning and desire, that they cannot possibly regard the condition as one exciting aesthetic enjoyment.* An aesthetic emotion is often provoked by witnessing the ease and mastery with which an animal body overcomes a physical difficulty; but where are the signs of ease or mastery in the fatigue party from Harley Street which is usually summoned to the modern woman's child-bed ? * Not only pregnancy, of course, but the whole of its associations, preliminary, gestatory and post-gestatory, are quickly becoming a subject of loathing with most women in Protestant and Puritanical countries. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 199 In these figurines and drawings of pregnant women, therefore, I am inclined to read something more signi- ficant than that which M. Piette offers in explanation of them. I am inclined to see a deep love and enthusiasm in regard to life, a fundamental and ready acceptance of all that life, and the multiplication of life, means, because it is known to be so thoroughly worth while. There is a question-mark against life now. We feel it; we know it. Even the Greeks knew it and felt it, how much more, therefore, must we, the children of an age a thousand times less attractive in every way than theirs ! Pregnancy now may mean, in fact it frequently does mean, not only pain and sorrow, but the production of a child who is but a faint memento of life (we thank God if he is not a cretin, a cripple, a consumptive or a lunatic), a pale shadow of vitality, in whose very eyes we read the question-mark which we ourselves have already applied to all modern existence. How could pregnancy be beautiful ? Let us be careful, therefore, before we read anything more than a frank and whole-hearted approval of life into these Cro-Magnon figurines of women with child. To them, no doubt, pregnancy was a gloriously beautiful thing; all its associations, preliminary, gestatory and post-gestatory, were also probably the source of infinite delight, pride and joy, and the traditional story about the Golden Age which preceded the Promethean Age, and which has been so heartily laughed at since, receives its strongest confirmation precisely from these little statu- ettes of pregnant women found in prehistoric caves in the south of France. But I have wandered from my subject. We have seen how many authorities have borne 200 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS witness to the very high artistic powers of this Cro- Magnon race which Dr. Sollas designates by the name of " the giants of Mentone,"* and v. Buttel-Reepen calls the " dominant people " in Europe " at the close of the Glacial Period, "f We have seen that they were excep- tionally tall, and have therefore found useful confirma- tion of the suggestion made in Chapter II. (explanation of Subdivision I. of the myth of Prometheus) that the superior race were probably a people of remarkably fine stature. It has also, I think, been satisfactorily shown, on the grounds of their vast cranial development alone, apart from their art, that they were not only far superior to any other people that existed at the time, but that they were also actually superior to any people, including ourselves, who have appeared since. What sort of life did they lead ? Their lives appear to have been extremely simple: hunting, feasting, art and love. They are believed to have been a very hospitable people of mild and gentle habits, J who developed a degree of skill in surgery which was positively amazing. They are also said to have invented the halter and to have begun the domestication of the horse. 1 1 They were the contemporaries in Europe of the Mammoth, the rhinoceros, the cave bear, the * Op. cit., p. 372. f Op. cit., p. 63. J See Piette, op. cit., p. 24: " L'hospitalite parait avoir 'etc pratiquee par ces populations de mosurs douces." They were apparently masters of the extremely difficult opera- tion of trepanning, which they probably performed in cases of acci- dents. That their trepanning was successful is proved by the number of skulls that have been found, the bones of which bear evidence of having been trepanned and having healed up. See Professor Keith, The Antiquity of Man, p. 21 ; also Robert Munro, Prehistoric Problems, pp. 203-205. |! Piette, op. cit., p. 17. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 201 hyena, the saiga, the moorcock, the wood-hen, the reindeer, and many of the present type of fauna. As they held their own magnificently against the more formidable of these animals, and at the same time were too sportsmanlike to use the bow and arrow,* which treacherously hits the foe or the quarry from a distance and from a place of safety, we may conclude that they were superior to modern men not only, as we have seen, in brains and artistic ability, but also in bravery, chivalry and nobility of nature. M. Piette, who has made a special study of their remains, has claimed that they had invented the art of writing, and that the exist- ence of a script among them is a well-established fact. Personally I am quite prepared to accept M. Piette's evidence for this. A. J. Evans, however, is apparently so deeply obsessed by the idea that it requires what he calls the " heirloom of the ages "f for anything as cultivated as a form of writing to be evolved, that he seems doubtful about M. Piette's discoveries. He says in regard to M. Piette's documentary evidence : " In the face of this and similar examples, are we to con- clude with the late M. Piette that there was a regular alphabetic script during the Pleistocene Period which in * In Prehistoric Problems, p. 95, Robert Munro says: " There is no evidence to show that the bow was known to the Paleolithic people." Personally, in view of their huge brain development, I am disinclined to believe that they had not discovered the bow. I am much more prepared to suppose that though they had dis- covered most modern baubles, such as pottery, etc., cowardly weapons, like the bow and all those that followed from it (firearms, guns, etc.), were discarded by them owing to the nobility of their instincts. A man must not only be a coward, but also a mean coward, to use the bow and the firearm. All recent races, therefore, are meaner and more cowardly than the Cro-Magnon race. f See Anthropology and the Classics, p. 18. 202 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS turn had been preceded by a hieroglyphic system ? . . . The artistic achievements of the men of the Reindeer Period attained such a high level that even such a con- clusion could hardly excite surprise. . . . That they had sufficient intellectual capacity to evolve a system of writing can hardly be doubted."* But on the whole Evans leaves you questioning very much whether M. Piette really can be believed.f Evans continues: " Whatever the intellectual capacity of these archaic people, they did not possess that heir- loom of the ages, the accumulated experience of the later races of mankind. Art, indeed, seems to have come to them by nature, and they had other germs of civilisa- tion. . . . Yet many of the most simple acquirements of primitive culture were unknown to them. They knew neither the potter's nor the weaver's nor the husband- man's craft. "J Here we have it again, this unaccountable preposses- sion in favour of futile complications ! Because they had no pottery, etc. ! But has it ever occurred to investigators like Evans that one does not necessarily want pottery ? Has it * Anthropology and the Classics, pp. 16-17 ; article " The European Diffusion of Pictography and its Bearings on the Origin of Script." f See Ed. Piette, Les Ventures de I Age Glyptique (Paris, 1905), p. 5 : " II est done parfaitement etabli par huit inscriptions ou frag- ments d 'inscriptions qu'aux temps pleistocenes, des la premiere e"poque de 1'age glyptique, il y avait dans le pays de Gaule, au voisi- nage des Pyrenees, des populations ayant une ecriture symbolique forniee de caracteres pictographiques. . . ." (p. 9). " En resume il y a eu deux ecritures successivement en usage a 1'age du renne, Tune hieroglyphique a Pepoque papalienne, 1'autre cursive a 1'epoque gourdanienne. . . . Quoi qu'il en soit, les ecritures pleistocenes sont les plus anciennes qui soient connues de nous." J Op. tit., p. 18. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 203 never dawned upon him that one's reasons for not having discovered the ghastly gramophone, for instance, may have been that one frankly neither wanted it, liked it, nor could tolerate it for one instant ? Supposing now that I, who loathe the gramophone and the motor-car as much as Auguste Rodin loathed both, happened to become the founder of a civilisation ulti- mately examined and commented upon by men like A. J. Evans. This is what we should read in their report upon it : " The Ludo vicious civilisation shows a degree of inepti- tude in regard to the production of those simple mechani- cal contrivances for making a home and the countryside pleasant and lively, which is quite out of keeping with the capacity shown in other directions, etc." It would never occur to such people even to suspect that because gramophones and motor-cars happened to be absent from the kind of civilisation I would found, I might possibly be believed to dislike gramophones and motor-cars, or to have no use for them. In view of the vastly superior brain-power of these Cro-Magnons, I do not accept Evans's modern and Promethean suggestion that " many of the most simple acquirements of primitive culture were unknown to them." It is a piece of typical modern prejudice. It reminds one of a passage in the works of another eminent Promethean, Sir Charles Lyell, which for inanity is sufficiently characteristic of the nineteenth century to render that period utterly ridiculous for ever. Sir Charles, writing with the view of discrediting the notion that any primitive races could have been at all superior to ourselves, says: " But had the original stock of mankind been really endowed with such superior intel- 204 MAN'S DESCENT FKOM THE GODS lectual powers, and with inspired knowledge, and possessed the same improvable [!] nature as their posterity, the point of advancement [!] which they would have reached ere this would have been immeasurably higher."* Then speaking of the finds in old caves, he adds: " Instead of the rudest pottery or flint tools, so irregular in form as to cause the unpractised eye to doubt whether they afford unmistakable evidence of design, we should now be finding sculptured forms [they have been found] surpassing in beauty the masterpieces of Phidias and Praxiteles; lines of buried railway or electric telegraphs [! !], from which the best engineers of our day might gain invaluable hints; astronomical instruments and micro- scopes of more advanced construction than any known in Europe . . . machines, perhaps, for navigating the air or exploring the depths of the ocean, or for calculating arithmetical problems beyond the wants or even the conception of living mathematicians."")" There we have it again ! Unless you can show railway lines and telegraph wires, unless, in fact, you have all the ridiculous complications of the Promethean brain, which makes the modern world such a fatuous failure, you have not got, you cannot have, you cannot even pretend to have, superior brain-power or civilisation ! Poor old Lyell ! I know he is dead, and that in his time he did a good deal of honest work. But really, that passage ! Could Promethean stupidity be more hope- less ? It is this sort of thing that makes one fear that if stupidity had been a disease, none of us could ever have survived the nineteenth century. * The Antiquity of Man (London, 1873), p. 422. | Ibid., p. 423. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 205 Seeing that the Cro-Magnon race must have possessed the means of fire-production, even if they did not actually discover them,* I see no reason why, in the light of what we know of their immense superiority, we are not permitted to assume, as we can on the analogy of the Chinese attitude towards the use of steam and gunpowder, that if the Cro-Magnons did not possess pottery, the bow, and all the many evidences of a more Promethean and therefore meaner civilisation, it was because they deliberately eschewed these things, disliked them, felt no need for them. Is it not conceivable that with their huge brain power, they might have foreseen all the ills and woes, which as Greek myth and the evidence of the modern world is with us to prove, cannot help arising from a Promethean civilisation ? Is it not probable that even if they tried to produce pottery or other fire-wrought baubles, they * If they did not, then their remote ancestors, the Mousterians who, as we have seen, also had a larger average brain than modern man, were probably the discoverers of the means of fire-production in Europe. O. Peschel, op. cit., p. 142, is of the condescending opinion that the exceptional men of to-day show no more intelli- gence than men of the Glacial Period (I maintain that in view of their smaller cranial development exceptional modern men must show less). Nevertheless, his is a striking admission: " In sharpness of understanding the men of the Ice Age who discovered fire were not behind a Copernicus, a Kepler, a Champollion, or a Faraday, and we arrive at the conclusion that the highest degree of brain power which a few exceptional men, here and there, have shown in modern times, is not beyond that shown by great men of classical or biblical antiquity, and the latter not beyond that of men of the Ice Age." Seeing, however, that it is le premier pas qui coute, Professor Keith's conclusion is much more fair. He says (Ancient Types of Man* p. 112) : " We of a later generation, with a fertility of mechanical invention, can little understand the great brain which was necessary to make the first steps towards human civilisation." 206 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS would have had the good sense quickly to drop the experiment, and rigorously to forbid its repetition ? Civilisation is not only of one kind. Civilisation does not only mean having steam-engines, telegraph wires, factories, women members of Parliament, packed hos- pitals, lunatic asylums, homes for incurables, margarine and false teeth. There are other kinds, thank goodness ! Is it not possible that they were rigidly developing another, simpler and better kind ? That is why I suggest, in Chapter II., in my explana- tion of Subdivision II. of the Prometheus myth, that Zeus, who was probably a typical Cro-Magnon, may have imposed certain restrictions upon the inferior people, when he allowed them the use of fire; and it was only when there was trouble over the observance of these restrictions, that he withdrew fire from them. The reader will remember that I also point out that the inferior people, being ignorant of the great wisdom of Zeus's restrictions and conditions regarding the use of fire, imprudently allowed Prometheus to act as their champion, with the disastrous results that we now know. Should the reader think that this is a little far-fetched, let me remind him that we have other instances in folk- lore, history and the reports of travellers in savage countries, of restrictions being imposed in regard to the use of fire, although these probably cannot compare with the drastic rules laid down by Zeus. Thus Tylor reports an account given by the Rev. Geo. Turner about the introduction of fire among the in- habitants of Bowditch Island. According to these people the origin of fire is traced to Mafiuke, " but unlike the Mafiuke of the mythology of some other islands, this was an old blind lady. Talangi THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 207 went down to her in her lower regions, and asked her to give him some of her fire. She obstinately refused until he threatened to kill her, and then she yielded. With the fire he made her say what fish were to be cooked with it, and what were still to be eaten raw."* This is a remarkable instance of a myth accounting for certain restrictions being imposed in regard to the cook- ing of particular foods, and lends considerable colour to my whole argument. In the same volume Tylor mentions that neither the Fuegians nor the Bushmen seemed to know how to boil food " when they first came into the view of Europe."t But here again, in the light of all we know regarding the Bushmen's wonderful intelligence, is it not much more likely that the practice of boiling (which as we have seen is the most pernicious kind of cooking) had been for- bidden ages before, and that tradition had perpetuated the prohibition, than that they did not know how to boil ? It is a curious coincidence that they should have happened just not to know of the most dangerous method of cooking. In our own time, of course, we have only to think of the very light restriction of the Curfew, which was probably only a lingering vestige of a much more elaborate set of rules relating to the use of fire. It is obvious that the prevalence of the fire-stealing myths all over the world is best accounted for by the assumption that all races of mankind not having de- veloped with equal speed, the juxtaposition of two peoples, one possessing the means of fire-production and * Researches into the Early History of Mankind, p. 231. There are other details regarding the conditions imposed by Mafiuke in respect to the use of fire ; but they do not relate to cooking. '\'0p. cit., p. 263. 208 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS the other not, must have occurred sufficiently often to make the coveting and even the stealing of fire by the inferior race an almost universal tradition ; but it is also equally probable that in cases where the superior race, as with the remote ancestors of the Greeks, were en- countered on friendly terms,* and the mingling of the two shows that the relationship was probably friendly, the superior race in handing on its discoveries would endeavour, by imposing certain restrictions, to save the inferior race from the consequences which they (the superior race) knew must follow from an unlimited use of fire. This evidently happened at some period in the remote history of the inhabitants of Bowditch Island, and it also happened in the history of the remote ancestors of the Greeks. I have now come to the end of the principal part of my argument. It was not absolutely necessary for the support of my thesis for me to attempt to identify the superior race with which, on the Spencerian hypothesis regarding the origin of gods, the remote ancestors of the Greeks must at some time in their history, have come into contact. Nevertheless, seeing that there was an immensely superior race in Europe at the dawn of the Neolithic era, that this race vanished by absorption early in Neolithic times, and that the remote ancestors of the Aryan race are supposed to have been of very great antiquity, and to have existed in the Stone Age before they separated ; * We have seen how gentle and mild were the habits of the Cro- Magnons, and instances are not lacking in history of superior races having mingled with and civilised inferior races without any preli- minary bloodshed. See my account of the peaceful invasions of the Incas of Peru in my Defence of Aristocracy, chap. i. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 209 seeing, moreover, that the Cro-Magnons were a dolicho- cephalic race and that the Aryans were a brachycephalic race and that, as Professor Keith points out, the round- headed races of Europe absorbed the long-headed races in early Neolithic times,* I see no reason why, in the light which all these facts throw on the mythology of Greece and the historical truths that doubtless lie con- cealed in it, we should not be prepared to conclude that Uranus was a Cro-Magnon chief, that his people mingled with the remote ancestors of the Greeks, and that the result of the cross was twofold, or threefold, that is to say, that it led to a race of men some of which bred true to the original superior stock (I suggest that Zeus was one of these), some of which were a complete blend, and therefore very tall and mighty men (I suggest that Prometheus and the Titans were among these), and some of which bred true to the inferior race (we naturally hear nothing very extraordinary about these). If this cross really occurred, and the Cro-Magnons actually did mingle with a round-headed and inferior race, we might suppose that the period following the cross would probably show a marked decline in art and culture generally. This, as a matter of fact, is precisely what we find. Although it was of course a great advan- * " Long-headed races abounded in France, in Germany, in Switzerland, and in Bohemia, in early Neolithic times. Now the case is quite different, the round-headed type prevails in these countries. ... As the Neolithic Period came to an end, he becomes more and more the predominating type. Since the close of the Glacial Period he has succeeded in ousting his long-headed brother from the larger and richer countries of Europe. . . . We see now that the round-heads hold the continent of Europe and Asia from France and Germany in the West to Japan in the East, and from the shores of the White Sea to those of the Mediterranean." See Ancient Types of Man, pp. 76-77. li 210 MAN'S DESCENT FEOM THE GODS tage to the remote ancestors of the Greeks to mingle their blood with so great a race as the Cro-Magnons,* and although this admixture of Cro-Magnon blood probably accounts for a good deal of what was great in the ancient Greeks, the cross must have proved a distinct loss to the Cro-Magnon race itself and therefore to the world. H. v. Buttel-Reepen, writing of the Age which followed the absorption of the Cro-Magnons, says: " But strange to relate, the artistic productions which characterised the end of the Pleistocene, the carvings and the wall- pictures, are altogether missing. The artistic culture seems to have vanished from Europe with the retreat of the ice, and the few drawings which were executed in Neolithic times, in the Bronze Age, and even in the Iron Age, are utterly crude and unskilful, "f Then he proceeds to add: "This is a mystery which has not yet been satisfactorily dispelled. "{ I think that in view of all I have said there is no mystery in the matter at all. I do not see what else * After all, the immense superiority of the Greeks over other branches of the Aryan family at a very early period in the historical age needs some accounting for, and has never been satisfactorily explained. Is it not possible that the elements of Cro-Magnon blood that they must have had in them do satisfactorily explain this superiority ? Is it not even logical to suppose that since they have surpassed for all time all other branches of the original family in culture, art and thought, that therefore something unusual must have occurred in their history which did not occur in the history of the other branches ? For it is not necessary to suppose that the other branches of the Aryan family, particularly those that went into the southern regions of France and Italy, did not encounter the Cro-Magnons. They may simply have fought them, over- whelmed them by numbers, and exterminated them. t Op. cit., p. 88. See also Professor Keith, The Antiquity of Man, p. 59. Ibid. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 211 could have been expected. However, we shall see what v. Buttel-Reepen has to say when he has become acquainted with my argument. In the light of recent research among savage peoples, we have seen that it is not at all unlikely that the remote ancestors of the Greeks, confronted by a race so infinitely superior to themselves, immediately proceeded to deify these Cro-Magnon people, and now that we have realised who and what they were, can we wonder that they did so ? There is surely less difficulty in believing that the Cro-Magnons were called gods by a people so unculti- vated as the ancient Aryans, than that the Spaniards of the sixteenth century should have been regarded as gods by the highly civilised Mexicans.* Finally, if you ask when and where we can encounter any trace of the descendants of these wonderful Paleo- lithic people, who reached their zenith in late Pleistocene times, who declined during the early centuries of the Neolithic Age, and who were ultimately absorbed by the round-headed and inferior races of Europe, I cannot do better than reply with the profoundly interesting words of Professor Keith, and with these remarks I will con- clude this chapter : " Although there is no race in Europe to-day that can be regarded as representative of this Paleolithic people, yet in Germany, Switzerland, France, and Britain, indi- viduals of this type are not rare. They are the tall men of commanding mien."f * As I have already hinted, I should not be in the least surprised if further investigation led to the identification of the God of the Jews and Christians, as a Cro-Magnon chief. We know the race extended into Syria and Asia. But this is outside my subject. It does, however, throw some light on Gen. vi. 1-4. f Ancient Types of Man, pp. 72-73. CHAPTER VIII PANDOKA AND EVE THE reader will remember that in Chapter II. I said I was leaving the explanation, or interpretation, of Sub- division IV. of the Prometheus myth to another chapter of this book. I now propose to deal with this before proceeding to record my conclusions. Subdivision IV. consisted of Pandora's part in the severe punishment which Zeus is said to have adminis- tered to mankind, or mortals, for their complicity in the theft of fire perpetrated by their champion Prometheus ; and it contains the story of Pandora's connection with Epimetheus, and her lifting of the lid from the vessel in which the foresight of Prometheus had concealed all the evils that might torment mortals on earth. With the removal of the lid from the vessel, diseases and suffer- ing of every kind issued forth to harass humanity. In the Garden of Eden parallel to this myth, which, as I have pointed out, is one of the alternative Semitic accounts of the origin of evil, it is Eve who, after having been tempted by the devil, in the form of a serpent, brings God's wrath upon mankind by herself eating, and giving " also unto her husband with her " to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In both myths a woman is thus intimately associated with the events which lead to the close of a Golden Age, and to the advent of the era of trouble, disease and Buffering that followed. In both myths it is a woman 212 PANDORA AND EVE 213 specially sent by the Deity; and in one case in the Semitic myth as there is no account of any other woman, Eve, Heva, or more properly Khamwaah, is not only a particular woman, she is Woman in general. What are we to conclude from this prehistoric, nay, primeval association of woman with evil, or with the cause of evil ? To begin with, we must banish from our minds all idea of the modern and wholly gratuitous connection between woman and evil as the result of the shame or guilt supposed to attach to sex; because this shame or guilt in regard to sex is entirely the creation of later, or at least recent stupidity. Sexual intercourse is only asso- ciated with shame and guilt when life has become so hopelessly muddled owing to the prevalence and power of the Promethean type, that the relation of the sexes really has, in a sufficient number of cases to establish a tradition, developed a loathsome and unsavoury side. It would be quite wrong, however, to ascribe to primeval man stupidities of which only recent man has been guilty. We may feel perfectly satisfied, therefore, that this association of woman with evil, originally had nothing whatever to do with the act of procreation, or with any notion or function connected with the genitalia. Has it perhaps this meaning: that the best men are sometimes diverted from their highest and most im- portant pursuits by the lure of beautiful women, that the love of the sexes has therefore a hindering or retard- ing influence upon the achievements of the highest men, and that women, particularly the more highly capti- vating among them, like Pandora, are connected with evil in this manner ? 214 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS This also will hardly do, because the best men never are and never have been diverted from their highest pursuits by any woman, however attractive. The Mark Antonys of this world are by no means the highest men. The best men are the long-headed men, resembling the Cro-Magnons, and these, as I have already pointed out, are Dionysians. They master women; women do not master or even influence them. Consequently it is im- possible to associate women with evil owing to the deleterious power they exercise over the careers of the best men. They have no power, either good or evil, over the best men in any case. Here, however, it is possible that we have a clue which may lead us in the proper direction. Women, as I say, have no power over the best men. The best men may use them, may protect and cherish them, may and do even understand them very much better than their brothers ; but they never yield to them either body or soul. They do not believe in giving women chivalry so much as giving them children. But women are covetous of petty power even over men. Being directed chiefly in their actions, by vanity, the lust of petty power to no purpose save self-gratifica- tion is one of their principal passions ; it overshadows all the others; it controls their lives. Their very mother- hood, with all its alleged " noble " virtues, is simply the gratification of their petty love of power; but in this sphere, since it subserves the self-preservative interests of the race, it is, when held in proper check, quite a useful race characteristic.* * The fundamental mistake of certain modern philosophers is to suppose that the altruistic sentiments of mankind arose out of the maternal instincts. A more gross misunderstanding of the maternal instinct could, of course, not be conceived. PANDORA AND EVE 215 Hence, women are not consciously very much attracted to the best men, and never have been. They see in the best men no chance of exercising petty power, and since they have no senses capable of apprehending the great- ness of the best men, the latter have literally no lure for them. Napoleon was never heartily loved by any woman. Josephine never loved him, and Marie Therese left him in the hour of his greatest sorrow for a little cock-sparrow-hearted Austrian officer. The only women who ever love great men are perhaps their mothers ; but this again requires explanation. In other words, as I have always maintained in the teeth of the most inflexible opposition, even on the part of my male friends, the characteristic which is chiefly female, which in fact is as essentially female as the soprano, mezzo, and contralto voices, and which, though frequently encountered in modern men, is not typical of the male sex, is lack of taste. Woman has bad taste, or no taste whatever. The mother's instinct, which is the lust of petty power, thus frequently turns with greater affection and attachment to the crippled than to the well-constituted child, to the invalid than to the healthy offspring, to the creature that is in some way physiologically botched, than to the perfect specimen. Why ? Obviously because the imperfect child will always be more helpless, and helplessness makes the strongest appeal to the lust for petty power. That is why the Romans wisely left it to the father to decide which of his children should survive and which should be suppressed; because they knew that women having no taste and being guided only by what most gratified their lust of petty power, could not be trusted to make such a decision wisely. Who has not heard mothers exclaim, time and again, that it was while their offspring were babies that they liked them best ? This predilection for helpless, speech- less, dribbling and babbling infants, sounds inexplicable and unaccountable from any standpoint which has taste for its basis. For older children are obviously more beautiful, more elegantly proportioned, more intelligible, more interesting. We must remember, however, that these qualities constitute appeals to taste, with which woman constitutionally has no concern whatsoever. Her one repeated unconscious question is always : What best gratifies my vanity and my lust of petty power ? And the reply to that question in respect to the family is, obviously, the helpless infant. The helpless infant therefore is her choice.* Now this fundamental lack of taste in women, which can be observed every day, in every detail of her life, she has not even succeeded in being the creator of her own fashions in clothes, this is all done by men, is not dangerous provided women remain under proper control. It only becomes a social menace when she either ceases from being controlled, or is actually in a position to make her influence felt outside the home.f Seeing that she becomes associated with a decent man only by accident ; for as a rule when a woman is married to a decent man you may be certain that it is he who married * Woman's preference for lap-dogs is explained in the same way. Larger dogs are independent; they run hither and thither, and try, at least, to master their own destiny. Lap-dogs, on the other hand, can be fondled ; they can be held, clasped, pressed, squeezed, entirely and thoroughly mastered (physically only, for no woman has ever been known to make a dog obey), and they can be easily lifted from the floor. | It is also a menace inside the home, of course; but there it is at least limited in extent. PANDORA AND EVE 217 her, and not vice versa ; the chances of her being properly controlled, even in her own home, in an age like the present, which is full to overflowing with Promethean men, are unfortunately very remote indeed. And that is why, when the world is ruled chiefly by Promethean men, as it is at present men who neither understand woman nor are able to master her* the badness of women's taste, or their lack of taste, becomes a genuine and universal peril. The chief and worst consequences, however, of woman's lack of taste is that she will always tend to consort with the most undesirable kind of man, and thus rapidly reduces the value of human stock. She tends to consort with the most undesirable kind of man for two reasons : (a) As already stated, her lack of taste. (6) Her lust of petty power, which tends to make her prefer (quite erroneously, even from the standpoint of her own happiness) the Promethean type of man before the Dionysian, because she can master the former and because he is the best worshipper. When once she becomes entirely dependent upon the Dionysian man, or becomes adapted to the form of society he develops, she realises that he makes her happier, healthier and more contented than the Pro- methean ; but to her conscious discrimination the promise of happiness with the Promethean man, who, as we have seen, cannot master, and does not even understand her, seems to be more immediate and more certain. f * The extent to which women's views of life or the tasteless views of life prevail to-day, owing to female influence over Pro- methean men, is shown by the increase of disease and ugliness, the growing care of the physiologically botched, etc. f The reader may think, in view of all I have said, that it is hard to account for the attitude of the women over the cult of 218 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS Woman, however, has not got a brain very much superior to the boy-scout. The boy-scout man, the Promethean, therefore likes the things that she likes: speed, classification, pretty and useless baubles, petty complications of life that attract notice ; all those things which minister to vanity, such as badges of honour, uniforms, parade in general, exciting music, pleasure for pleasure's sake, etc., etc. Like the Promethean man, woman too has long believed in " Progress." She really believes, as does the boy-scout mind, that because we have motor-cars and margarine not to speak of under- ground tubes and tuberculosis we must be greater and better than the Cro-Magnons. And this belief confirms her faith in the Promethean type. In Eve and Pandora, therefore, we have the first fatal instances of woman's tastelessness. Eve becomes an easy prey to the Devil; Pandora goes over to the Titans. I have already identified Satan, or the Devil, with the Archetype of Promethean men; while we also know that Epimetheus and Prometheus, with both of whom Pandora became associated, belonged to the most unhappy results of the cross between the Cro-Magnons and the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks. But Adam, too, was of the Promethean type. He allowed himself to be influenced by a woman. And see how deeply the Cro-Magnon, the Dionysian, that is to say, the man whom I believe to have been the original of Dionysus. In this case, however, the benefits derived from acclaim- ing and following a Dionysian man were immediately obvious and tangible. They may even have constituted a promise from Dionysus himself. In any case, the objection is not serious, since the women did not actually select Dionysus from among other men. He came among them as a teacher, a saviour, whose doctrine proved their salvation. PANDORA AND EVE 219 the god of the Jews and Christians,* despised him for it ! " Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,"f that constitutes the burden of the Christian god's rebuke to Adam : he hearkened unto the voice of his wife ! And all the Promethean men, ever since the days when the gods walked the earth, have always hearkened unto the voice of their wives. " Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife," says the indignant and wise old Cro-Magnon, " and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee saying, Thou shalt not eat of it : cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life." This most excellent remonstrance is probably the earliest known record of the profound disdain which the Dionysian type has always felt for the Promethean. In both cases, then, in the case of Eve as well as in that of Pandora, we find the first woman, or prehistoric woman, or woman in general, exhibiting atrociously bad taste, and associating with the Promethean type. And these two myths are probably among the most ancient and most important in the world. This is significant enough, particularly as the conse- quences of the association proved so fatal to mankind. Is it possible, then, that this is the lesson the myths con- ceal ? Is it possible that it is in woman's total lack of taste that her connection with evil really resides, and that this lack of taste is demonstrated in each myth by her * I do not mean that Zeus and the god of the Jews and Christians were one and the same person. I mean only that they probably belonged to the same race. f Gen. iii. 17. 220 MAN'S DESCENT FBOM THE GODS readiness to associate with the most undesirable kind of man and to influence him ? Personally, I have no hesitation in expressing my firm conviction that both these questions may be confidently answered in the affirmative. Women's total lack of taste is the greatest danger to mankind. It is the greatest evil of all ; because it is a continuous pull down- wards which wears out by steady attrition, by slow and persistent corruption, without either rest or respite. It cannot be repeated too often, however, that it is dangerous only when Promethean men are in the majority, that is to say, in the heart of a Promethean civilisation. When and where Dionysian men prevail, it is not felt, because women have no power to express their taste deleteriously under the rule of Dionysian men. At the present day, therefore, when Promethean men constitute the vast majority of our populations all over the world, woman's lack of taste is a genuine menace not only to our general health, but even to our chances of survival. There is at present no counter-check to meet and overcome it, no neutraliser or antidote. Added to the bewildering muddle already created by Promethean men, it constitutes one more among the many forces which are steadily making for degeneration, chaos and decay. Nor is the gravity of the situation alleviated by the fact that women are now not only in an immense majority, but also that their conceit, which has been so much fortified by their encountering only boy-scout or Promethean men with whom they can truthfully claim to be equal renders them too impudent to be accessible to teaching or to be patient under control. It was too readily overlooked, when women claimed to be the equals of men, that the horror of the situation did PANDORA AND EVE 221 not lie in the nature of the claim, but in its undeniable validity. At the present day, men have reached such a low stage in their gradual decline, the line of demarcation between male and female occupations is so faint, so in- distinguishable in parts, and consequently the line of demarcation between male and female capacity is so much blurred, that there is unfortunately no reply to this claim on woman's part. They are the equals of modern men. Instead, however, of this being a subject of re- joicing, it ought, even in these degenerate days, to be a cause of lamentation also among the women themselves. Because, as in the days preceding the advent of Dionysus, they are the greatest sufferers from all this degeneration of men. Thus again, even in this sphere, the conflict is seen to be between Dionysus and Prometheus, the artist* who can master his female and the engineer whose female masters him; and unless the Dionysians realise the gravity of the situation very speedily, and brace them- selves for a stupendous effort, there will be an end not only to all higher hopes, but also to all higher possibi- lities. In any case a revival of the attitude towards women which is outlined in this chapter is not likely to occur in America or England, for in no country of the world have Prometheans multiplied more abundantly, and entrenched themselves more securely, than they have in England and her old Transatlantic colony ; in no country in the world * The word artist here should be accepted with caution. It means a very definite thing, carefully defined in the pages of my Defence of Aristocracy. It does not mean every tinpot dauber or musician who claims the title; for many of these are simply neurotic Prometheans who haven't the energy to enter Armstrong, Whitworth or Vickers' workshops. 222 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS are Dionysian men less plentiful than they are in these two English-speaking countries; in no country of the world have women been more grossly, more ludicrously misunderstood than they have in these two homes of the Puritan and Nonconformist; and, consequently, in no country in the world have women more power than they have in the United States and England. The saddest and most depressing aspect of the whole question, however, is this, that women, having no taste no antennae, no organ of tasteful apprehension are so blind to their own best interests, and so besotted by their increasing command of those things which stimulate their vanity, that they prefer to listen, to follow, and to ap- plaud a henpecked Promethean like John Stuart Mill, than pocket their vanity and remember their place when they are told that it is their inveterate bad taste, their complete and utter lack of any organ of taste, which is the hidden meaning of the myths of Pandora and Eve. But women are not to blame. They can do little in helping to bring about the reforms which must come if degeneration and chaos are to be arrested. They are, as we have seen, by nature dependent for their good and evil upon the type of man with whom they have to deal. The only hope, as ever, is a multiplication of Dionysian men and methods, and the control and subordination of the Promethean type. To suppose, for instance, that the matter could be settled by teaching women to mate only with the Dionysian man, is utterly mistaken. No reform can come of teaching women anything. CHAPTER IX EEFLECTIONS ON THE FOEEGOING IF now the reader will reflect calmly and dispassionately upon the arguments and facts that I have advanced in the preceding chapters, while he may find some food for thought and meditation, he cannot possibly be cheered or comforted by the conclusions to which these mental exercises will lead him. For if my facts are beyond question right, and my arguments are valid, then it seems to me that his main conclusion cannot help being very much as follows: That man's zenith on earth, far from having been reached in the Recent Period, either in historic or prehistoric and Neolithic times, was attained during another geological epoch, i.e., towards the close of the Pleistocene, in Paleolithic times. Thus, the curve of man's development, instead of be- ginning in the Pleistocene, as was for some time supposed, and rising steadily until it reached its zenith in the present age, or in our Age, must be imagined as taking its rise somewhere in Pliocene or Miocene times, a million or so years ago, reaching its maximum height in the late Pleistocene, having dropped the races which de- generated into the higher apes on its way, from 30,000 to 60,000 years ago, and then descending again fairly rapidly towards this or the modern Age. This would mean that at the present moment we are simply an undulation in a rapid avalanche making 223 224 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS speedily towards complete and utter degeneration,* and that our knowledge of lofty things, great things, precious and valuable things, nay, our very belief that such things can be, is but a faint memory. It would mean that our religions are but traditional records of a great- ness and a power that was once man's, and of which, in his decline, he deified the possessors. It would also mean that the persistent idea of a personal god, or of personal gods, which has always been instinctive in men of the latest geological epoch, is the correct, true and original idea of godship or divinity, and that the modern vaporous substitutes known as the "Absolute," the "All Pervading," the "First Cause" (whatever this may mean) or the " All," etc., etc., are simply signs of the enormous distance which, increasing every year, separates us from our former greatness. To attempt to replace the idea of a personal god by these vaporous makeshifts, however, is to cut the last link joining us to what was once our highest achievement. Now although other men, among them the greatest thinker and poet of the nineteenth century, Friedrich Nietzsche, have expressed the suspicion that we were in the midst of a decline; except for a highly cultivated aristocrat of French extraction named Joseph de Maistre, of the eighteenth century, no one appears to have been convinced that all savage races of the present day were the degenerate descendants of some higher stock which existed in the past. Joseph de Maistre may be wrong as to this, in a general way, but the fact that he perceived the possibility that man's greatest Age had passed by, is certainly immensely to his credit, as is also his * My friend Dr. G. T. Wrench, in a profound treatise entitled The Mastery of Life, thus aptly called our present condition one of " Gadarene Progress." REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 225 belief that degeneration from the original higher stock was the outcome of a transgression or perversity. He calls it " Une prevarication quelconque"* He implies with the subtle insight of a seer, rather than with the laboured demonstration of a scientific investi- gator, that if man is degraded, ignorant and exposed to evil, it cannot be by accident, but through perversity ; hence his incessant scientific activity may be a devious striving to return to his original lofty state, of which he has only a faint glimmering of a recollection, t Like Nietzsche, de Maistre was therefore of the opinion that the whole of modern mankind is but a disease. J All our histories, all our works of science, almost all our philosophies, however, have hitherto taken the opposite view, the view that the history of mankind consists of a series of steps, leaps and bounds, which, with certain intervals of stability or even slight retrogression, have at last brought us to the glory of the present Alexandrian Age of Science, Art, Culture, Beauty, Health and Prosperity. * Speaking of Rousseau, whom he rightly loathed and despised, and whom he calls " the most dangerous sophist of his century," de Maistre says: " II a constamment pris le sauvage pour 1'hoinme primitif, tandis qu'il n'est et ne peut-etre que le descendant d'un homme detache du grand arbre de la civilisation par une prevarica- tion quelconque, mais d'un genre qui ne peut plus etre repete, autant qu'il m'est permis d'en juger; car je doute qu'il se forme de nouveaux sauvages." Les Soirees de St. Petersbourg (Brussels, 1838), vol. i., p. 57. f Op. cit., p. 60: " Si done 1'homme est sujet a 1'ignorance et au mal, ce ne peut-etre qu'en vertu d'une degradation accidentelle qui ne saurait etre que la suite d'un crime. Ce besoin, cette faim de la science, qui agite l'homme n'est que la tendance naturelle de son etre qui le porte vers son etat primitif, et 1'avertit de ce qu'il est." { Op. cit., p. 61 : " L'homme entier n'est qu'une maladie." 15 226 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS There is no positive evidence for this, on the con- trary, as I have shown, all the evidence points the other way ; but since things change and follow each other with time, and time does not stand still, every one, rejecting the idea of desirable stability, believes that one of two things must be taking place, either progression or retro- gression. Now as the latter alternative is flattering neither to mankind in general, nor to the particular class of men the Prometheans who are chiefly responsible for the sort of civilisation we now possess, the former alternative has been so repeatedly endorsed by modern spirits, that it has come to be regarded almost as axiomatic. The mistake arises out of the conception that there is only one kind of civilisation the Promethean kind and that all past Ages, since the Promethean crime, have been so many imperfect attempts at realising it in all its fulness, and, therefore, that all past Ages, though they are in the same line of descent with the modern Age, were not so highly civilised as the present Age. I hope the error put in this way may become clear to the reader, as it is important that this point should be completely grasped. The error is so general, and at the same time receives so much authoritative support, that it becomes every year more difficult to expose. I will endeavour to make it even more plain. We will imagine humanity through the Ages, simply dressing and undressing, and while so engaged, periodically changing the colour, material, shape and beauty of its garments. This, humanity has actually done, so the simile is perhaps as happy a one as could be chosen. Now I maintain that the error of the modern scientist, philosopher and historian lies in supposing that the REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 227 trousers worn by modern man, because they appear later in point of time than the hose of the sixteenth century, or the breeches of the eighteenth century, are necessarily a development of both, and therefore a higher phase of both, in which the virtues of the hose and the breeches happily coalesce, as it were, in one final and glorious manifestation of their combined individualities, in short, that the hose of the sixteenth and the breeches of the eighteenth centuries were merely blind and clumsy attempts at realising the trousers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Against this I suggest that the hose of the sixteenth and the breeches of the eighteenth centuries have so little in common with the trousers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that any one of the three might easily have preceded the other in order of time, provided that the excessively bad taste of the nineteenth century could be imagined to have existed before it actually did exist. The former are the outcome and creation of a concept of comfort, beauty and utility, so fundamentally opposed to modern ideas that they belong to a totally different culture and civilisation, of which the present civilisation, so far from being a development, seems rather to be a flat contradiction or refutation. To suppose that everything grows by steady and gradual steps out of everything else, is to assume a continuity which by implication is understood to ad- vance from the imperfect to the more perfect. It does not sufficiently allow for the frequently complete arrest, or even reversal of a movement or tendency, or for the initiation of entirely fresh and unprecedented principles owing to the sudden appearance or predominance of a new type of mind. Thus to the historian there is only 228 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS one kind of social order and arrangement, and that he calls " Civilisation," and the latest form of it is always the logical and improved offspring of its preceding forms. I hope the error is now quite plain. It is revealed with singular ingenuousness by Tylor in the following passage : " It is a mere matter of chronicle that modern civilisa- tion is a development of mediaeval civilisation, which again is a development from civilisation of the order presented in Greece, Assyria, Egypt. Thus the higher [note the word ' higher '] being clearly traced back to what may be called the middle culture, the question which remains is, whether this middle culture may be traced back to lower cultures, that is to say savagery."* After all I have said the reader will see immediately that to trace the development of modern civilisation, via mediaeval civilisation, back to the civilisation of Greece, Assyria and Egypt, is about as sensible as to trace the development of the swallow's nest back through the rabbit-warren to the ant-hill. And yet this gross error is being perpetrated with the utmost gravity and pedantry every day, every hour.| One would not complain if the error ended there; for, after all, it would only constitute one stupidity the more in an age coruscating with stupidities. But the danger lies in the inference drawn from the argument. The average reader, after having taken in the passage by Tylor just quoted is tempted to infer that since A * Primitive Culture, vol. i., p. 32. f The only common feature I can see in all the civilisations mentioned is the varying ease with which the Promethean type is able to express itself in each of them. Certainly, in that respect the last, or what Tylor calls the " higher " phase, shows the Pro- methean influence at its maximum. REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 229 developed out of B, and B developed out of C, D and E ; therefore A is an advance on C, D and E. I suggest that A is not of the same nature as C, D and E, and has nothing whatsoever in common with them. In fact A has only the imperfect historical records of C, D and E, and far from being a development of them, it may even be a contradiction of them, a reversal of them, an unconscious parody of them, or a whole cultural league or two behind them. It is true that the late Dr. Creighton, Bishop of London, frankly admits that the progressive idea in history is an assumption; but why he believes this assumption to be compulsory, I cannot think.* The fact that in most myths the beginning of a decline is distinctly recorded; the fact, moreover, that this inception of a downward movement is connected in two of the most important myths of European peoples with a type of man which I call " Promethean " owing to the name given to the chief actor in the Greek aspect of the Degeneration Drama, points to this exceedingly interest- ing speculation : that survival values are possibly of two kinds, and not of one kind, and that civilisations differ from one another and follow one another in motley array, according to the type of man who happens to prevail at their inception, and subject to the kind of survival values observed by the generations of men responsible for them. * See Cambridge Modern History, vol. i., p. 4: " We are bound to assume, as the scientific hypothesis on which history is to be written, a progress in human affairs. This progress must inevitably be towards some end; and we find it difficult to escape from the temptation, while we keep that end in view, of treating certain events as landmarks on the road. A mode of historical presentation thus comes into fashion based upon an inspiring assumption." 230 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS This suggestion could long ago have been read from Herbert Spencer, Darwin, or Nietzsche, or from any of the more enlightened philosophers or evolutionists. The fact that it has not been read from the works of these men shows the degree of blindness with which we are heading towards our ignominious fate. Let me explain what I mean when I say that survival values are of two kinds. In order to survive, a race must not commit suicide and it must procreate. It must also tend and succour the young, and its male members must not take advan- tage of their superior strength in order to exterminate the females. Consequently we arrive at these four fundamental values of survival : 1. Suicide is bad. 2. Procreation is good. 3. Succour and care of young is good. 4. The extermination of females is bad. If any one of these survival values be persistently disobeyed by any race, it obviously cannot survive. These are not the only survival values, but they are among the most vital. Now what is immediately noticeable about these values ? Surely the feature that chiefly characterises them is that survival alone is their object, not a particular kind of life, but simply life is the goal. That is why they may be accurately described as merely vital survival values. All values, then, which aim at a survival of life alone, and not of a particular kind of life, we may for con- venience' sake call " vital-survival-values." REFLECTIONS ON THE FOEEGOING 231 But there is obviously another kind of survival value. In order to survive, alone, it may be necessary to sacri- fice something desirable, something noble, something beautiful. A desirable feature, or a noble feature, or even a beautiful feature, may, without making survival impossible, render it at least more difficult of achieve- ment. It may therefore be easier, in the course of ages, for a race to abandon a desirable, a noble, or a beautiful feature, in order to simplify the problem of survival. And if there are no severe values forbidding such abandonment of desirable characteristics, these charac- teristics, owing to the temptation to follow the line of least resistance, run a considerable risk of being dropped on the way. Thus as Spencer points out: " Superiority, whether in size, strength, activity, or sagacity, is, other things equal, at the cost of diminished fertility ; and where the life led by a species does not demand these higher attributes, the species profits by decrease of them, and accompany- ing increase of fertility . . . very often that which, humanly speaking, is inferiority, causes the survival."* This profoundly interesting passage brings out clearly what I am trying to show. Survival may mean aban- doning, for convenience' sake, some form of superiority."]" That is why, in Chapter VII., I showed, in opposition to the vulgar assumption of modernity, that success was * Collected Essays, vol. i., p. 379. Twelve years ago, in my Who is to be Master of the World ? p. 91, I called attention to this most important passage in Herbert Spencer's works. It is the most illuminating paragraph ever penned by an evolutionist. f In order to survive, all commercial and industrial communities in England, Germany and America, for instance, had to abandon the ideal of nobility and frequently even the actual practice of honesty. 232 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS not by any means always a sign of superiority. It is only in an age when ignorance and tastelessness coincide in forming opinion, that success, which may necessitate the abandonment of a desirable quality, is always identified with superiority. So we come to the conclusion that there is another kind of survival value to be considered. In other words, the question which each race of men, and each man individually, has to answer is not merely: what must I do to survive ? but also, what must I do if I wish to survive in a particular a desirable fashion ? There are aesthetic-survival- values, then, besides vital- survival-values. If a race wish to survive as an example of quality, it must not abandon certain aesthetic or spiritual attributes it possesses, in order to make survival more easy, otherwise it declines in rank, in preciousness, in worth. In order to survive as beautiful, intelligent and well- constituted men, a race must not indulge in occupations, practices or pursuits that maim, deform or disfigure the contours of their bodies or of their faces ; they must not set themselves, generation after generation, labours and problems which are beneath their standard of intelligence and character ; they must not indulge in unhealthy work or pursuits. Consequently we arrive at these three further funda- mental values of survival : 1. Deforming, maiming or disfiguring work is bad. 2. Mental and other occupations of a standard com- mensurate with the general level of intelligence and character, and not beneath it, are good. 3. Unhealthy occupations, practices or pursuits, are bad. REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 233 These are not the only survival values relating to the preservation of possessions other than life itself, but they are among the more important. If any one of these survival values be persistently disobeyed, though the race may find survival easier, it will decline either in beauty, intelligence, character, or health. If all these survival values be persistently disobeyed, degeneration will rapidly supervene. All values, then, which aim, not at a survival of life alone, but at a survival of a certain kind of life, we may for convenience' sake call " aesthetic-survival- values," to distinguish them from mere " vital-survival-values." When, therefore, life has multiplied on earth to such a great extent, that we may reckon in certain areas, as in England, Germany and Belgium for instance, that there has been an increase of several hundreds per cent, in the population within a century, and that concurrently with this increase there has been a marked decline in beauty, health, character and intelligence, we are justi- fied in suspecting that vital-survival-values have been obeyed and observed to the exclusion of aesthetic- survival- values. If, now, we enquire what influences have been active in bringing about this exclusive observance of vital- survival-values, and we confine our attention to Western Europe, and all tracts of country like Western Europe, we are forced to the conclusion that the immense in- crease in population which, beginning 250 years ago, reached its highest point of speed during the last century, has occurred under the influence of a certain very definite attitude towards life. As I have shown elsewhere,* the changes ushered in * See my Defence of Aristocracy. 234 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS by the Reformation, and subsequently by the Puritan Rebellion in England, were changes deliberately and consciously pursued by a perfectly definite class of men, a class of men, chiefly commercial and industrial, who. with the new notion of accumulating profit, as opposed to the former idea of procuring a competence or simple livelihood, exploited every kind of national resource, even their fellow-countrymen, for their own base ends. The object was to heap up ever and ever greater hoards of material gain, either in actual cash, in solid possession, or land ; and in the general stampede to achieve this end, a stampede by no means over yet, no one, not even the Established Church,* moved a finger to protect the masses who were the victims of it. I showed also that a curious coincidence of interests occurred between these commercial and industrial in- novators and the Puritans, owing to the fact that each in his own way was inclined to ignore the claims of the body. The Puritan and the commercial and industrial innovator were, moreover, frequently one and the same person. The Puritan with his conviction that the things of body belonged to the Devil, was prone to discount the im- portance of food, drink, good spirits, beauty and bodily contentment. Frequently he was actively hostile both to beauty and bodily charm because both constituted a lure to life, to the joys of life, and particularly to the joys of sex. The commercial and industrial innovator, on the * Until the Salvation Army gave the lead, the clergy of the Church of England, who come from the possessing classes and are hand in glove with them, looked on unmoved while the grossest crimes were being committed against the men, women and children of the working masses. It was not a Church movement, as one might have expected, but an aristocrat who first agitated for the protection and care of women and children in factories. REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 235 other hand, with his ruthless determination to exploit for the purposes of gain and " Progress " every means of production available, including his fellow-creatures, could scarcely respect the importance of health, good food, good spirits, beauty and bodily well-being, among the men, women and children he used in his produc- tion, without severely complicating and retarding the machinery by which he obtained his yield of profits. High spirits and exuberant health were even directly opposed to his schemes, for how could he expect human beings possessed of high spirits and exuberant health to submit to office or factory life ? In addition, the inventing engineer, whose one thought was to supply the eager manufacturer with ever more efficient and more rapid methods of making a good turn- over, never so much as gave a thought to the moral, physical or aesthetic consequences of the innovations he unscrupulously foisted upon the world. And what was worse, there was nobody in a high place to call this smart accessory of Progress to his senses, nobody who thought of doing so, nobody who deemed it was necessary to do so. Thus was formed that infernal trinity which, with its eyes concentrated greedily upon output and returns, disregarded absolutely the claims of humanity, and did not even know of the existence of sesthetic-survival- values.* * The blind advocate of this unholy trinity, and one whose books are a blot on English literature, because in this case stupidity is criminal, was the pompous and enthusiastic nineteenth-century writer, Samuel Smiles, who with resolute vulgarity wrote the Mag- nificats of the Engineers. He was a doctor and a railway director, he was also editor-in-chief of the Leeds Times ; but whatever else he may have been, he was certainly one of the most incurable old senti- mentalists the nineteenth century ever produced, and that is placing him high in the hierarchy of nonsense. 236 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS What took place in England and later in the whole of Western Europe, after the close of the seventeenth cen- tury, however, was only an acute and rapid development of what had been growing and spreading slowly but surely all over the Western World ever since the original Promethean crime. For it is characteristic of Prome- theus and all Prometheans, that they pursue their so- called " Progress " without any regard to aesthetic-sur- vival-values. Their only check, their only deterrent, verily the only brake on their cruel, thoughtless wheel, which always rolls downhill to degeneration and death, is the number of Dionysians there are to oppose them.* All essentially Promethean civilisations, even when their severity is mitigated by the presence of strong Dionysian elements, have this tendency, then, that they ignore sesthetic-survival-values altogether. We have seen what this led to in the Greeks of the prehistoric era, and how faithfully the disasters which supervened are recorded in the myths. We know what it has led to in England, and all countries like England, and how dearly we are paying now, and shall have to pay in the future, for the deteriora- * One of the chief factors in assisting the Promethean type to attain to supremacy in Europe during the last 2,000 years has been, of course, the ascendancy of Christian values. Provided a man, woman or child has faith, and earnestly strives to have a pure soul, Christianity takes no notices of their bodies. Neither does Christianity present any check to the marriage and multiplica- tion of undesirable people. In fact, it resembles Prometheanism in this, that it takes no cognisance of sesthetic-survival-values. Christianity (not of the Protestant brand), however, does allow of certain Dionysian principles. It was the Church, for instance, that throughout the Middle Ages spread the culture of the vine, and the drinking'lof wine, all over heathen Europe. The gardens around monasteries produced the first vineyards in a very large number of localities. REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 237 tion of the bodies, the characters, the health and the brains of the proletariat, as the result of the besotting and devitalising duties to which an ultra-Promethean civilisa- tion has condemned them. On September 12th, 1918, Mr. Lloyd George spoke as follows at Manchester: " We have a Ministry of National Service and carefully compiled statistics of the health of the people between the ages of eighteen and forty- two. Now that is the age of fitness, the age of strength. You have three grades, L, II., and III., and all I can tell you is that the results of these examinations are startling, and I do not mind using the word appalling. I hardly dare tell you the results. The number of Grade II. and Grade III. men throughout the country is prodigious."* Since that speech was delivered, the Ministry of National Service have published a report giving details of the physical examination of men of military age by National Service Medical Boards. Of about 2,500,000 men of military age examined between November, 1917, and October, 1918, only 36 per cent, could be regarded as up to the normal standard of health and strength for their age, and more than 10 per cent, were judged as totally and permanently unfit for any form of military service. ;< This," as the Daily News expressed it, " means that only one man in three was found to be normally healthy, and that one man in ten was a physical wreck, "f This is bad enough, particularly as everybody has known for at least fifty years that if we continued in early nineteenth-century errors little else could be ex- pected. But what really does take one's breath away is * See The Times, September 13th, 1918. f See the Daily News, February 28th, 1920, from whose report on the Government publication most of these facts and figures have been taken. 238 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS to find the compilers of this report referring to the con- clusions which are to be drawn from their depressing state- ments as " the nature and extent of the ravages upon the health and physique of our manhood which the pro- gress[!] of civilisation during the nineteenth century has brought in its train. ' ' No better evidence could be found for the misuse of that unfortunate word Progress. The customary retort to this kind of argument is usually: " Oh, but you want to set the clock back. You cannot set the clock back !" This remark, usually uttered with the most solemn conviction by the modern man, who regards you, while he pronounces it, with a look of such complete triumph that it is impossible to credit him even with sane doubts as to its wisdom, is, of course, only another sign of the progressive stupidity which is noticeable on all sides. Let us analyse this remark : To begin with, it is based entirely upon an unfounded assumption. To argue that because a man alleges that Prometheanism is wrong, he therefore wishes to " set the clock back," is to assume that a Promethean civilisa- tion is the only civilisation. This, as we know, how- ever, and as we have seen, is not true. To assume that a Promethean civilisation is the only civilisation, is equivalent to maintaining, as I have shown, that sesthetic- survival- values are not practicable; therefore, that de- generation is a fatality, an ineluctable destiny, something that we cannot avert or arrest. But Dionysians stoutly deny that degeneration is inevitable. They regard the very claim that degeneration is inevitable only as one of the many lame apologies advanced by the Promethean after he has thoroughly degraded the world. Secondly, the remark is based upon ignorance of what REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 239 has been achieved in the past. To argue that because a man alleges that Prometheanism is wrong, he therefore wishes to set the clock back, is to assume that Pro- metheanism has set the clock forward, that is to say, that there has been something more than mere change, complication and degradation, since Prometheanism became supreme, that there has actually been " Pro- gress " or " advancement." Advancement in what ? Advancement towards what ? Is humanity happier, healthier, more pleasing to look at ? Is intelligence greater : has character become more admirable ? These are the very directions in which marked degradation is to be observed. I have shown that the wave of man's " advancement " reached its zenith when the gods walked on earth. How can the Promethean claim to have set the clock forward ? The very claim that Prometheanism is wrong, and that it is wrong is being discovered in the greatest variety of ways by almost everybody to-day, may indeed amount to setting the clock forward (if the phrase has any meaning at all, which I doubt). Forward to what ? Forward to an era when Prometheanism will be controlled, sub- ordinated, subjugated, managed. Thirdly, for some reason dishonestly withheld by him who makes it, this remark implies that " back," " setting the clock back," is necessarily something prohibited or impracticable. There is a deceitful innuendo in the remark, the result of the false analogy between a set of wheels constituting a piece of clockwork and a civilisa- tion (the two, as a matter of fact, have nothing except their initial letter and the letter L in common) which leads the unfortunate debater, to whom it is said, to be- lieve, if he be unwary, that seeing that setting the clock 240 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS back is an absolutely futile thing to do, therefore a civilisation cannot be saved, or changed, by the revival or reimposition of some principle or attitude to life which belongs to the past. The falseness of the analogy is obvious at once when put in this light ; but, as I have said, the solemn modern sage who makes the remark, " You cannot set the clock back," pronounces it with such bland and truculent conviction, that, unless he be on his guard, his opponent is reduced to reluctant and rancorous silence. Thus, it is plain that this remark does credit neither to him who makes it, nor to him who allows it to con- found him. And yet such is the low level of intellectual development of our day, that there is scarcely one man in a thousand in modern Europe who will not make use of this remark in opposing a bitter, pitiless and offensive controversialist like myself; and not one in five thousand who will not expect me to be utterly defeated by it. It is the suggestion that a backward movement is necessarily a useless movement, however, which is the error involved in this remark. Setting the clock back is known to be useless unless it be done in the case of a clock that is fast. But all " going back " is not useless. For instance, an invalid may get back to the health which he enjoyed in former years. A hypochondriac may go back to the cheerfulness which was his in adole- scence. An insolvent firm may go back to the prosperity which was its pride in a previous generation. In short, man can reculer pour mieux sauter. If a diversity of human types be admitted as a fact, and it seems difficult to deny that there is such a diver- sity, then, according to the conditions favouring either one type or another, a generation may be either prosper- REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 241 ous, healthy and wise, or indigent, unhealthy and stupid. Going back, therefore, to the habits, outlook and virtues of a former generation, does not necessarily constitute a retrograde step: it may constitute a distinct advance. When, therefore, I deny the validity of the objection contained in the popular but foolish phrase, " You can- not set the clock back," I merely wish to emphasise the importance of enquiring what kind of man, what type of maip., is responsible for our present civilisation, and whether there is not a better civilisation to which we might return, if the supremacy of a different type could be encouraged and cultivated. And it must not be sup- posed that this other type would necessarily be hostile to science or to discovery; it would, however, promote science and discovery in a different way, with at least a careful observance of sesthetic-survival-values, for in- stance; and would never consent, as the Prometheans have repeatedly done, to the sacrifice of humanity to " Progress."* * This is obviously what de Maistre means in the following passage. He also is not an anti-scientist, but he believes in a " different " science: " Ecoutez la sage antiquite," he says, " sur le compte des premiers hommes : elle vous dira que ce furent des hommes merveil- leux, et que des etres d'un ordre superieure daignaient les favoriser des plus precieuses communications. Sur ce point il n'a pas de dissonnance; les inities, les phflosophes, les poetes, 1'histoire, la fable, L'Asie et PEurope n'ont qu'une voix. Un tel accord de la raison, de la revelation, et de toutes les traditions humaines, forme une demonstration que la bouche seule peut contredire. Non seulement done les hommes ont commence par la science, mais par une science differente de la n6tre, et superieure a la n6tre, parce qu'elle commengait plus haut," op. cit., p. 68. When one remembers that this was written over a hundred years ago, the sentiment prompting it appears all the more admirable. Les Soirees de St. Peter sbourg, though conceived in 1806, was published only a few days after de Maistre's death in 1821. 16 242 MAN'S DESCENT FEOM THE GODS The necessity of enquiring earnestly into the type which is predominant to-day, however, has become all the more pressing in view of certain recent developments in Western civilisation, which lead one strongly to sus- pect that a certain old enemy of man, feeling his power more secure than it has ever been before, has now deter- mined upon an extreme venture. From the very nature of his latest move, apart from the other signs of his identity, we suspect the Pro- metheans to be behind this new movement; for it is radically anti-Dionysian both in its intention and its measures. In plain English, the Prohibition campaign, both in America and this country, is simply an attempt to fling us back into the grey misery of a Promethean civilisation, without either the solace or the therapeutic safeguards of the doctrine of Dionysus. It is a further proof, if any were needed, of the unde- viating consistency with which a type pursues its object, undeterred by considerations or thoughts alien to the class of mind with which it is endowed ; and it behoves all those who recognise the danger of the movement, not only to fight it wholeheartedly, but also to set in question the whole nature of the supremacy which has led to its partial success. If I understand aright what has taken place in America, it is this: an inhuman calculation has been undertaken by the heads of industry and commerce there, for there are no other " heads " in the United States. Sitting in solemn conclave, with their attention concentrated, as described above, only upon output and turnover, and upon the best means of increasing both, the human factor in their infernal processes of produc- REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 243 tion has been treated only as a cog in a machine, as a necessary evil with which one has to reckon only on the basis of profit and loss. No sesthetic-survival-values ever for one instant troubled the mind of an American. Even after reading this chapter, he would not under- stand what the term meant. And then a curious phenomenon was discovered. It amounted to this : that those human machines who were not vitiated by poison- ous modern " commercial " beers, or alcoholic beverages, worked best. At least this was alleged ; and, in view of the potency of the poisons which profiteers, American and otherwise, do sell as intoxicating liquor, it is not surprising. This momentous discovery would, you might have thought, have led to a rigorous enquiry into the reason why modern " commercial " beers and alcoholic beverages are poisonous, or at best neither invigorating nor inspiriting. At least it might have led to an attempt to defeat the evil at its root, which is the corruption and inhuman profiteering on the part of the producers of the people's drinks. Not a bit of it ! This is indeed how men would have behaved who had the welfare of humanity at heart, who knew the many benefits, both spiritual and physical, which good ale and good wine could confer ; and who were conscientiously endeavouring to observe and apply sesthetic-survival- values in their own country. But these magnates of industry, hence the tragic futility of a business government, are never concerned with humanity. Nothing and no one ever defiled by Prometheanism, ever is concerned with humanity. They were concerned with a very different object, an object very remote indeed from sesthetic-survival- values : it was the result known as business and industrial 244 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS efficiency. No matter whether character, soul, spirit, beauty or health were ultimately undermined by the besotting labours which this greater efficiency was ex- pected to speed up, what have character, soul, spirit, beauty or health to do with output and return ? The object was not that humanity should be made more dignified, more noble, more beautiful, more worthy of its great past; but that the majority of the workmen should have their last vestige of remaining health and sanity preserved from the poisonous concoctions of these magnates' unscrupulous counterparts in the liquor trade ; because blood-poisoning would constitute an extra obstacle in the road to efficiency. Hence the Prohibition Laws. What was the alternative ? Reform the liquor trade, so that the liquor absorbed by the mass of the people might recover those in- vigorating, health-promoting, health-protecting and in- spiriting qualities that it once possessed ? Certainly not ! This would be worse than the status quo ante ; this, above all things, must be avoided ! Why? Because people who are spirited, healthy, bright, vigorous, and bold, and confident with that inner con- tentment and inner warmth, created ever since the Promethean crime only by good, wholesome, fermented liquor, such people are not abject, they are difficult to dragoon, to enslave, and above all to abuse. Such people do not tolerate for long the jading and besotting high speed of an efficient modern factory; they too strongly resemble the old peasantry of England, the redoubtable bowmen of England, who were the terror of the Continent the men who stood and conquered when REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 245 they were but one to fifteen at Poictiers and one to five at Agincourt. Such men must be led, they will not be driven. They must be mastered by an appeal to their imaginations and their understanding; they cannot be mustered by the shriek of a siren. No, this would be worse than the status quo ante ; this above all things must be avoided ! The fact that this heartless and anti-Dionysian con- clusion should have been reached in the United States of America can surprise no one. What are the United States of America ? Apart from the worthier elements which constitute quite a small minority, I mean the non- Puritanical colonists of Elizabeth's and the early Stuarts' reigns, the backbone of the population consists of the descendants of renegade Puritans of the seventeenth century (who fled their country for their country's good) reinforced by the slave-drivers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and mixed with the blood of all the people of Europe and Asia. What is their principal achievement ? Is it Art ? Letters ? Philo- sophy ? Learning ? No, it is Machinery ! Puritanism, slave-driving and machinery, the three characteristic features of all late Promethean civilisations. Verily this can be no morbid hallucination, no empty spook, this alleged hostility of the Promethean type to mortals. I have traced it now from prehistoric times, through the bedimmed and faded records of the Greek myths, down to our own seventeenth, eighteenth and particularly nineteenth centuries. The records of other civilisations, like those of the Chinese, the Egyptians, the Hindus, the Babylonians, the Incas of Peru, are accessible 246 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS now, and the balance struck in all these cultures, between the Promethean and the Dionysian types, can be seen and learnt by all who wish to do so. It will be observed that others have succeeded where we have most signally failed, in checking, controlling, correcting and averting the worst consequences of the Promethean type's thoughtless clamour for complexity without discipline, for " Progress " without order or desirability, and for mere change without any genuine and lasting advantage ; and while it may be impossible and even inexpedient to imitate these other civilisations in their results and actual fruits, it is always possible at least to emulate them in their spirit and their aims, and to begin at once by suspecting the plausible and still dazzling claims of our triumphant Prometheans. For Prometheanism is implacable because it is uncon- scious ; it is persistent, because it repeats itself not as a policy but as a type; it is pitiless, because it believes that it is the highest manifestation of the human species on earth in all ages, and that its predominance cannot therefore fail to be the design of the Almighty; finally, it is elusive, because it is too innocent in its devilry, too well-meaning in its dangerous stupidity, and too theatrical in its result, ever to have the whole front of its millions of victims actively opposed to it. If the situation were hopeless, however, I should have served but a very doubtful purpose in writing this essay. The history that I have related contains at least two instances of the defeat of the Prometheans' most nefarious schemes by two mighty figures who have come down to us under the names of Zeus and Dionysus. As I have said, from time to time, at certain turning-points in human history, when things have become not only REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 247 too intolerable to continue, but actually too impossible to last, it is the Dionysians who have hitherto produced men who were called upon to set right the diabolical muddles to which the Prometheans and their vices have always given rise. It may be confidently expected, therefore, that the Dionysians will not fail us when the great turning-point reappears again: but that this turning-point does not seem as if it could be very far off, though signs of a coming Saviour are not immediately discernible, are facts that even the most optimistic Promethean himself could not very well venture to deny. "It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to plant the germ of his highest hope. " His soil is still rich enough for that purpose. But that soil will one day be too poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow thereon." Thus Spake Zarathustra. INDEX ADAM: a Promethean, 218; because he hearkened to the voice of his wife, 219 ^Eschylus: his Prometheus Bound, 27; regarded as responsible for portraying Prometheus as a blameless hero, 35; the fallacy of this view, 35, 36; only one play of his trilogy survives, 37; knew of the vast antiquity of the gods, 173, 184 Alcohol: not bad for the human body, 150; percentage of, in modern drinks, 151 Ale: its value in old England and ancient Egypt, 152; thought as necessary as bread by our fore- fathers, 153; kept our ancestors healthy and sexually potent, 155; a powerful anti-scorbutic, 157; valuable properties of, 160 America: the home of the worst cooks, 84; abounds in Prome- theans, 221; abandoned nobility and honesty in order to survive, 231 .; leaders of , interested only in output and turnover, 242; and never concerned with huma- nity, 243; the land of Puritanism, slave-driving and machinery, 245 Ancestor worship: the root of religion, 23 Aristotle: on honey and wine, 144 Arnold, Matthew: protested against nineteenth century optimism, 68 Artist: superseded by the clumsy scientist in Protestant countries, 84 Aryans: mixed with the Cro-Mag- nons, 183, 184, 209; their anti- quity, 183, 208; a brachycephalic race, 182, 184; the possible reason for the superiority of the Greek branch of, 210 n. Atlas: the brother of Prometheus, 25, 45; the supporter of the heavens, 45; came to a bad end, 49 Bacchantes: description of, 165 Belgium: marked decline in health and beauty with increase of population, 233 Bell, Dr. Robert: on relationship of diet to cancer, 85; on killing the vital element in food by cooking, 86; his insistence on uncooked food, 87 Blackie, J. B.: unable to explain seeming injustice to Prometheus, 32 ; his insight, 37 Brain: large size of, in Cro-Magnon race, 181, 189, 190, 191, 192; a large, a sign of superiority, 191, 192 Broadmindedness: means degener- acy if it leads to cross-breeding, 49 Browning: his class the only one that nourished in the nineteenth century, 68 Bushmen: did not boil food, 207 Butter: rich in vitamines, 94 Byron: worshipped Prometheus as a boy, 33; his schoolboy concep- tion of Prometheus, 33; failed to grasp Greek view of Prome- theus, 34; protested against nineteenth century optimism, 68; on the fall of man, 74 Caesar, Julius: account of the Druids, 9 Cancer: increase of, 88 n.; due to cooking food, 108 Cannibalism: wrongly interpreted as a sun myth, 16; practised by modern Eskimos, 17; practised 248 INDEX 249 on account of human flesh being the best food for men, 17 Carlyle: stupidly honoured by the nineteenth century, 65 Catholic Church: her wisdom re- garding food, 82; the storehouse of mediaeval and ancient wisdom, 83; her moderate view regarding butcher meat, 88; had certain Dionysian principles and spread culture of vine, 236 n. Children: their alleged innocence the foolish belief of English Protestants and old maids, 4 Chinese: wine drinkers till the fifteenth century, 156; their re- fusal to adopt new discoveries, 176; believe their ancestors were better than themselves, 186 w. Christ: compared with Prome- theus, 32 Christian: does not question his god's justice in punishing the fallen angels, 2; his difficulty in explaining the " sons of god " and "giants," 46; the nineteenth- century optimists, 68 Christianity: growing indifference of proletariat to, 68; radically Puritanical, 135, 136; resembles Prometheanism in ignoring aes- thetic-survival-values, 236 n. Church of England: her indifference to the degradation of the masses, 234 Civilisation: responsible for cancer, 88 n.; fortunately does not necessarily mean mechanical de- vices, disease and female suffrage and suffering, 206; the Prome- thean, erroneously supposed to be the only kind, 226; does not necessarily develop from lower to higher, 228; varies according to the type of man producing it, 229 Clock: "setting it back," a falla- cious argument, 238-241 Cobbett: protested against nine- teenth-century optimism, 68 Coffee: a harmful drug, 158; con- tains no vitamines, 159 n. Cooking: a process not dictated by Nature, 81 ; Dr. Bell on, 86-89 ; Dr. Hutchinson on, 90 n.; harm- fuhiess of process when repeated often on same product, 92; may be fatal, 93; effect of, on vita- mines, 101 et seq.; the easiest form of, and its relation to pottery, 112; on the Somme, 112; stewing the easiest form of, 113; stone-cooking, 113 n. ; restric- tions imposed in regard to, 206- 208 Cro-Magnons: probably the race from which the gods of Wes- tern and Near Eastern religions sprang, 181, 182; mixed with the Aryans, 183, 184; god of the Jews and Christians prob- ably a Cro-Magnon, 185, 219; infinitely superior to modern man, 185; the discovery of, a revelation to anthropologists, 188; the superior brain of, 189, 190, 192; probably exterminated owing to their superiority, 194; the superiority of their art, 195, 196; pregnant women frequent in their art, 196; their simple Me of hunting, feasting, art and love, 200; their chivalrous and noble nature, 201; their invention of writing, 201; their deliberate refusal to adopt futile complications, 202, 203, 205; exterminated by overwhelming numbers, 210; deified by ances- tors of the Greeks, 211 Cronus: mutilates Uranus, 5 Cross-breeding: effects of, 45; des- troys character, 47; depravity resulting from, 49 Darwin: on the effects of cross- breeding, 45 Deification: instances of, 19 n.; of conquerors, 42 Demeter: restores Dionysus to life, 134 Devil: see Satan Dietetics: the necessary creation of Protestantism, 83 Dionysia: the first celebration of the, 164; some unsatisfactory ex- planations of, 166, 167, 168; a new explanation of, 169, 170 250 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS Dionysian type: description of, 178, 179; all gods, saviours, angels, etc., belong to the, 179; masters women, 214; and makes them happy, 217; the only check against Promethean vul- garity, 236; stoutly denies inevi- tability of degeneration, 238; can alone save mankind from Promethean muddle, 247 Dionysus: the Saviour, 118, 170; his ancestry, 119; his miraculous birth, 120; torn in pieces by the Titans, 120; came later than Prometheus, 121; his epithets, 121, 136, 137; the god of " vita- mines," 122; his worship intro- duced from Thrace, 123; taught the use of fermented liquor, 124; why he was called the son of Zeus, 124; a divinity resulting from ancestor worship, 125; saved from fire, 126, 128; the "twice born," 127; Lord of Trees, 129; the discoverer of honey, 129; nursed by nymphs, 130; fed on honey, 130 .; his travels, 131 ; opposition to his doctrine, 132; a beneficent deity, 133; hostile to the Titans, 133; and torn in pieces by them, 133; restored to life by Rhea and Demeter, 134; the Saviour and healer, 135; the doctor, 141; taught use of honey, 142; his remedies, honey, fruit and raw meat, 142; eater of raw meat, 146, 147; served only by women and the reason why, 164; neces- sary in a Promethean civilisation, 171; the enemies of, the most savage enemies of mankind, 171 Diseases: of occupation, 70 n. Dodona: oak -forest at, 130 Druids: their cultivation of me- mory, 9 Drunkenness: due to adulteration of liquor, 152; never a serious evil in old England and Greece, 153, 154 Engineers: honoured in Westmin- ter Abbey, 69; have no regard for the moral and aesthetic con- sequences of their unscrupulous innovations, 235; the blind advo- cate of, 235 n. England: the home of the worst cooks, 84; abounds in Prome- theans, 221; to survive had to abandon nobility and honesty, 231 n; marked decline in health and beauty with increase of population, 233; the old pea- santry of, formidable because they drank wholesome ale, 244 Epimetheus: the brother of Pro- metheus, 25; marries Pandora, 28; almost half-witted, 49 Eskimos: their cannibalism, 17; eaters of raw meat, 106; Eve: eats of the Tree of Know- ledge, 212; the first fatal instance of woman's taste lessness, 218 Fermented liquor: its high value as food, 149, 156; essential to high civilisations, 157; the valu- able properties of, 159 Fire: stolen by Prometheus, 1 et passim : withheld by Zeus, 55; fetched in fennel stalk, 56; granted by Zeus on wise terms, 57; produced by friction, 59; not an unmixed blessing, 75; introduced agriculture and in- dustry, 76; ills resulting from, 76-80; destroys food value, 88, 89; destroys vitamines, 100; date of discovery of, 173-177; restricted use among savages, 205; often coveted and stolen by inferior races, 208 Food: harmed by fire, 80-82; ignorance regarding, 81 ; the wisdom of the Catholic Church regarding, 82; better uncooked, 87-90; the poisonousness of twice- cooked, 92 Frazer, Sir James: interpretation of the mutilations, 6 n. Frederick the Great: restorer of order, 50 Germany: the home of the worst cooks, 84; had to abandon nobility and honesty in order to survive, 231 n.; marked decline INDEX 251 in health and beauty with in- 1 crease of population, 233 Giants: mentioned in the Bible, 46; I their depravity, 48 God: the sons of, marry the daugh- ters of men, 43 Gods: deified conquerors, 43; were cultured strangers, 44; probably tall, 44; belief in personal, correct, 224 Goethe: his atheistic view of Pro- metheus, 33, 34; failed to grasp Greek attitude to Prometheus, 34 Golden Age: longing for, 73; pre- ceded the fall of man, 74 Gorilla: and his kind possibly the degenerate descendants of men, 187 Greeks: their remote ancestors probably cannibals, 17; and guilty of incest, 22; regarded Prometheus as the founder of civilisation, 26; accepted Pro- metheus myth humbly without understanding, 31 ; their love of Zeus, 35, 36; did not worship Prometheus, 36; and regarded his punishment as deserved, 36; trusted Zeus, 38; deified superior race, 65; did not regard Zeus as responsible for their civilisation, 69; would have been staggered at belief that a good god was responsible for modern civilisa- tion, 70; our predecessors in stupidity but wiser than our- selves, 71; their pessimism, 198, 199; their remote ancestors mingled with Cro-Magnons; hence their superiority, 210 Health: appalling state of national, 237 Heaven: believed in because it is pleasant, 140 n. Hellenes: see Greeks Hera: her jealousy of Semele, 125, 126 Heracles: releases Prometheus, 51, 117, 118 Hesiod: his fidelity to tradition, 29; his veneration of Zeus, 36; on the decline of men, 72; on the Iron Age, 72; his pessimism, 73 Honey : use of, discovered and taught by Dionysus, 142 ; used as a medi- cine by antiquity, 143, 144, 145; the food of the gods, 145 Human flesh: the best food for men, 171 Human sacrifice: in time of The- mistocles, 167 n. Influenza: a deficiency disease, 110 Iron Age: Hesiod on, 72 Jehovah: probably a Cro-Magnon, 211 . Kuhn: his interpretation of the Prometheus myth, 39, 40; An- drew Lang's objection to his theory, 40 Lang, Andrew: does not attempt to explain Zeus's anger against Prometheus, 2; regards the mu- tilations as too abominable to explain, 6 n. ; shows hopeless disagreement of scholars, 6 n.; his objection to Kuhn's theory, 40 Lloyd George: on appalling state of national health, 237 Luther: translates giants as tyrants, 46 Lyell, Sir Charles: an eminent Promethean, 203 ; his admiration of ridiculous complications, 204 Madness: usually ascribed to crea- tive genius, 131 Maistre, Joseph de: his belief that modern man is a disease, 225; his belief in the superior science of antiquity, 241 Man: fall of, 74; his " Gadarene Progress " to degeneration, 224 Margarine: deficient in vitamines, 94 Max Mii Her: his false interpreta- tions of myths, 17, 18; regards unsavoury myths as the disease overtaking religious ideas, 22 Mecone: the meeting at, 26, 29, 30, 54; the meeting at, probably 252 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS not religious, 53; the dispute at, 55 Memory: modern disbelief in, 7; bad, the feature distinguishing modern man from animals and the ancients, 8; bad, one of the unmistakable signs of progress, 8; robust, of the ancients, 9; impaired by writing, 9; historical facts preserved by, 10; instances of long, 11, 12; stronger the further we recede from the age of print, 12 Menoetius: the brother of Prome- theus, 25; came to a bad end, 49 Mill, John Stuart: stupidly honoured by the nineteenth century, 65; a henpecked Pro- methean, 122 Mousterians: the remote ancestors of the Cro-Magnons, 205 Murray, Gilbert: leaves the mutila- tion in the Uranus -Cronus myth aside, 5, 6 Muses: the daughters of Memory, Iff*. Mutilation: in the Uranus-Cronus myth, 5; its interpretation essen- tial to understanding the myth, 6; Sir James Frazer's interpre- tation of, 6 n. ; reason of, 50 Myths: anything obscure or ob- scene in them conveniently ig- nored by modernity, 4; should be approached reverently, 7; probably records of actual occur- rences, 14; not to be interpreted as personifications of natural phenomena, 15 Napoleon: restorer of order, 50; never heartily loved by any woman, 215 Nietzsche: on the fall of man, 74; his belief that man is in a decline, 224 Nineteenth Century: the Alexan- drian Age of Stupidity, 64; its abuse of everything noble, 64; enough to make working -classes atheists, 65; honourable to de- part from beliefs of, 65 ; regarded gutter-smartness as superiority, 65; misery during, 67; its foolish belief that everything new is an improvement, 67; its resolute optimism Christian optimism, 67; its gross errors of diet, 92; pro- duced incurable old sentimental- ists, 235 n. Noah: his immaculate pedigree, 48; planted the vine, 142 Nomadic life: ended by discovery of fire, 76; illness due to aban- donment of, 76 Nymphs: nursed Dionysus, 130 Odin: mingling of races after his immigration, 47 Pandora: wife of Prometheus and Epimetheus, 25; creation of, 28; her casket of evils, 114; the first fatal instance of woman's tastlessness, 218 Pelmanism: reason for sudden vogue of, 8 Pessimism: due to ill-health, 198 Phallus: carried by virgins in the Dionysia, 137; the meaning of, in the Dionysia, 161-165 Plague: the great, probably due to Puritan's interference with ale, 149 n. Poets : their obtuseness with regard to Prometheus, 33 Pottery: introduced by fire, 75, 79; its relation to the easiest and most pernicious form of cooking, 112; date of invention of, 176 Pregnancy: depicted in Cro-Magnon art, 196; reason of Cro-Magnon admiration of, 197, 199; the whole of its associations loath- some to modernity, 198 Progress: bad memory one of the signs of, 8; every kind of black- guardism regarded as, 65; the belief in, one of the many nine- teenth-century absurdities, 67; not necessarily to something better, 227; produces ill-health, 238 Prohibition: a Promethean con- spiracy against man, 242; de- signed to keep modern slaves below par, 244 INDEX 253 Promethean Type: description of its boy-scout mind, 177, 178; all devils and demons belong to the, 179; judges by success, 193; the best worshippers of women, 217; hearken to the voice of their wives, 219; never regards aesthetic-survival- values, 236; sacrifices humanity to " Pro- gress," 241 ; never concerned with humanity, 243; strong in the innocence of its dangerous stupidity, 246 Prometheus: steals fire, 1, 36 et passim ; supposed to benefit mankind, 2; Shelley's shallow view of, 2 n.; his genealogy, 25; deceives Zeus, 26, 56, 66; the founder of civilisation, 26; his punishment, 28; impossible to interpret him as a phenomenon of nature, 30; belongs to the oldest stratum of Greek mytho- logy, 31; compared with Christ, 32 ; not worshipped by the Greeks, 36, 62; who regarded his punish- ment as deserved, 36; a perfect blend of two races, 45; Zeus's most powerful rival, 51; jealous of Zeus, 52; a revolutionary and demagogue, 57, 58; divulges secret of fire-kindling, 58; his torture demanded by his victims, 60, 62; his supernatural punish- ment, 60, 61 ; a depraved and foolish man, 65; his theft of fire a calamity to man, 66; com- parison with Semitic story of fall of man, 74; altar dedicated to him by Athenian potters, 79; his invention of pottery, 112; released by Heracles, 117; the reason of his release, 118; a malignant power, 133; the anti- quity of his crime, 173; a half- bred Cro-Magnon, 209 Protestantism: its foolish abolition of fasts and feasts, 83; dietetics the necessary creation of, 83; breeds loathing of pregnancy, 198 71. Protestants: their foolish belief that children are innocent, 4 Puritanism: despises the body and censures the pleasures connected with it, 91 ; ignorance regarding food, 92 Puritans: their adulteration of ale, 152; an unscrupulous commercial and industrial class hostile to the body and sex, 234, 235 Raw meat: medicinal value of, 146; eaten at the Dionysia, 164 Religions: traditional records of man's past greatness, 224 Rhea: restores Dionysus to life, 134 Romans: allowed father to decide which children should survive,215 Ruskin: protested against nine- teenth-century optimism, 68 Satan: punished for a crime, 2; Shelley's shallow view of, 2 n. ; the Archetype of Promethean men, 21 8 Scholars: their stupid supercilious- ness towards antiquity, 3; their foolish belief that we are superior to the ancients, 4; their hopeless disagreement, 6 n. Scientist: the substitution of the clumsy, for the artist, 84 Scurvy: due to absence of vita- mines, 97; symptoms of, 98; mild forms of, 99; the cure for, 100; undiagnosed, very prevalent, 103, 108; recent outbreaks of, 104, 105; due to potato famine, 110 Semele: the mother of Dionysus, 118, 119, 120; a simple Greek maiden afterwards regarded as half divine, 125 Sex: joys of, dependent on good health, 161; associated with guilt only in stupid Promethean age, 21 3 Sexual potency: reduced by mis- takes in diet, 90; impaired by lack of vitamines, 96, 108; restoration of, 118; secured by drinking good ale, 155 Shelley: his shallow view of Satan and Prometheus, 2 n.; his schoolboy view of Prometheus, 33; failed to grasp Greek view of Prometheus, 34; his foolish conception of Zeus, 51 254 MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS Silenus: taught Dionysus, 129 Smiles, Samuel: with resolute vul- garity wrote the Magnificat of the Engineers, 235 n. Socrates: as an inveterate old moralist and Puritan has set the tone of much in modern Europe, 5 n. Spencer, Herbert: regarded ances- tor-worship as origin of myths, 15; his masterly interpretation of myths, 19; regarded ancestor- worship as the root of religion, 23; on parasites, etc., being examples of successful adapta- tion, 193 Stew: the worst form of cooking, 112, 113 Success: vulgar modern belief in, 193; erroneously identified with superiority, 232 Survival values : vital : enumera- tion of some, 230; may mean abandoning some form of supe- riority, 231 ; aesthetic : enumera- tion of some, 232 ; disregarded by Christianity and by Prometheans, 236; incomprehensible to Ameri- cans, 243 Tea: a harmful drug, 158; contains no vitamines, 159 Temperance: true, should aim at producing pure drink, 154 Tennyson: stupidly honoured by the nineteenth century, 65 Titans: their descent, 44; a mighty race, 45; tear Dionysus to pieces, 120, 133; hostile to Diony- sus, 133; hostile to man, 134; half-bred Cro-Magnons, 209 Trepanning: performed by the Cro-Magnons, 200 n. Tylor: instances of truth of old traditions, 10, 11 Uranus: mutilated by Cronus, 5; probably a Cro-Magnon, 184, 201 Vineyards: round monasteries, 236 n. Virgin -birth: the interpretation given by the Puritanical bias of the Christian investigator, 5 Virginity: a negative ideal, 197; admiration of, due to modern pessimism, 198 Virgins: carried the phallus in the Dionysia, 137 Vitamines: the imponderable ele- ments in food, 93, 95; diseases due to absence of, 96; the anti- scorbutic, 97; killed by modern cooking, 100, 101; Dionysus the god of, 122 Westminster Abbey: honours many votaries of Prometheus, 69 Wine: Persian legend of origin of, 148 n.; see also Fermented liquor Woman : deteriorated through aban- doning nomadic life, 76; her outcry against sex-destroying drugs, 115 n.; her dependence upon sex gratification, 162; her misery after the Promethean crime, 162, 163; saved by Diony- sus, 163, 164, 170; suffers most from a Promethean civilisation, 169; intimately associated with end of Golden Age, 212; prime- vally associated with evil, 213; best men never diverted from highest pursuits by, 214; requires not chivalry but children, 214; guided by the petty love of power, 214, 217; not consciously attracted by the best men, 215; has bad taste or no taste, 215, 216, 217; cannot be controlled by Prometheans, 217; prefers Prometheans because they are the best worshippers, 217; her boy -scout mind, 218; her con- nection with evil resides in her total lack of taste, 219; this the greatest danger to mankind, 220; the horror of her claim of equa- lity with man lies in its truth, 221 ; most powerful in America and England, 222; her only hope lies in the multiplication of the Dionysian type and the subordination of the Promethean, 222 INDEX 255 Zeua: enraged with Prometheus, 1; his anger as important as the fire-stealing itself, 3; his punish- ment of Prometheus, 28; loved by the Greeks, 35, 36; and trusted by them, 38; bred true to his godlike descent, 45, 48; restores order after anarchy, 50; Prometheus his most powerful rival, 51; withholds fire, 55; grants iire on wise terms, 57; outwits Prometheus at Mecone, 58; immensely wise, 61; his grief at the fire-stealing, 62, 63; a wise and superior man, 65; wisely restricted use of fire, 06; not regarded by the Greeks as responsible for their civilisation, 69; the reason of his wrath at the theft of fire, 116; the sound principle in Greek life, 132; a half-bred Cro-Magnon, 209 PRINTED IN ORIAT BRITAIN BY BILLING AND SONS, LTD., QUILDFORD AMD J4SHKB University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 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First appearing in color in 1935's The Band Concert, what color pants does Mickey Mouse wear? | Familiars origins/Greek Mythology | Blood Brothers Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
This page contains all familiars inspired by Greek mythology.
Contents
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History
Greek Mythology is the body of myths and teachings that belong to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece and is part of religion in modern Greece and around the world, known as Hellenismos.
Gods, Goddesses & Deities
Gods and Deities are superior and immortal beings that ruled the world. Each God had his (or her) own cult, attributes and powers.
Apollo
Apollo (Attic, Ionic, and Homeric Greek: Ἀπόλλων, Apollōn (GEN Ἀπόλλωνος); Doric: Ἀπέλλων, Apellōn; Arcadocypriot: Ἀπείλων, Apeilōn; Aeolic: Ἄπλουν, Aploun; Latin: Apollō) is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu.
As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague. Amongst the god's custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, and as the patron defender of herds and flocks. As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musegetes) and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans.
Ares
Ares (Ancient Greek: Ἄρης [árɛːs]) is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent and untamed aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and generalship.
The Greeks were ambivalent toward Ares : although he embodied the physical valor necessary for success in war, he was a dangerous force, "overwhelming, insatiable in battle, destructive, and man-slaughtering." His sons Fear (Phobos) and Terror (Deimos) and his lover, or sister, Discord (Enyo) accompanied him on his war chariot. In the Iliad, his father Zeus tells him that he is the god most hateful to him. An association with Ares endows places and objects with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality. His value as a war god is placed in doubt: during the Trojan War, Ares was on the losing side, while Athena, often depicted in Greek art as holding Nike (Victory) in her hand, favored the triumphant Greeks.
Ares plays a relatively limited role in Greek mythology as represented in literary narratives, though his numerous love affairs and abundant offspring are often alluded to. When Ares does appear in myths, he typically faces humiliation. He is well known as the lover of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who was married to Hephaestus, god of craftsmanship. The most famous story related to Ares and Aphrodite shows them exposed to ridicule through the wronged husband's clever device.
The counterpart of Ares among the Roman gods is Mars, who as a father of the Roman people was given a more important and dignified place in ancient Roman religion as a guardian deity. During the Hellenization of Latin literature, the myths of Ares were reinterpreted by Roman writers under the name of Mars. Greek writers under Roman rule also recorded cult practices and beliefs pertaining to Mars under the name of Ares . Thus in the classical tradition of later Western art and literature, the mythology of the two figures becomes virtually indistinguishable.
Calais & Zetes
The Boreads are characters in Greek mythology. They consist of Calaïs and Zetes (also Zethes).
They were the sons of Boreas and Oreithyia, daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens. Due to being sons of the north wind they were supernaturally gifted in different ways (depending on changes in the story from being passed down through generations and cultures) either being as fast as the wind or able to fly, having wings either on their feet or backs, depending on the myth.
They were Argonauts and played a particularly vital role in the rescue of Phineus from the harpies. They succeeded in driving the monsters away but did not kill them, at a request from the goddess of the rainbow, Iris, who promised that Phineas would not be bothered by the harpies again. As thanks, Phineas told the Argonauts how to pass the Symplegades. It is said that the Boreads were turned back by Iris at the Strophades. The islands' name, meaning "Islands of Turning", refers to this event.
Their death was said to be caused by Heracles on Tenos in revenge for when they convinced the Argonauts to leave him behind as he searched for Hylas.
Other sources imply that the sons of Boreas died chasing the harpies, as it was fated that they would perish if they failed to catch those they pursued. In some versions, the harpies drop into the sea from exhaustion, and so their pursuers fall as well.
Circe
In Greek mythology, Circe was a goddess of magic (or sometimes a nymph, witch, enchantress or sorceress). By most accounts, Circe was the daughter of Helios, the god of the sun, and Perse, an Oceanid. Her brothers were Aeetes, the keeper of the Golden Fleece, and Perses. Her sister was Pasiphaë, the wife of King Minos and mother of the Minotaur. Other accounts make her the daughter of Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft herself. Circe was renowned for her vast knowledge of potions and herbs. Through the use of magical potions and a wand or a staff, she transformed her enemies, or those who offended her, into animals. Some say she was exiled to the solitary island of Aeaea by her subjects and her father for ending the life of her husband, the prince of Colchis. Later traditions tell of her leaving or even destroying the island and moving to Italy, where she was identified with Cape Circeo.
Diana
In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt, the moon and childbirth, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy. Diana was worshiped in ancient Roman religion and is revered in Roman Neopaganism and Stregheria. Dianic Wicca, a largely feminist form of the practice, is named for her. Diana was known to be the virgin goddess of childbirth and women. She was one of the three maiden goddesses, Diana, Minerva and Vesta, who swore never to marry.
Oak groves were especially sacred to her. According to mythology (in common with the Greek religion and their deity Artemis), Diana was born with her twin brother Apollo on the island of Delos, daughter of Jupiter and Latona. Diana made up a triad with two other Roman deities: Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife; and Virbius, the woodland god.
Eris
Eris is the Greek goddess of chaos, strife and discord. Her name is the equivalent of Latin Discordia, which means "discord". She was often represented specifically as the daimon of the strife of war, who haunted the battlefield and delighted in human bloodshed.
Because of Eris' disagreeable nature she was the only goddess not to be invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. When she turned up anyway, she was refused admittance and, in a rage, threw a golden apple amongst the goddesses inscribed "To the fairest." Three goddesses laid claim it, and in their rivalry brought about the events which led to the Trojan War.
Eris was closely identified with the war-goddess Enyo. Indeed Homer uses the names interchangeably. Her Roman name was Discordia.
Eros
Eros (/ˈɪərɒs/ or US /ˈɛrɒs/; Greek: Ἔρως, "Desire"), in Greek mythology, was the Greek god of love. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire"). Some myths make him a primordial god, while in other myths, he is the son of Aphrodite.
Eros appears in ancient Greek sources under several different guises. In the earliest sources (the cosmogonies, the earliest philosophers, and texts referring to the mystery religions), he is one of the primordial gods involved in the coming into being of the cosmos. But in later sources, Eros is represented as the son of Aphrodite, whose mischievous interventions in the affairs of gods and mortals cause bonds of love to form, often illicitly. Ultimately, in the later satirical poets, he is represented as a blindfolded child, the precursor to the chubby Renaissance Cupid – whereas in early Greek poetry and art, Eros was depicted as an adult male who embodies sexual power, and a profound artist.
A cult of Eros existed in pre-classical Greece, but it was much less important than that of Aphrodite. However, in late antiquity, Eros was worshiped by a fertility cult in Thespiae. In Athens, he shared a very popular cult with Aphrodite, and the fourth day of every month was sacred to him.
Faunus
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Faunus was the horned god of the forest, plains and fields; when he made cattle fertile he was called Inuus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan.
Faunus was one of the oldest Roman deities, known as the di indigetes. According to the epic poet Virgil, he was a legendary king of the Latins who came with his people from Arcadia. His shade was consulted as a god of prophecy under the name of Fatuus, with oracles[1] in the sacred grove of Tibur, around the well Albunea, and on the Aventine Hill in ancient Rome itself.
Marcus Terentius Varro asserted that the oracular responses were given in Saturnian verse. Faunus revealed the future in dreams and voices that were communicated to those who came to sleep in his precincts, lying on the fleeces of sacrificed lambs. W. Warde Fowler suggested that Faunus is identical with Favonius,[4] one of the Roman wind gods (compare the Anemoi).
Hekatonkheires and Hecatoncheir
The Hecatonchires , or Hekatonkheires (from Ancient Greek: Ἑκατόγχειρες Hundred-Handed Ones), were figures in an archaic stage of Greek mythology, three giants of incredible strength and ferocity that surpassed that of all Titans whom they helped overthrow. Their name derives from the Greek ἑκατόν (hekaton hundred) and χείρ (kheir hand), each of them having a hundred hands and fifty heads (Bibliotheca). Hesiod's Theogony (624, 639, 714, 734–35) reports that the three Hekatonkheires became the guards of the gates of Tartarus.
Hypnos
In Greek mythology, Hypnos (Ancient Greek: Ὕπνος, "sleep") was the personification of sleep; the Roman equivalent was known as Somnus. His twin was Thánatos (Θάνατος, "death"); their mother was the primordial goddess Nyx (Νύξ, "night"). His palace was a dark cave where the sun never shone. At the entrance were a number of poppies and other hypnogogic plants. His dwelling had no door or gate so that he might not be awakened by the creaking of hinges.
Juno
Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister (but also the wife) of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Mars and Vulcan . Juno also looked after the women of Rome. Her Greek equivalent was Hera. Her Etruscan counterpart was Uni. As the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman Empire, Juno was called Regina ("Queen") and, together with Jupiter and Minerva, was worshiped as a triad on the Capitol (Juno Capitolina) in Rome.
Juno's own warlike aspect among the Romans is apparent in her attire. She often appeared sitting pictured with a peacock armed and wearing a goatskin cloak. The traditional depiction of this warlike aspect was assimilated from the Greek goddess Hera, whose goatskin was called the 'aegis'.
Jupiter
Jupiter , also Jove, is the god of sky and thunder and king of the gods in Ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as sacrifice.
Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as a sky god. His identifying implement is the thunderbolt and his primary sacred animal is the eagle, which held precedence over other birds in the taking of auspices and became one of the most common symbols of the Roman army (see Aquila). The two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins. As the sky-god, he was a divine witness to oaths, the sacred trust on which justice and good government depend. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline Hill, where the citadel was located. He was the chief deity of the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus. In the later Capitoline Triad, he was the central guardian of the state with Juno and Minerva . His sacred tree was the oak.
The Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name Iuppiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune and Pluto. Each presided over one of the three realms of the universe: sky, the waters, and the underworld. The Italic Diespiter was also a sky god who manifested himself in the daylight, usually but not always identified with Jupiter . Tinia is usually regarded as his Etruscan counterpart.
Ker
A goddess of death. Daughter of Erebus and Nyx. Sister of Hypnos , Moros and Thanatos. Her function was to drag the dead and dying to the entrance to the underworld. She is depicted as wearing a long cloak stained with blood. In some accounts, called Ker .
“
And Nyx bare hateful Moros, black Ker , Thanatos, she bare Hypnos , and the tribe of Oneiroi. And again the goddess murky Nyx, though she lay with none, bare Momos, painful Oizys, and the Hesperides ...she bare the Moirai (Fates) and the ruthless avenging Keres (Death-Fates)... Also deadly Nyx bare Nemesis to afflict mortal men, and after her, Apate , Philotes, hateful Geras, and hard-hearted Eris .
”
— Hesiod, Theogony 211, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White
The Keres were agents of The Moirae (Fates), birth-spirits who measured out the length of a man's life when he first entered the world, and Moros (Doom) the spirit who drove a man towards his inevitable destruction. They were cravers of blood and feasted upon it after ripping a soul free from the mortally wounded bodies and sending it on their way to Hades. Thousands of Keres haunted the battlefield, fighting amongst themselves like vultures over the dying. The Keres had no absolute power over the life of men, but in their hunger for blood would seek accomplish death beyond the bounds of fate. Zeus and the other gods, however, could stop them in their course or speed them on. The Olympian gods are often described standing by their favorites in battle, beating the clawing death spirits from them. Some of the Kers were personifications of epidemic diseases, which haunted areas riven by plague.
Lachesis
In Greek mythology, Lachesis (/ˈlækɪsɪs/; Greek: Λάχεσις, Lakhesis, "disposer of lots", from λαγχάνω, lanchano, "to obtain by lot, by fate, or by the will of the gods") was the second of the Three Fates, or Moirai: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Normally seen clothed in white, Lachesis is the measurer of the thread spun on Clotho's spindle, and in some texts, determines Destiny, or thread of life. Her Roman equivalent was Decima. Lachesis was the apportioner, deciding how much time for life was to be allowed for each person or being. She measured the thread of life with her rod. She is also said to choose a person's destiny after a thread was measured. In mythology, it is said that she appears with her sisters within three days of a baby's birth to decide its fate.
Leto
In Greek mythology, Leto (/ˈliːtoʊ/; Greek: Λητώ Lētṓ; Λατώ, Lātṓ in Dorian Greek, etymology and meaning disputed) is a daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, the sister of Asteria. and mother of Apollo and Artemis.
The island of Kos is claimed as her birthplace. In the Olympian scheme, Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis, the Letoides, which Leto conceived after her hidden beauty accidentally caught the eyes of Zeus. Classical Greek myths record little about Leto other than her pregnancy and her search for a place where she could give birth to Apollo and Artemis, since Hera in her jealousy had caused all lands to shun her. Finally, she finds an island that is not attached to the ocean floor so it is not considered land and she can give birth. This is her one active mythic role: once Apollo and Artemis are grown, Leto withdraws, to remain a dim and benevolent matronly figure upon Olympus, her part already played. In Roman mythology, Leto's equivalent is Latona , a Latinization of her name, influenced by Etruscan Letun.
Oenone
In Greek mythology, Oenone (/ɨˈnoʊniː/; Greek: Oinōnē - Οἰνώνη "wine woman") was the first wife of Paris of Troy, whom he abandoned for the queen Helen of Sparta .
Oenone was a mountain nymph (an oread) on Mount Ida in Phrygia, a mountain associated with the Mother Goddess Cybele, alternatively Rhea. Her father was Cebren, a river-god. Her very name links her to the gift of wine.
Paris , son of the king Priam and the queen Hecuba, fell in love with Oenone when he was a shepherd on the slopes of Mount Ida, having been exposed in infancy (owing to a prophecy that he would be the means of the destruction of the city of Troy) but rescued by the herdsman Agelaus. The couple married, and Oenone gave birth to a son, Corythus.
When Paris later abandoned her to return to Troy and sail across the Aegean to kidnap Helen, the queen of Sparta , Oenone predicted the Trojan War. Out of revenge for Paris ' betrayal, she sent Corythus to guide the Greeks to Troy. Another version has it that she used her son to drive a rift between Paris and Helen, but Paris, not recognizing his own son, killed him.
The only extensive surviving narration of Oenone and Paris is Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica, book X.259-489, which tells the return of wounded Paris to Oenone . Mortally wounded by Philoctetes' arrow, he begged Oenone to heal him with her herbal arts, but she refused and cast him out with scorn, to return to Helen's bed, and Paris died on the lower slopes of Ida. Then, overcome with remorse, Oenone, the one whole-hearted mourner of Paris, threw herself onto his burning funeral pyre, which the shepherds had raised.
Pallas
In Greek mythology, Pallas (/ˈpæl əs/ ) (Greek: Παλλάς) was the daughter of Triton. Acting as a foster parent to Zeus’s daughter Athena, Triton raised her alongside his own daughter. During a friendly fight between the two goddesses, Athena was protected from harm by Zeus but Pallas was mortally wounded. Out of sadness and regret, she created the palladium, a statue in the likeness of Pallas. This story inspired a yearly festival in Libya dedicated to Athena. Girls from the Machlyans and Auseans tribes would fight each other, and those who died were labeled false virgins.
Pan
In Greek religion and mythology, Pan (/ˈpæn/; Ancient Greek: Πάν, Pan) is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the Ancient Greek language, from the word paein (πάειν), meaning "to pasture." He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, and wooded glens; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring. The ancient Greeks also considered Pan to be the god of theatrical criticism.
In Roman religion and myth, Pan's counterpart was Faunus , a nature god who was the father of Bona Dea, sometimes identified as Fauna; he was also closely associated with Sylvanus, due to their similar relationships with woodlands. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Pan became a significant figure in the Romantic movement of western Europe and also in the 20th-century Neopagan movement.
An area in the Golan Heights known as the Panion or Panium is associated with Pan. The city of Caesarea Philippi, the site of the Battle of Panium and the Banias natural spring, grotto or cave, and related shrines dedicated to Pan, may be found there.
The constellation Capricornus is traditionally depicted as a sea-goat, a goat with a fish's tail (see "Goatlike" Aigaion called Briareos, one of the Hecatonchires ). A myth reported as "Egyptian" in Hyginus' Poetic Astronomy that would seem to be invented to justify a connection of Pan with Capricorn says that when Aegipan — that is Pan in his goat-god aspect — was attacked by the monster Typhon, he dove into the Nile; the parts above the water remained a goat, but those under the water transformed into a fish.
Persephone
In Greek mythology, Persephone also called Kore is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest goddess Demeter, and is the queen of the underworld. Homer describes her as the formidable, venerable majestic queen of the underworld, who carries into effect the curses of men upon the souls of the dead. Persephone was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld. The myth of her abduction represents her function as the personification of vegetation, which shoots forth in spring and withdraws into the earth after harvest; hence, she is also associated with spring as well as the fertility of vegetation.
Rohde
Rhode /ˈroʊdiː/ (Ῥόδη) also known as Rhodos] (Ancient Greek: Ῥόδος), in ancient Greek religion, was the sea nymph or goddess of the island of Rhodes.
Though she does not appear among the lists of nereids in Iliad XVIII or Bibliotheke 1.2.7, such an ancient island nymph in other contexts might gain any of various Olympian parentages: she was thought of as a daughter of Poseidon[2] with any of several primordial sea-goddesses— with whom she might be identified herself— notably Halia or Amphitrite.[3] Pindar even urges his hearers to "Praise the sea maid, daughter of Aphrodite, bride of Helios, this isle of Rhodes. All three names— Halia, Aphrodite, Amphitrite, and furthermore also Kapheira— must have been applied to one and the same great goddess", Karl Kerenyi observes.
In Rhodes, to which she gave her name, she was the consort of Helios, as Pindar says, and a co-protector of the island, which was the sole center of her cult. Her name was applied to the rose, which appeared on Rhodian coinage.
The first inhabitants of Rhodes were identified by Hellenes as the Telchines. Helios made the island rise from the sea and with Rhode, fathered seven sons there, the Heliadae: Ochimus, Cercaphus, Macareus, Actis, Tenages, Triopas, and Candalus) and one daughter, Electryone. Electryone died a virgin and the sons became legendary astronomers and rulers of the island, accounting for the cities among which it was divided. Rhode was worshipped on Rhodes in her own name, as well as Halia, the embodiment of the "salt sea" or as the "white goddess", Leucothea.
Thanatos
In Greek mythology, Thanatos /ˈθænətɒs/ (Greek: Θάνατος [Ancient Greek: tʰánatos "Death", from θνῄσκω thnēskō "to die, be dying") was the daemon personification of death. He was a minor figure in Greek mythology, often referred to, but rarely appearing in person.
His name is transliterated in Latin as Thanatus, but his equivalent in Roman mythology is Mors or Letus/Letum, and he is sometimes identified erroneously with Orcus (Orcus himself had a Greek equivalent in the form of Horkos, God of the Oath).
The Greek poet Hesiod established in his Theogony that Thanatos is a son of Nyx (Night) and Erebos (Darkness) and twin of Hypnos (Sleep).
“
And there the children of dark Night have their dwellings, Sleep and Death, awful gods. The glowing Sun never looks upon them with his beams, neither as he goes up into heaven, nor as he comes down from heaven. And the former of them roams peacefully over the earth and the sea's broad back and is kindly to men; but the other has a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitiless as bronze: whomsoever of men he has once seized he holds fast: and he is hateful even to the deathless gods.
”
— Hesiod
Thanatos was regarded as merciless and indiscriminate, hated by—and hateful towards—mortals and the deathless gods. But in myths which feature him, Thanatos could occasionally be outwitted, a feat that the sly King Sisyphus of Korinth twice accomplished. When it came time for Sisyphus to die, Zeus ordered Thanatos to chain Sisyphus up in Tartarus. Sisyphus cheated death by tricking Thanatos into his own shackles, thereby prohibiting the demise of any mortal while Thanatos was so enchained.
Eventually Ares , the bloodthirsty god of war, grew frustrated with the battles he incited since neither side suffered any casualties. He released Thanatos and handed his captor over to the god. Sisyphus would evade Death a second time by convincing Persephone to allow him to return to his wife stating that she never gave him a proper funeral. This time, Sisyphus was forcefully dragged back to the Underworld by Hermes when Sisyphus refused to accept his death. Sisyphus was sentenced to an eternity of frustration in Tartarus where he rolled a boulder up a hill and it would roll back down when he got close to the top.
Triton
Triton (/ˈtraɪtən/; Greek: Τρίτων Tritōn) is a mythological Greek god, the messenger of the sea. He is the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, god and goddess of the sea respectively, and is herald for his father. He is usually represented as a merman, having the upper body of a human and the tail of a fish, "sea-hued", according to Ovid[1] "his shoulders barnacled with sea-shells".
Like his father, Poseidon, he carried a trident. However, Triton's special attribute was a twisted conch shell, on which he blew like a trumpet to calm or raise the waves. Its sound was such a cacophony, that when loudly blown, it put the giants to flight, who imagined it to be the roar of a dark wild beast.[2]
According to Hesiod's Theogony,[3] Triton dwelt with his parents in a golden palace in the depths of the sea; Homer places his seat in the waters off Aegae.[disambiguation needed][4] The story of the Argonauts places his home on the coast of Libya. When the Argo was driven ashore in the Gulf of Syrtes Minor, the crew carried the vessel to the "Tritonian Lake", Lake Tritonis, whence Triton, the local deity euhemeristically rationalized by Diodorus Siculus as "then ruler over Libya",[5] welcomed them with a guest-gift of a clod of earth and guided them through the lake's marshy outlet back to the Mediterranean.[6] When the Argonauts were lost in the desert, he guided them to find the passage from the river back to the sea.
Triton was the father of Pallas and foster parent to the goddess Athena.[7] Pallas was killed by Athena accidentally during a sparring fight between the two goddesses.[8] Triton is also sometimes cited as the father of Scylla by Lamia. Triton can sometimes be multiplied into a host of Tritones, daimones of the sea.
In the Virgil's Aeneid, book 6, it is told that Triton killed Misenus, son of Aeolus, by drowning him after he challenged the gods to play as well as he did.[9]
Tyche
Tyche was the presiding tutelary deity that governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny. She is the daughter of Aphrodite and Zeus or Hermes.
Increasingly during the Hellenistic period, cities venerated their own specific iconic version of Tyche, wearing a mural crown (a crown like the walls of the city).
Venusia and Venus
Venus (/ˈvi.nəs/, Classical Latin: /ˈwɛ.nʊs/) is the Roman goddess whose functions encompassed love, beauty, sex, fertility and prosperity. In Roman mythology, she was the mother of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled to Italy. Julius Caesar claimed her as his ancestor. Venus was central to many religious festivals, and was venerated in Roman religion under numerous cult titles.
The Romans adapted the myths and iconography of her Greek counterpart Aphrodite for Roman art and Latin literature. In the later classical tradition of the West, Venus becomes one of the most widely referenced deities of Greco-Roman mythology as the embodiment of love and sexuality.
Venusia was also supposedly one of many cities said to be founded by the Greek hero Diomedes after the Trojan War. He dedicated Venusia to the goddess Aphrodite, also known as Venus, to appease her after the Trojans were defeated.
Vesta
Vesta (Latin pronunciation: [ˈwɛsta]) is the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family in Roman religion. Vesta's presence is symbolized by the sacred fire that burned at her hearth and temples. Her closest Greek equivalent is Hestia.
The importance of Vesta to Roman religion is indicated by the prominence of the priesthood devoted to her, the Vestal Virgins, Rome's only college of full-time priests.
Vulcan
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Vulcan (Latin: Vulcanus) is the god of fire, including the fire of volcanoes. Vulcan is often depicted with a blacksmith's hammer. The Vulcanalia was the annual festival held August 23 in his honour. His Greek counterpart is Hephaestus, the god of fire and smithery. In Etruscan religion, he is identified with Sethlans.
Acantha
Acantha (Greek: Ἀκάνθα, English translation: "thorny") is often claimed to be a minor character in Greek mythology whose metamorphosis was the origin of the Acanthus plant. The tale goes that Acantha was a nymph loved by the god Apollo. Acantha however rebuffed Apollo's advances and scratched his face when he tried to rape her. As a result Apollo transformed her into the Acanthus, a plant with spiny leaves.
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War and the central character and greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad. Achilles was said to be a demigod; his mother was the nymph Thetis, and his father, Peleus, was the king of the Myrmidons. Achilles’ most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan hero Hector outside the gates of Troy. Although the death of Achilles is not presented in the Iliad, other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him in the heel with an arrow. Later legends (beginning with a poem by Statius in the 1st century AD) state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel. Because of his death from a small wound in the heel, the term Achilles' heel has come to mean a person's point of weakness.
Aeneas
In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (/ɪˈniːəs/; Greek: Αἰνείας, Aineías, possibly derived from Greek αἰνή meaning "praise") was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite (Venus). His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. He is a character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer's Iliad, and receives full treatment in Roman mythology as the legendary founder of what would become Ancient Rome, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid. He became the first true hero of Rome.
Amazons
The Amazons (Greek: Ἀμαζόνες, Amazónes, singular Ἀμαζών, Amazōn), also known as Oiorpata in Iranian and Scythian, were believed to have been a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia (modern territory of Ukraine). Other historiographers place them in Anatolia, or sometimes Libya. Notable queens of the Amazons are Penthesilea, who participated in the Trojan War, and her sister Hippolyta , whose magical girdle, given to her by her father Ares, was the object of one of the labours of Hercules . Amazon warriors were often depicted in battle with Greek warriors in amazonomachies in classical art.
Amphion
Amphion was the son of Jupiter and Antiope, queen of Thebes. With his twin brother Zethus he was exposed at birth on Mount Cithaeron, where they grew up among the shepherds, not knowing their parentage. Mercury gave Amphion a lyre, and taught him to play upon it, and his brother occupied himself in hunting and tending the flocks. Meanwhile Antiope, their mother, who had been treated with great cruelty by Lycus, the usurping king of Thebes, and by Dirce, his wife, found means to inform her children of their rights, and to summon them to her assistance. With a band of their fellow-herdsmen they attacked and slew Lycus, and tying Dirce by the hair of her head to a bull, let him drag her till she was dead (the punishment of Dirce is the subject of a celebrated group of statuary now in the Museum at Naples). Amphion, having become king of Thebes fortified the city with a wall. It is said that when he played on his lyre the stones moved of their own accord and took their places in the wall.
Antiope
Antiope was an Amazon, the daughter of Ares and the sister of Hippolyte , queen of the Amazons. She was abducted by Theseus, king of Athens, during Hercules ' capture of Themiscyra, the Amazonian capital. Theseus and Antiope were married in Athens, but Antiope was accidentally killed by the Amazons in a failed rescue attempt.
In Greek mythology, Antiope (/ænˈtaɪ.əpiː/; Greek: Ἀντιόπη) was an Amazon, daughter of Ares and sister to Melanippe and Hippolyte and possibly Orithyia, queens of the Amazons. She was the wife of Theseus, and the only Amazon known to have married. There are various accounts of the manner in which Theseus became possessed of her, and of her subsequent fortunes.
In one version, during Hercules ' ninth labor, which was to obtain the Girdle of Hippolyte , when he captured the Amazons' capital of Themiscyra, his companion Theseus, king of Athens, abducted Antiope and brought her to his home (or she was captured by Hercules and then given by him to Theseus). According to Pausanias, Antiope fell in love with Theseus and betrayed the Amazons of her own free will. They were eventually married and she gave birth to a son, Hippolytus, who was named after Antiope's sister. Soon after, the Amazons attacked Athens in an attempt to rescue Antiope and to take back Hippolyte's girdle; however, in a battle near the hill of Ares they were defeated. During this conflict, known as the Attic War, Antiope was accidentally shot dead by an Amazon named Molpadia, who, in her turn, was then killed by Theseus. Tombs of both Antiope and Molpadia were shown in Athens.
Atalanta
Atalanta was a great Arkadian huntress and a favourite of the goddess Artemis. She was exposed by her father in the wilderness at birth, but was suckled by a she-bear and afterwards found and raised by hunters.
She swore to the goddess to defend her virginity and, when two Kentauroi (Centaurs) burst into her grove, destroyed them with her arrows. Later she participated in the voyage of the Argonauts, and defeated the hero Peleus in wrestling at the funeral games of King Pelias. When Meleagros gathered heroes to destroy the Kalydonian Boar, Atalanta joined the hunt and was the first to draw blood. Meleagros awarded her the prize of the skin, and when his uncles tried to take it from her force, he slew them.
Atalanta was later reunited with her father Skhoineus (or Iasios), who insisted that she be wed. She agreed, but on condition that the suitors must defeat her in a race, and that the losers should be put to death. Hippomenes or Melanion, however, sought the help of the goddess Aphrodite who presented him with three golden apples to cast before the girl in the race. When Atalanta stooped to retrieve these, she was slowed enough to allow the hero to emerge victorious. Their marriage was a short-lived one, for Hippomenes neglected to pay Aphrodite her dues, and was cursed to lay with Atalanta in the sacred precinct of Zeus, Rhea or Artemis where the pair were transformed into lions.
Atalanta's name was derived from the Greek word atalantos, meaning "equal in weight." She was one of several famous huntresses in Greek mythology, others included Britomartis, Kallisto, Kyrene and Prokris.
Autolycus
In Greek mythology, Autolycus (/ɔːˈtɒlɪkəs/; Greek: Αὐτόλυκος Autolykos, "The Wolf Itself", or, very wolf ) was husband to Mestra, daughter of Erysichthon (who could change her shape at will), or to Neaera , or to Amphithea. He became the father of Anticlea and Polymede, of whom the latter was the mother of Jason , the famous Argonaut who led a group of men to find the coveted Golden Fleece . A different Autolycus, the son of Deimachus, was a part of the Argonauts who went on the journey to find the fleece.
Through Anticleia, Autolycus was also the grandfather of the famous warrior Odysseus , and he was responsible for the naming of the child as well. This happened when the nurse of the child Eurycleia "laid the child upon his knees and spoke, and addressed him: Autolycus, find now thyself a name to give to thy child's own child; be sure he has long been prayed for" .
Autolycus obtained most of the same skills that his supposed father Hermes possesses, such as the art of theft, trickery , and skill with the lyre and gracious song . It was said that he "loved to make white of black, and black of white, from a hornless animal to a horned one, or from horned one to a hornless" . He was given the gift that his thievery could not be caught by anyone .
He put his skills to the test when he stole the helmet of the great warrior and his grandson, Odysseus, "he had broken into the stout-built house of Amyntor, son of Ormenus; and he gave it to Amphidamas of Cythera to take to Scandeia, and Amphidamas gave it to Molus as a guest-gift, but he gave it to his own son Meriones to wear; and now, being set thereon, it covered the head of Odysseus". Autolycus , master of thievery, was also well known for stealing, Sisyphus' herd right from underneath him. Sisyphus, who was commonly known for being a crafty king that killed guests, seduced his niece and stole his brothers' throne and was banished to the throes of Tartarus by the gods.
Heracles , the great Greek hero, was taught the art of wrestling by Autolycus. However, Autolycus was a source of some controversy in Heracles' life, because Autolycus stole some cattle from Euboea and Eurytus, who accused Heracles of the deed and, upon his going mad about these accusations, Heracles killed them plus another one of Autolycus' sons, Iphitus. This led to Heracles serving three years of punishment for the deed to repent for this.
Azan
In Greek mythology, Azan (Greek: Ἀζᾶν) was the son of Arcas and the Dryad Erato, brother of Apheidas, Elatus and Hyperippe. Azania in Arcadia was named after him. He married Hippolyte , daughter of Dexamenus, and had a son Cleitor. When Azan died, the first funeral games in history were held in his honor.It was at these games that Aetolus accidentally killed Apis.
Cadmus
In Greek mythology, Cadmus /ˈkædməs/; Greek: Κάδμος Kadmos), was the founder and first king of Thebes. Initially a Phoenician prince, son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa . He was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores of Phoenicia by Zeus. Cadmus founded the Greek city of Thebes, the acropolis of which was originally named Cadmeia in his honour.
Cassandra
Cassandra (Greek: Κασσάνδρα, pronounced [kas̚sándra͜a], also Κασάνδρα), also known as Alexandra or Kassandra, was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy.
A common version of her story is that Apollo gave her the power of prophecy in order to seduce her, but when she refused, he spit into her mouth cursing her to never be believed. In an alternative version, she fell asleep in a temple, and snakes licked (or whispered in) her ears so that she was able to hear the future. Snakes as a source of knowledge is a recurring theme in Greek mythology, although sometimes the snake brings understanding of the language of animals rather than an ability to know the future. Cassandra is a figure of both epic tradition and of tragedy.
Castor and Pollux
Castor and Pollux or Polydeuces were twin brothers, together known as the Dioskouri. Born by Leda and brothers to Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. They were famed horsemen and hunters, and had participated in the hunting of the Calydonian Boar. They were also part of Jason's crew upon the ship Argo. When Castor died, they became the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini .
Greek and Roman mythology, Castor and Pollux or Polydeuces were twin brothers, together known as the Dioskouri. Their mother was Leda, but Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, and Pollux the divine son of Zeus, who seduced Leda in the guise of a swan. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters and half-sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra.
In Latin the twins are also known as the Gemini or Castores. When Castor was killed, Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini. The pair were regarded as the patrons of sailors, to whom they appeared as St. Elmo's fire, and were also associated with horsemanship.
Charon
In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon (/ˈkɛərɒn/ or /ˈkɛərən/; Greek Χάρων) is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on the mouth of a dead person. Some authors say that those who could not pay the fee, or those whose bodies were left unburied, had to wander the shores for one hundred years. In the catabasis mytheme, heroes – such as Heracles, Orpheus, Aeneas , Dante, Dionysus and Psyche – journey to the underworld and return, still alive, conveyed by the boat of Charon.
Chione
Daedalion’s daughter Chione was said to be so beautiful that she was the object of a thousand men’s desire. As it transpired Chione’s admirers were not limited to mortal men. Whilst returning from visits to earth both Apollo and Hermes caught sight of Chione and were filled with a burning lust. Apollo decided to wait until night fell, however Hermes was not so patient. Through the use of magic he caused Chione to fall into a deep sleep and proceeded to rape her. Later that evening Apollo also visited her in the guise of an old woman. As a result of these two divine visitations Chione gave birth to twins. By Hermes she gave birth to Autolycus who grew into a notorious thief and charlatan. By Apollo she bore Philammon, a man famed both for his voice and skill with a lyre.
The attentions of not one but two gods led Chione to boast that her beauty exceeded even that of Artemis. To avenge this personal slight, not to mention blasphemy, Artemis struck Chione down by shooting an arrow straight through her tongue. Her father, Daedalion, was overcome with grief despite his brother's best efforts to console him. At his daughter's funeral Daedalion tried to throw himself onto the pyre three times but was restrained. After a fourth unsuccessful attempt he ran, at an impossible speed, through the fields and the forests, climbed to the summit of Mount Parnassus and jumped. Apollo though took pity on the grieving father, transforming him into a hawk before he could hit the ground. It is said that the hawk's great strength, as well as its propensity for hunting other birds, is a result of Daedalion’s former courage and the rage caused by the death of his daughter.
Deimos
In Greek mythology, Deimos (Ancient Greek: Δεῖμος, pronounced [dêːmos], meaning "dread") was the personification of terror.
Deimos was the son of Ares and Aphrodite. He is the twin brother of Phobos and nephew of the goddess Enyo who accompanied her brother Ares into battle, as well as his father's attendants, Trembling, Fear, Dread and Panic. Deimos is more of a personification and an abstraction of the sheer terror that is brought by war and he never appeared as an actual character in any story in Greek Mythology. His Roman equivalent was Formido or Metus.
Asaph Hall, who discovered the moons of Mars, named one Deimos, and the other Phobos - although the moons are very different and not twins like their namesakes.
On the modern monument to the battle of Thermopylae, Leonidas' shield has a representation of Deimos.
Europa
In Greek mythology Europa (/jʊˈroʊpə, jə-/; Greek: Εὐρώπη Eurṓpē; Doric Greek: Εὐρώπα Eurṓpā) was a Phoenician woman of high lineage, for whom the continent Europe was named. The story of her abduction by Zeus in the form of a white bull was a Cretan story. The mythographers tell that Zeus was enamored of Europa and decided to seduce or ravish her, the two being near-equivalent in Greek myth. He transformed himself into a tame white bull and mixed in with her father's herds. While Europa and her helpers were gathering flowers, she saw the bull, caressed his flanks, and eventually got onto his back. Zeus took that opportunity and ran to the sea and swam, with her on his back, to the island of Crete. He then revealed his true identity, and Europa became the first queen of Crete. Zeus gave her a necklace made by Hephaestus and three additional gifts: Talos , Laelaps and a javelin that never missed. Zeus later re-created the shape of the white bull in the stars, which is now known as the constellation Taurus. Some readers interpret as manifestations of this same bull the Cretan beast that was encountered by Heracles, the Marathonian Bull slain by Theseus (and that fathered the Minotaur). Roman mythology adopted the tale of the Raptus, also known as "The Abduction of Europa" and "The Seduction of Europa", substituting the god Jupiter for Zeus.
Hector
In Greek mythology, Hector (Ἕκτωρ Hektōr, pronounced [héktɔːr]) was a Trojan prince and the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. As the first-born son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, who was a descendant of Dardanus and Tros, the founder of Troy, he was a prince of the royal house and the heir apparent to his father's throne. He was married to Andromache, with whom he had an infant son, Scamandrius (whom the people of Troy called Astyanax). He acted as leader of the Trojans and their allies in the defense of Troy, "killing 31,000 Greek fighters," offers Hyginus. During the European Middle Ages, Hector figures as one of the Nine Worthies noted by Jacques de Longuyon, known not only for his courage but also for his noble and courtly nature. Indeed Homer places Hector as peace-loving, thoughtful as well as bold, a good son, husband and father, and without darker motives. James Redfield writes of Hector as a "martyr to loyalties, a witness to the things of this world, a hero ready to die for the precious imperfections of ordinary life."
Helen of Troy
In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy (Greek Ἑλένη Helénē, pronounced [helénɛː]), also known as Helen of Sparta, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was a sister of Castor , Pollux , and Clytemnestra. In Greek myths, she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. By marriage she was Queen of Laconia, a province within Homeric Greece, the wife of King Menelaus. Her abduction by Paris, Prince of Troy, brought about the Trojan War. Elements of her putative biography come from classical authors such as Aristophanes, Cicero, Euripides and Homer (both The Iliad and The Odyssey).
In her youth she was abducted by, or eloped with, Theseus, and in some accounts bore him a child. A competition between her suitors for her hand in marriage sees Menelaus emerge victorious. An oath sworn beforehand by all the suitors (known as the Oath of Tyndareus) requires them to provide military assistance in the case of her abduction; this oath culminates in the Trojan War. When she marries Menelaus she is still very young; whether her subsequent involvement with Paris is an abduction or a seduction is ambiguous.
The legends recounting Helen's fate in Troy are contradictory. Homer depicts her as a wistful, even a sorrowful, figure, coming to regret her choice and wishing to be reunited with Menelaus. Other accounts have a treacherous Helen who simulates Bacchic rites and rejoices in the carnage. Ultimately, Paris was killed in action, and in Homer's account Helen was reunited with Menelaus, though other versions of the legend recount her ascending to Olympus instead. A cult associated with her developed in Hellenistic Laconia, both at Sparta and elsewhere; at Therapne she shared a shrine with Menelaus. She was also worshiped in Attica, and on Rhodes.
Heracles
Hercules is the Roman name for the Greek divine hero Heracles, who was the son of Zeus (Roman equivalent Jupiter) and the mortal Alcmene. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.
The Romans adapted the Greek hero's iconography and myths for their literature and art under the name Hercules. In later Western art and literature and in popular culture, Hercules is more commonly used than Hercules as the name of the hero. Hercules was a multifaceted figure with contradictory characteristics, which enabled later artists and writers to pick and choose how to represent him.
Hercules is known for his many adventures, which took him to the far reaches of the Greco-Roman world. One cycle of these adventures became canonical as the " Twelve Labours " but the list has variations. One traditional order of the labours is found in the Bibliotheca as follows:
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Hippolyta
In Greek mythology, Hippolyta (/hɪˈpɒlɪˌtə/; Greek: Ἱππολύτη Hippolyte) was the Amazonian queen who possessed a magical girdle she was given by her father Ares , the god of war. The girdle was a waist belt that signified her authority as queen of the Amazons. She figures prominently in the myths of both Heracles and Theseus. As such, the stories about her are varied enough that they may actually be about several different characters.
In the myth of Heracles , Hippolyta's girdle (ζωστὴρ Ἱππολύτης) was the object of his ninth labor . He was sent to retrieve it for Admeta, the daughter of King Eurystheus. Most versions of the story say that Hippolyta was so impressed with Heracles that she gave him the girdle without argument, perhaps while visiting him on his ship.
Then (according to Pseudo-Apollodorus), the goddess Hera, making herself appear as one of the Amazons , spread a rumor among them that Heracles and his crew were actually abducting their queen. So the Amazons attacked the ship. In the fray that followed, Heracles slew Hippolyta , stripped her of the belt, fought off the attackers, and sailed away.
Hyacinth
In Greek mythology, Hyacinth was given various parentage, providing local links, as the son of Clio and Pierus, King of Macedon, or of king Oebalus of Sparta, or of king Amyclas of Sparta, progenitor of the people of Amyclae, dwellers about Sparta. His cult at Amyclae, where his tomb was located, at the feet of Apollo's statue, dates from the Mycenaean era.
In the literary myth, Hyacinth was a beautiful youth and lover of the god Apollo, though he was also admired by West Wind, Zephyr. Apollo and Hyacinth took turns throwing the discus. Hyacinth ran to catch it to impress Apollo, was struck by the discus as it fell to the ground, and died.[3] A twist in the tale makes the wind god Zephyrus responsible for the death of Hyacinth. His beauty caused a feud between Zephyrus and Apollo. Jealous that Hyacinth preferred the radiant archery god Apollo, Zephyrus blew Apollo's discus off course, so as to injure and kill Hyacinth. When he died, Apollo did not allow Hades to claim the youth; rather, he made a flower, the hyacinth, from his spilled blood. According to Ovid's account, the tears of Apollo stained the newly formed flower's petals with the sign of his grief. The flower of the mythological Hyacinth has been identified with a number of plants other than the true hyacinth, such as the iris. According to a local Spartan version of the myth, Hyacinth and his sister Polyboea were taken to Elysium by Aphrodite, Athena and Artemis.
Thamyris is said by Pseudo-Apollodorus of Athens to have been a lover of Hyacinth and thus to have been the first man to have loved another male.
Hyacinth was the tutelary deity of one of the principal Spartan festivals, the Hyacinthia, held every summer. The festival lasted three days, one day of mourning for the death of the divine hero Hyacinth, and the last two celebrating his rebirth as Apollo Hayakinthios, though the division of honours is a subject for scholarly controversy.
Icarus
In Greek mythology, Icarus (the Latin spelling, conventionally adopted in English; Ancient Greek: Ἴκαρος, Íkaros, Etruscan: Vikare) is the son of the master craftsman Daedalus. Often depicted in art, Icarus and his father attempt to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Icarus' father warns him first of complacency and then of hubris, asking that he fly neither too low nor too high, because the sea's dampness would clog or the sun's heat would melt his wings. Icarus ignored instructions not to fly too close to the sun, and the melting wax caused him to fall into the sea where he drowned. This tragic theme of failed ambition contains similarities to that of Phaëthon.
Jason
Jason was an ancient Greek mythological hero who was famous for his role as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. Because he belongs to mythology, he may have existed before the Greek Dark Ages (1100–800 BC.) The people who wrote about Jason lived around 300 BC.
Jason appeared in various literary works in the classical world of Greece and Rome, including the epic poem Argonautica and the tragedy Medea .
Jason has connections outside the classical world, being the mythical founder of the city of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.
Medea
In Greek mythology, Medea was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe , granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of Corinth, offers him his daughter, Glauce. The play tells of Medea avenging her husband's betrayal by slaying their children.
Melanippe
Daughter of the Centaur Chiron. Also known as Hippe or Euippe. She bore a daughter to Aeolus, Melanippe or Arne. She escaped to Mount Pelion so that her father would not find out that she was pregnant, but, being searched for, she prayed to Artemis asking for assistance, and the goddess transformed her into a mare. Other accounts state that the transformation was a punishment for her having scorned Artemis, or for having divulged the secrets of gods. She was later placed among the stars.
Menelaus
In Greek mythology, Menelaus (/ˌmɛnɪˈleɪəs/; Greek: Μενέλαος, Menelaos) was a king of Mycenaean (pre-Dorian) Sparta, the husband of Helen of Troy , and a central figure in the Trojan War. He was the son of Atreus and Aerope, brother of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and, according to the Iliad, leader of the Spartan contingent of the Greek army during the War. Prominent in both the Iliad and Odyssey, Menelaus was also popular in Greek vase painting and Greek tragedy; the latter more as a hero of the Trojan War than as a member of the doomed House of Atreus.
In a return for awarding her a golden apple inscribed "to the fairest," Aphrodite promised Paris the most beautiful woman in all the world. After concluding a diplomatic mission to Sparta during the latter part of which Menelaus was absent to attend the funeral of his maternal grandfather Catreus in Crete, Paris ran off to Troy with Helen in tow despite his brother Hector forbidding her to depart with them. Invoking the oath of Tyndareus, Menelaus and Agamemnon raised a fleet of one thousand ships according to legend and went to Troy to secure Helen's return; the Trojans were recalcitrant, providing a casus belli for the Trojan War.
Angry at Helen , Menelaus looked for and found her. In a fit of rage, he decided to kill her for leaving him for Paris, but when he raised his sword, she started to weep at her former husband's feet, begging for her life. In a split second, Menelaus' wrath went away instantly. He took pity on her, and decided to take her back as wife.
Midas
Midas, in Greek and Roman legend, a king of Phrygia, known for his foolishness and greed.
According to the myth, Midas found the wandering Silenus, the satyr and companion of the god Dionysus. For his kind treatment of Silenus Midas was rewarded by Dionysus with a wish. The king wished that all he touched might turn to gold, but when his food became gold and he nearly starved to death as a result, he realized his error. Dionysus then granted him release by having him bathe in the Pactolus River (near Sardis in modern Turkey), an action to which the presence of alluvial gold in that stream is attributed.
Minos
In Greek mythology, Minos (/ˈmaɪnɒs/ or /ˈmaɪnəs/; Ancient Greek: Μίνως, Minōs) was a king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa . Every nine years, he made King Aegeus pick seven young boys and seven young girls to be sent to Daedalus' creation, the labyrinth, to be eaten by the Minotaur . After his death, Minos became a judge of the dead in the underworld. The Minoan civilization of Crete has been named after him by the archaeologist Arthur Evans. By his wife, Pasiphaë (or some say Crete), he fathered Ariadne, Androgeus, Deucalion, Phaedra, Glaucus, Catreus, Acacallis and Xenodice. By a nymph, Pareia, he had four sons, Eurymedon, Nephalion, Chryses and Philolaus, who were killed by Heracles in revenge for the murder of the latter's two companions; and by Dexithea, one of the Telchines, he had a son called Euxanthius. By Androgeneia of Phaestus he had Asterion, who commanded the Cretan contingent in the war between Dionysus and the Indians. Also given as his children are Euryale, possibly the mother of Orion with Poseidon, and Pholegander, eponym of the island Pholegandros. Minos, along with his brothers, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon, was raised by king Asterion (or Asterius) of Crete. When Asterion died, his throne was claimed by Minos who banished Sarpedon and, according to some sources, Rhadamanthys too.
Orpheus
Orpheus (/ˈɔrfiəs, ˈɔrfjuːs/; Greek: Ὀρφεύς) was a legendary Thracian musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music, his attempt to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld, and his death at the hands of those who could not hear his divine music. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting.
For the Greeks, Orpheus was a founder and prophet of the so-called "Orphic" mysteries. He was credited with the composition of the Orphic Hymns, a collection of which survives. Shrines containing purported relics of Orpheus were regarded as oracles. Some ancient Greek sources note Orpheus' Thracian origins.
Pandora
In Greek mythology, Pandora (Greek: Πανδώρα, derived from πᾶν, pān, i.e. "all" and δῶρον, dōron, i.e. "gift", thus "the all-endowed", "the all-gifted" or "the all-giving") was the first human woman created by the gods, specifically by Hephaestus and Athena on the instructions of Zeus. As Hesiod related it, each god helped create her by giving her unique gifts. Zeus ordered Hephaestus to mold her out of earth as part of the punishment of humanity for Prometheus' theft of the secret of fire, and all the gods joined in offering her "seductive gifts". Her other name—inscribed against her figure on a white-ground kylix in the British Museum—is Anesidora, "she who sends up gifts" (up implying "from below" within the earth).
According to the myth, Pandora opened a jar (pithos), in modern accounts sometimes mistranslated as "Pandora's box", releasing all the evils of humanity—although the particular evils, aside from plagues and diseases, are not specified in detail by Hesiod—leaving only Hope inside once she had closed it again. She opened the jar out of simple curiosity and not as a malicious act.
The Pandora myth is a kind of theodicy, addressing the question of why there is evil in the world.
Pasiphae
In Greek mythology, Pasiphaë (/pəˈsɪfɨ.iː/; Greek: Πασιφάη Pasipháē, "wide-shining") was the daughter of Helios, the Sun, by the eldest of the Oceanids, Perse.
Like her doublet Europa , her origins were in the East, in her case at Colchis, she was the sister of Circe , and she was given in marriage to King Minos of Crete. With Minos , she was the mother of Acacallis, Ariadne, Androgeus, Glaucus, Deucalion, Phaedra, Xenodice, and Catreus. She was also the mother of "starlike" Asterion, called by the Greeks the Minotaur , after a curse from Poseidon caused her to experience lust for and mate with a white bull sent by Poseidon.
Pelops
In Greek mythology, Pelops (/ˈpiːlɒps, ˈpɛlɒps/; Greek: Πέλοψ), was king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus. His father, Tantalus, was the founder of the House of Atreus through Pelops's son of that name.
He was venerated at Olympia, where his cult developed into the founding myth of the Olympic Games, the most important expression of unity, not only for the Peloponnesus, "island of Pelops", but for all Hellenes. At the sanctuary at Olympia, chthonic night-time libations were offered each time to "dark-faced" Pelops in his sacrificial pit (bothros) before they were offered in the following daylight to the sky-god Zeus.
Pelops' father was Tantalus, king at Mount Sipylus in Anatolia. Wanting to make an offering to the Olympians, Tantalus cut Pelops into pieces and made his flesh into a stew, then served it to the gods. Demeter, deep in grief after the abduction of her daughter Persephone by Hades, absentmindedly accepted the offering and ate the left shoulder. The other gods sensed the plot, however, and held off from eating of the boy's body. Pelops was ritually reassembled and brought back to life, his shoulder replaced with one of ivory made for him by Hephaestus. Pindar mentioned this tradition in his First Olympian Ode, only to reject it as a malicious invention: his patron claimed descent from Tantalus.
After Pelops' resurrection, Poseidon took him to Olympus, and made him the youth apprentice, teaching him also to drive the divine chariot. Later, Zeus found out about the gods' stolen food and their now revealed secrets, and threw Pelops out of Olympus, angry at his father, Tantalus.
Phineus
Phineus, the son of Agenor, was a king of Thrace and a prophet. Because he prophesied too truly, revealing too much of the gods' truth to humans, Zeus blinded him and set the Harpies to plague him. Whenever Phineus sat down to eat, the Harpies would swoop down and steal the food; what little food they left would be foul-smelling and unpalatable. When Jason and the Argonauts arrived in Phineus' land, they rid his household of the curse by having the winged Boreads pursue the Harpies; the goddess Iris prevented the Boreads from killing the Harpies by promising that Phineus would not be troubled again. In return for the Argonauts' help, Phineus foretold the results of their quest, and revealed to them how they should get past the hazard of the Symplegades.
Source: http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/phineus.html
Monsters & Creatures
Monsters include good or evil creatures that were born this way or humans who became monsters because of the intervention of Gods, or because of other situations.
Agathos Daimon
A winged serpent that in Gnostic and ancient Greek legends that was said to bring about good fortune. Temples were built for the Agathos Daimon and wine was offered to ensure a good harvest. Sculptures were made of it as a reminder of its presence. Some would even talk to the serpent. The worship of Agathos Daimon was a private practice. The word ‘Daimon’ is Greek for spirit and spirits were considered to powerful but weaker than the gods. Later this word filtered into the English language to become Demon. The word ‘Agathos’ denotes that the spirit was benevolent. However over time this winged serpent became known to be sinister.
Argus Panoptes
In Greek mythology, Argus Panoptes (Ἄργος Πανόπτης) or Argos, guardian of the heifer-nymph Io and son of Arestor, was a primordial giant whose epithet, "Panoptes," or "all-seeing," led to his being described with multiple, often one hundred, eyes. Argos was a faithful, alert, and benevolent being, employed by Hera primarily as a guardian and, at one point, as slayer of the villain Echidna . According to Ovid, to commemorate her faithful watchman, Hera had the hundred eyes of Argus preserved forever, in a peacock's tail.
Basilisk
In European bestiaries and legends, a Basilisk (Greek βασιλίσκος basilískos, "little king") is a legendary reptile reputed to be king of serpents and said to have the power to cause death with a single glance. Basilisks have been reimagined and employed in modern fantasy fiction for books and role-playing games, with wide variations on the powers and weaknesses attributed to them. Most of these depictions describe a reptile of some sort, with the power to kill its victims with a direct stare and petrify through an indirect one.
Centaur
The centaur (from Greek: Κένταυρος, Kéntauros) are part human, part horse creatures in Greek mythology. Females were known as centaurides. They were said to have been born of Ixion, king of the Lapiths, and Nephele, the cloud made by Zeus in the image of Hera. They are known as wild and savage creatures, lustful and uncultured, lovers of drink, and given to violence when intoxicated.
Charybdis
The sea monster Charybdis was believed to live under a small rock on one side of a narrow channel. Opposite her was Scylla , another sea-monster, that lived inside a much larger rock. [Odyssey, Book XII] The sides of the strait were within an arrow shot of each other, and sailors attempting to avoid one of them would come in reach of the other. Between Scylla and Charybdis thus means to having to choose between two dangers, either of which brings harm. Three times a day, Charybdis swallowed a huge amount of water, before belching it back out again, creating large whirlpools capable of dragging a ship underwater.[citation needed] In some variations of the story, Charybdis was simply a large whirlpool instead of a sea monster.
A later myth makes Charybdis the daughter of Poseidon and Gaia and living as a loyal servant to Poseidon. She aided him in his feud with Zeus, and as such, helped him engulf lands and islands in water. Zeus, angry for the land she stole from him, cursed her into a hideous bladder of a monster, with flippers for arms and legs, and an uncontrollable thirst for the sea. As such, she drank the water from the sea three times a day to quench it, which created whirlpools. She lingered on a rock with Scylla facing her directly on another rock, making a strait.
The theoretical size of Charybdis remains unknown, yet in order to consume Greek ships the whirlpool can be estimated to about 23 meters (75 ft) across.
Chimera
The Chimera was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of more than one animal. Usually depicted as a lion, with the head of a goat arising from his back and also dragon, and a tail that might end with a snake's head, the Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra .
Cyclops
A cyclops (from Greek: Κύκλωψ, Kuklōps), in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead. The name is widely thought to mean "circle-eyed". Various ancient Greek and Roman authors wrote about cyclopes . Hesiod described them as three brothers who were primordial giants. All the other sources of literature about the cyclopes describe the cyclops Polyphemus, who lived upon an island populated by the creatures.
Delphyne
In Greek mythology, Delphyne (Greek: Δελφύνη) is the name of the female dragon who was appointed by her mother, Gaea, to guard the oracle of Delphi. She is sometimes called Python and may, in the stories, be replaced with or accompanied by a male dragon (either Python or Typhon ). She is sometimes equated with Echidna , a monster with the head and torso of woman, but the lower part of a snake, who was the consort of Typhon. In one tale, Delphyne (here half maiden, half snake, like Echidna) guards the sinews of Zeus, which had been stolen by her mate Typhon. She was slain by Apollo. Apollo's title Delphinius is, in some stories, interpreted as having come from his slaying of Delphyne (or from showing the Cretan colonists the way to Delphi whilst riding on a dolphin).
Dryad
A dryad (/ˈdraɪ.æd/; Greek: Δρυάδες, sing.: Δρυάς) is a tree nymph, or female tree spirit, in Greek mythology. In Greek drys signifies "oak." Thus, dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, though the term has come to be used for all tree nymphs in general. "Such deities are very much overshadowed by the divine figures defined through poetry and cult," Walter Burkert remarked of Greek nature deities. They were normally considered to be very shy creatures, except around the goddess Artemis, who was known to be a friend to most nymphs.
Echidna
Daughter of primordial goddess Gaia, Echidna (from Ancient Greek:Ἔχιδνα, "she viper") was half woman and half serpent, known as the "Mother of All Monsters" (wife of Typhon ) because a great many of the monsters in Greek myth were mothered by her, including several dragons, Scylla , the Hydra , Chimera , and various other creatures. She reportedly had a penchant for kidnapping those who strayed too near her cave. Though Echidna was blessed with eternal youth, she was eventually slain by the ancient and benevolent giant Argos .
Erinyes
Erinyes, (Greek form: Ἐρῑνύες) in Greek and Roman mythology, literally "the avengers," were female chthonic deities of vengeance. They correspond to the Furies or Dirae in Roman mythology. According to Hesiod's Theogony, when the Titan Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes as well as the Meliae emerged from the drops of blood when it fell on the earth. Their number is usually left indeterminate, but Virgil recognized three: Alecto ("unnameable"), Megaera ("grudging"), and Tisiphone ("vengeful destruction"), all of whom appear in the Aeneid. The Erinyes are crones and, depending upon authors, described as having snakes for hair, dog's heads, coal black bodies, bat's wings, and blood-shot eyes. In their hands they carry brass-studded scourges, and their victims die in torment.
Galatea
In Greek mythology, the Nereids (/ˈnɪəriɪdz/ NEER-ee-idz; Ancient Greek: Νηρηΐδες, sg. Νηρηΐς) are sea nymphs (female spirits of sea waters), the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris, sisters to Nerites. They were distinct from the Sirens. They often accompany Poseidon, the god of the sea, and can be friendly and helpful to sailors fighting perilous storms. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Acis was the spirit of the Acis River in Sicily, beloved of the nereid, or sea-nymph, Galatea, daughter of Nereus and Doris. She returned his love, but a jealous rival, the Sicilian Cyclops Polyphemus, killed him with a boulder. Galatea then turned his blood into the Sicilian River Acis.
Griffin
The Griffin , griffon, or gryphon (from Greek: γρύφων, grýphōn, or γρύπων, grýpōn, early form γρύψ, grýps; Latin: gryphus) is a legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion, the head and wings of an eagle, and an eagle's talons as its front feet. As the lion was traditionally considered the king of the beasts and the eagle was the king of the birds, the griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature. Griffins are known for guarding treasure and priceless possessions.
Harpy
A Harpy (Greek: ἅρπυια) was one of the winged spirits best known for constantly stealing all food from Phineus. The literal meaning of the word seems to be "that which snatches" as it comes from the Greek word harpazein (ἁρπάζειν), which means "to snatch". A harpy was the mother of the horses of Achilles sired by the West Wind Zephyros.
Hippocamp and Chariot Hippocamp
The Hippocamp - or hippocampus, also hippokampoi, and often called a sea-horse in English - is a mythological creature shared by Phoenician and Greek mythology, though the name by which it is recognized is purely Greek. It was also adopted into Etruscan mythology. It has typically been depicted as a horse in its forepart with a coiling, scaly, fish-like hindquarter.
Lernaean Hydra
The Lernaean Hydra (Ancient Greek: Λερναία Ὕδρα) was an ancient serpent-like chthonic water beast, with reptilian traits (as its name evinces), that possessed many heads — the poets mention more heads than the vase-painters could paint, and for each head cut off it grew two more — and poisonous breath and blood so virulent even its tracks were deadly. It was killed by Heracles (second labour).
Lamia
In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia (Greek: Λάμια) was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Her name derives from the Greek word for gullet (λαιμός; laimos), referring to her habit of devouring children. She is a mistress of the god Zeus, causing Zeus' jealous wife, Hera, to kill all of Lamia's children (except for Scylla , who is herself cursed) and transform her into a monster that hunts and devours the children of others.
Lynx
The lynx , a type of wildcat, has a prominent role in Greek, Norse, and North American mythology. It is considered an elusive and mysterious creature, known in some American Indian traditions as a 'keeper of secrets'. It is also believed to have supernatural eyesight, capable of seeing even through solid objects. As a result, it often symbolizes the unraveling of hidden truths, and the psychic power of clairvoyance.
Marsyas
In Greek mythology, the satyr Marsyas (/ˈmɑrsiəs/; Greek: Μαρσύας) is a central figure in two stories involving death: in one, he picked up the double flute (aulos) that had been abandoned by Athena and played it; in the other, he challenged Apollo to a contest of music and lost his hide and life. In antiquity, literary sources often emphasize the hubris of Marsyas and the justice of his punishment.
Medusa & The Gorgons
The Gorgons (Ancient Greek: Γοργών "dreadful"), Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa (Ancient Greek: Μέδουσα (Médousa), "guardian," "protectress"), daughters of the sea gods Phorcys and Ceto and sisters of Echidna and Scylla , were monsters, described as having the faces of hideous women with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Gazing directly upon them would turn onlookers to stone. Two of the sisters were immortal; only Medusa was mortal. She was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head as a weapon. Medusa was the mother of Pegasus .
Minotaur
The Minotaur (from Ancient Greek: Μῑνώταυρος "bull of Minos") was a creature with the head of a bull on the body of a man. He dwelt at the center of the Cretan Labyrinth, which was an elaborate maze-like construction designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus, on the command of King Minos of Crete. In Crete the Minotaur was known by its proper name, Asterios (Ancient Greek: Ἀστέριος "starry," "ruler of the stars"). The Minotaur was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus.
Mormo
In Greek mythology, Mormo (Greek: Μορμώ, Μορμών, Mormō) was a spirit who bit bad children, and was said to have been a companion of the goddess Hecate. The name was also used to signify a female vampire-like creature in stories told to Greek children by their nurses to keep them from misbehaving. This reference is primarily found in some of the plays of Aristophanes.He is also referenced in The Alexiad, which goes to show that Mormo was still taught to children during Byzantine times. The Mormo would steal children in revenge of Queen Laestrygonian who was deprived by her children.
Nessos
Nessos (or Nessus) was one of Thessalian Kentauroi (Centaurs) who was fled his homeland after the Lapith war. He made his way to the Aitolian river Euenos and there established himself as ferryman. When Heracles later passed by with his bride, Deianeira, Nessos took her upon his back and ferried her across the river. However, he became enflamed with desire for the beautiful woman and attempted to force her. She cried out and Herakles slew him with his poisoned arrows. Nessos, as he was dying, persuaded Deianeira to take some of his poisoned blood to use as a love charm should Herakles ever proved unfaithful. The dupe resulted in the hero's death.
Ocypete
Ocypete (English translation: "swift wing") was one of the three Harpies in Greek mythology. She was also known as Ocypode ("swift foot") or Ocythoe ("swift runner"). The Harpies were the daughters of the sea god Thaumas and the sea nymph Electra. According to one story, the Harpies were chased by the Boreads. Though the swiftest of the trio, Ocypete became exhausted, landed on an island in the middle of the ocean and begged for mercy from the gods. In Greek and Roman mythology, the Harpies were creatures employed by the higher gods to carry out the punishment of crime.
Satyr
A satyr (Greek σάτυρος, satyros) is one of a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus with goat-like features. Children of nature, pure, they are tame, fearless and brutal when they have to defend themselves against threats. Above all though, the Satyr with flute has a small companion for him, shows the deep connection with nature, the soft whistle of the wind, the sound of gurgling water of the crystal spring, the birds singing, or perhaps the singing a melody of a human soul that feeds higher feelings.
Scylla
In Greek mythology, Scylla (/ˈsɪlə/ sil-ə; Greek: Σκύλλα, pronounced [skýl̚la], Skylla) was a monster that lived on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite its counterpart Charybdis . The two sides of the strait were within an arrow's range of each other—so close that sailors attempting to avoid Charybdis would pass too close to Scylla and vice versa. The strait has been associated with the Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily. The idiom "Between Scylla and Charybdis" has come to mean being between two dangers, choosing either of which brings harm.
Sphinx
A Sphinx (Greek: Σφίγξ) is a mythical creature with, as a minimum, the body of a lion and a woman's head. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless. The Sphinx is said to have guarded the entrance to the Greek city of Thebes, and to have asked a riddle of travellers to allow them passage. Oedipus solved her riddle, and, bested at last, the Sphinx then threw herself from her high rock and died. (An Egyptian version of the Sphinx also exists, and was viewed as benevolent in contrast to the malevolent Greek version, and was thought of as a guardian often flanking the entrances to temples.
Typhon
Typhon (Greek: Τυφῶν), also Typhoeus, was the most deadly monster of Greek mythology. The last son of Gaia, fathered by Tartarus, he was known as the "Father of All Monsters"; his wife Echidna was likewise the "Mother of All Monsters." His human upper half reached as high as the stars, and his hands reached east and west. His bottom half consisted of gigantic viper coils that could reach the top of his head when stretched out and constantly made a hissing noise. He tried to kill Zeus, but is finally defeated by the King of Gods, who traps him underneath Mount Etna.
Others
Aegis
The aegis or aigis (Ancient Greek: Αἰγίς; English pronunciation: /ˈiːdʒɪs/), as stated in the Iliad, is carried by Athena and Zeus, but its nature is uncertain. It had been interpreted as an animal skin or a shield, sometimes bearing the head of a Gorgon. There may be a connection with a deity named Aex or Aix, a daughter of Helios and a nurse of Zeus or alternatively a mistress of Zeus (Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 13). The aegis of Athena is referred to in several places in the Iliad. "It produced a sound as from a myriad roaring dragons (Iliad, 4.17) and was borne by Athena in battle ... and among them went bright-eyed Athene, holding the precious aegis which is ageless and immortal: a hundred tassels of pure gold hang fluttering from it, tight-woven each of them, and each the worth of a hundred oxen."
Amethyst
Amethyst is a violet variety of quartz often used in jewelry. The name comes from the Ancient Greek ἀ a- ("not") and μέθυστος méthystos ("intoxicated"), a reference to the belief that the stone protected its owner from drunkenness. The ancient Greeks wore amethyst and made drinking vessels decorated with it in the belief that it would prevent intoxication. It is one of several forms of quartz. Amethyst is a semiprecious stone and is the traditional birthstone for February.
The Greek word "amethystos" may be translated as "not drunken", from Greek a-, "not" + methustos, "intoxicated". Amethyst was considered to be a strong antidote against drunkenness, which is why wine goblets were often carved from it. In his poem "L'Amethyste, ou les Amours de Bacchus et d'Amethyste" (Amethyst or the loves of Bacchus and Amethyste), the French poet Remy Belleau (1528–1577) invented a myth in which Bacchus, the god of intoxication, of wine, and grapes was pursuing a maiden named Amethyste, who refused his affections. Amethyste prayed to the gods to remain chaste, a prayer which the chaste goddess Diana answered, transforming her into a white stone. Humbled by Amethyste's desire to remain chaste, Bacchus poured wine over the stone as an offering, dyeing the crystals purple.
Cocytus
Cocytus or Kokytos, meaning "the river of wailing" (from the Greek Κωκυτός, "lamentation"), is a river in the underworld in Greek mythology. Cocytus flows into the river Acheron, across which is the underworld, the mythological abode of the dead. There are five rivers encircling Hades. The River Styx is perhaps the most famous; the other rivers are Phlegethon, Lethe, and Acheron.
Siege Horse
The Trojan Horse is the subject of a tale from the Trojan War about the subterfuge that the Greeks used to enter the city of Troy and win the war. In the canonical version, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse, and hid a select force of men inside. The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under cover of night. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city of Troy, decisively ending the war.
Zeus' Eagle
This eagle is the punishment of Prometheus as a consequence of the theft of Zeus' fire. Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, sentenced the Titan to eternal torment for his transgression. The immortal Prometheus was bound to a rock, where each day an eagle, the emblem of Zeus, was sent to feed on his liver, which would then grow back to be eaten again the next day. In some stories, Prometheus is freed at last by the hero Heracles. The eagle is also used to bring people to the skies.
| i don't know |
What radio station do you find at 94.1 on your local FM dial? | Radio.com - Android Apps on Google Play
Radio.com
( 17,904)
Description
Stream your favorite radio stations anywhere you go with the Radio.com Android app. Radio.com features nearly 300 live broadcast, HD and digital-only stations from CBS Radio. Browse over a dozen music genres and get local with news and sports from cities across the U.S.
Radio.com for Android lets you:
• Listen to your favorite radio station's Podcasts! Stream or download episodes and listen offline. Subscribe and share them with friends.
•See what songs are playing right now on your favorite live, music stations with real-time album art displaying on your home screen
•Dive deeper into Now Playing info with song lyrics and artist bios
•Wake up to your favorite station with the alarm clock feature
•Register to save your station favorites
•View station play history, show schedules and news feeds
•Browse the latest Music news headlines
•Search the entire station catalog with ease
•Adjust your audio quality and format to suit your playback needs
•Set a sleep timer
•Easily contact us to report issues or suggest features
Radio.com is the official mobile app for the network of CBS Radio stations including:
WAOK, V-103, 92.9 The Game, 105.7 The Fan, 101.9 Lite FM, Mix 106.5, Mix 104.1, WBZ, 98.5 The Sports Hub, 103.3 Amp Radio, WZLX, V 101.9, The Fan 610 AM, CBS Sports Radio, WBBM Newsradio, B96, K-hits Chicago, 670 The Score, US 99, WXRT, New 102, 92.3 The Fan, WNCX, Q104, 100.3 Jack FM, KLUV, La Grande 107.5 FM, KRLD, 105.3 The Fan, 103.7 KVIL, 98.7 Lite FM, 98.7 Amp Radio, WOMC, WWJ, 97.1 The Ticket, WYCD, WRCH, WTIC, 96.5 Tic, Hot 93.7, Mix 96.5 Houston, Sports Radio 94WIP, KILT, Hot Hits 95.7, Mega 101 FM, KLUC, Mix 94.1, KXNT, X107.5 Las Vegas, 97.1 Amp Radio, 93.1 Jack FM, KNX 1070, KROQ, K-Earth 101, 94.7 The Wave, Buz'n 102.9, 104.1 Jack FM, WCCO Radio, WCBS 880, WCBS FM, WFAN, 1010 WINS, 92.3 NOW, Fresh 102.7, 102 Jamz Orlando, 105.9 Sunny FM, Mix 105.1, EZ 103, WOGL, WPHT, KMLE 107.9, KOOL FM, LIVE 101.5, KDKA Radio, 93.7 The Fan, 100.7 Star, Y108, KFROG, 1140 The Fan, KNCI FM, KSFM 102.5, Mix 96, Now 100 FM, Energy 103.7, KYXY, KCBS, Live 105, Radio Alice, 99.7 NOW, Jack Seattle, KMPS, KZOK, Fresh 102.5, KMOX, Y98, 94.7 Fresh FM, 106.7 The Fan DC, el Zol 107.9, WNEW NewsRadio, 560 WQAM Sports Radio, Power96, Kiss Country 99.9FM,Wired 96.5, 92.5XTU and WPGC.
Please note: This app features Nielsen’s audience measurement software which will allow you to contribute to market research, such as Nielsen’s TV Ratings.
To learn more about our digital audience measurement products and your choices in regard to them, please visit http://www.nielsen.com/digitalprivacy for more information.
Read more
1 4,014
Eric Bevel
Steaming pile of... I've used this ap over 5 years now, it's never worked well. This recent update has ruined it completely. Utterly useless garbage now. Never-ending commercials... don't waste your time. 01/10/17 Update... The ap crashes consistently, randomly, for apparently no good reason. Why can't y'all get this ap to work???
Mark M
Needs to improve badly Listening to Live105 and station just cuts to commercial during segments. So stupid. I know you guys have to slip your own ads and BS in there but you need to come up with a way to incorporate them without interruption to the radio show your app claims you can stream. It's not even a live stream either. I'd rather pay a little $ for an uninterrupted live feed than this choppy stuff. Switching to "next radio"
Nicholas Lord
Force closures This app has force closures more often than any other app I've ever had. And it's across versions too, it's been plaguing the app for a looooooong time now. Also, the hand-off from WiFi to mobile data is often a "miss" resulting in the stream dropping completely. Then you have to open the app back up and start it over again. This app needs work.
Joe Santilli
Piss poor I had a great wifi connection. My phone was the only thing on wifi and wouldn't connect. So I had to listen the horrible broadcasting on Fox NFL sunday
Brian Stevens
Towing the line Keeps on going works like a charm never an issue glad to have it.... oh plus it works while playing pokemon go so I can listen to sports radio over that horrible music
Richard Eicholtz
Sooooo many ads There are times where the app goes straight to the show but then there are times where the ads just repeat. The show drops out too. But when the stars and moon align it's a pretty good app.
User reviews
Eric Bevel January 9, 2017
Steaming pile of... I've used this ap over 5 years now, it's never worked well. This recent update has ruined it completely. Utterly useless garbage now. Never-ending commercials... don't waste your time. 01/10/17 Update... The ap crashes consistently, randomly, for apparently no good reason. Why can't y'all get this ap to work???
Full Review
Mark M December 16, 2016
Needs to improve badly Listening to Live105 and station just cuts to commercial during segments. So stupid. I know you guys have to slip your own ads and BS in there but you need to come up with a way to incorporate them without interruption to the radio show your app claims you can stream. It's not even a live stream either. I'd rather pay a little $ for an uninterrupted live feed than this choppy stuff. Switching to "next radio"
Full Review
Nicholas Lord December 14, 2016
Force closures This app has force closures more often than any other app I've ever had. And it's across versions too, it's been plaguing the app for a looooooong time now. Also, the hand-off from WiFi to mobile data is often a "miss" resulting in the stream dropping completely. Then you have to open the app back up and start it over again. This app needs work.
Full Review
Joe Santilli December 18, 2016
Piss poor I had a great wifi connection. My phone was the only thing on wifi and wouldn't connect. So I had to listen the horrible broadcasting on Fox NFL sunday
Full Review
Brian Stevens December 29, 2016
Towing the line Keeps on going works like a charm never an issue glad to have it.... oh plus it works while playing pokemon go so I can listen to sports radio over that horrible music
Full Review
Richard Eicholtz January 13, 2017
Sooooo many ads There are times where the app goes straight to the show but then there are times where the ads just repeat. The show drops out too. But when the stars and moon align it's a pretty good app.
Full Review
Paul Mykytka December 24, 2016
Ads work great, radio not so much... When I try to listen to a radio station, the full screen video ad plays just fine, but then the station just sits there "Connecting" but never actually connects. What a joke.
Full Review
A Google User December 9, 2016
They need to fix the ads. App crashes all the time, and constantly makes you keep watching ads up to one minute long with no option to skip. CBS should be better than this.
Full Review
Mark Saccone December 24, 2016
Constantly freezes Buffering... Have to quit app every few minutes. How can you release this when it clearly does not work?!
Full Review
frumiousbrain December 9, 2016
Used to work great Worked great when I got it couple years ago. Now it plays for about 30 seconds -makes sure to work through the ad of course- and then buffers and stops. Welcome back 2002 QuickTime apparently.
Full Review
Jarred Douthit December 5, 2016
App runs fine. I see you guys just pushed out the Marshmallow update. Thing is, I've been on Nougat for a couple months. When do you think you'll get the 7.1 update out?
Full Review
Brian Kelley January 12, 2017
Stops and starts All the time. I constantly have to open my phone and restart the app because the streams just die. This will happen regardless of connectivity
Full Review
Emily Chung December 12, 2016
Unreliable and crashes constantly Seems to be working worse and worse. Won't connect and crashes all the time
Full Review
January 12, 2017
Keeps buffering! This thing never stays connected to the point where I'm just pulling out old boom box I just want to listen to kmle 1079 and I can't. Stupid app!!!
Full Review
Joe German December 12, 2016
Your app has turned into a big pile of garbage. It stops audio for no reason. I do not have a data problem when it stops.
Full Review
Willie Kane December 9, 2016
Constantly crashes A glitchy, terrible app. Frequent disruptions, self-pauses, and crashes. Unfortuately, this is the only way to get the live content it provides. I used to have the CBS local radio app (equally glitchy), but the station I listen to dropped it.
Full Review
Adam Beers December 12, 2016
Constantly crashes I literally hate this ap. If I had any other option I would use it. Randomly crashes all the time and forces you to watch an add every time it does. Once it starts having a problem it will not stop, sometimes for hours. I only use it for WFAN and will cease using it as soon as I can.
Full Review
Mark Nadeau January 15, 2017
Sign up is annoying Really guys?! What information could you possibly be so paranoid about protecting that you force people to create some convoluted new password? PITA! Yes! I mean YOU!
Greg Kuhn December 18, 2016
Connecting......? Just says connecting at the top forever. So much for hearing the game... worthless.
Full Review
BRIAN WHEDON December 13, 2016
Don't use autoplay App freezes on launch when using autoplay. I have stopped using the auto play option, and all my freezing problems have stopped.
Full Review
richard takac December 5, 2016
Horrible bugs Lots of shut downs, pauses, etc. I use this only out of desperation to listen to CBS sports radio
Full Review
Mike Hudson January 9, 2017
Way to break your app I've used this app for awhile with mild frustration. The app always stopped and I would have to restart it. Now with the latest update all I get is a connecting message and ads of course the ads.
Full Review
Linnett Long December 6, 2016
The Gospel Station I loved this gospel Station. I played it when I go to sleep. I noticed lately they have a lot of commercial and have to find a new Station to sleep on.
Roger Dasilva January 17, 2017
Not reliable. Stops playing even though signal is strong.
Full Review
Dan Santos January 17, 2017
Bugs out constantly The app shuts down or creates some sort of error after a while, which when I like listening to the radio at work throughout the day is annoying, I wish there was a better option.
Full Review
Baka'z Mann CEO December 21, 2016
Hate it This app sucks constantly crashing, buffering, and losing connection even with full bar of service very annoying😖
Full Review
Anthony Jay December 15, 2016
Doesn't work Constantly stopping even on high speed Wi-Fi. Autoplay doesn't work. None of the features seem to work properly. Get it together people.
Full Review
Patrick Sullivan December 15, 2016
It works The app work...to many ads...the thing that got me was that when you start a AUDIO app you get a video commerical...kinda dumb
Full Review
Matthew Wheelwright December 5, 2016
This app is so poor Constantly shuts down. Always has issues connecting. TUNE IN is the way to go.
Full Review
Chris Belizaire January 1, 2017
Wtf This is literally the WORST APP I HAVE EVER USED. IT STOPS RANDOMLY FOR NO GODDAMN REASON.
Joe Walker January 4, 2017
Crashes a lot. Crashed on my s3, htc one m8, s7, and probably my next phone too.
Full Review
John Smith December 11, 2016
This app has responded better now after reinstall, it wont retain " " Favorite selections " using LG android phone, but lm happy with it
ANDY H Brown December 12, 2016
Zero if I could Never works. So many other choices. Seeya never.
Full Review
Michael Hurlburt December 19, 2016
Sports fan This app worked great for awhile. Now it just tries to connect but never does. And yes my phone had a good data connection.
Full Review
Custom Chendo January 3, 2017
Galaxy S 7 Edge Works fine, just need to allow me to add favorites. I push favorite to add it, and nothing. 4 stars until fixed
Anthony Mitchell January 4, 2017
National Radio Stations Never miss a National Radio Stations great app.
Rich Phillips January 4, 2017
Rich p It locks up too much
Anthony Petro January 5, 2017
Wont stop buffering always force stops TRASH
| KMPS-FM |
The UW Huskies won the Pac-10 conference title in what sport, this last Sunday, when the men edged California? | Radio.com - Android Apps on Google Play
Radio.com
( 17,904)
Description
Stream your favorite radio stations anywhere you go with the Radio.com Android app. Radio.com features nearly 300 live broadcast, HD and digital-only stations from CBS Radio. Browse over a dozen music genres and get local with news and sports from cities across the U.S.
Radio.com for Android lets you:
• Listen to your favorite radio station's Podcasts! Stream or download episodes and listen offline. Subscribe and share them with friends.
•See what songs are playing right now on your favorite live, music stations with real-time album art displaying on your home screen
•Dive deeper into Now Playing info with song lyrics and artist bios
•Wake up to your favorite station with the alarm clock feature
•Register to save your station favorites
•View station play history, show schedules and news feeds
•Browse the latest Music news headlines
•Search the entire station catalog with ease
•Adjust your audio quality and format to suit your playback needs
•Set a sleep timer
•Easily contact us to report issues or suggest features
Radio.com is the official mobile app for the network of CBS Radio stations including:
WAOK, V-103, 92.9 The Game, 105.7 The Fan, 101.9 Lite FM, Mix 106.5, Mix 104.1, WBZ, 98.5 The Sports Hub, 103.3 Amp Radio, WZLX, V 101.9, The Fan 610 AM, CBS Sports Radio, WBBM Newsradio, B96, K-hits Chicago, 670 The Score, US 99, WXRT, New 102, 92.3 The Fan, WNCX, Q104, 100.3 Jack FM, KLUV, La Grande 107.5 FM, KRLD, 105.3 The Fan, 103.7 KVIL, 98.7 Lite FM, 98.7 Amp Radio, WOMC, WWJ, 97.1 The Ticket, WYCD, WRCH, WTIC, 96.5 Tic, Hot 93.7, Mix 96.5 Houston, Sports Radio 94WIP, KILT, Hot Hits 95.7, Mega 101 FM, KLUC, Mix 94.1, KXNT, X107.5 Las Vegas, 97.1 Amp Radio, 93.1 Jack FM, KNX 1070, KROQ, K-Earth 101, 94.7 The Wave, Buz'n 102.9, 104.1 Jack FM, WCCO Radio, WCBS 880, WCBS FM, WFAN, 1010 WINS, 92.3 NOW, Fresh 102.7, 102 Jamz Orlando, 105.9 Sunny FM, Mix 105.1, EZ 103, WOGL, WPHT, KMLE 107.9, KOOL FM, LIVE 101.5, KDKA Radio, 93.7 The Fan, 100.7 Star, Y108, KFROG, 1140 The Fan, KNCI FM, KSFM 102.5, Mix 96, Now 100 FM, Energy 103.7, KYXY, KCBS, Live 105, Radio Alice, 99.7 NOW, Jack Seattle, KMPS, KZOK, Fresh 102.5, KMOX, Y98, 94.7 Fresh FM, 106.7 The Fan DC, el Zol 107.9, WNEW NewsRadio, 560 WQAM Sports Radio, Power96, Kiss Country 99.9FM,Wired 96.5, 92.5XTU and WPGC.
Please note: This app features Nielsen’s audience measurement software which will allow you to contribute to market research, such as Nielsen’s TV Ratings.
To learn more about our digital audience measurement products and your choices in regard to them, please visit http://www.nielsen.com/digitalprivacy for more information.
Read more
1 4,014
Eric Bevel
Steaming pile of... I've used this ap over 5 years now, it's never worked well. This recent update has ruined it completely. Utterly useless garbage now. Never-ending commercials... don't waste your time. 01/10/17 Update... The ap crashes consistently, randomly, for apparently no good reason. Why can't y'all get this ap to work???
Mark M
Needs to improve badly Listening to Live105 and station just cuts to commercial during segments. So stupid. I know you guys have to slip your own ads and BS in there but you need to come up with a way to incorporate them without interruption to the radio show your app claims you can stream. It's not even a live stream either. I'd rather pay a little $ for an uninterrupted live feed than this choppy stuff. Switching to "next radio"
Nicholas Lord
Force closures This app has force closures more often than any other app I've ever had. And it's across versions too, it's been plaguing the app for a looooooong time now. Also, the hand-off from WiFi to mobile data is often a "miss" resulting in the stream dropping completely. Then you have to open the app back up and start it over again. This app needs work.
Joe Santilli
Piss poor I had a great wifi connection. My phone was the only thing on wifi and wouldn't connect. So I had to listen the horrible broadcasting on Fox NFL sunday
Brian Stevens
Towing the line Keeps on going works like a charm never an issue glad to have it.... oh plus it works while playing pokemon go so I can listen to sports radio over that horrible music
Richard Eicholtz
Sooooo many ads There are times where the app goes straight to the show but then there are times where the ads just repeat. The show drops out too. But when the stars and moon align it's a pretty good app.
User reviews
Eric Bevel January 9, 2017
Steaming pile of... I've used this ap over 5 years now, it's never worked well. This recent update has ruined it completely. Utterly useless garbage now. Never-ending commercials... don't waste your time. 01/10/17 Update... The ap crashes consistently, randomly, for apparently no good reason. Why can't y'all get this ap to work???
Full Review
Mark M December 16, 2016
Needs to improve badly Listening to Live105 and station just cuts to commercial during segments. So stupid. I know you guys have to slip your own ads and BS in there but you need to come up with a way to incorporate them without interruption to the radio show your app claims you can stream. It's not even a live stream either. I'd rather pay a little $ for an uninterrupted live feed than this choppy stuff. Switching to "next radio"
Full Review
Nicholas Lord December 14, 2016
Force closures This app has force closures more often than any other app I've ever had. And it's across versions too, it's been plaguing the app for a looooooong time now. Also, the hand-off from WiFi to mobile data is often a "miss" resulting in the stream dropping completely. Then you have to open the app back up and start it over again. This app needs work.
Full Review
Joe Santilli December 18, 2016
Piss poor I had a great wifi connection. My phone was the only thing on wifi and wouldn't connect. So I had to listen the horrible broadcasting on Fox NFL sunday
Full Review
Brian Stevens December 29, 2016
Towing the line Keeps on going works like a charm never an issue glad to have it.... oh plus it works while playing pokemon go so I can listen to sports radio over that horrible music
Full Review
Richard Eicholtz January 13, 2017
Sooooo many ads There are times where the app goes straight to the show but then there are times where the ads just repeat. The show drops out too. But when the stars and moon align it's a pretty good app.
Full Review
Paul Mykytka December 24, 2016
Ads work great, radio not so much... When I try to listen to a radio station, the full screen video ad plays just fine, but then the station just sits there "Connecting" but never actually connects. What a joke.
Full Review
A Google User December 9, 2016
They need to fix the ads. App crashes all the time, and constantly makes you keep watching ads up to one minute long with no option to skip. CBS should be better than this.
Full Review
Mark Saccone December 24, 2016
Constantly freezes Buffering... Have to quit app every few minutes. How can you release this when it clearly does not work?!
Full Review
frumiousbrain December 9, 2016
Used to work great Worked great when I got it couple years ago. Now it plays for about 30 seconds -makes sure to work through the ad of course- and then buffers and stops. Welcome back 2002 QuickTime apparently.
Full Review
Jarred Douthit December 5, 2016
App runs fine. I see you guys just pushed out the Marshmallow update. Thing is, I've been on Nougat for a couple months. When do you think you'll get the 7.1 update out?
Full Review
Brian Kelley January 12, 2017
Stops and starts All the time. I constantly have to open my phone and restart the app because the streams just die. This will happen regardless of connectivity
Full Review
Emily Chung December 12, 2016
Unreliable and crashes constantly Seems to be working worse and worse. Won't connect and crashes all the time
Full Review
January 12, 2017
Keeps buffering! This thing never stays connected to the point where I'm just pulling out old boom box I just want to listen to kmle 1079 and I can't. Stupid app!!!
Full Review
Joe German December 12, 2016
Your app has turned into a big pile of garbage. It stops audio for no reason. I do not have a data problem when it stops.
Full Review
Willie Kane December 9, 2016
Constantly crashes A glitchy, terrible app. Frequent disruptions, self-pauses, and crashes. Unfortuately, this is the only way to get the live content it provides. I used to have the CBS local radio app (equally glitchy), but the station I listen to dropped it.
Full Review
Adam Beers December 12, 2016
Constantly crashes I literally hate this ap. If I had any other option I would use it. Randomly crashes all the time and forces you to watch an add every time it does. Once it starts having a problem it will not stop, sometimes for hours. I only use it for WFAN and will cease using it as soon as I can.
Full Review
Mark Nadeau January 15, 2017
Sign up is annoying Really guys?! What information could you possibly be so paranoid about protecting that you force people to create some convoluted new password? PITA! Yes! I mean YOU!
Greg Kuhn December 18, 2016
Connecting......? Just says connecting at the top forever. So much for hearing the game... worthless.
Full Review
BRIAN WHEDON December 13, 2016
Don't use autoplay App freezes on launch when using autoplay. I have stopped using the auto play option, and all my freezing problems have stopped.
Full Review
richard takac December 5, 2016
Horrible bugs Lots of shut downs, pauses, etc. I use this only out of desperation to listen to CBS sports radio
Full Review
Mike Hudson January 9, 2017
Way to break your app I've used this app for awhile with mild frustration. The app always stopped and I would have to restart it. Now with the latest update all I get is a connecting message and ads of course the ads.
Full Review
Linnett Long December 6, 2016
The Gospel Station I loved this gospel Station. I played it when I go to sleep. I noticed lately they have a lot of commercial and have to find a new Station to sleep on.
Roger Dasilva January 17, 2017
Not reliable. Stops playing even though signal is strong.
Full Review
Dan Santos January 17, 2017
Bugs out constantly The app shuts down or creates some sort of error after a while, which when I like listening to the radio at work throughout the day is annoying, I wish there was a better option.
Full Review
Baka'z Mann CEO December 21, 2016
Hate it This app sucks constantly crashing, buffering, and losing connection even with full bar of service very annoying😖
Full Review
Anthony Jay December 15, 2016
Doesn't work Constantly stopping even on high speed Wi-Fi. Autoplay doesn't work. None of the features seem to work properly. Get it together people.
Full Review
Patrick Sullivan December 15, 2016
It works The app work...to many ads...the thing that got me was that when you start a AUDIO app you get a video commerical...kinda dumb
Full Review
Matthew Wheelwright December 5, 2016
This app is so poor Constantly shuts down. Always has issues connecting. TUNE IN is the way to go.
Full Review
Chris Belizaire January 1, 2017
Wtf This is literally the WORST APP I HAVE EVER USED. IT STOPS RANDOMLY FOR NO GODDAMN REASON.
Joe Walker January 4, 2017
Crashes a lot. Crashed on my s3, htc one m8, s7, and probably my next phone too.
Full Review
John Smith December 11, 2016
This app has responded better now after reinstall, it wont retain " " Favorite selections " using LG android phone, but lm happy with it
ANDY H Brown December 12, 2016
Zero if I could Never works. So many other choices. Seeya never.
Full Review
Michael Hurlburt December 19, 2016
Sports fan This app worked great for awhile. Now it just tries to connect but never does. And yes my phone had a good data connection.
Full Review
Custom Chendo January 3, 2017
Galaxy S 7 Edge Works fine, just need to allow me to add favorites. I push favorite to add it, and nothing. 4 stars until fixed
Anthony Mitchell January 4, 2017
National Radio Stations Never miss a National Radio Stations great app.
Rich Phillips January 4, 2017
Rich p It locks up too much
Anthony Petro January 5, 2017
Wont stop buffering always force stops TRASH
| i don't know |
Offering service from Tacoma to Seattle and Seattle to Everett, what is the name of the train service offered by Sound Transit? | Rider news | Sound Transit
Sound Transit
Service change the weekend of September 10-11
August 31, 2016
Highlights of service changes effective September 10, 11, and 12 include:
Link light rail: Angle Lake Station opens September 24. More information>
Tacoma Link light rail: No changes
Sounder:
Southline: New midday trips added. More information and schedule>
ST Express:
Schedule adjustments to improve on-time performance.
Route 535
Schedule adjustments to improve on-time performance.
Route 545
Weekday trips added and schedule adjustments.
Route 555
Weekday trips added and route changed in Bellevue.
Route 556
Weekday trips added and route changed in Bellevue.
Route 560
Schedule adjustments and route changed in Bellevue.
Route 566
Weekday trips added.
For more detailed information look in the new Ride the Wave guide on all Sound Transit vehicles. A .pdf of the new Guide is also available at: soundtransit.org/schedules
The new schedules will be posted to the web the weekend of the service change.
Environment in motion at Angle Lake Station
August 31, 2016
The views from Angle Lake Station are some of the best on the Link light rail line. In fact, one of the goals of the station design was to have unobstructed views of the Sound and the mountains from the platform. It's the first elevated Link station after all. Get the details>
New mid-day south line Sounder train starts Sept. 12
August 30, 2016
Sound Transit is adding a mid-day Sounder train to its popular south line service beginning Monday, Sept. 12th. The new train will provide flex-schedule workers and other riders an additional travel option for bypassing highway gridlock that now snarls traffic throughout the day. More details and schedule here>
Football fan? Here are 4 tips for taking transit to the game
August 29, 2016
When you're a football fan, the only real downside of going to a game is the traffic getting there and home. Taking transit makes it easy to get to the game without having to deal with parking. Here are some tips to make your game day a win!
Link light rail celebrates seventh anniversary amid record-breaking ridership surge
July 18, 2016
Sound Transit's Link light rail today enters its eighth year of service amid record-breaking ridership growth following the March opening of new stations serving Seattle's Capitol Hill and University of Washington areas. Read more
How to survive a busy Link light rail train
July 11, 2016
Since the University Link extension opened in March, we've seen exponential ridership growth on light rail. And you've probably felt it. Here's some tips on good transit manners to make a busy train ride more pleasant.
Get out to these 12 summer events by transit
June 17, 2016
See a movie under the stars, paddle around Lake Washington or listen to live music outside. It's summer after all! Here's a list of summer activities you can get to by bus or train.
Q: What is the Sound Transit District?
June 8, 2016
Occasionally we get asked about the Sound Transit District, how big is it, how many people call it home and what cities are included. (Hint: it's big!). Here's the details
Angle Lake Station on track for fall opening
June 3, 2016
Another new Link light rail station opens this year. The South 200th Link Extension project is 94 percent complete. The 1.6-mile extension south from SeaTac/Airport Station to Angle Lake Station includes a 1,050-stall parking garage. Read more
8 farmers markets you can get to by transit
May 10, 2016
Farmers market season is heating up! Grab your reusable bags and ORCA card and head out for some fresh produce. Here's eight farmers markets easily accessible via a Sound Transit bus or train.
Viaduct shutdown: What you need to know and do
April 27, 2016
With on-ramp closures starting at 10 p.m. Thursday, April 28, the Alaskan Way Viaduct will close for about two weeks while tunnel boring machine Bertha passes underneath Highway 99. Start planning>
University Link ridership sprints out of the starting gates
April 20, 2016
Ridership on Link light rail since opening the two new stations at Capitol Hill and the University of Washington has been very strong. It will take several months before we know what the “new normal” is, but so far the system is exceeding expectations and has set new single-day ridership records. Get the numbers>
Q: Am I safe during an earthquake in Sound Transit's light rail tunnels?
March 31, 2016
We get a lot of questions about earthquakes and tunnels. The answer is yes, you are safe in a Link tunnel and underground station during an earthquake. Very safe. Probably safer than aboveground where there might be falling glass, trees and power lines. Read more
New Mukilteo Station platform opens
March 25, 2016
Starting with the afternoon commute on Monday, March 28, Sounder riders will begin using the new platform at Mukilteo Station. Read more
Service Change the weekend of Mar. 26 and 27
Mar. 15, 2016
Highlights of service changes effective Mar. 26 and 27, 2016 include:
Link light rail: Capitol Hill and University of Washington stations open Mar. 19. Schedule changes to accomodate new service.
Tacoma Link light rail: No changes
Sounder: No changes
Stop changes in Seattle.
For more detailed information look in the new Ride the Wave guide on all Sound Transit vehicles. A .pdf of the new Guide is also available at: soundtransit.org/schedules
The new schedules will be posted to the web the weekend of the service change.
Q: What will the new University Link schedule look like?
March 14, 2016
When U Link opens for service March 19, current riders will have new communities to explore surrounding the new Capitol Hill and University of Washington stations. Many new customers will also try light rail service for the first time.
We're hearing questions about new the new schedules. So here they are .
What you need to know about U Link opening March 19
March 11, 2016
We've got an exciting day in store on Saturday, March 19, for the start of light rail to Capitol Hill and the University of Washington. Join us for a free community celebration between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. that day at both stations. The stations and train rides open at 10 a.m. Here's a sample of what's in store.
New Redmond-University District express bus starts 3/28
March 10, 2016
More options for travel between Redmond, the University District, Capitol Hill and downtown Seattle start March 28!
Starting Monday, March 28, ST Express buses will serve Link light rail's new University of Washington Station and Overlake Transit Center every seven to eight minutes during peak commute periods. Traveling from downtown Seattle or Capitol Hill to Redmond? Board Link and connect to ST Express Routes 541/542 at UW Station for a fast, reliable trip. Read more .
9 quick facts about how U Link was built
March 9, 2016
Time to celebrate. The University of Washington and Capitol Hill light rail stations open March 19. Building those stations and the 3.15-mile tunnels from downtown Seattle to Capitol Hill and the University of Washington was an amazing undertaking. Read more .
Q: Why doesn't Link light rail run later?
February 19, 2016
Riders often ask why we don't operate Link 24 hours a day, or at least later on the weekends. Link light rail operates 20 hours a day and is closed from 1-5 a.m. That four-hour closure is needed for maintenance. Read more
ST Spotlight: Bikes on board
February 18, 2016
Bikes are welcome on Sound Transit trains and buses, but room is limited. It's a safety thing. In an emergency evacuation, for example, the doors can't be clogged with bicycles. Read more .
Q: How much will it cost to ride University Link?
February 5, 2016
When U Link opens for service March 19, current riders will have new communities to explore surrounding the new Capitol Hill and University of Washington stations. Many new customers will also try light rail service for the first time. Read more.
Heads up, riders! Sounder, ST Express fare changes 3/1
January 15, 2016
If you use an ORCA card to pay for your transit trips, you may need to pay more for your monthly pass or add more money to your E-purse. Many riders buy monthly passes in advance, so we want to give you plenty of notice.
Low-income fares expand to Sounder, buses
January 15, 2016
Good news for people with low incomes: If you ride Sounder trains and ST Express buses, you'll have a new reduced fare option starting March 1.
7 local events to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
January 15, 2016
Looking for an inspirational event to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Junior's legacy? These free, local celebrations are easy to get to when you take transit. Here's the list
New Year's Eve events via transit
December 29, 2015
Ring in the new year with the family at one of these local celebrations. No need to worry about a ride, transit has you covered.
The ice train cometh
December 24, 2015
Santa won't the only one pulling an overnighter tonight. Link light rail crews will be up all night tonight running “Ice Trains” so you can get where you need to go tomorrow morning. With forecasts calling for frigid temperatures comes the possibility of ice forming on the overhead lines that power our light rail trains. That's not a good thing. Ice on the wires can interfere with power transmission to the trains.
Holiday date nights by transit
December 17, 2015
With all the twinkling lights and festive sounds, Puget Sound communities shine with plenty of ambiance for date nights during the holiday season. When you let Sound Transit be your chauffeur, you can save money on gas and parking – you'll be feeling the holiday cheer in no time!
Q: Who's driving those Sound Transit buses and trains?
December 10, 2015
The answer is not simple. When Sound Transit became an agency in 1996, the decision was made to contract out our services to existing transit operators who were already in place and had the maintenance bases to take care of our equipment.
Q: When are you going to add more Sounder trips? We need more trains!
December 8, 2015
Good news -by 2017, we're planning to add three more round-trip Sounder trains between Lakewood and Seattle.
10 ways to maximize your commute during the holidays
December 3, 2015
Ahhh, the holidays. So much to do, so little time. If only there were more hours in the day.
The good news? When you take transit, you can use your time on the road to tackle your holiday to-do list.
Q: What are bus reliability improvements?
December 1, 2015
When the Sound Transit Board approved the 2016 Service Implementation Plan (SIP) (here's an overview) last week, it included improved reliability for some ST Express bus routes next year. Here we explain what that means.
Kick-off the holiday season at a train-themed event
November 30, 2015
Just hear those train bells jingle-ing, ring ting tingle-ing too. It's lovely weather for a train event together with the family. Here's some events happening around the Sound.
Get crafty: Take transit to holiday bazaars
November 23, 2015
‘Tis the season for craft fair signs at major intersections throughout the region. And that can be a good thing! Say you like to give handmade gifts but don't have time or talent to make them yourself. Or maybe you prefer to support local craftspeople. Plenty of options are out there – and you can take transit to many of them. Need to know which bus or train to take? Visit soundtransit.org/tripplanner
ST Spotlight: Building East Link
November 18, 2015
We've been waiting to say it for a while now: East Link construction is about to begin!
This 14-mile extension to the region's light rail system is very important and we're thrilled that construction is kicking off in 2016.
Q: “When train service goes down, why aren't back-up buses available immediately?”
November 17, 2015
If Link or Sounder service gets disrupted, we send buses to pick up passengers and drop them off at the stations. However, buses aren't always immediately available because they are in use during busy commute times when the trains operate.
ST Spotlight: This is just a drill
November 12, 2015
Preparing to open a new light rail segment is more than just testing train on tracks.
Take, for instance, the recent emergency drills at University Link's new Capitol Hill and University of Washington station.
ST Spotlight: Bland name, millions saved
November 3, 2015
The name may be modest, but the “mid-day bus storage lot” will eventually save millions.
The recently opened lot, which is located across from the Link Operations & Maintenance Facility in the SODO area of Seattle, allows Sound Transit to store up to 30 buses that are used in peak-hour runs between Pierce County and Seattle.
ST Spotlight: Shopping, buses, bikes and trains
October 29, 2015
Besides buses and shoppers, Northgate's future includes bikes and trains.
To that end, design is over 90 percent complete on the Northgate Link light rail station and 450-stall garage and Sound Transit is seeking final permits to allow station construction to begin next March.
Q: Why are those Link trains just sitting in the yard?
October 27, 2015
When you travel on Interstate 5 past the Sound Transit maintenance base in the SODO neighborhood – the one marked “Rail” with the old Rainier R - you might see 30-40 Link light rail cars parked outside. We currently have 62 Link cars and run 15 two-car trains during peak periods, 10 midday.
That will change when service opens to Capitol Hill and the University of Washington early next year; during peak hours, we'll run 19 two- or three-car Link trains. That will reduce the number of spare cars in the yard to around 20. We need 10 available to swap in and out for regular maintenance.
There are no changes to Link, Tacoma Link, or Sounder service.
For more detailed information look in the new Ride the Wave guide on all Sound Transit vehicles. A .pdf of the new Guide is also available at: soundtransit.org/schedules
The new schedules will be posted to the web the weekend of the service change.
May 30, 31 and June 6, 7 Link and tunnel closures
May 18, 2015
Over the weekends of May 30-31 and June 6-7 Link will not run downtown while the downtown Seattle transit tunnel is closed for system upgrades. A free shuttle bus (Route 97) will serve the downtown stops and connect to regular Link service between Stadium Station and the airport.
Sound Transit in the news.
Next for Sound Transit: Light rail to Ballard, Issaquah, Everett? Link>
Sound Transit's Long Range Plan: Or How to Cook a Train Link>
Rider alert (editorial - Long Range Plan) Link>
Sound Transit Reviews Ballard-UW Options Link>
Metro, Sound Transit may 'take relationship to the next level' Link>
Constantine orders Metro, Sound Transit to play nice Link>
Bellevue crafting opposition letter to Sound Transit over maintenance facility Link>
Like Lynnwood, Bellevue comes out against proposed Light Rail Maintenance Facility Link>
Seattle's streetcar system moving through Capitol Hill Link>
Broadway Extension Open House Debrief Link>
Sound Transit to be in MLT to talk about Lynnwood Link Extension Link>
Sound Transit in the news.
Why we're stuck with some of the nation's worst traffic Link>
Light Rail Tunnel Walk Link>
The Northgate bike/walk bridge designs are stunning, could be a neighborhood icon Link>
Special needs clinic for kids fights Sound Transit plans Link>
Sound Transit hears Bellevue opposition to maintenance facility options Link>
Real Estate Buzz: First look at finalists for #CapHillStation TOD Link>
Debate over tall buildings splits neighbors near Mount Baker rail station Link>
Ballard to Downtown Seattle Results Link>
Kent City Council prefers light rail station along Pacific Highway South over Highline CC campus Link>
Sound Transit to be in MLT to talk about Lynnwood Link Extension Link>
City expects Broadway Streetcar extension by 2017, terminus still TBD Link>
May 7, 2014
A roundup of Sound Transit project updates
Northgate Link - April 29 - Tunnel Boring Machine dedicated before launching next month. This will be the third tunnel this machine has dug under Seattle. Plus exciting news about jet grouting! Read more here>
Mukilteo Sounder station - April 18 - The crane and steel are delivered. Look for structural work on the stations and bridges to begin soon. Read more here>
Lynnwood Link - April 17 - Very cool video on the preferred alignment, plus Sound Transit Board and geotechnical slideshows on the project. Read more here>
East Link - April 7 - Wrap up of the Bellevue stations open houses. Lots of materials and documents. Mercer Island and Seattle open houses coming up this summer. Read more here>
| Sounder |
Historically categorized by their shape, what is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas dust, and some dark matter? | Seattle travel guide - Wikitravel
Understand[ edit ]
The Space Needle with Downtown in the Background
Seattle was founded on the rough, physical industries of fishing, logging and coal mining, with San Francisco as her primary customer. Boeing, founded in 1916, grew to be Greater Seattle's primary industry as natural resources were depleted. The region's strong economic dependence on Boeing gave the oil recession and cancellation of the SST (Supersonic Transport) in the early '70s a grim effect. Over the last twenty-five years, the area has become less seedy and more developed with the massive influx of Microsoft money (and other software and biotech proceeds), but Pioneer Square is still the original Skid Row. (Yesler Way was a "Skid Road" for logs skidded downhill using dogfish oil to Henry Yesler's lumber mill).
Seattle is also substantially influenced by the presence of the University of Washington (the largest single campus in the state and recipient of over $1 billion in research grants annually), as well as multiple smaller colleges and universities. Seattle is also the center for financial, public health, and justice systems in the northwestern part of the U.S.
Culture[ edit ]
Seattle is historically a very diverse city and multiculturalism is seen as a virtue. Discrimination based on race is considered extremely offensive.
Locals have long talked of the "Seattle Freeze," referring to the cold politeness of residents. The theory is that while locals are very polite and warm on first interaction, most residents are also very reserved and interactions rarely lead to real acts of friendship (an invitation to dinner, personal conversations, etc.). For visitors it is best to treat this as shyness--expect to make all the "first moves" to meet people here.
Residents' shyness also extends to anger and annoyance. Locals often make fun of themselves for their passive aggressive culture, where even in the most upsetting circumstances they will retain their polite nature.
5.4
Check Seattle's 7 day forecast at NOAA
While Seattle is well known for its rain and dark, gloomy skies, it may surprise many how pleasant the weather can be, particularly during the summer months. November through March brings the worst of the unpleasant weather, with cool temperatures, heavy cloud cover and rain falling on most days. The short days and low angle of the sun during these months only add to the dark, gloomy feeling which is very unpleasant and depressing for some. The coldest month is January with average lows in the mid to upper 30s (about 3°C), with temperatures occasionally dropping below freezing. Most precipitation falls as a light rain, or a drizzle, with snow falling in the city only occasionally (though the surrounding mountains receive heaps and heaps of snow). Most cold-weather systems come from the north, which generally results in dry weather when temperatures are below freezing. Nonetheless, Seattle is hit by a major snow storm about every 2-3 years on average, which can paralyze the city’s transportation network (hills and ill-prepared drivers are two commonly cited reasons for such). November is the wettest month, sometimes bringing in fairly intense wind and rain storms, which are often classified as a “Pineapple Express”. The record low for Seattle is 0°F (-18°C)
In contrast, the weather can be quite pleasant from April to October, with exceptionally nice weather in July and August where highs average in the mid 70s and rain is uncommon. Skies are mostly clear and smog-free, though mornings can produce an on-shore flow resulting in low clouds and fog which typically burns off by mid-day. The northern latitude (47.6 degrees) results in long days with a sunset of 9:11 p.m. on solstice. Summer heatwaves can push temperatures into the 80s and 90s, and despite only low to moderate humidity, they can be uncomfortable as air-conditioning is not prevalent in the city. The record high for Seattle is 103°F (39°C).
As one might expect, the transitioning seasons of spring and fall can be a mixed bag, though as a rule, the closer to summer brings the greater chance of warm temperatures and clear skies. Winds are heavier in the winter than summer, but overall Seattle is not a windy city, adding to the comfort during the summer. The region does feature micro-climates due to the number of hills, mountains, and bodies of water, which can result in significantly different weather conditions over short distances. This also makes forecasting difficult and sometimes unreliable.
A view of the Seattle waterfront
Tourist information[ edit ]
The Visit Seattle operates two visitors centers:
Seattle Visitors Center and Concierge Services, 7th and Pike (inside the Washington State Convention and Trade Center), [3] . Daily 9AM-5PM during summer, M-F 9AM-5PM during winter. edit
Market Information Center, 1st and Pike (on the southwest corner), [4] . Daily 10AM-6PM. Services are more limited than the main location at 7th and Pike. edit
Alaska
S Satellite (International)
Delta (domestic & international Gates S1-S9), Hawaiian (Gates S10-S11), Alaska (direct arrivals from Mexico), Asiana, ANA (All Nippon Airways), British Airways, Condor, Emirates, EVA, Icelandair, Hainan, Korean Air, Lufthansa, United (Arrivals from Tokyo).
Main Terminal
Kenmore Air operates ground shuttles from Sea-Tac to their air terminals at the King County Airport at Boeing Field and their float plane terminal at Lake Union near Seattle Center. They're at the main ground transportation zone by Door 00 at south end of the terminal.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport ( IATA : SEA), [5] , universally nicknamed "Sea-Tac", is located in the city's southern suburbs. Domestically it's a major hub for Northwest and West Coast destinations, and internationally handles especially frequent trans-Pacific routes, as well as direct flights to the major European airports and to Dubai, UAE. The airport is about a 25 minute drive from downtown Seattle when there isn't heavy traffic, much longer during rush hour.
All international flights arrive at the south satellite terminal, but after immigration and customs, passengers are then funneled onto a train back to the main terminal, outside the security checkpoint. You'll need to pick up any checked bags to clear customs, then place them right back on the conveyor for transit to the main terminal which can be reclaimed at carousel 1 at the main terminal. Carousel 1 is in the main baggage hall which is located to the right after leaving the train and going upstairs to the ground level. Allow plenty of time for this dance! All connecting passengers will need to re-check their baggage with their airline and pass through security.
Air charter companies such as Monarch Air Group [6] , Mercury Jets [7] fly a variety of private charter aircraft and jets, from charter luxury Gulfstream's down to economical piston twins for small groups and individuals.
There are several choices for getting from the airport to the city center:
By airport public transporation[ edit ]
Sound Transit's Link Light Rail [8] connects the Airport directly to downtown Seattle. Trains run 5 AM - 12:50 AM (0500—0050) (11 PM Sunday), taking 37 minutes to reach the terminal at Westlake Station in the central business downtown (Pine St. at 3rd and 5th Aves). Tickets are $3.00, available from vending machines at every station. At the airport, the rail station is connected to the Main Terminal via the far north side of the parking garage which is the far left if entering the garage from the terminal. Going across skybridge #6 nearest the Alaska Airlines ticket counter and across the 4th floor of the parking garage is the shortest walk. See this link for a map on getting to the light rail and the other bus stops. If transferring to Greyhound, Olympic Bus Lines or Northwestern Trailways they are at 503 S Royal Brougham Way, next to the 'Stadium' Station, south of downtown. The Bolt Bus stop is along S 5th Ave, east side of the 'International District' tunnel station (next one up from 'Stadium') while King Street Station is a couple blocks west of the International District Station. See the below under "By Bus". The nearby airport Metro and Sound Transit bus stops are:
Under the airport light rail station along International Blvd:
156 (goes east to Southcenter Mall and south to Highland CC in Des Moines)
180 (goes south to Auburn & northwest to Burien )
A Line (goes south to Federal Way along Pacific Hwy/International Blvd Hwy 99 and north to the Tukwila Light Rail Stop).
574 (arriving from Lakewood via Federal Way & Tacoma)
Outside Door 02 at south end of the main terminal near carousel #1:
560 (goes NW to Westwood Center in W. Seattle via Burien & NE to Bellevue via Renton).
574 (goes south to Federal Way , Tacoma and Lakewood via S 188th & I-5)
One of two designated stops for the Car Rental Shuttle
Tukwila International Blvd Light Rail stop which is the next stop up along the light rail route by the car rental parking garage.
124 (goes north to downtown Seattle along E Marginal Way & Airport Way S)
128 (goes north to the Admiral District in W Seattle & east to Southcenter)
A Line (goes south to Federal Way via Pacific Hwy/International Blvd Hwy 99).
F Line (goes east & west between Burien, Southcenter in Tukwila & Renton)
Click here for the trip planner program which tells you which buses to take to get to your final destination. Nearby hotels do send their own shuttles to the terminal to pick up to pick up and drop off guests so no need to use public transportation to get there.
By other private shuttles, buses and taxis[ edit ]
Commercial shuttle buses & vans [9] are about $5-$38 (~$18 for a downtown hotel) and often slower than public transit if you are going downtown, though they do have more room for luggage. Catch them at the Ground Transportation Center, located on the third floor of the parking garage, one level down after crossing the Skybridge.
Long Distance buses & vans [10] . There are other long distances buses & vans going from Sea-Tac to Vancouver, BC; Bremerton , Bellingham , Anacortes and the ferry terminal (to San Juan Islands), San Juan Islands , Olympia , Centralia , central Washington, Tacoma , etc. from the airport. They are at the south end of tue main terminal building at Door 00 past the international arrivals luggage reclaim carousel (#1).
A taxi trip takes about 25 min (expect to pay $40-50 plus tip); catch one on the third floor of the parking garage, one level down after crossing the Skybridge.
Rental cars [11] are available at the airport. The 'on-airport' car rental companies are located in a separate consolidated terminal at 3150 S 160th Ave, in the NE corner of the airport grounds at S 160th & Pacific Hwy/International Blvd S. From the main terminal the shuttle bus picks up at each end of the building, at the arrivals level, at Door 26 by carousel #15 and door 02, by carousel #1 at the transit bus stop. On a weekend, you might want to shop the internet for rental cars, since they can be less than $12/day (plus roughly 18% tax; also consider hotel parking fees, if any). Beware of the fact that taking a rental from the airport will incur an 11% "airport tax" surcharge. If you are able to rent a car from a downtown location you will not have to pay this and will save a considerable amount of money.
By train[ edit ]
Amtrak [12] provides service from all along the west coast from King Street Station [13] , located S King St between 2nd & 4th Ave, south of downtown near Safeco Field. There are:
Amtrak Cascades runs four trains daily between Seattle and Portland via Tukwila, Tacoma , Lacey, Centralia, Kelso & Vancouver, WA. Two of which continue to Eugene via Oregon City, Salem & Albany; and two daily to Vancouver , British Columbia (via Edmonds, Everett, Mt Vernon & Bellingham). Additional service to Vancouver, BC and Eugene, OR are on the the Amtrak Thruway Motorcoaches (buses). These trains are more reliable schedule-wise than the long distance trains and offer certain amenities not available on regular Amtrak trains, such as more space for bikes, more laptop outlets, a "Bistro Car" which serves local foods and wine, and the occasional movie.
Amtrak Coast Starlight runs to Portland, the Bay Area, and eventually Los Angeles , California. Train stops at the same stops as the Cascades (see above) in Washington & Oregon (Tacoma, Centralia, Kelso, Vancouver, WA; Portland, Salem, Albany & Eugene) except Tukwila & Oregon City. Stops in Chemult and Klamath Falls (south of Eugene) before crossing into California.
The Empire Builder provides daily service to Chicago via Spokane , Glacier National Park and Minneapolis . In Spokane, the eastbound train is joined with the other branch coming from Portland while the westbound train is split in Spokane with one branch going to Seattle and the other to Portland. Unlike the other Amtrak transcontinental trains further south, the Builder tends to stick fairly closely to schedule. [14]
Sounder Commuter Rail goes out from Seattle to Lakewood via Tukwila, Kent, Auburn, Sumner, Puyallup, Tacoma and South Tacoma in one direction and to Everett via Edmonds & Mukilteo in the other on a separate route. The majority of the trains leave Seattle in the afternoons & evenings and come in during the mornings. See schedules.
By car[ edit ]
Interstate Highway 5 (I-5) cuts through the middle of Seattle north to south. I-90 runs from the I-5 interchange in Seattle all the way to Boston , and crosses one of the two Lake Washington bridges to Bellevue , along with SR-520 further north. I-405 runs parallel to I-5 on the east side of Lake Washington. Be aware however, that Seattle is a city known for terrible traffic (third worst in the nation behind Los Angeles and New York), especially around rush hour, so be ready for crawling along slowly as you enter the city, especially on infamously congested I-5, southern I-405, and the SR-520 bridge.
By bus[ edit ]
The closest thing to a "central bus station" is the Greyhound Terminal at 503 S Royal Brougham Way south of downtown which is served by Greyhound, Olympic Bus Lines, Northwestern Trailways, Link Light Rail and a series of ST & King County Metro buses traveling south along "Bus Way Rd" and north into the tunnel under downtown. Additional long distance bus companies are at the airport (south end of terminal, at lower level by Door 00), King Street Station and/or in other parts of town. Plans are underway to demolish the old bus station on Stewart St and build a new hotel in its place. Not all bus companies come this way either, they can be at the airport or elsewhere. See the below links as to where they stop at in Seattle:
Greyhound, 503 S Royal Brougham Way, SoDo. (Next to the Stadium Link Light Rail station at Royal Brougham), (toll free: 1-800-231-2222), [15] . Travels primarily on Interstate 5 (Seattle-Vancouver & Seattle-Portland on two separate routes), 90/82 (Ellensburg-Yakima-Pasco-Stanfield, OR) & 90 (Seattle-Ellensburg-Moses Lake-Spokane-Missoula). Passengers transfer to other buses in Portland, Missoula, Pasco, and/or Stanfield to get to other cities in the U.S. and in Vancouver, BC to get to other cities in Canada. edit
In addition to Greyhound there are other choices:
(Airport shuttles & buses), [16] . There are various vans & buses leaving from the lot outside 'Door 00' at the south end of the terminal to Tacoma, Olympia, Centralia, Bremerton (via Tacoma), Vancouver, BC; Bellingham, Mt Vernon, etc. See this link edit
Bellair Airporter, 1416 Whitehorn St, Ferndale 98248, ☎ +1-866-235-5247 ( [email protected] ), [17] . Goes up from Sea-Tac Airport to Stanwood, Burlington/Mt Vernon, Bellingham & Blaine on one route and from Sea-Tac to Cle Elum, Ellensburg & Yakima on another route. They also have a third route from Burlington to Anacortes & the San Juan Ferry Terminal. edit
Bolt Bus, 5th Ave S & S King, ☎ +1-877-265-8287, [18] . Vancouver, BC; Bellingham; Seattle; Portland; Albany, OR; and Eugene. The stop is at 5th Ave & S King in the International District edit
Northwestern Trailways, Greyhound Terminal @ 503 S Royal Brougham Way, ☎ +1-509-838-4029 ( [email protected] ), [19] . Stops at both the Greyhound Terminal & King St Station in Seattle. Goes up to Everett and east to Lake Stevens, Leavenworth, Wenatchee, Ephrata, Ritzville & Spokane along US-2 and I-90. Additional routes between Coure d'Alene, Spokane, Pullman, Moscow, Lewiston & Boise. They operate the state's "Travel Washington Apple Line" [20] bus between Ellensburg, Wenatchee, & Omak. edit
Olympic Bus Lines, ☎ +1 360 417-0700 (toll free: +1 800 457-4492), [21] . operates the state's "Travel Washington Dungeness Line" to Discovery Bay, Port Townsend, Sequim and Port Angeles (via Edmonds-Kingston Ferry) from Sea-Tac, King St Station (Amtrak), downtown hospitals (by reservation only), and Greyhound (503 S Royal Brougham Way). edit
Quick Shuttle, Best Western Executive Inn @ 200 Taylor Ave N, ☎ +1-800-665-2122, [22] . Goes up to Vancouver, BC from Sea-Tac and the Best Western Executive Inn (200 Taylor Ave N) in downtown, near Seattle Center. Bus stops into the cruise terminals at Pier 66 & 91 during the summer. Picks up in the U.S. and dropping off in Canada ONLY going north and vice versa going south. edit
Wheatland Express, 4101 SR 270, Pullman 99163 (office), ☎ +1-509-334-2200 (toll free: +1 800 334-2207, [email protected] , fax: 509-332-0118), [23] . Goes from Pullman & Moscow, ID to Seattle on Friday mornings (or before WSU vacation period) and leaves Seattle for Pullman & Moscow, Idaho on Sundays (or before the end of the WSU vacation period) on the 'Weekend Express' and/or 'Holiday Express' lines. Picks up and drops off at the Southcenter Mall south of Seattle. (take the #150 bus between Southcenter & downtown) edit
The below are more regional going from Seattle to outlying suburbs and adjacent cities:
Sound Transit [24] buses have many convenient express routes that travel South (to Tacoma on Rt# 586, 590, 594; to Dupont & Olympia 592; and Gig Harbor 595) and North ( Bothell on Rt #522, Everett Rt 510, 512, 513). Some of these buses run during rush hours only, but most, including the routes to the destinations mentioned above, run all day till late at night. Check the schedule to make sure. The fare schedule is slightly different than Metro, with no off-peak discount: $2.50 all for trips within King County.
Community Transit [25] operates express buses to Edmonds/Edmonds Ferry Terminal, Lake Stevens, Lynnwood, Marysville, Mountlake Terrace, Mukilteo Ferry Terminal, Silver Firs/Seattle Hill, Snohomish, Stanwood, and various park & ride lots in Snohomish County during the afternoon / evening rush hours and into Seattle in the mornings only. Buses are numbered in the:
Swift 'Bus Rapid' route continuing north from Aurora Village (at King/Snohomish County line) to Everett along Evergreen Way (Hwy 99) making limited stops that are spaced further apart.
400s (Rts# 402-435) express buses to downtown Seattle in the mornings and to Snohomish County only in the late afternoons/early evening hours.
800s (Rts# 424,801-880) express buses to the University Washington and the surrounding 'U District' neighborhood in the mornings and to Snohomish County only in the late afternoons/early evening hours.
King County Metro [26] also operates buses out to outlying suburbs & cities such as Federal Way, Shoreline, Lake City way, North Bend, etc. Buses numbered from:
Rapid Ride 'A' through 'F' routes are designated by letters instead of numbers. They operate on a 'Bus Rapid' pattern with fewer stops that are spaced further apart and on separate lanes from other traffic (if available or designated) to allow them to get through quickly and efficiently. Wait times are typically 15min or less. They are the red & yellow articulated buses.
1-77 travel to or within surrounding city neighborhoods within the city of Seattle. Area also served by Rapid 'C' (Westwood Center in West Seattle to/from downtown) and Rapid 'D' Lines (Nw 100th Pl & 7th Nw in Crown Hill to/from downtown along 15th Ave NW through Ballard & Greenlake neighborhoods)
80s (Rts# 82-84) are 'Night Owl' routes operating from 1:30AM to 4:30AM during the late night to early morning hours.
98 Streetcar (trolley) from Westlake Center in downtown Seattle to South Lake Union. Plans are underway to construct more streetcar lines in Capitol Hill (Broadway), First Hill (by hospitals) and a City Center Line connecting the First Hill to the South Lake Union Lines through downtown.
99 was the downtown waterfront trolley. Now it's a Downtown/Belltown shuttle between 7th Ave & Jackson in the International District to Broad & Elliot in Belltown. Bus travels along S Jackson and 1st Ave
100s (Rts #101-197) go SOUTH to or locally within Auburn, Burien, Convington, Des Moines, Enumclaw, Federal Way, Kent, Maple Valley, Renton, Seatac (and airport), Tukwila, etc. Some routes travel THROUGH and make stops in South Seattle, West Seattle and other Seattle neighborhoods on their way to/from south King County while others operate as express from downtown Seattle to south King County or locally in those areas without coming into downtown Seattle. Area also served by Rapid 'A' (Tukwila, SeaTac/Airport and Federal Way along Pacific Hwy/Hwy 99) and 'F' Lines (Burien, Tukwila, Southcenter & Renton)
200s (Rts #200-277) go EAST or locally within Bellevue, Bothell, Duvall, Issaquah, Kirkland, Lake Sammamish, Mercer Island, North Bend, Redmond, Renton, etc. Most operate within the eastside out of Bellevue without coming into downtown Seattle. Area also served by Rapid 'B' Line (Redmond, Overlake & downtown Bellevue)
300s (Rts #301-373) go NORTH to or locally within Aurora Village, Bothell, Lake City, Mountlake Terrace, Northgate, Shoreline, Woodinville, etc. Area also served by Rapid 'E' Line (Aurora Village & downtown Seattle along Aurora Ave/Hwy 99).
400s (Reserved for neighboring transit agencies such as Community Transit going north from downtown Seattle to various places in Snohomish County and Pierce Transit going south from Federal Way to Puyallup/South Hill in Pierce County)
500s (Reserved for buses operated by Pierce Transit going to Tacoma from Federal Way (Rt#500-501) and Sound Transit routes within King County and to/from adjacent counties (Rt#510-595))
600s are reserved for special (permanent or temporary) use as needed such as Rt#601 which goes to Group Health Riverton by Boeing Field during weekday morning rush hours and to downtown Seattle in the afternoons.)
DART 700s (Shuttles from the Water Taxi terminal in Seacrest Park to adjacent W Seattle neighborhoods)
800s (Rts #823-894) serves as school buses or shuttles between the International School and the surrounding high schools in the east side and school buses to/from Mercer Island High School. The schedules revolve around the schools' schedules.
DART 901-931 are local shuttles from a Sounder Train station, Park & Ride lot or a shopping district to adjacent suburbs or to surrounding rural areas.
#952 Commuter bus between Auburn and Boeing Everett. Goes north early in the mornings and south in the afternoons.
980-995 School bus services for the private Lakeside School off of I-5 & N/NE 145th. The schedules would revolve around the school's schedules.
SVT (Snoqualmie Valley Transit) operates rural King County services between Duvall, Carnation and North Bend through the Snoqualmie Valley
By boat[ edit ]
There are three regular ferry services in the Seattle area:
Washington State Ferries, 801 Alaskan Way, Pier 52, ☎ (206) 464-6400, [27] . Connects downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island and Bremerton ; and from another ferry terminal in Faunteleroy (West Seattle) to Vashon Island and Southworth in ( Kitsap Peninsula ). edit
King County Water Taxi, 801 Alaskan Way, Pier 50, ☎ (206) 684-1551, [28] . operates passenger ONLY ferries (or water taxis) out to Vashon Island and Alki Beach (in West Seattle) on two separate routes. edit
Clipper Vacations (Victoria Clipper), 2701 Alaskan Way, Pier 69, (toll free: (206) 443-2560), [29] . offers high speed catamaran passenger (only) ferries connecting Seattle to Victoria , British Columbia and the San Juan Islands . edit
Cruise ships to Seattle may be docked at one of two terminals in the Port of Seattle [30] .
Bell Street Pier Cruise Terminal at Pier 66, 2225 Alaskan Way S, Pier 66. Serves as a home port for Norwegian Cruise Line and Celebrity Cruises. The pier has bus, taxi and shuttle connections for transfer of passengers and luggage. For travelers with connecting flights, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is less than 15 mi (24 km) away.l edit
Smith Cove Cruise Terminal at Pier 91, 2001 W Garfield St (north end of Seattle's downtown waterfront). serves as home port to Holland America Line, Royal Caribbean and Princess Cruises. edit
Navigating[ edit ]
Seattle's road designations make sense once you understand them but, if you don't understand them, you can end up many miles away from your destination.
North-South roads are labeled "Avenues" while East-West roads are labeled "Streets". The city is roughly divided into a semi 3 by 3 grid with 7 directional sectors (NW, N, NE, E, W, SW, and S). Street addresses are written with the sector before the name, e.g. NE 45th Street or just NE 45th. Avenue addresses are written with the sector after the name, e.g. 45th Avenue NE or 45th NE. "Avenue" and "after" both start with "a".
Another way to remember avenues: University Way NE, the main street through the city's University District (neighborhood) is called "The Ave" by the locals, and all avenues run north-south. But, don't confuse University St with University Ave; they're two completely different streets!
"Ways" are long diagonals, "Drives" are long, circuitous routes, "Courts" are one block long.
There are four major exceptions:
Downtown streets and avenues have no directional designation.
There is no SE section. Instead, the S section is extra wide.
East of downtown, avenues have no directional designation (streets are preceded by 'E').
North of downtown (between Denny Way and the ship canal), streets have no directional designation, but avenues are followed by 'N'.
The twelve streets in the central business district are named as six first-letter pairs (south to north): Jefferson, James, Cherry, Columbia, Marion, Madison, Spring, Seneca, University, Union, Pike, Pine. One way to remember the order of the street pairs is with the mnemonic "Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest."
By public transit[ edit ]
Breda electric articulated
Metro Transit [31] (electric, hybrid, and diesel city buses) actually works pretty well. The web trip planner [32] is straightforward and accurate, as long as your bus is on time. Using Google Maps' trip planner works well too, but fare information can sometimes be incorrect. During rush hours (M-F 6-9AM and 3-6PM), adult bus fares are $2.75 within the city limits. All other times of day and weekends adult bus fare is $2.50. The youth fare is always $1.50.
A fare is required on all buses and should always be paid while boarding the bus. Pay exact fare, as drivers carry no change. You can get a free paper transfer from one Metro bus to another Metro bus, but the only way to transfer for free between transit agencies is with an ORCA card, which costs $5.00 in addition to the money you put on it, available at all Link Light Rail and Sounder stations or online (Click on "Get a card").
Board at the front and exit at the back. All buses now feature live, GPS-based destination signs inside, which can help you determine when your stop is coming up.
When traveling to destinations outside of the downtown core, you should make sure to ask the drivers in Metro buses with green and white "EXPRESS" signs in their windows and those whose route signs say "VIA EXPRESS" if they are going to your destination. Some of these express routes are intended for regular commuters traveling between residential neighborhoods and downtown and make few or no stops between, but many may be useful for getting to destinations such as the University District, West Seattle, and Ballard.
Especially when traveling during the off-peak time make sure to press "Request Stop" button right after the stop you are planning to get off. Busses tend to skip a stop if no one requests it and there's nobody on the stop waiting.
Sound Transit [33] buses have many convenient express routes that travel South (to Tacoma on Rt# 590, 593, 594), East (Redmond on Rt #545, Bellevue on Rt #550, Issaquah #554), and North (Bothell on Rt #522, Everett Rt 510, 512, 513). Some of these buses run during only rush hours, but most, including the routes to the destinations mentioned above, run all day. Check the schedule to make sure. The fare schedule is slightly different than Metro, with no off-peak discount: $2.50 all for trips within King County , and $3.50 for trips crossing the county line.
Link Light Rail [34] operates between the University of Washington and Sea-Tac Airport via Westlake Center downtown , running through South Seattle and Tukwila . Fares are $2.00—$3.00 depending on how far you travel; ticket machines are located at all stations, and the tickets must be retained for the duration of your trip.
Sound Transit also operates a commuter rail service called the Sounder [35] between Seattle- Tacoma and Seattle- Everett . However, the Sounder is limited mostly to rush hour service on the weekdays, with some service for special events like Seahawks and Seattle Mariners games.
In Seattle, there is also the South Lake Union Streetcar [36] , which runs between Downtown and South Lake Union , the First Hill Streetcar which operates between the International District and Broadway in Capitol Hill, the Seattle Center Monorail [37] , which makes a quick connection between Downtown and the Seattle Center, home to the Space Needle, and a passenger ferry, the King County Water Taxi [38] , which offers a quick connection between Downtown at Pier 55 and West Seattle, at Seacrest Park near Alki. The water taxi also offers beautiful views of Downtown, the Olympic Mountains, and much of the city.
Community Transit [39] buses have many convenient direct express routes going north to various places in Snohomish County such as Everett (#410, 412, 510, 512), Edmonds (Ferry Terminal on #416), Mukilteo (#880, 417), Silver Firs (north of Bothell on #435) etc etc. The buses numbered in the 400s travel between downtown Seattle and Snohomish County while the ones numbered in the 800s travel to/from University Washington. They only go up to Snohomish County from Seattle during the afternoon/evening rush hours between 3:00PM and 6:30PM and into Seattle from Snohomish County in the mornings 5:00AM to 9:30AM. Otherwise they serve as local services in/around Snohomish County up north (numbered in the 100s & 200s).
If you need any help, go to the Customer Stop at Westlake Station in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, or ask a local. Seattlelites are always eager to help and may even offer help if they just see you looking at a tourist map!
By car[ edit ]
Unlike some other American cities, visitors should not be intimidated by the thought of navigating Seattle by car. While rush-hour traffic can be quite frustrating (especially on the freeways), the city's streets and roadways are otherwise quite hospitable. On weekends, you can often rent cars at locations throughout the city for well under $60/day. Other car-sharing options include car2go, ReachNow, and Zipcar.
Be mindful of where you park because parking laws are enforced and the fines can be hefty! A parking ticket can be in excess of $45 for going overtime in a 2-hour zone.
By bicycle[ edit ]
Bicycling is better than in most North American cities because of extensive bicycle trails and lanes, temperate weather (rarely too hot or too cold) and accommodating drivers. Notable down-sides are damp roads, frequent rain, and hills, so you may wish to wear a water-proof jacket and gloves. Many major roads in Seattle have well maintained and separated bicycle lanes. Bicycle usage has increased significantly since the early 2000s and car drivers are perhaps a bit more accustomed to bicycles than in other major cities in the U.S.
You can pick up a free Seattle Bike Map (as well as other local city and county bike maps) at locations through the city, including the Seattle BikeStation, 311 3rd Ave S between Main St & S Jackson St almost next door to the train station. They also give suggestions on how to bicycle where you are going and how to do it safely. The google maps "bicycling" mode directions are also very useful in Seattle -- just search for a location on google maps, then choose the "bike" icon and you'll see bike-specific directions.
Bicycle transportation in North Seattle is facilitated by the East-West oriented Burke-Gilman Trail [40] . This is a flat, paved walking/jogging/cycling trail that winds its way from the north end of Lake Washington, down around the University of Washington, then west towards Ballard. The trail connects the neighborhoods of Ballard, Fremont, Wallingford, the U. District, Ravenna/U. Village, Laurelhurst, Sand Point, and Lake City. The trail is on an old railroad right-of-way, so it maintains a very consistent elevation and is excellent for commuting or a casual day's touring.
The major north-south bike path in central Seattle is the Myrtle Edwards path, located along Puget sound, starting at the north end of downtown and continuing northwards to the Ship Canal Locks and the Ballard neighborhood. The trail also winds along the downtown waterfront and travels south to the port of Seattle with connections to West Seattle. This path has beautiful views of the Olympic Mountains and Mt. Rainier, and can be more peaceful than the Burke as it does not intersect with any roads.
All Metro buses are equipped to carry three bicycles [41] on racks on the front, at no extra charge.
Daily bicycle rentals are available at a number of locations downtown [42] ($45 per day) or Pronto bike kiosks ($8 per day, each trip under 30mins) and along the Burke-Gilman trail [43] (from $30 per day). Longer term bicycle rentals, with bike delivery to your hotel or residence, are available from Seattle Monthly Bike Rental [44] ($80 per week)).
Ride Share Programs[ edit ]
Ride Sharing is becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to taxi cab services in Seattle, offering an arguably friendlier and more reliable service at a cheaper price. Programs including Lyft [45] and Uber [46] involve downloading their mobile application to request a ride. The local drivers who drive for the companies are now required by the city to have a for hire permit and undergo thorough background checks.
To request ride, the ride share programs usually requires the rider to download their mobile application and create an account and store credit card information. When requesting a ride, the rider enters their pick-up location, and drop-off location. When a driver confirms your ride request, a GPS map will track the driver's location as well as show a picture of the driver.
Seattle is a huge city , so all individual listings should be moved to the appropriate district articles , and this section should contain a brief overview. Please help to move listings if you are familiar with this city.
See the district articles for more listings. The following is an overview:
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Landmarks[ edit ]
Pike Place Market
Pike Place Market, 1501 Pike Place (1st and Pike, above the waterfront), [47] . Pike Place level: M-Sa 10AM-6PM, Su 11AM-5PM. Down Under level: 11AM-5PM daily. In downtown, the market is Seattle's largest tourist area, and it's the oldest continually operating farmers' market in the United States. It is home to the famous fish market, original Starbucks Coffee shop, and a large indoor and outdoor market. Many other attractions in downtown are within walking distance of Seattle's biggest tourist area making it the perfect place to start any sightseeing trip of the city. edit
Space Needle, 400 Broad St, [48] . 8AM to Midnight - Open 365 days a year. A short monorail ride away from downtown is Seattle's most iconic landmark. While expensive to ride to the top, the Space Needle is a "must see" for visitors on a nice day. Adults $22, age 4-12 $13, under 4 free, over 65 $19,. edit
Tours[ edit ]
Argosy Cruises [49] . Offers sightseeing cruises of the harbor, the locks, and the surrounding lakes. They also offer day trips to Tillicum Village on Blake Island with a salmon bake from 1201 Alaskan Way, Piers 55 & 56.
Bill Speidel's Underground Tour [50] . Bill Speidel's Underground Tour is Seattle's most unusual attraction, a humorous stroll through subterranean storefronts and sidewalks entombed when the city rebuilt on top of itself after the Great Fire. The tour begins above ground in a restored 1890s saloon, then spills into historic Pioneer Square, before plunging underground for a time-capsule view of the buried city. All the while, tour guides regale you with sidesplitting stories our pioneers didn’t want you to hear. It’s history with punch lines! Tickets: undergroundtour.com, 206 682 4646.
Public Market Tours [51] A one-hour historical tour of Pike Place Market filled with intriguing tales, including the original Starbucks and Sur La Table stores, as well as the world famous fish throwing Pike Place Fish boys.
Hot Air Balloon Tours [52] . Hot air ballooning has been a staple in Seattle for the last 30 years. Seeing Mount Rainier from the a few thousand feet is a photographers paradise.Flights typically take place at sunrise and sunset. If you are interested in not just watching the balloons fly, and would like to take flight yourself, there are a variety of companies in the Seattle area. Tickets can be booked online at: seattleballooning.com, 206 588 9788.
Ride the Ducks Seattle [53] . A 90-min ride on an amphibious World War II vehicle (yes, part of the ride is on Lake Union), not cheap ($28 adult) and not for those with a limited sense of humor (the style is a bit over-the-top). Definitely unique. 5th Ave. and Broad St., across from the Space Needle. Open-year round.
Savor Seattle Food Tours [54] . As seen in Bon Appétit Magazine, USA Today, and Frommer’s Travel Guide, Savor Seattle Food Tours is ranked #1 for the best things to do in Seattle! Offer award-winning food tours that explore the exciting history, culture, and food that makes Seattle a top culinary destination.
SubSeattle Tour [55] . SubSeattle Tour is a rollicking, scenic bus ride through out-of-sight city neighborhoods, with lots of irreverent humor, sightings and stories of Seattle's subcultures. See the “real” Seattle most visitors don’t even hear about. View Lake Washington beaches, the house where Nirvana's Kurt Cobain lived (and died), and Seattle's gay Pride parade route along hopping Broadway Ave. Brought to you by the Underground Tour. Tickets: subseattletour.com, 206 682 4646.
Taste Seattle Food Tour Ranked 5 Stars on Yelp and TripAdvisor [56] Taste Seattle Food Tours is one of the most fun and unique ways to experience our city. As we like to think of it, we take you off the “eaten path”. You will be guided on a relaxed tour with some of the best food and drink Seattle’s unique neighborhoods have to offer while getting to know Seattle’s history and culture. Come join us and…Live Life With Flavor and Fun! Buy Tickets: https://my.getinsellout.com/providers/taste-seattle-food-tours/list , 1-206-330-0275
Underworld Tour [57] . The Underworld Tour is an adults-only stroll through the old red-light district of the abandoned, underground city that is Seattle’s birthplace. A big-brother version of the world-famous Underground Tour, it’s seamier, raunchier and laugh-out-loud lewdicrous. Totally inappropriate! One alcoholic drink included. Valid picture ID required. Tickets: undergroundtour.com, 206 682 4646.
Western Prince Whale Watching San Juan Island [58] Whale watching tours from Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, just 90 miles north of Seattle, WA. 5 Star Tripadvisor Rating. The original whale watch company in the San Juan Islands. We operate the “Western Prince II”, limited to 32 guests, and the zodiac style “Western Explorer”, limited to 15 guests. Two wonderful boats to choose from on your Salish sea adventure! 360-378-5315 Western Prince Whale Watching San Juan Island
Museums[ edit ]
Seattle is home to a number of top-notch museums. Downtown is home to the renowned Seattle Art Museum, which displays a good overview and assortment of art from around the world. In the Central District is the Seattle Asian Art Museum, an off-shoot of the Seattle Art Museum which focuses on Chinese & Japanese Art, but includes works from as far away as India. Additionally, The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience is in Chinatown/International District is the only Asian Pacific American museum in the nation. Nearby is the Frye Art Museum, a small private collection featuring 232 paintings by Munich-based artists. Not a museum, but open to browsing by the public, is the Seattle Metaphysical Library, in Ballard, which specializes in material not found in normal libraries..
Surrounding the Space Needle on the grounds of the Seattle Center are several more big museums, including the Pacific Science Center, an interactive science museum, the Experience Music Project, a Rock & Roll museum with a special Jimi Hendrix exhibit, and the Science Fiction Museum Home of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
On the north end of South Lake Union is the newly reopened Museum of History and Industry, called Mohai for short.
Downtown is home to the popular Seattle Aquarium. The University District holds the The Henry Art Gallery, one of the biggest contemporary art galleries in Washington. Also on the university campus is the Burke Museum, a combination natural history/archaeology museum. Further out in Georgetown is the Museum of Flight, with a large collection of aircraft ranging from wood and fabric crates to the sleek Concorde.
Travelers planning to visit multiple attractions may benefit from Seattle CityPASS [59] , which grants admission to 6 Seattle attractions within 9 days of first use for a much reduced rate and includes expedited entry in some cases. The included attractions are: Space Needle (for two visits); Seattle Aquarium; Argosy Cruises Harbor Tour; an Option Ticket with choice of either Pacific Science Center or Museum of Flight ; and an Option Ticket with choice of either Experience Music Project - Science Fiction Museum or Woodland Park Zoo.
Architecture[ edit ]
Most of the architectural attractions in Seattle are located in a small portion of the downtown area , easily traversed on foot. Among the highlights are the Rem Koolhaas/OMA designed Central Library, a unique, contemporary building with an enormous glass-fronted atrium; the Experience Music Project designed to resemble Jimi Hendrix's smashed guitar done in a manner only Frank Gehry could conceive; the Smith Tower, an Art Deco skyscraper which has an observation deck and is Seattle's oldest skyscraper; the Columbia Center, the tallest building in the Pacific Northwest and one with its own observation deck; the Seattle City Hall, designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Bassetti Architects, with its roof garden, designed by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd. and Swift & Company; and the new Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Campus, designed by NBBJ, with its 12 acre garden also designed by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd.
Seattle's Downtown from the Space Needle
Of course, the most popular view in Seattle remains the one from the revolving top of the Space Needle at the Seattle Center . And given the retro-futurism look of the Space Needle, a fitting way to get there is via the Monorail, which connects the Seattle Center to Downtown.
Parks and outdoors[ edit ]
Seattle is peppered with parks, from small urban squares to large forested areas with views of the Puget Sound.
Hiram M. Chittenden Locks (a.k.a. Ballard Locks) in Ballard . Check out the fish ladders and if you're lucky you'll see huge Pacific Northwest salmon coming and going.
UW Waterfront Activities Center - Rent a canoe and explore the arboretum
Woodland Park Zoo (South Gate at N 50th St and Fremont Ave N, on Phinney Ridge), [60] . $15 ($11 in winter), 9:30AM-4PM in the winter (1 Oct-30 Apr), 6PM in the summer (1 May-31 Sep). It has mostly realistic and spacious habitats for the animals, unlike the animal jails in some zoos. The Raptor Show at 3PM on non-rainy weekends is particularly entertaining if you get the bird handler with the Bronx accent: "If dis boid's head were da same size as youses, its eyes would be da size of sawftbawls."
Carkeek Park is a sweet little beach park in North Seattle. Good hikes, and may have salmon migrating upstream in fall.
Cowen Park has a play structure for children and a backstop for baseball/softball. Cowen is connected to Ravenna Park via a wooded ravine that makes for good jogging and walking. It is a particularly nice walk in the (rare) snow.
Discovery Park [61] the largest city park in Seattle. Magnolia is great for kite-flying as well as a trail to the beach with great cliffs and boat watching. At Park's beach, you can see the view of both Cascade and Olympia Mountain ranges. This is a great getaway from long weeks of work and to bring kids to enjoy some quality family moments. The wildlife sanctuary is well protected to maintain the rich natural environment.
Gasworks Park [62] in Wallingford is built on the former site of the city gas facility, and a few hulking tanks and pipes are preserved, giving it a slightly eerie feel. The hill at the center has a sundial on top, and offers a spectacular view of downtown across Union Bay, as well as gusts of wind great for kite-flying. Don't eat the carcinogenic dirt!
Golden Gardens Park in Ballard is one of two places in Seattle that still allows bonfires on the beach. Set on the Puget Sound, it offers spectacular views of the sun setting over the Olympic mountain range on clear days.
Green Lake [63] , north of the University District , has side-by-side 2.75 mi (4.4 km) asphalt and gravel trails for walking, jogging and rollerblading around the circumference of the lake, plus several sports fields. The path is good for people-watching as there is a constant stream of thousands of Seattlelites all day long. On the East side there are areas of grass where you can often find pick-up soccer, volleyball as well as basketball on outdoor courts. There's also an indoor swimming pool, which is much cleaner than the lake. If the signs warn that the lake is closed, don't ignore them or risk getting "swimmer's itch" from the plentiful parasites spread through duck feces. The surrounding neighborhood is vibrant and fun in good weather, with rental rollerskates, bikes, restaurants, etc.
Kerry Park [64] on Highland Drive on Queen Anne Hill is the single most photographed view of Seattle, with a spectacular cityscape with the Space Needle, Safeco Field, CenturyLink Field, and Elliott Bay in front and Mt. Rainier visible behind the skyline. The best view is to go on a clear summer day around 9PM, the sun will have just dropped behind the Olympic range, the city lights will just be coming on, but there will be enough sunlight left that Rainier glows purple behind the city. The Sculpture "Changing Form" by Doris Chase is standing in the center of Kerry Park since 1977 and this park attracts many tourists and locals to enjoy their afternoon or night chillaxing.
Kubota Garden [65] , a spectacular 20-acre (8 ha) park space in the Rainier Beach neighborhood of South Seattle. To quote the linked website, the Garden contains "streams, waterfalls, ponds, rock outcroppings, and an exceptionally rich and mature collection of plant material." Established by Fujitaro Kubota in 1927, he wanted to "display the beauty of the Northwest in a Japanese manner."
Magnuson Park / Sand Point, the second largest park in Seattle, used to be a U.S. Naval base. The remaining naval buildings are now used for recreational purposes and to host shows. Magnuson boasts multiple sports fields, a boat launch, an off-leash dog park, and lots of walking trails. The Sound Garden (after which the local Seattle band was named), is on NOAA property. It is public art work that moans eerily in the wind.
Myrtle Edwards Park [66] on Elliott Bay has a nice view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. Also a great place to take a walk, jog or bike ride. The walking and cycling paths (at times separate) start north of the ferry piers and go right along the water for 1.5 mi (2.4 km), and provide a delightful way to get close to the harbor. It is separated from the rest of the city by several train tracks, so you won't have to listen to any vehicle traffic.
Ravenna Park in the Ravenna area is a park named for its wooded ravine. It is good park for baseball, soccer, tennis, or have a barbecue. Ravenna Park is connected to Cowen Park via a trail alongside a little creek. This park provides a basic feel for the nature that can be found outside of the city.
Olympic Sculpture Park is a new park on the waterfront built and maintained by the Seattle Art Museum. It has wonderful views across the water and contains sculptures built by famous artists including Richard Serra and Alexander Calder.
Seward Park in the Seward Park neighborhood has 300 acres of beautiful forest land and a 2.4 mile bike and walking path, an amphitheater, a native plant garden, an art studio, miles of hiking trails, and shelters to grill food.
The University of Washington Arboretum [67] is 230 acres (93 ha) of urban greenery with collections of oaks, conifers, camellias, Japanese maples and hollies. Often filled with people going for walks on sunny summer days, especially weekends. The Japanese gardens are a special spot.
Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill , home of the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM).
Waterfront provides one of the best views while walking in Seattle (if you don't mind the crowds).
Events[ edit ]
Seafair [68] is in July and early August. Neighborhood events such as parades and street fairs run throughout the festival, with the downtown Torchlight Parade in late July. Seafair culminates in early August when hydroplane races and the Blue Angels bring loud, fast boats and planes to Lake Washington.
Bumbershoot [69] . A music and arts festival, held on Labor Day weekend (beginning of September) in the Seattle Center, featuring dozens of local and world-class musical acts.
Northwest Folklife Festival [70] . A more low-key and global version of Bumbershoot, held in the Seattle Center on Memorial Day weekend (end of May). Even more important - it's free ($10 donation per person per day requested at the entries - but not required).
Bite of Seattle [71] . Part of Seafair festivities. Held in mid/late-July in the Seattle Center. Eat till you explode.
Hempfest A two-day cannabis festival in mid-August. Held at Myrtle Edwards park on the Seattle waterfront, it's the largest marijuana rally in the world and the biggest annual political event in Washington. Features political speakers, vendors, food, several stages with many bands, and lots of open pot smoking (especially at 4:20)! It is a demonstration for the political reform and the legalization of marijuana. [72]
Capitol Hill Block Party [73] , Yearly live music event held on Capitol Hill over a weekend in mid-summer (usually the end of July). Consists of primarily local independent bands of various styles, coupled with some bigger name independent label acts.
Fremont Fair [74] . Home of the Solstice Parade (including the nude bike ride) is a really fun drunken time all over Fremont. Vendors, bad live music and eclectic crowds at the bars makes for an interesting time. Friends who live in Fremont become especially valuable for a place to crash.
Cycling[ edit ]
Mountain biking. The best riding in Seattle is underneath I-5 between Eastlake and Capitol Hill at the Colonnade [75] .
A little further out, try riding "The Tapeworm" in Philip Arnold Park in Renton , southeast of Seattle. Other great trails are in this park, as well.
Burke Gilman Trail. 26-mi (42 km) paved path dedicated to non-motorized travel. Goes from Golden Gardens park, on Puget Sound near the Locks, to Bothell Landing where it connects to Sammamish River Trail, which goes to Marymoor Park (in Redmond).
Seattle is one of the best cycling cities in the United States. All trails are mapped in Google Maps.
Boating[ edit ]
Center For Wooden Boats, 1010 Valley St (south end of Lake Union), ☎ +1 206 382-2628, [76] . Visit and poke around boats in various stages of restoration, from big broken hulks to gorgeous polished speedsters. Rent an antique boat and go for a row or a sail. They as well offer free sailboat rides on Lake Union. Call ahead to check the schedule. edit
Northwest Outdoor Center, (west side of Lake Union), [77] . Kayak rentals. edit
Agua Verde, on Portage Bay between Lake Union and Lake Washington, [78] . Kayak rentals. edit
Waterfront Activities Center, (University of Washington, a quarter mile south of Husky Stadium), ☎ +1 206 543-9433, [79] . Canoe rentals. Parking sucks except after noon on Saturdays. Paddle across the Lake Washington Ship Canal into the Arboretum and watch ducks, geese, swans, random migratory birds, and lots of other boats. If you're an experienced sailor, you can also rent a sailboat after a checkout with their staff. Open to the public ($7.50/hr) and students ($4/hr). edit
Lake Union Crew, on Lake Union, ☎ +1 206 860-4199, [80] . Learn to row! Classes are held year round and occur over a 4 week period with 3 classes per week. There are evening and morning sessions to fit any schedule. The classes teach you the basics of sweep rowing (one oar per rower) and sculling (two oars). The facilities are beautiful and located right on Lake Union just south of the University Bridge. edit
Elliott Bay Cruises, on Lake Elliott, ☎ +1 206 623-4252, [81] . Cruises as short as one hour around Elliott Bay are available from Argosy Cruises, departing from Pier 55. edit
Sports[ edit ]
Safeco Field
Seattle Mariners [82] , member of Major League Baseball's (MLB) American League Western Division, plays at Safeco Field from April to October.
Seattle Seahawks [83] , member of the National Football League's (NFL) National Football Conference's Western Division, play at CenturyLink Field (formerly Qwest Field) from August (Regular Season begins in September) until January.
Seattle Sounders FC [84] , member of Major League Soccer's (MLS) Western Conference. The third different Seattle soccer team to bear the "Sounders" name, plays at CenturyLink Field from March-November. Possibly the toughest ticket in town—the Sounders have sold out every home MLS game since joining the league in 2009—but for hardcore soccer (football) fans, the atmosphere is unmatched in the US. David Beckham, the iconic English star who played in MLS from 2007 to 2012, has called CenturyLink Field the only place in the league where he has seen an atmosphere that compares to that found in Europe .
Seattle Storm [85] , Seattle's WNBA Western Conference team plays at KeyArena from May till September.
Seattle Reign FC [86] , the city's newest top-level professional team, plays in the National Women's Soccer League from April to August. The Reign, named after a defunct Seattle women's basketball team, have moved to Memorial Stadium near Seattle Center after having played their first season (2013) in the suburb of Tukwila.
Seattle Thunderbirds [87] , WHL US Division junior hockey team plays at the ShoWare Center in nearby Kent, WA from September till March.
Washington Huskies [88] – The sports teams representing the University of Washington, competing in the Pacific-12 Conference. Virtually all venues are on campus, with the best-known being Husky Stadium (football) and Hec Edmundson Pavilion (many indoor sports, most notably basketball). Husky Stadium, which reopened for the 2013 football season after major renovations, is notable as the largest stadium in the Pacific Northwest and for its scenic setting next to Lake Washington; a significant number of fans arrive at the stadium by boat. Tickets can be difficult to come by for football and men's basketball games.
See the district articles for listings.
The Pike Place Market [89] in Downtown is an attraction unto itself, known for its seafood and produce stands. As the weather gets warmer, artisans sell their wares here as well. The market is located along 2nd Ave & Pike.
Downtown in general - The 26 to 30 square block area between Pike Place Market & the convention Center bounded north by Stewart, south by Union, west by 1st Ave & east by 6th Ave (or the freeway) is the retail core of downtown offering a concentrated number of hotels, boutique shops, dept stores (Nordstroms & Macys) and a number of restaurants & cafes. Of course there are also additional outside this area in downtown Seattle.
Westlake Center [90] 400 Pine St is a downtown mall within the downtown retail core offering additional restaurants and shops selling all sorts of items and a general food court up on the third floor with a variety of different foods. In addition to the food court, there is also a branch of 'Travelex Bureau du Change' office that exchange foreign currency for US dollars and next to the monorail station for the direct ride over to Seattle Center. Below the mall is the underground tunnel for buses and the light rail. Not all buses go through the tunnel either but on surface streets. See http://metro.kingcounty.gov to find which bus goes along where in the downtown area.
Northgate Mall [91] 401 NE Northgate Way. Another mall north of Seattle. The #41 bus serves Northgate from downtown.
Westfield SouthCenter Mall [92] is the other big mall including a JC Penny, Sears, Macy's & Nordstrom. Recently expanded in 2008. The #150 bus goes down to Southcenter from downtown. There are also a number of other big and small stores in various smaller strip malls along Southcenter Dr spanning 3-4mi south of the Southcenter Mall and across the street from the southside of the mall.
Groceries and other basics[ edit ]
The major supermarket chains in Seattle are QFC (which is owned by Kroger), Safeway, and Albertsons. For general merchandise Target and Fred Meyer also have stores in Seattle. In addition many specialty and organic supermarkets such as Whole Foods Market and Trader Joes can also be found throughout the area. Due to Seattle's large ethnic Asian immigrant population you can easily find grocery stores catering to those groups such as Uwajimaya located in the International District.
See the district articles for listings.
Fresh seafood is found in abundance at both markets and restaurants. Seattle also has a wide variety of Asian cuisine.
See the district articles for listings.
Few, if any, American cities can challenge Seattleites' love of coffee. Seattle's love of coffee is perhaps signified best by Starbucks [93] , Seattle's Best Coffee (now owned by Starbucks), and Tully's [94] as they each have expanded all over the country and world, but locals aren't satisfied by these internationally-recognized chains alone, evidenced by hundreds of good locally owned coffeehouses. Microbreweries and beer in general are a Northwest specialty, and Seattle has many to offer for beer enthusiasts. The larger ones, like Redhook, have their products distributed around the country like their coffee cousins, while others can only be found in local stores or bars (some notable ones even don't bottle their product).
In Washington, bars have a full liquor license, while taverns are restricted to beer, wine and cider. Seattle bars have world-class beer selection, featuring local Northwest style micros, many of them crafted in Seattle.
Contact[ edit ]
The area code for the City of Seattle is 206. Surrounding areas use other area codes, including 425 which encompasses the eastside and northern suburbs including Bellevue, Redmond, Lynnwood, and Everett, 253 for all areas south of Kent such as Tacoma, Federal Way, and Fife, and 360 for all areas outside the greater Everett-Seattle-Tacoma corridor but west of the Cascades. All of Washington east of the Cascades uses the 509 area code.
Free Wi-Fi can be found at all Seattle Public libraries, and is available to users with Wi-Fi enabled laptops and wireless devices. The City of Seattle provides free Wi-Fi access in the Columbia City and University District areas as part of a pilot project. The project also provides coverage in four downtown Seattle parks: Occidental, Freeway, Westlake and Victor Steinbrueck, as well as the City Hall lobby area. The Seattle Center also provides free wireless internet in the Center House building [95] . Some of the Metro and Sound Transit commuter buses offer free Wi-Fi.
There are various internet cafes in the Seattle area, especially in the University District and the Downtown neighborhoods. Additionally, many coffee shops offer free and paid wireless access (all Starbucks locations offer AT&T internet access points).
Stay safe[ edit ]
Seattle is a fairly safe city. However, like all large cities you should be cautious of potential danger and use common sense. There is little concern in the residential North Seattle districts, except for the areas around Aurora Avenue, the University District and Lake City Way at night time. Some South Seattle neighborhoods have a history of gang and drug related violence, but common sense and smart thinking should be used in any neighborhood you are unfamiliar with, especially if traveling by foot or alone.
Like many other large cities, downtown Seattle has a sizable population of homeless men and women, and while many may beg for change, only a small percentage are to be considered harmful. While walking down Pike or Pine Streets from Westlake Center to Pike Place Market, be especially vigilant when passing the intersection with 2nd and 3rd Avenues, as this has been a particular hotspot of crime and drug activity. However, these areas are also heavily monitored by city police and significant improvements have been made recently.
The right to assemble and protest is taken very seriously in Seattle (as well as the rest of Washington), and often goes to extremes. Protest related violence is frequent and well documented, and it would be a poor exercise of judgement indeed to be found anywhere near one in the city. Keep in mind also the Seattle Police are not known for being soft-handed in such situations.
Newspapers[ edit ]
The Seattle Times [96] ($0.50 daily, $1.50 Sundays) is the only remaining daily newspaper in the Seattle area and covers local, national and international news.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer [97] (free, online only) has ended its print edition, but still maintains local reporters and an online presence.
The Seattle Weekly [98] (free, published Wednesday) is one of many free weeklies that are published in the Seattle area. The Weekly has a longstanding reputation for in-depth coverage of arts and local politics.
The Stranger [99] (free, published Thursday) is an alternative weekly newspaper noted for its social commentary, political opinion, arts, comics, music coverage, and local news items.
Publicola [100] (free, online only) is an online only but well read blog covering local politics and events.
Real Change [101] ($2.00, published weekly) is a newspaper mostly written and produced by homeless people, and it is sold by homeless vendors on street corners and outside grocery stores.
There are also several ethnic newspapers including Northwest Asian Weekly, and numerous neighborhood newspapers including the North Seattle Journal, and the West Seattle Blog. The University of Washington also publishes The Daily of the University of Washington [102] .
"'Crosscut"' [103] provides daily Seattle area news online including Seattle arts, Seattle politics and news from the Pacific Northwest. Donations are requested.
Hospitals[ edit ]
Seattle has a large number of primary- and secondary-care medical centers, including the only level 1 trauma center serving Alaska, Washington, Idaho and Montana. Additionally, Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center is the pediatric referral center for those same states.
UW Medicine [104] The UW Medicine system is operated by the University of Washington. It includes Harborview Medical Center, UW Medical Center, UW Medicine Neighborhood Clinics, Eastside Specialty Center, Hall Health (Student Health Services) and Sports Medicine Clinic.
Harborview Medical Center, 325 Ninth Ave, +1 206 744-3000 [105] Seattle’s Level 1 trauma center, and the hospital where most critically injured patients are either airlifted or ambulanced. 24-hour Emergency Room, Centers of Emphasis for neurosciences, trauma, burns, reconstruction and rehabilitation, mentally ill and medically vulnerable, and AIDS/STD treatment.
UW Medical Center, 1959 NE Pacific, +1 206 598-3300 [106] The second hospital component to the UW Medicine system, this hospital is one of the biggest and best teaching hospitals in the country. 24-hour Emergency Room.
Children's Hospital and Medical Center, 4800 Sand Point Way NE, +1 206 987-2000 [107] Children's Hospital is a private hospital specializing in pediatrics. It is also home to UW's School of Pediatrics. 24-hour pediatric emergency room.
Swedish Medical Center [108] Swedish Medical Center is a large nonprofit health care provider. It has three main hospital locations and is also affiliated with many other suburban hospitals and clinics. Among the things Swedish is known for are its Cancer, Bariatrics and Heart Institutes. Swedish Hospital will treat all patients who need care, regardless of their ability to pay.
Swedish Medical Center First Hill, 747 Broadway, +1 206 386-6000 [109] Certified Primary Stroke Care center, 24-hour ER, 24-hour Pediatric ER. This is the Main Swedish Medical Center campus.
Swedish Medical Center Cherry Hill, 500 17th Ave, +1 206 320-2000 [110] Certified Primary Stroke Care center, 24-hour ER.
Swedish Medical Center Ballard, 5300 Tallman Ave NW, +1 206 782-2700 [111] 24-Hour ER.
In the event of a medical emergency anywhere in the U.S., dial 9-1-1 for free from any phone, including payphones at no cost.
Consulates[ edit ]
Be aware that honorary consulates are typically individual representatives of nations who represent the interest of certain business functions, and are not full-fledged national consulates you would normally seek to assist you with individual legal or official matters.
Belgium, The World Trade Center Seattle, 2200 Alaskan Way Ste 470, ☎ +1 206 728-5145 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 206 770-7923), [112] . edit
Cambodia, 1818 Westlake Ave N, Ste 315, ☎ +1 206 217-0830 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 206 361 7888), [113] . edit
Canada, 1501 4th Ave Ste 600 (Century Building by 4th Ave & Pike), ☎ +1 206 443-1777 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 206 443-9662), [114] . edit
Denmark (Honorary), 6204 E Mercer Way, Mercer Island, ☎ +1 206 230-0888 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 206 230-0888), [115] . edit
Germany (Honorary), 7853 SE 27th St Ste 180, Mercer Island, ☎ +1 206 230-5138 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 206 236-5162), [116] . edit
Japan, 601 Union St Ste 500, ☎ +1 206 682-9107 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 206 624-9097), [117] . edit
Mexico, 2132 3rd Ave, ☎ +1 877 639-4835 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 206 448-4771), [118] . edit
Netherlands (Honorary), Karman Executive Center, Bellevue, ☎ +1 425-637-3050 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 425-637-3050), [119] . edit
New Zealand (Honorary), ☎ +1 206 527-1896 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 206 525-8104), [120] . edit
Peru (Honorary), 3717 NE 157th St, ☎ +1 206 714-9037 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 206 365-5378), [121] . Mon,Wed & Fri 2:00PM-5:30PM. edit
Russia, 600 University St., Suite 2510 (One Union Square Bldg.), ☎ +1 206 728-0232 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 206 728-1871), [122] . (47.609852,-122.332077) edit
Sweden (Honorary), 5350 Carillon Point, Kirkland, ☎ +1 425 952-6299 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 425 576-5400), [123] . Tue & Thu 10AM-12PM or by appointment. edit
South Korea, 2033 6th Ave # 1125, ☎ +1 206 441-1011 ( [email protected] , fax: +1 206 441-7912), [124] . edit
Taiwan (Taipei Economic and Cultural Office), 600 University St., Suite 2020 (One Union Square Bldg.), ☎ +1 206 441-4586 ( [email protected] ), [125] . (47.609852,-122.332077) edit
Ferries[ edit ]
If you're staying anywhere near downtown, the state-run ferries [126] hardly seem like "getting out" since they leave from Colman Dock, a pier at the south end of the waterfront, an easy and interesting walk from downtown. Passengers on foot pay $7.50 for the westbound trip; the return to Seattle is free.
Take the ferry to Bainbridge Island (30 minutes one way). Get off on the other side, walk about 1/2 mile into town for lunch or dinner, and walk back to ferry to come home.
Or, take a trip to Bremerton and back. Almost 2 hours on the water, in a place as scenic as the Aegean Sea.
The County also provides passenger only Water Taxi [127] service from pier 50 (right next to Colman Dock) to West Seattle and Vashon Island .
Driving[ edit ]
Just getting out and driving around the area with no destination in mind can be a great experience, as the Seattle area, like most of the Pacific Northwest, is very scenic. If you'd like more specific destinations, try some of these:
Tacoma lies about 35 miles south of Seattle on I-5 and is the second largest city in the Puget Sound area. It's long known for its blue collar, gritty appearance, though in recent years has cleaned up its downtown area by adding a university (second largest University of Washington campus after Seattle's), four museums (Tacoma Art Museum, Museum of Glass, Washington State History Museum, and the LeMay Car Museum), and retrofitting an impressive amount of historic architecture. Be sure to check out Stadium High School (featured in the film "10 Things I Hate About You), Point Defiance Park (the second largest urban park in the country after Central Park), and the Ruston Way Waterfront promenade. It's well worth a day trip--not to mention the once infamous "Tacoma Aroma" has mysteriously disappeared.
Everett lies about 25 miles north of Seattle on I-5 and is home to the Boeing factory - a massive building where 747, 767, 777, and 787 airliners are made - tours are available.
The Mountains to Sound Greenway via I-90 is the quickest "escape" from the city into the nearby Cascade mountains. Snoqualmie Pass is just an hour away, offering great views, summer hiking and winter skiing.
Two mountain passes, Snoqualmie Pass (follow I-90 east) and Stevens Pass (take I-405 to Hwy 522 east, then take Hwy 2 east) provide fantastic views. Of the two, Stevens is arguably the more scenic.
Snoqualmie Falls, [128] ( Snoqualmie , east of Seattle on I-90). The falls are scenic, and if you want to stay longer than it takes to just gawk, the Salish Lodge [129] is pricey but incredibly romantic, with in-room Sanijet spa baths and fireplaces. The lodge offers two restaurants with views overlooking the falls. Trivia tidbit: Snoqualmie Falls is nearly 300 ft (91 m) in height, compared to Niagara's 180 ft (55 m).
Leavenworth , [130] (2 1/2-hr drive east of Seattle via I-90 or Hwy 2). Leavenworth is a Bavarian-style town surrounded by the Cascade mountains. Every building has to be built in traditional Bavarian architecture, and there are many German-esque restaurants and shops. There are many festivals throughout the year, including Maifest (May), the Autumn Leaf Festival (September), Christmas Lighting Festival (December), and most notably the German beer festival Oktoberfest (October). A beautiful charming little town, worth the extra time if you are already heading east (i.e. Snoqualmie, Spokane) although it is slightly out of the way. There is also an Amtrak train service from Seattle that makes a stop in Leavenworth.
Grove of the Patriarchs, in the Ohanapecosh River valley in the southeast part of Mount Rainier National Park , takes you on the short hiking trail through groves of thousand year-old cedars.
North Bend (also out I-90) is the town where parts of the 1990 David Lynch TV series Twin Peaks [131] were filmed. West of North Bend on SR 202 near the town of Snoqualmie there are displays of historic railroad cars, locomotives and other railroad equipment located at the Northwest Railway Museum [132] . Train rides are offered Apr-Oct, as well as a "Santa Train" in late November and early December, plus several other special events offered during the year. The TV show "Twin Peaks" was filmed in North Bend.
Roslyn is also out I-90 (not far past Snoqualmie Pass ) and is where the TV series Northern Exposure was filmed. It holds many festivals including The Manly Man Festival, Pioneer Days, and Moose Days -- the latter is an annual Northern Exposure gathering held in late July. Might be worth a stop if you're out that way, or if you're a fan of the show, but it's a very small, quiet town without much to do most days. However, there is a great small museum in the downtown core right next to the Oasis Cafe. It is worth a browse as it profiles the city's coal mining past. Roslyn is worth the stop if you have the time!
The North Cascade Loop [133] consists of a two-day minimum round trip over Stevens Pass and the North Cross-state Highway (US 2 and SR 20). It's a long drive, and SR20 is closed usually from November to April/May, but you'll see the most spectacular scenery in the state, visit towns made to look like the old west and a Bavarian Village, see the Columbia River and apple orchards on the east and deep rain-forest on the west side. [134]
The Olympic Peninsula features beaches on the Pacific Ocean, Cape Flattery (the extreme northwestern point of the contiguous U.S.), and the only temperate rain forests in the lower 48 states: the well-known and easily accessible Hoh Rainforest, the Quinalt Rainforest and the Queets Rainforest. Other notable scenic areas on the Olympic Peninsula are Crescent Lake and Hurricane Ridge. You can take the Kingston ferry over from Edmonds and follow Hwy 104 west until it meets up with Hwy 101 (head north), or head south on I-5 to Olympia and catch Hwy 101 West there. Doing the complete loop is a nearly day-long drive, and you could easily spend several days there, but you'll see a lot of fantastic scenery even if you never stop the car.
Mount Rainier National Park Just 2.5 hours south and east from Seattle, this magnificent mountain offers a mosaic of beautiful scenery such as blooming wildflowers, glaciers, crashing waterfalls and the mountain itself.
| i don't know |
Consisting of taurine, glucuronolactone, caffeine, B vitamins, sucrose, and glucose, what beverage gives you wiiings? | Top 10 Energy Drinks & Gels - Best of 2016-2017 Reviewed
Moderate caffeine content won’t make you jittery
Red Bull sponsors tons of extreme sports, giving back to the community
Who makes it: Red Bull is made by Red Bull GmbH, an Austrian-based beverage manufacturer. Best known for their signature Red Bull product, this company was founded in 1987 and has since grown into one of the largest beverage conglomerates on the planet. With 2015 sales of $4.5 billion, Red Bull is by far the best selling energy drink – and for good reason!
What’s in it: (8.4 fl oz can)
Energy blend, consisting of caffeine (80mg), taurine, B-vitamins, sucrose and glucose. This simple yet highly effective blend provides a powerful boost in energy levels, and offers sustained energy and focus for many hours. The moderate caffeine content is more than made up for by the good dose of taurine and b-vitamins, both of which have powerful energizing properties.
Bottom line: Overall, Red Bull is the best energy drink out there. It’s the best selling by far, and for good reason – people love its delicious flavor and potent energizing effects. Plus, we love the fact that Red Bull sponsors a ton of events, extreme sports, musicians and more – giving back to the community in a fun way.
24 Pack
Monster Energy supports many artists, athletes and more
The legendary MONSTER!
Overview
Who makes it: Monster Energy Drink is made by Monster Beverage, a large scale drink manufacturer based in the US. First introduced in 2002, Monster has now grown into a massive company and a worldwide success. Today, they not only produce a wide variety of delicious beverages, but they also give back to the community by supporting extreme sports like BMX, skateboarding, snowboarding and much more.
What’s in it: (16 fl oz can)
Energy blend consisting of caffeine (160mg), ginseng, taurine, glucose, L-carnitine, guarana and more. This powerful blend gives exactly the kick you need to stay energized and conquer your day.
Bottom line: Overall, if you’re looking for a strong energy drink from a great company, look no further than Monster Energy Drink. Although they offer a wide variety of flavors and variations, we always prefer the original Monster flavor. Plus, we love that Monster gives back to their community in so many ways, sponsoring athletes and financing various extreme sporting events. Without a doubt, Monster is one of the best energy drinks out there.
20 Pack
High caffeine content may be too strong for some people
Overview
Who makes it: Rockstar Zero Carb is made by Rockstar Energy, a huge company specializing in energy drinks. Today, more than 20 flavors and varieties of Rockstar are made and distributed in over 30 countries. As one of the most popular energy drink brands, Rockstar continues to excel producing high quality, accessible and affordable products.
What’s in it: (16 fl oz can):
Caffeine (240mg), provides a strong boost of energy. This is a good amount of caffeine, equivalent to 2-3 cups of coffee (depending on how it’s brewed). For those without a caffeine tolerance, this may be too much to consume at once.
Energy blend, consisting of taurine, green tea extractives, L-carnitine, and yerba mate extract. This blend aims to provide a balanced energy boost from a variety of proven ingredients.
Vitamins B3, B5, B6 and B12, provide another source of energy for your day.
Bottom line: Overall, if you’re looking for a healthy energy drink, this is a good choice. At zero carbs, zero sugar and 10 calories per serving, it’s hard to beat Rockstar Zero Carb. The 240mg dose of caffeine is a bit on the high end, so be cautious if you don’t have a caffeine tolerance. This drink is a bit on the expensive side, but well worth it if you’re looking for an energy drink that fits in with your diet.
24 Pack
Must mix with water – can be inconvenient for use on-the-go
Lower caffeine than average (this could be a pro or a con, depending!)
Overview
Who makes it: Zipfizz is made by a company of the same name. Founded in 2003, Zipfizz set off to develop a healthy and simple energy drink formula. Today, Zipfizz is one of the most popular electrolyte drinks, and is available worldwide both in-store and online.
What’s in it: (11g tube – mix with water)
205mg Botanical Antioxidant Blend, consisting of green tea leaf extract, green coffee bean extract, grape seed extract, caffeine (100mg), and more. This blend contains 100mg caffeine (about as much as a shot of espresso) and powerful antioxidants to provide energy and improve your health.
Vitamins C, E, B6, B12 and more, provide energy and immune support – includes a huge dose of B12, which helps provide natural energy.
Electrolytes, including potassium, sodium and calcium, which help to restore healthy hydration levels after exercise.
Bottom line: Overall, Zipfizz is one of the healthiest energy drinks out there, and is perfect for athletes and others looking for a “clean” product. With zero sugar and only 10 calories, this drink should fit in with any diet, and help provide energy for your day. It comes as a powdered drink mix, which can be a good thing but can also be inconvenient for on-the-go use.
30 Pack
Designed for athletes – not the best product for those simply looking for an energy boost.
Overview
Who makes it: This product is made by VPX, also known as Redline Sports Nutrition and Performance Beverages. Founded in 1993, VPX has been consistent in their goal of creating high-grade, effective sports supplements. VPX uses industry-leading practices to deliver high quality, science-backed products at reasonable prices.
What’s in it: One serving (½ of an 8 oz bottle) contains:
726mg proprietary blend, consisting of caffeine (158mg), BCAAs (beta-alanine, L-leucine, L-valine, L-isoleucine), tyrosine, green tea extract and much more. This blend contains enough caffeine to get you going, plus BCAAs for muscle support and more.
Electrolyte matrix, consisting of calcium, magnesium and potassium. Electrolytes help to restore energy and improve hydration.
Bottom line: Overall, if you’re looking for a top energy drink that doubles as a sports drink, this is a great choice. With all the energy-boosting ingredients you need, along with the BCAAs and electrolytes your muscles crave, Redline Extreme RTD gives you a powerful boost all in a single concentrated dose. It’s a great product for athletes, but if you’re only looking for a plain energy drink, use one of our top recommendations.
24 Pack
Only available in two flavors: grape and blue raspberry.
A bit on the expensive side
Overview
Who makes it: This product is made by CytoSport, a large manufacturer of workout supplements and health products. Best known for their MuscleMilk product line, CytoSport is a leader in the industry, and for good reason. Founded in 1998, CytoSport is dedicated to producing innovative, effective and affordable supplements for their customers.
What’s in it: (16.9 fl oz bottle)
7g Energy Amplifying Matrix, consisting of caffeine (200mg), taurine and glucuronolactone. This blend provides a powerful boost in energy and focus.
4g Power Nitric Oxide Matrix, consisting of betaine anhydrous, glycocyamine, L-citrulline and L-arginine. This blend of amino acids and nitric oxide boosters helps improve pumps and energy for better workouts.
Vitamins C, E, B6, B12, Folic acid and sodium are added for energy, electrolyte support and more.
Bottom line: Overall, if you’re looking for an energy drink for weighlifting, this is a good choice. By combining the ingredients of a standard energy drink with those of a nitric oxide supplement, CytoSport has made a great product for those who enjoy spending time at the gym. The only downside is it’s only available in two flavors, but at least they’re tasty flavors!
12 Pack
More expensive than average
Overview
Who makes it: This product is made by Xyience, a Texas-based manufacturer of energy drinks and other health products. They offer the Xyience Xenergy line, which includes many flavors and varieties of this popular beverage. They also have a supplement division, which makes effective health supplements for athletes and everyday people alike.
What’s in it: (16 fl oz can)
7g proprietary blend, consisting of taurine, glucuronolactone, caffeine (176mg), guarana extract, panax ginseng and more. This powerful energizing blend contains all the ingredients needed for a significant boost to help you get through the day.
Bottom line: Overall, Xyience Xenergy is a good energy drink from a good company. It’s a bit on the expensive side, so if you’re looking for cheap energy drinks, look elsewhere. With that being said, it’s a great product offering a hefty dose of energy-boosting ingredients, all with no sugar, no carbs and no calories!
12 Pack
Low caffeine content
Overview
Who makes it: SAMBAZON Organic Amazon Energy Drink is made by SAMBAZON, a large manufacturer of health foods and drinks. This company mostly focuses on the use of acai berry, a natural superfood found in the Amazon. Today, this California-based company is large and successful, and now distributes their products worldwide.
What’s in it: (12 fl oz can)
Caffeine (80mg) from natural sources, including green tea extract, guarana and yerba mate. This is a fairly low amount of caffeine, equivalent to about 1 cup of weak coffee. It will provide a decent boost, but for those with a caffeine tolerance this drink won’t be super energizing.
Organic acai berry juice. Acai berry is hailed as a superfruit, providing powerful antioxidant properties and various health benefits.
Bottom line: Overall, this is a healthy and complete energy drink with a relatively low level of caffeine. It’s a tasty, healthy alternative to traditional energy drinks. For those looking for a natural, healthy option, this is a good choice. With that being said, keep in mind that the low caffeine content may not be sufficient for those with a caffeine habit.
24 Pack
Buy Now
Energy Drinks & Gels Guide
10 or 15 years ago, energy drinks were rarely seen on store shelves. Today, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry . Energy drink brands offer all types of different flavors and strengths, leaving the energy drink fan with a lot of choices. While you’ve probably tried the most popular drinks; Red Bull, Monster, etc. you may not know about the best energy drinks out there. Today, we’re here to help you learn a little more about energy drinks, and introduce you to the top 10 energy drinks available today.
What Are They?
What Are Energy Drinks?
Energy drinks are prepackaged drinks designed to give you an energy boost. Generally, they contain a good amount of caffeine , the same magical substance that gives coffee its kick, along with a blend of other ingredients. Guarana is also commonly added, as are various B-vitamins, namely B12 , as well as common energy boosters like taurine .
Most energy drinks are designed to be a quick and easy way to get a powerful energy boost. They are useful for all sorts of applications: getting through a tough work day, studying for that final, etc. Regardless of your reason for liking energy drinks, it’s always good to look for healthy energy drinks that don’t contain many potentially unhealthy ingredients.
You’ve surely tried Monster and Redbull, two of the most popular energy drinks out there (and actually some of our top recommendations!), but you may not know that there are TONS of awesome and effective energy drinks available. Keep reading to learn more, or jump down to the bottom of this page to see the top 10 energy drink list.
What Are The Benefits?
Benefits of Energy Drinks
The main benefit should be pretty obvious: energy! Energy drinks are designed to give you a helpful boost towards completing your tasks for the day, or maybe just towards staying conscious if you haven’t been sleeping well!
But beyond the obvious burst of energy, there are some other energy drink benefits to keep in mind, like:
Increased energy
Boost of carbs for energy/endurance
Electrolyte boost
Extended physical endurance
Beyond the quick burst of energy that most people use these drinks for, there are also some underlying performance-based benefits. Particularly for athletes and exercise enthusiasts, having an energy drink can do a lot more than just wake you up.
Who Can Benefit from Energy Drinks?
All types of people drink energy beverages: students, laborers, office workers – you name it. Various groups can benefit from these tasty drinks, and it goes beyond the simple “wake me up” effect that many people seek. These are the types of people who can benefit:
Students
Spend some time on a college campus, and you’ll see cans of Red Bull everywhere. Energy drinks can help students get through the rigorous demands of a college education by providing not only energy, but also mental focus. Energy drinks are often the first choice of students because they don’t need to be prepared like coffee, so it’s easy to keep them on-hand and accessible when the need arises.
Workers
Regardless of your job, there are some days that are just hard to get through. Maybe you didn’t get enough sleep the night before. Maybe you’ve got too much to do and not enough time to do it. Maybe you just don’t like your job (sorry!) Whatever the reason, a strong energy drink can get you back on track and help you get through your work day.
Athletes
Athletes burn fuel. Athletes need fuel. Energy drinks are great fuel. Simple as that! Not only do good energy drinks contain caffeine, which by itself can improve athletic performance , they also contain athletic fuel like B12 and taurine. Plus, they have a good amount of carbohydrates, in the form of sugar. Carbs are great for short-term fuel and are very useful for athletes and fitness enthusiasts.
Bodybuilders
Bodybuilders and weightlifters can benefit from energy drinks, and there are even drinks designed specifically with these people in mind. Caffeine has been shown to improve athletic performance and help you lift more , as well as providing a metabolism boost. Plus, the fast-absorbing carbs provide great fuel for your workout.
“Not morning people”
There are morning people, and then there are… not morning people. If you’re in the later category, you likely need some sort of highly caffeinated liquid before you get up and face the day. Coffee is great, energy drinks are great – take your pick, or hey, have both!
Whether you’re looking for a daily fix or just a quick boost, energy drinks are a great option. For the daily drinker, it’s often best to purchase online to save money. We have a list of top energy drinks below for you to browse!
Are There Any Side Effects?
People often ask, are energy drinks bad for you? The answer is this: no, as long as you don’t abuse them!
Just like coffee, energy drinks can have negative effects if you consume too much, or if you consume them on a regular basis. They can be habit-forming, meaning you can become somewhat addicted to their effects (like coffee). While you won’t go through serious withdrawals like a drug addiction, you may find yourself sluggish or unmotivated on days you don’t have energy drinks.
Other side effects include:
Trouble sleeping – try not to consume energy drinks later in the day (read more about caffeine and sleep here )
Headaches – some people may experience headaches, often caused by caffeine withdrawal
Increased anxiety – for some people, caffeine and energy drinks can cause anxiety
Jitters/nervousness – a common side effect of too much caffeine – don’t drink more than 1-2/day
Dehydration – caffeine is dehydrating, so be sure to consume adequate water as well
High blood pressure – for those who already have high blood pressure, caffeine can further raise blood pressure leading to potential complications
Type 2 diabetes – energy drinks are high in sugar, and consuming them long-term can lead to type 2 diabetes
Other side effects may occur as well. If you have heart complications, you should not consume energy drinks. If you are under 18, you should also not drink energy drinks.
The vast majority of these side effects are only experienced when you consume too much. If you’re simply having an energy drink here or there, or even one a day, you probably won’t experience any negative effects. But when you get up in the 2-3+ a day range, that’s when the dangers of energy drinks can become reality.
If you notice side effects, stop consuming that particular energy drink. If you can, try to cut them out completely, or switch to black coffee. Alternatively, try a different energy drink brand and see if that helps.
How To Take Them
How to Properly Consume Energy Drinks
Energy drinks are obviously intended for when you need a boost of energy. Whether you’re dragging at work, struggling to stay focused at school, or are just sleepy, an energy drink can provide a quick fix. However, keep in mind that energy drinks are no replacement for actual sleep!
Generally speaking, there are no specific things to worry about when taking energy drinks, so long as you don’t drink more than one or two a day. It’s wise to not consume them on an empty stomach, as that can cause stomach upset in some people.
With that being said, it’s important to remember that anything containing high amounts of caffeine should not be taken in the late afternoon or evening, as it can cause trouble sleeping.
Depending on your caffeine tolerance, you’ll likely want to stop consuming caffeinated beverages, including energy drinks, approximately 4-8 hours before going to bed. Caffeine takes quite a while to exit the system , and can cause trouble sleeping if you drink it too late in the day.
Also, while one or two energy drinks shouldn’t be a problem, consuming too much caffeine and/or energy drinks can cause serious side effects. The Mayo Clinic lists up to 400mg of caffeine a day as an upper safe limit – anything beyond that and you may experience negative effects. And since many energy drinks contain 200mg or more, it’s easy to see how quickly you could hit that limit.
Another thing to keep in mind is the potential for side effects if you consume too many energy drinks, or if you become addicted to them. Caffeine addiction is a real thing, and although caffeine itself is not necessarily bad for you, sugary energy drinks can cause problems long-term. We’ll discuss more about the side effects of energy drinks in the next section.
What to Look For
What to Look for in a Good Energy Drink
Like most products nowadays, there are a ton of different energy drinks to choose from. Below, we’ll cover the top 10 energy drink choices available today, but before we do that, let’s examine some factors you should consider when choosing an energy drink.
Caffeine content – caffeine is generally the main active ingredient in top energy drinks. Caffeine content will vary from product to product, but it’s generally in the 50mg-200mg range. It’s a good idea to check the caffeine amount listed on the product you’re considering, and compare it to your caffeine tolerance. According to CaffeineInformer , the average cup of coffee has approximately 160mg of caffeine in it (although that can vary depending on brewing method), so that’s a good benchmark for your comparisons.
Other energizing ingredients – other ingredients are often added to increase energy. These include B vitamins, taurine, guarana, ginseng, etc. Check the label to see whether or not these ingredients are included.
Taste – obviously you’ll want to find an effective energy drink that actually tastes good, otherwise you won’t want to drink it! If you’re buying a drink that you’ve never tried before, it’s a good idea to read energy drink reviews to learn how people like the flavor.
Brand quality – not all energy drink brands are created equal. It’s important to buy from a reputable, trustworthy company that ensures high quality products. On our list below, we only include products from the best companies.
Value – price will always be a factor (unless you’re rich!) While you don’t necessarily want cheap energy drinks, you’ll want to find a brand that meets your needs and fits your budget. In general, expect to pay around $1.50-$2.50 per can when buying in bulk, and around $2-$4 per can when buying a single can at a store.
Now that you know what you should look for in an energy drink, let’s dive right in and explore your options!
Final Thoughts
We hope that reading this guide has taught you more about energy drinks and how you can use them. We also hope that we’ve helped you to find a new favorite (or maybe just a great price on your current favorite!)
Before you head out, we have one last recommendation: to bookmark this page. By saving this page, you’ll be able to check back regularly to stay up to date on the latest developments. We keep a close eye on the energy drink market, and we’ll update our recommendations if and when a great new product is released. Save this page and check back later.
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Home » Orka » Top 10 Orkudrykkir & Gels - Best 2016-2017 Umsögn
Top 10 Orkudrykkir & Gels - Best 2016-2017 Umsögn
Síðast uppfært: Þriðjudagur, október 25, 2016
Frá tími til tími, þurfum við öll smá orku uppörvun að halda okkur að fara í gegnum daginn. Hvort sem er bolla af kaffi í hádeginu, a fjórfalt skot Espresso á 3pm, eða góð Energy Drink miðjan eftirmiðdaginn, við höfum öll uppáhalds orkugefandi okkar lesti við að treysta á.
En kaffi er vinsælasti lang ( 54% Bandaríkjamanna drekka kaffi á hverjum degi), eru orkudrykkir loka sekúndu. Þessi öflugu hvatamaður orka innihalda yfirleitt nóg koffín, tárín, guarana, B-vítamín og fleira til að halda þér að fara í gegnum daginn.
10 Sterkasti Orkudrykkir & Gels samanburði
1.) Red Bull Energy Drink
Lægsta verð sem við fundum
Red Bull Energy Drink er einfaldlega, besta orku drykk á jörðinni. Þú hefur örugglega séð auglýsingar, eða kannski jafnvel reynt vöruna fyrir þig - eftir allt, Red Bull "gefur þér vængi". Red Bull er satt þjóðsaga í orku drykk heim, pakkað í þeirri helgimynda blá-og-silfur dós. Og með öflugum blanda af hár efni gæði, þar á meðal koffein, taurine, B-vítamín og fleira, þetta drykkur er allt sem þú þarft til að vera ötull og afkastamikill allan daginn.
Helstu atriði:
Vinsælasta orku drykk á jörðinni
Sala $ 4.5 milljarða í 2015
Besta bragð orku drykk
80mg koffín á að þjóna
Pakkað með koffín, taurine, B-vítamín og fleira
mjög orkugefandi
Miðlungs koffein innihald vilja ekki gera þér taugaspenna
Red Bull styrktaraðili tonn af erfiðustu íþróttum, gefa til baka til samfélagsins
Sem gerir það: Red Bull er gert með því að Red Bull GmbH Austurríski byggir drykkjar framleiðanda. Best þekktur fyrir undirskrift Red Bull vöru sína, var þetta fyrirtæki stofnað árið 1987 og hefur síðan vaxið í einn af stærstu drykkur samsteypur á jörðinni. Með 2015 sölu á $ 4.5 milljarða, Red Bull er lang bestur selja orku drykk - og ekki að ástæðulausu!
Hvað er í það: (8.4 fl oz getur)
Orka blanda, samanstendur af koffín (80mg), tárín, B-vítamín, súkrósi og glúkósa. Þessi einfalda en mjög áhrifarík blanda veitir öflug uppörvun í magni orku, og býður staðgóða orku og fókus í margar klukkustundir. The meðallagi koffein innihald er meira en gert upp fyrir hinu góða skammt af tárín og B-vítamínum, sem báðar hafa öfluga orkugefandi eiginleika.
Botn lína: Á heildina litið, Red Bull er besti orku drykk þarna úti. Það er best að selja lang, og ekki að ástæðulausu - fólk elska dýrindis dofnar og öfluga orkugefandi áhrif. Plús, við elskum þá staðreynd að Red Bull styrkir tonn af atburðum, Jaðaríþróttir, tónlistarmenn og fleira - að gefa til baka til samfélagsins á skemmtilegan hátt.
24 pakki
Monster Energy styður mörgum listamönnum, íþróttamönnum og fleiri
The Legendary MONSTER!
Yfirlit
Sem gerir það: Monster Energy Drink er gert með því Monster drykkir, stórum stíl drekka framleiðandi undirstaða í Bandaríkjunum. Fyrst kynnt í 2002, Monster hefur nú vaxið í miklum fyrirtæki og alheims velgengni. Í dag, þeir ekki aðeins að framleiða fjölbreytt úrval af gómsætum drykkjum, en þeir gefa einnig til baka til samfélagsins með því að styðja Jaðaríþróttir eins BMX, skateboarding, snjóbretti og margt fleira.
Hvað er í það: (16 fl oz getur)
Orka blanda sem samanstendur af koffín (160mg), ginseng, tárín, glúkósa, L-karnitín, guarana og fleira. Þetta öflugur blanda gefur nákvæmlega spark þú þarft að vera orkugjafi og sigra daginn.
Botn lína: Á heildina litið, ef þú ert að leita að sterkum orku drykk frá miklu fyrirtæki, útlit neitun frekari en Monster Energy Drink. Þó að þeir bjóða upp á breitt úrval af bragði og tilbrigði, við vilja alltaf upprunalega Monster bragð. Plús, við elskum að Monster gefur aftur til samfélagsins sína á svo marga vegu, stuðningsaðila íþróttamenn og fjármögnun ýmsar erfiðar íþróttaviðburði. Án efa, Monster er einn af the bestur orkudrykkjum þarna úti.
20 pakki
High koffein innihald getur verið of sterk fyrir sumir fólk
Yfirlit
Sem gerir það: Rockstar Zero Carb er gert með því að Rockstar Energy, a gríðarstór fyrirtæki sem sérhæfir sig í orkudrykkir. Í dag, meira en 20 bragði og afbrigði af Rockstar eru gerðar og dreift í yfir 30 löndum. Eins og einn af the vinsæll vörumerki Energy Drink, Rockstar áfram að skara framleiða hágæða, aðgengileg og affordable vörur.
Hvað er í það: (16 fl oz getur):
Koffín (240mg)Veitir sterka uppörvun af orku. Þetta er gott magn af koffíni, sem samsvarar 2-3 bolla af kaffi (fer eftir því hvernig það er að heita). Fyrir þá án koffín umburðarlyndi, þetta gæti verið of mikið til að neyta í einu.
Orka blanda, samanstendur af tárín, grænt te extractives, L-karnitín, og Yerba Mate þykkni. Þessi blanda er ætlað að veita jafnvægi orku uppörvun frá ýmsum sannað hráefni.
Vítamín B3, B5, B6 og B12Veita aðra orkugjafa fyrir daginn.
Botn lína: Á heildina litið, ef þú ert að leita að heilbrigðum orku drykk, þetta er gott val. Á núll kolvetnum, núll sykur og 10 hitaeiningar á þjóna, það er erfitt að slá Rockstar Zero Carb. The 240mg skammtur af koffíni er dálítið á the hár endir, svo að vera varkár ef þú ert ekki með koffín umburðarlyndi. Þessi drykkur er dálítið á dýr hlið, en vel þess virði ef þú ert að leita að orku drykk sem passar í með mataræði.
24 pakki
Verður blanda með vatni - getur verið óþægilegur fyrir notkun á-the-fara
Lægri koffín en meðaltal (þetta gæti verið atvinnumaður eða sam, fer!)
Yfirlit
Sem gerir það: Zipfizz er gert af fyrirtæki með sama nafni. Stofnað árið 2003, Zipfizz sett á að þróa heilbrigða og einfalda orku drekka formúlu. Í dag, Zipfizz er einn af vinsælustu blóðsöltum drykki, og er í boði um allan heim bæði í verslun og á netinu.
Hvað er í það: (11g rör - blanda með vatni)
205mg Botanical Andoxunarefni Blend, samanstendur af grænt te lauf þykkni, grænt kaffi baun þykkni, vínber fræ þykkni, koffein (100mg), og fleira. Þessi blanda inniheldur 100mg koffín (um eins mikið og skot af kaffi) og öflug andoxunarefni til að veita orku og bæta heilsu þína.
Vítamín C, E, B6, B12 og fleira, Veita orku og ónæmiskerfi stuðning - inniheldur mikið skammt af B12, sem hjálpar veita náttúrulega orku.
salta, þar á meðal kalíum, natríum og kalsíum, Sem hjálpa til við að endurheimta heilbrigt rakaheldni eftir æfingu.
Botn lína: Á heildina litið, Zipfizz er einn af healthiest orkudrykkir út there, og er fullkominn fyrir íþróttamenn og aðra að leita að "hreint" vöru. Með núll sykri og aðeins 10 hitaeiningar, þetta drekka ætti að passa með hvaða mataræði og hjálpa veita orku fyrir daginn. Það kemur sem duftformi drekka blanda, sem getur verið gott en getur einnig verið óþægilegur fyrir á-the-Go notkun.
30 pakki
Hannað fyrir íþróttamenn - ekki the bestur vara fyrir þá sem einfaldlega að leita að orku uppörvun.
Yfirlit
Sem gerir það: Þessi vara er gerð með VPX, einnig þekkt sem Redline Sports Nutrition og árangur drykkjarvörur. Stofnað árið 1993, VPX hefur verið í samræmi í markinu þeirra búa til hár-gráðu, árangursríkar íþrótta viðbót. VPX notar iðnaður-fremstur venjur til að skila hár gæði, vísindi-backed vörur á sanngjörnu verði.
Hvað er í það: Einn skammtur (½ af 8 oz flaska) inniheldur:
726mg sér blanda, samanstendur af koffín (158mg), BCAA (beta-alanine, L-levsín, L-valín, L-ísólevsín), týrósíni, seyði úr grænu tei Og mikið meira. Þessi blanda inniheldur nægilegt koffín til að fá að fara, auk BCAA fyrir stuðning vöðva og fleira.
salta Matrix, samanstendur af kalsíum, magnesíum og kalíum. Salta hjálpa að endurheimta orku og bæta vökvun.
Botn lína: Á heildina litið, ef þú ert að leita að topp orku drykk sem tvöfaldar sem íþrótta drykk, þetta er mikill kostur. Með öllum orku-auka efni sem þú þarft, ásamt BCAA og salta vöðvarnir löngun, Redline Extreme RTD gefur þér öflugur uppörvun allt í einu óblandaðri skammti. Það er frábær vara fyrir íþróttafólk, en ef þú ert bara að leita að látlaus orku drykk, nota einn af efstu tillögur okkar.
24 pakki
Aðeins í boði í tveimur bragði: vínber og blár hindberjum.
A dálítið á dýr hlið
Yfirlit
Sem gerir það: Þessi vara er gerð með CytoSport, stór framleiðanda líkamsþjálfun viðbót og heilsuvörur. Best þekktur fyrir MuscleMilk vörulínu þeirra, CytoSport er leiðtogi í greininni, og ekki að ástæðulausu. Stofnað árið 1998, CytoSport er tileinkað því að framleiða nýjar, skilvirk og hagkvæm viðbót fyrir viðskiptavini sína.
Hvað er í það: (16.9 fl oz flaska)
7g Energy magna Matrix, samanstendur af koffín (200mg), tárín og Glucuronolactone. Þessi blanda veitir öflug uppörvun í orku og fókus.
4g Power Nitric Oxide Matrix, samanstendur af betaine vatnsfirrt, glycocyamine, L-citrulline og L-arginín. Þessi blanda af amínósýrum og nituroxíð hvatamaður hjálpar bæta dælur og orku fyrir betri líkamsþjálfun.
Vítamín C, E, B6, B12, Fólínsýra og natríum er bætt fyrir orku, salta stuðning og fleira.
Botn lína: Á heildina litið, ef þú ert að leita að orku drykk fyrir weighlifting, þetta er gott val. Með því að sameina innihaldsefni í staðlaðri orku drykk með þeim á nitric oxide viðbót, CytoSport hefur gert a mikill vara fyrir þá sem njóta eyða tíma í ræktinni. The eini hæðir er að það er aðeins í boði í tveimur bragði, en að minnsta kosti þeir bragðgóður bragði!
12 pakki
Dýrari en meðaltal
Yfirlit
Sem gerir það: Þessi vara er gerð með Xyience, a Texas-undirstaða framleiðandi af drykkjum orku og öðrum vörum tengdum heilbrigðisgeiranum. Þau bjóða upp á Xyience Xenergy línu, sem felur í sér mörg bragði og afbrigði af þessum vinsæla drykk. Þeir hafa einnig viðbót deild, sem gerir árangursríkar heilsu fæðubótarefni fyrir íþróttamenn og daglegur fólk eins.
Hvað er í það: (16 fl oz getur)
7g sér blanda, samanstendur af tárín, Glucuronolactone, koffín (176mg), guarana þykkni, Panax ginseng og fleira. Þetta öflugur orkugefandi blanda inniheldur öll efni sem þarf til verulega uppörvun til að hjálpa þér að komast í gegnum daginn.
Botn lína: Á heildina litið, Xyience Xenergy er góð orka drekka úr góðum félagsskap. Það er dálítið á dýr hlið, þannig að ef þú ert að leita að ódýru orkudrykkir, leita annars staðar. Með því að segja, það er a mikill vara að bjóða stæltur skammt af orku-auka hráefni, allt án sykurs, án kolvetnum og engar hitaeiningar!
12 pakki
Low koffein innihald
Yfirlit
Sem gerir það: SAMBAZON Lífræn Amazon Energy Drink er gert með SAMBAZON, stór framleiðanda heilsu matvælum og drykkjum. Þessi Félagið leggur áherslu aðallega á notkun acai Berry, náttúrulegt superfood finnast í Amazon. Í dag, þetta California-undirstaða fyrirtæki er stór og vel, og nú dreifir vörur sínar um allan heim.
Hvað er í það: (12 fl oz getur)
Koffín (80mg) úr náttúrulegu hráefni, þar á meðal grænt te þykkni, Guarana og Yerba Mate. Þetta er nokkuð lágt magn af koffíni, sem samsvarar um 1 bolla af veikburða kaffi. Það mun veita viðeigandi uppörvun, en fyrir þá sem eru með koffíni vikmörkum Þessi drykkur verður ekki frábær orkugefandi.
Lífræn acai Berry safa. Acai Berry er hagl eins og a superfruit, veita öflugt andoxunarefni og ýmsa kosti heilsa.
Botn lína: Á heildina litið, þetta er heilbrigð og heill orku drykk með tiltölulega lágt koffein. Það er bragðgóður, heilbrigt val til hefðbundinn orkudrykkir. Fyrir þá sem leita að náttúrulegum, heilbrigt valkostur, þetta er gott val. Með því að segja, að hafa í huga að lítil koffein innihald má ekki vera nóg fyrir þá sem eru með koffíni vana.
24 pakki
Kaupa núna
Orkudrykkir og Gels Guide
10 eða 15 árum, orkudrykkir voru sjaldan séð á hillum birgðir. Í dag, það er multi-billjón dollari iðnaður . Energy Drink vörumerki bjóða upp á allar gerðir af mismunandi bragði og styrkleika, þannig að orku drykk aðdáandi með fullt af val. Á meðan þú hefur sennilega reynt vinsælustu drykki; Red Bull, Monster, etc þú getur ekki vita um bestu orkudrykkjum þarna úti. Í dag, við erum hér til að hjálpa þér að læra aðeins meira um orkudrykkir, og kynna þér til the toppur drykki 10 orku í boði í dag.
Hvað eru þeir?
Hvað eru Orkudrykkir?
Orkudrykkir eru í neytendaumbúðum drykki sem ætlað er að gefa þér orku uppörvun. Almennt, þau innihalda gott magn af koffein , Sama töfrandi efni sem gefur Coffee sparka hennar, ásamt blöndu af öðrum innihaldsefnum. Guarana er einnig almennt bætt við, sem og ýmsir B-vítamín, þ.e. B12 sömuleiðis algengt orku hvatamaður eins Taurine .
Flestir orkudrykkir eru hönnuð til að vera fljótur og þægilegur vegur til fá öfluga orku uppörvun. Þau eru gagnleg fyrir alls konar forrit: fá í gegnum a sterkur vinnu dag, að læra fyrir það sem kemur síðas, osfrv Burtséð frá þér fyrir mætur orkudrykki, það er alltaf gott að leita heilbrigðum drykki orku sem ekki innihalda margar hugsanlega óhollt efni .
Þú hefur örugglega reynt Monster og Redbull, tveir af vinsælustu drykkjum orku út there (og reyndar sumir af bestu tillögur okkar!), En þú getur ekki vita að það eru tonn af ógnvekjandi og árangursríka orkudrykkir í boði. Halda lestur til að fræðast meira eða stökkva niður til the botn af síðunni til að sjá efstu 10 orku drykk lista.
Hverjir eru kostirnir?
Hagur af orkudrykkir
Helstu ávinningur ætti að vera nokkuð augljóst: orka! Orkudrykkir eru hönnuð til að gefa þér gagnlegar uppörvun til að ljúka verkefni fyrir daginn, eða kannski bara átt að gista meðvitund ef þú hefur ekki verið sofandi vel!
En utan augljós springa af orku, það eru nokkrar aðrar orku drykk bætur að hafa í huga, eins og:
Aukin orka
Boost af kolvetnum fyrir orku / þrek
salta uppörvun
Extended líkamlega þrek
Beyond fljótur springa af orku sem flestir nota þessar drykki fyrir, það eru líka nokkur undirliggjandi árangur byggir bætur. Sérstaklega fyrir íþróttafólk og æfa áhugamenn, hafa orku drykk er hægt að gera miklu meira en bara að vekja þig upp.
Hverjir geta notið góðs af orkudrykkjum?
Allar tegundir af fólki að drekka orku drykki: nemendur, verkamenn, skrifstofufólk - þú nafn það. Ýmsir hópar geta notið góðs af þessum bragðgóða drykki, og það fer út fyrir einföldum "Wake Me Up" efnis sem margir leita að. Þetta eru þær tegundir af fólki sem getur gagnast:
Nemendur
Eyddu nokkrum tíma á College Campus, og þú munt sjá dósir af Red Bull alls staðar. Orkudrykkir geta hjálpað nemendum að komast í gegnum strangt kröfum háskóli menntun með því að veita ekki aðeins orku, en einnig andlega fókus. Orkudrykkir eru oft fyrsta val nemenda því þeir þurfa ekki að vera tilbúinn eins og kaffi, svo það er auðvelt að halda þeim á hönd og aðgengileg þegar þörf krefur.
Starfsmenn
Burtséð frá starfi þínu, það eru sumir dagar sem eru bara erfitt að komast í gegnum. Kannski þú ekki fá nægan svefn nóttina áður. Kannski þú hefur fengið of mikið að gera og ekki nægur tími til að gera það. Kannski þú bara ekki eins og starf þitt (hryggur!) Hver sem ástæðan, sterk orku drykk er hægt að fá þig aftur á réttan kjöl og hjálpa þér að komast í gegnum daginn vinnu.
Íþróttamenn
Íþróttamenn brenna eldsneyti. Íþróttamenn þurfa eldsneyti. Orkudrykkir eru frábær eldsneyti. Svo einfalt! Ekki bara gera gott orkudrykkir innihalda koffín, sem út af fyrir sig getur bæta frammistöðu í íþróttum Þeir innihalda einnig Athletic eldsneyti eins B12 og tárín. Auk þess hafa þeir gott magn af kolvetni, í formi sykurs. Kolvetni eru frábær fyrir skammtíma eldsneyti og eru mjög gagnlegar fyrir íþróttamenn og hæfni áhugamenn.
Bodybuilders
Bodybuilders og weightlifters geta notið góðs af orkudrykkir, og það eru jafnvel drykki hannaðar sérstaklega með þessu fólki í huga. Sýnt hefur verið fram koffín til að bæta Athletic árangur og hjálpa þér að lyfta meira , Eins og ásamt því að birta efnaskipti uppörvun. Plus, veita fljótur-hrífandi kolvetni mikla eldsneyti fyrir æfingu.
"Ekki morgun fólk"
Það eru morgni fólk, og þá eru ... ekki morning fólk. Ef þú ert í síðari flokki, þú þarft líklega einhverskonar mjög koffínríku vökva áður en þú færð upp og takast á við daginn. Kaffi er mikill, eru orkudrykkir mikill - taka velja, eða hey, hafa bæði!
Hvort sem þú ert að leita að daglegum festa eða bara fljótur uppörvun, eru orkudrykkir mikill kostur. Fyrir daglega drekkur, það er oft best að kaupa á netinu til að spara peninga. Við erum með lista yfir hæstu orkudrykkir neðan fyrir þig að skoða!
Eru einhverjar aukaverkanir?
Fólk spyr oft eru orkudrykkir slæmt fyrir þig? Svarið er þetta: nei, svo lengi sem þú ekki misnota þá!
Rétt eins og kaffi, orkudrykkir getur haft neikvæð áhrif ef þú neyta of mikið, eða ef þú gjöreyða þeim með reglulegu millibili. þeir getur verið vanabindandi, Sem þýðir að þú getur orðið nokkuð háður áhrifum þeirra (eins og kaffi). Þó að þú munt ekki fara í gegnum alvarleg úttektum eins og a eiturlyfjafíkn, getur þú fundið sjálfur silalegur eða unmotivated á dögum þú ert ekki orkudrykki.
Aðrar aukaverkanir eru:
Svefntruflanir - ekki reyna að neyta orku drykki síðar í dag (Lesa meira um koffín og sofa hér )
Höfuðverkur - sumir einstaklingar geta fundið höfuðverk, oft af völdum koffíns hætt
Aukin kvíði - fyrir sumir fólk, koffín og orkudrykkir geta valdið kvíða
Jitters / taugaveiklun - algeng aukaverkun af of mikilli kaffidrykkju - ekki drekka meira en 1-2 / dag
Ofþornun - koffín er þurrkun, svo vertu viss um að neyta fullnægjandi vatn eins og heilbrigður
Hár blóðþrýstingur - fyrir þá sem þegar hafa háan blóðþrýsting, koffein getur frekar hækkað blóðþrýsting leitt til hugsanlegra fylgikvilla
Skrifar 2 sykursýki - orkudrykkir eru hátt í sykur, og neyslu þá langtíma getur leitt til að slá 2 sykursýki
Annað aukaverkanir geta komið fram eins og heilbrigður. Ef þú ert með hjartakvilla fylgikvilla, ættir þú ekki að neyta orku drykki. Ef þú ert undir 18, ættir þú einnig að drekka orkudrykki.
Mikill meirihluti þessara aukaverkana eru eingöngu reynslu þegar þú neyta of mikið. Ef þú ert einfaldlega að hafa orku drykk hér eða þar, eða jafnvel einn dag, sennilega þú munt ekki upplifa nein neikvæð áhrif. En þegar þú færð upp í 2-3 + einn dag svið, það er þegar við hættunni af drykkjum orku getur orðið að veruleika.
Ef þú tekur eftir aukaverkunum hætta neyslu tilteknu orku drykk. Ef þú getur, reyna að skera þá út alveg, eða skipta yfir í svart kaffi. Einnig, reyna aðra orku drykk vörumerki og sjá hvort það hjálpar.
Hvernig Til Taka þá
Hvernig til almennilega Neyta orkudrykkjum
Orkudrykkir eru augljóslega ætlaðar til þegar þú þarft uppörvun af orku. Hvort sem þú ert að draga í vinnunni, í erfiðleikum með að halda einbeitingu í skólanum, eða eru bara syfjaður, orku drykk geta afla a fljótur festa. Hins vegar hafa í huga að orkudrykkir eru engin skipti fyrir raunverulegum svefn!
Almennt talað, þá eru engar sérstakar hlutir til að hafa áhyggjur þegar þeir taka orkudrykki, svo lengi sem þú drekkur ekki meira en einn eða tvo á dag. Það er skynsamlegt að ekki eyða þeim á fastandi maga, og það getur valdið magaóþægindum hjá sumum.
Með því að segja, það er mikilvægt að muna að allt sem inniheldur mikið magn af koffíni ætti ekki að taka í síðdegis eða að kvöldi, Eins og það getur valdið svefntruflunum.
Það fer eftir koffín umburðarlyndi þitt, munt þú líklega vilja til að hætta neyslu koffínríku drykkir, þ.mt orkudrykkir, u.þ.b. 4-8 klukkustundum fyrir svefn. Koffín tekur töluverðan tíma að hætta kerfið Og getur valdið vandræðum með svefn ef þú drekkur það of seint í dag.
Einnig, á meðan einn eða tveir orkudrykkir ætti ekki að vera vandamál, tímafrekt of mikið koffín og / eða orkudrykkir getur valdið alvarlegum aukaverkunum. The Mayo Clinic listar upp 400mg af koffíni á dag sem efri öruggt mörk - en þetta sem og þú gætir fundið fyrir neikvæðum áhrifum. Og þar sem margir orkudrykkir innihalda 200mg eða meira, það er auðvelt að sjá hversu fljótt þú gætir högg að takmörk.
Annar hlutur til viðurværi í hugur er möguleiki fyrir aukaverkunum ef þú neyta of margar drykki orku, eða ef þú verður háður þeim. koffín fíkn er raunverulegur hlutur, og þó koffín sjálft er ekki endilega slæmt fyrir þig, sykur drykki orku geta valdið vandamálum til langs tíma. Við munum ræða meira um aukaverkanir af orkudrykkir í næsta kafla.
Hvað á að leita að
Hvað á að leita að í a Good Energy Drink
Eins og flestum vörum nú á dögum, það eru tonn af mismunandi drykki orku til að velja úr. Hér fyrir neðan munum við ná efstu 10 Energy Drink valmöguleikum dag, en áður en við gerum það, við skulum skoða nokkra þætti sem þú ættir að íhuga þegar þeir velja orku drykk.
Koffein innihald - koffín er almennt helsta virka efnið í efstu orkudrykkir. Koffein innihald breytileg frá vöru til vara, en það er yfirleitt á 50mg-200mg svið. Það er góð hugmynd að athuga koffín magn skráð á vörunni sem þú ert að íhuga, og bera saman það að koffín umburðarlyndi þitt. Samkvæmt CaffeineInformer Að meðaltali bolla af kaffi er um það bil 160mg af koffíni í það (þó að það getur verið mismunandi eftir aðferð bruggun), svo það er gott viðmið til samanburðar þínum.
Aðrir orkugefandi innihaldsefni - Önnur innihaldsefni eru oft bætt við auka orku. Þetta eru B vítamín, tárín, guarana, ginseng, o.fl. merkimiðann til að sjá hvort þessi innihaldsefni eru.
Taste - Augljóslega þú þarft að finna skilvirka orku drykk sem reyndar bragðast vel, Annars munt þú ekki að drekka það! Ef þú ert að kaupa drykk sem þú hefur aldrei reynt áður, það er góð hugmynd að lesa Energy Drink dóma til að læra hvernig fólk eins og bragðið.
vörumerki gæði - ekki allir Energy Drink vörumerki eru búnar jafnir. Það er mikilvægt að kaupa frá a virtur, áreiðanleg fyrirtæki sem tryggir hágæða vörur. Á listanum okkar hér, ma við aðeins vörur úr bestu félögum.
gildi - Verð mun alltaf vera þáttur (nema þú ert ríkur!) Þó þú ekki endilega vilja ódýr orkudrykki, þú þarft að finna vörumerki sem uppfyllir þarfir þínar og passar kostnaðarhámarkið. Almennt búast við að borga um $ 1.50- $ 2.50 á dósina þegar kaupa í lausu og í kringum $ 2- $ 4 á dósina þegar kaupa einn dós á verslun.
Nú þegar þú veist hvað þú ættir að leita í orku drykk, við skulum kafa rétt í og kanna valkosti þína!
Final Thoughts
Við vonum að lesa þessa handbók hefur kennt þér meira um orkudrykkir og hvernig hægt er að nota þær. Við vonum einnig að við höfum hjálpað þér að finna nýtt uppáhalds (eða kannski bara frábært verð á núverandi uppáhalds!)
Áður þú höfuð út, höfum við eitt síðasta meðmæli: til Merkið þessa síðu. Með því að vista þessa síðu, verður þú að vera fær um að athuga aftur reglulega til að halda upp til dagsetning á nýjustu þróun. Við viðurværi a loka auga á orku drykk markaði, og við munum uppfæra tillögur okkar ef og þegar mikill ný vara er sleppt. Vistaðu þessa síðu og athuga aftur seinna.
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Now a prominent part of the advertising world, what color M&Ms were removed from circulation for 9 years during the 1970s, due to a health scare concerning food dye? | Search Results guilds
Medieval Guilds
Gary Richardson, University of California, Irvine
Guilds existed throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. Guilds were groups of individuals with common goals. The term guild probably derives from the Anglo-Saxon root geld which meant ‘to pay, contribute.’ The noun form of geld meant an association of persons contributing money for some common purpose. The root also meant ‘to sacrifice, worship.’ The dual definitions probably reflected guilds’ origins as both secular and religious organizations.
The term guild had many synonyms in the Middle Ages. These included association, brotherhood, college, company, confraternity, corporation, craft, fellowship, fraternity, livery, society, and equivalents of these terms in Latin, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Romance languages such as ambach, arte, collegium, corporatio, fraternitas, gilda, innung, corps de métier, societas, and zunft. In the late nineteenth century, as a professional lexicon evolved among historians, the term guild became the universal reference for these groups of merchants, artisans, and other individuals from the ordinary (non-priestly and non-aristocratic) classes of society which were not part of the established religious, military, or governmental hierarchies.
Much of the academic debate about guilds stems from confusion caused by incomplete lexicographical standardization. Scholars study guilds in one time and place and then assume that their findings apply to guilds everywhere and at all times or assert that the organizations that they studied were the one type of true guild, while other organizations deserved neither the distinction nor serious study. To avoid this mistake, this encyclopedia entry begins with the recognition that guilds were groups whose activities, characteristics, and composition varied greatly across centuries, regions, and industries.
Guild Activities and Taxonomy
Guilds filled many niches in medieval economy and society. Typical taxonomies divide urban occupational guilds into two types: merchant and craft.
Merchant guilds were organizations of merchants who were involved in long-distance commerce and local wholesale trade, and may also have been retail sellers of commodities in their home cities and distant venues where they possessed rights to set up shop. The largest and most influential merchant guilds participated in international commerce and politics and established colonies in foreign cities. In many cases, they evolved into or became inextricably intertwined with the governments of their home towns.
Merchant guilds enforced contracts among members and between members and outsiders. Guilds policed members’ behavior because medieval commerce operated according to the community responsibility system. If a merchant from a particular town failed to fulfill his part of a bargain or pay his debts, all members of his guild could be held liable. When they were in a foreign port, their goods could be seized and sold to alleviate the bad debt. They would then return to their hometown, where they would seek compensation from the original defaulter.
Merchant guilds also protected members against predation by rulers. Rulers seeking revenue had an incentive to seize money and merchandise from foreign merchants. Guilds threatened to boycott the realms of rulers who did this, a practice known as withernam in medieval England. Since boycotts impoverished both kingdoms which depended on commerce and governments for whom tariffs were the principal source of revenue, the threat of retaliation deterred medieval potentates from excessive expropriations.
Merchant guilds tended to be wealthier and of higher social status than craft guilds. Merchants’ organizations usually possessed privileged positions in religious and secular ceremonies and inordinately influenced local governments.
Craft guilds were organized along lines of particular trades. Members of these guilds typically owned and operated small businesses or family workshops. Craft guilds operated in many sectors of the economy. Guilds of victuallers bought agricultural commodities, converted them to consumables, and sold finished foodstuffs. Examples included bakers, brewers, and butchers. Guilds of manufacturers made durable goods, and when profitable, exported them from their towns to consumers in distant markets. Examples include makers of textiles, military equipment, and metal ware. Guilds of a third type sold skills and services. Examples include clerks, teamsters, and entertainers.
These occupational organizations engaged in a wide array of economic activities. Some manipulated input and output markets to their own advantage. Others established reputations for quality, fostering the expansion of anonymous exchange and making everyone better off. Because of the underlying economic realities, victualling guilds tended towards the former. Manufacturing guilds tended towards the latter. Guilds of service providers fell somewhere in between. All three types of guilds managed labor markets, lowered wages, and advanced their own interests at their subordinates’ expense. These undertakings had a common theme. Merchant and craft guilds acted to increase and stabilize members’ incomes.
Non-occupational guilds also operated in medieval towns and cities. These organizations had both secular and religious functions. Historians refer to these organizations as social, religious, or parish guilds as well as fraternities and confraternities. The secular activities of these organizations included providing members with mutual insurance, extending credit to members in times of need, aiding members in courts of law, and helping the children of members afford apprenticeships and dowries.
The principal pious objective was the salvation of the soul and escape from Purgatory. The doctrine of Purgatory was the belief that there lay between Heaven and Hell an intermediate place, by passing though which the souls of the dead might cleanse themselves of guilt attached to the sins committed during their lifetime by submitting to a graduated scale of divine punishment. The suffering through which they were cleansed might be abbreviated by the prayers of the living, and most especially by masses. Praying devoutly, sponsoring masses, and giving alms were three of the most effective methods of redeeming one’s soul. These works of atonement could be performed by the penitent on their own or by someone else on their behalf.
Guilds served as mechanisms for organizing, managing, and financing the collective quest for eternal salvation. Efforts centered on three types of tasks. The first were routine and participatory religious services. Members of guilds gathered at church on Sundays and often also on other days of the week. Members marked ceremonial occasions, such as the day of their patron saint or Good Friday, with prayers, processions, banquets, masses, the singing of psalms, the illumination of holy symbols, and the distribution of alms to the poor. Some guilds kept chaplains on call. Others hired priests when the need arose. These clerics hosted regular religious services, such as vespers each evening or mass on Sunday morning, and prayed for the souls of members living and deceased.
The second category consisted of actions performed on members’ behalf after their deaths and for the benefit of their souls. Postmortem services began with funerals and burials, which guilds arranged for the recently departed. The services were elaborate and extensive. On the day before internment, members gathered around the corpse, lit candles, and sung a placebo and a dirge, which were the vespers and matins from the Office of the Dead. On the day of internment, a procession marched from churchyard to graveyard, buried the body, distributed alms, and attended mass. Additional masses numbering one to forty occurred later that day and sometimes for months thereafter. Postmortem prayers continued even further into the future and in theory into perpetuity. All guilds prayed for the souls of deceased members. These prayers were a prominent part of all guild events. Many guilds also hired priests to pray for the souls of the deceased. A few guilds built chantries where priests said those prayers.
The third category involved indoctrination and monitoring to maintain the piety of members. The Christian catechism of the era contained clear commandments. Rest on the Sabbath and religious holidays. Be truthful. Do not deceive others. Be chaste. Do not commit adultery. Be faithful to your family. Obey authorities. Be modest. Do not covet thy neighbors’ possessions. Do not steal. Do not gamble. Work hard. Support the church. Guild ordinances echoed these exhortations. Members should neither gamble nor lie nor steal nor drink to excess. They should restrain their gluttony, lust, avarice, and corporal impulses. They should pray to the Lord, live like His son, and give alms to the poor.
Righteous living was important because members’ fates were linked together. The more pious one’s brethren, the more helpful their prayers, and the quicker one escaped from purgatory. The worse one’s brethren, the less salutary their supplications and the longer one suffered during the afterlife. So, in hopes of minimizing purgatorial pain and maximizing eternal happiness, guilds beseeched members to restrain physical desires and forgo worldly pleasures.
Guilds also operated in villages and the countryside. Rural guilds performed the same tasks as social and religious guilds in towns and cities. Recent research on medieval England indicates that guilds operated in most, if not all, villages. Villages often possessed multiple guilds. Most rural residents belonged to a guild. Some may have joined more than one organization.
Guilds often spanned multiple dimensions of this taxonomy. Members of craft guilds participated in wholesale commerce. Members of merchant guilds opened retail shops. Social and religious guilds evolved into occupational associations. All merchant and craft guilds possessed religious and fraternal features.
In sum, guild members sought prosperity in this life and providence in the next. Members wanted high and stable incomes, quick passage through Purgatory, and eternity in Heaven. Guilds helped them coordinate their collective efforts to attain these goals.
Guild Structure and Organization
To attain their collective goals, guild members had to cooperate. If some members slacked off, all would suffer. Guilds that wished to lower the costs of labor had to get all masters to reduce wages. Guilds that wished to raise the prices of products had to get all members to restrict output. Guilds that wished to develop respected reputations had to get all members to sell superior merchandise. Guild members contributed money – to pay priests and purchase pious paraphernalia – and contributed time, emotion, and personal energy, as well. Members participated in frequent religious services, attended funerals, and prayed for the souls of the brethren. Members had to live piously, abstaining both from the pleasures of the flesh and the material temptations of secular life. Members also had to administer their associations. The need for coordination was a common denominator.
To convince members to cooperate and advance their common interests, guilds formed stable, self-enforcing associations that possessed structures for making and implementing collective decisions.
A guild’s members met at least once a year (and in most cases more often) to elect officers, audit accounts, induct new members, debate policies, and amend ordinances. Officers such as aldermen, stewards, deans, and clerks managed the guild’s day to day affairs. Aldermen directed guild activities and supervised lower-ranking officers. Stewards kept guild funds, and their accounts were periodically audited. Deans summoned members to meetings, feasts, and funerals, and in many cases, policed members’ behavior. Clerks kept records. Decisions were usually made by majority vote among the master craftsmen.
These officers administered a nexus of agreements among a guild’s members. Details of these agreements varied greatly from guild to guild, but the issues addressed were similar in all cases. Members agreed to contribute certain resources and/or take certain actions that furthered the guild’s occupational and spiritual endeavors. Officers of the guild monitored members’ contributions. Manufacturing guilds, for example, employed officers known as searchers who scrutinized members’ merchandise to make sure it met guild standards and inspected members’ shops and homes seeking evidence of attempts to circumvent the rules. Members who failed to fulfill their obligations faced punishments of various sorts.
Punishments varied across transgressions, guilds, time, and space, but a pattern existed. First time offenders were punished lightly, perhaps suffering public scolding and paying small monetary fines, and repeat offenders punished harshly. The ultimate threat was expulsion. Guilds could do nothing harsher because laws protected persons and property from arbitrary expropriations and physical abuse. The legal system set the rights of individuals above the interests of organizations. Guilds were voluntary associations. Members facing harsh punishments could quit the guild and walk away. The most the guild could extract was the value of membership. Abundant evidence indicates that guilds enforced agreements in this manner.
Other game-theoretic options existed, of course. Guilds could have punished uncooperative members by taking actions with wider consequences. Members of a manufacturing guild who caught one of their own passing off shoddy merchandise under the guilds’ good name could have punished the offender by collectively lowering the quality of their products for a prolonged period. That would lower the offender’s income, albeit at the cost of lowering the income of all other members as well. Similarly, members of a guild that caught one of their brethren shirking on prayers and sinning incessantly could have punished the offender by collectively forsaking the Lord and descending into debauchery. Then, no one would or could pray for the soul of the offender, and his period in Purgatory would be extended significantly. In broader terms, cheaters could have been punished by any action that reduced the average incomes of all guild members or increased the pain that all members expected to endure in Purgatory. In theory, such threats could have convinced even the most recalcitrant members to contribute to the common good.
But, no evidence exists that craft guilds ever operated in such a manner. None of the hundreds of surviving guild ordinances contains threats of such a kind. No surviving guild documents describe punishing the innocent along with the guilty. Guilds appear to have eschewed indiscriminant retaliation for several salient reasons. First, monitoring members’ behavior was costly and imperfect. Time and risk preferences varied across individuals. Uncertainty of many kinds influenced craftsmen’s decisions. Some members would have attempted to cheat regardless of the threatened punishment. Punishments, in other words, would have occurred in equilibrium. The cost of carrying out an equilibrium-sustaining threat of expulsion would have been lower than the cost of carrying out an equilibrium-sustaining threat that reduced average income. Thus, expelling members caught violating the rules was an efficient method of enforcing the rules. Second, punishing free riders by indiscriminately harming all guild members may not have been a convincing threat. Individuals may not have believed that threats of mutual assured destruction would be carried out. The incentive to renegotiate was strong. Third, skepticism probably existed about threats to do onto others as they had done onto you. That concept contradicted a fundamental teaching of the church, to do onto others as you would have them do onto you. It also contradicted Jesus’ admonition to turn the other cheek. Thus, indiscriminant retaliation based upon hair-trigger strategies was not an organizing principle likely to be adopted by guilds whose members hoped to speed passage through Purgatory.
A hierarchy existed in large guilds. Masters were full members who usually owned their own workshops, retail outlets, or trading vessels. Masters employed journeymen, who were laborers who worked for wages on short term contracts or a daily basis (hence the term journeyman, from the French word for day). Journeymen hoped to one day advance to the level of master. To do this, journeymen usually had to save enough money to open a workshop and pay for admittance, or if they were lucky, receive a workshop through marriage or inheritance.
Masters also supervised apprentices, who were usually boys in their teens who worked for room, board, and perhaps a small stipend in exchange for a vocational education. Both guilds and government regulated apprenticeships, usually to ensure that masters fulfilled their part of the apprenticeship agreement. Terms of apprenticeships varied, usually lasting from five to nine years.
The internal structure of guilds varied widely across Europe. Little is known for certain about the structure of smaller guilds, since they left few written documents. Most of the evidence comes from large, successful associations whose internal records survive to the present day. The description above is based on such documents. It seems likely that smaller organizations fulfilled many of the same functions, but their structure was probably less formal and more horizontal.
Relationships between guilds and governments also varied across Europe. Most guilds aspired to attain recognition as a self-governing association with the right to possess property and other legal privileges. Guilds often purchased these rights from municipal and national authorities. In England, for example, a guild which wished to possess property had to purchase from the royal government a writ allowing it to do so. But, most guilds operated without formal sanction from the government. Guilds were spontaneous, voluntary, and self-enforcing associations.
Guild Chronology and Impact
Reconstructing the history of guilds poses several problems. Few written records survive from the twelfth century and earlier. Surviving documents consist principally of the records of rulers – kings, princes, churches – that taxed, chartered, and granted privileges to organizations. Some evidence also exists in the records of notaries and courts, which recorded and enforced contracts between guild masters and outsiders, such as the parents of apprentices. From the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, records survive in larger numbers. Surviving records include statute books and other documents describing the internal organization and operation of guilds. The evidence at hand links the rise and decline of guilds to several important events in the history of Western Europe.
In the late Roman Empire, organizations resembling guilds existed in most towns and cities. These voluntary associations of artisans, known as collegia, were occasionally regulated by the state but largely left alone. They were organized along trade lines and possessed a strong social base, since their members shared religious observances and fraternal dinners. Most of these organizations disappeared during the Dark Ages, when the Western Roman Empire disintegrated and urban life collapsed. In the Eastern Empire, some collegia appear to have survived from antiquity into the Middle Ages, particularly in Constantinople, where Leo the Wise codified laws concerning commerce and crafts at the beginning of the tenth century and sources reveal an unbroken tradition of state management of guilds from ancient times. Some scholars suspect that in the West, a few of the most resilient collegia in the surviving urban areas may have evolved in an unbroken descent into medieval guilds, but the absence of documentary evidence makes it appear unlikely and unprovable.
In the centuries following the Germanic invasions, evidence indicates that numerous guild-like associations existed in towns and rural areas. These organizations functioned as modern burial and benefit societies, whose objectives included prayers for the souls of deceased members, payments of weregilds in cases of justifiable homicide, and supporting members involved in legal disputes. These rural guilds were descendents of Germanic social organizations known as gilda which the Roman historian Tacitus referred to as convivium.
During the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, considerable economic development occurred. The sources of development were increases in the productivity of medieval agriculture, the abatement of external raiding by Scandinavian and Muslim brigands, and population increases. The revival of long-distance trade coincided with the expansion of urban areas. Merchant guilds formed an institutional foundation for this commercial revolution. Merchant guilds flourished in towns throughout Europe, and in many places, rose to prominence in urban political structures. In many towns in England, for example, the merchant guild became synonymous with the body of burgesses and evolved into the municipal government. In Genoa and Venice, the merchant aristocracy controlled the city government, which promoted their interests so well as to preclude the need for a formal guild.
Merchant guilds’ principal accomplishment was establishing the institutional foundations for long-distance commerce. Italian sources provide the best picture of guilds’ rise to prominence as an economic and social institution. Merchant guilds appear in many Italian cities in the twelfth century. Craft guilds became ubiquitous during the succeeding century.
In northern Europe, merchant guilds rose to prominence a few generations later. In the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, local merchant guilds in trading cities such as Lubeck and Bremen formed alliances with merchants throughout the Baltic region. The alliance system grew into the Hanseatic League which dominated trade around the Baltic and North Seas and in Northern Germany.
Social and religious guilds existed at this time, but few records survive. Small numbers of craft guilds developed, principally in prosperous industries such as cloth manufacturing, but records are also rare, and numbers appear to have been small.
As economic expansion continued in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the influence of the Catholic Church grew, and the doctrine of Purgatory developed. The doctrine inspired the creation of countless religious guilds, since the doctrine provided members with strong incentives to want to belong to a group whose prayers would help one enter heaven and it provided guilds with mechanisms to induce members to exert effort on behalf of the organization. Many of these religious associations evolved into occupational guilds. Most of the Livery Companies of London, for example, began as intercessory societies around this time.
The number of guilds continued to grow after the Black Death. There are several potential explanations. The decline in population raised per-capita incomes, which encouraged the expansion of consumption and commerce, which in turn necessitated the formation of institutions to satisfy this demand. Repeated epidemics decreased family sizes, particularly in cities, where the typical adult had on average perhaps 1.5 surviving children, few surviving siblings, and only a small extended family, if any. Guilds replaced extended families in a form of fictive kinship. The decline in family size and impoverishment of the church also forced individuals to rely on their guild more in times of trouble, since they no longer could rely on relatives and priests to sustain them through periods of crisis. All of these changes bound individuals more closely to guilds, discouraged free riding, and encouraged the expansion of collective institutions.
For nearly two centuries after the Black Death, guilds dominated life in medieval towns. Any town resident of consequence belonged to a guild. Most urban residents thought guild membership to be indispensable. Guilds dominated manufacturing, marketing, and commerce. Guilds dominated local politics and influenced national and international affairs. Guilds were the center of social and spiritual life.
The heyday of guilds lasted into the sixteenth century. The Reformation weakened guilds in most newly Protestant nations. In England, for example, the royal government suppressed thousands of guilds in the 1530s and 1540s. The king and his ministers dispatched auditors to every guild in the realm. The auditors seized spiritual paraphernalia and funds retained for religious purposes, disbanded guilds which existed for purely pious purposes, and forced craft and merchant guilds to pay large sums for the right to remain in operation. Those guilds that did still lost the ability to provide members with spiritual services.
In Protestant nations after the Reformation, the influence of guilds waned. Many turned to governments for assistance. They requested monopolies on manufacturing and commerce and asked courts to force members to live up to their obligations. Guilds lingered where governments provided such assistance. Guilds faded where governments did not. By the seventeenth century, the power of guilds had withered in England. Guilds retained strength in nations which remained Catholic. France abolished its guilds during the French Revolution in 1791, and Napoleon’s armies disbanded guilds in most of the continental nations which they occupied during the next two decades.
References
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Citation: Richardson, Gary. “Medieval Guilds”. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. March 16, 2008. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/medieval-guilds/
Harreld, Donald J.
Published by EH.NET (December 2011)
Sheilagh Ogilvie, Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. vi + 493 pp. $38 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-521-74792-9.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Donald J. Harreld, Department of History, Brigham Young University.
Why did merchant guilds exist for such a long time in Europe? This is an obvious question to ask of an institution that persisted for hundreds of years, but one for which it turns out there is not an easy answer. Most scholars who have studied merchant guilds have insisted that merchant guilds must have existed, and persisted, because they were efficient institutions; inefficient institutions, on the other hand, are doomed to be short lived.
Ogilvie begins her book by asking one overriding and very penetrating question: were merchant guilds efficient institutions that benefitted the entire economy? For Ogilvie, this is the heart of the matter. Because merchant guilds do not exhibit all of the characteristics of efficient institutions, she asks us to consider why they arose, why they survived for such a long time, and why they ultimately declined. Merchant guilds regulated trade, they operated as monopolies, they distorted markets, fixed prices, and restricted entrance into the guild. Does this, she wonders, sound like an efficient institution? For Ogilvie, the only way to answer these questions is to look at everything merchant guilds did — both positive and negative — in order to understand how and if they were beneficial to economic development. She is asking us to back away from the assumption that merchant guilds were efficient institutions. This will not be easy for the many scholars of merchant guilds who have hitched their wagon to the efficiency theory. This book presents us with a ?radical reassessment of both merchant guilds in economic history and institutions in economic theory? (p. 5).
What was a merchant guild? This is, indeed, the title of the book?s second chapter as well as a very good question. Scholars well versed in the history of merchant guilds could skim this chapter, but it provides a foundation for those newer to the topic. Merchant guilds were associations of wholesale traders. They could be either an association of local merchants, or an association of merchants from one geographical area who formed colonies abroad for long-distance trade (what Ogilvie calls, alien merchant guilds). These merchant guilds obtained certain privileges from a ruler that gave its members ?exclusive rights to practice certain commercial activities? (p. 20). Merchant guilds were institutions that enjoyed monopoly rights (the exclusive right to trade, right to decide membership, and a right to regulate their trade). Although of ancient origin, they experienced a hey-day in the high and late Middle Ages. Alien merchant guilds date to the early twelfth century, appearing first in the eastern Mediterranean and later in the Italian cities. By the end of the thirteenth century, alien merchant guilds had spread to all of Europe?s major trading centers. Merchant guilds began to decline in the sixteenth century, first in the Low Countries and England, but persisted elsewhere in Europe until the eighteenth century. Ogilvie points out that the merchant companies of the early modern period shared characteristics with earlier merchant guilds.
But Ogilvie is not presenting a simple narrative history of the merchant guild in this book. She is actively engaging — and challenging — the literature, the bulk of which she suggests has only unconvincingly argued that while monopolistic in theory, merchant guilds were in practice non-monopolistic. Ogilvie?s reading of the evidence suggests that merchant guilds, both local and alien, not only negotiated monopoly privileges from rulers, they actively and enthusiastically sought to enforce these monopoly privileges. Indeed, for Ogilvie, merchant guilds were not at all the efficient institutions many scholars have made them out to be.
But, again, if they were not efficient, why did merchant guilds persist? Ogilvie suggests that the answer is found not in questions of efficiency, but in distribution. According to her, ?an institution that keeps the economic pie small but distributes large slices to powerful groups can be sustained for centuries by its powerful beneficiaries? (p. 160). So merchant guilds did not necessarily increase the size of the economic pie, but they did allow merchants and rulers to take the biggest slices themselves. Of course, benefits were not uniform across merchant guilds because each guild negotiated individually with rulers so that both would obtain the best ?bundle? of benefits. Although merchants and rulers benefitted from these arrangements, the wider economy was actually affected negatively. According to Ogilvie, ?commercial monopolies reduced the volume of exchange and diminished gains from trade? (p. 163).
The book includes chapters that examine a variety of propositions scholars have put forward about why merchants guilds existed and what functions they performed that prompted scholars to characterize them as efficient: commercial security, contract enforcement, principal-agent problems, information exchange, and price volatility. In all cases, Ogilvie rehearses the ?standard? interpretations and systematically challenges them all, showing that merchant guilds were only one of many mechanisms (and probably the least efficient) in place that could potentially solve these problems for medieval and early modern merchants.
So if merchant guilds were not the efficient institutions they have so often been made out to be, how can we explain their longevity? Of course, Ogilvie has already provided an answer. It is found ?in the distributional services guilds offered to two powerful groups? (p. 417). They affected the ruler?s ability to ?extract extra revenues? from the population, and, for merchants, the ability to ?extract profit from trade? (p. 417-18). Ogilvie clearly rejects throughout this book the notion that merchant guilds were able to solve commercial problems in a way that benefitted the entire economy. Indeed, merchant guilds, according to Ogilvie, benefitted their own members at the expense of the wider economy.
Ogilvie?s conclusion has profound implications for the study of economic institutions, and that is what makes this an important book — one might even call it a game-changer. For Ogilvie, institutions cannot be adequately explained in terms of efficiency; indeed, the entirety of an institution?s actions as well as all of its economic effects needs to be considered. She admits that taking such an all-encompassing approach will make our analyses more complicated, but the result will be a much better understanding of the ways institutions ?behave and develop? (p. 426).?
Donald J. Harreld is Associate Professor and Chair of the History Department at Brigham Young University. Harreld is the author of High Germans in the Low Countries: German Merchants and Commerce in Golden Age Antwerp (Leiden, 2004), and several articles that examine social and economic history including: ?Foreign Merchants and International Trade Networks in the Sixteenth-Century Low Countries,? Journal of European Economic History, Vol. 39/1 (2010) and ?An Education in Commerce: Transmitting Business Information in Early Modern Europe? in Information Flows: New Approaches in the Historical Study of Business Information (Helsinki, 2007). His current research projects include a book-length study of early seventeenth-century Dutch commercial voyages, and broader research into early modern commercial networks.
Copyright (c) 2011 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator ([email protected]). Published by EH.Net (December 2011). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
Subject(s):
MacLeod, Christine
Published by EH.NET (December 2008)
S. R. Epstein and Maarten Prak, editors, Guilds, Innovation and the European Economy, 1400-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. viii + 352 pp. $99 (cloth), ISBN: 978-0-521-88717-5.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Christine MacLeod, School of Humanities, University of Bristol.
Until recently, Adam Smith?s condemnation of craft guilds as ?a conspiracy against the public? has implied that the juxtaposition of ?guilds? and ?innovation? is an oxymoron. That this no longer so is thanks to three decades of lively revisionist scholarship, which has seen guilds rehabilitated as significant political and cultural institutions, especially by historians of pre-revolutionary France. Economic historians, however, with one or two exceptions ? one thinks especially of R. W. Unger?s Dutch Shipbuilding before 1800 (Assen, 1978) ? have been slow to relinquish the stereotype of moribund rent-seekers whose habitual reaction to technical innovation was resistance and rejection. Yet, a fruitful debate has now been joined, with the revisionist camp ably represented here, not least by S. R. (Larry) Epstein, whose untimely death occurred during the preparation of this volume. Their claim is a bold one: ?that the impact of [craft] guilds on the early modern economy was more positive than has so far been acknowledged by historians of the traditional, and even of the revisionist, school? (p. 23). As several contributors explicitly recognize, they have an arch-critic in Sheilagh Ogilvie, whose important work on early modern Germany challenges the natural tendency of revisionists to over-compensate, reminding us in particular of the guilds? economically inefficient patriarchal, hierarchical and anti-Semitic exclusivity. With that in mind, let us examine the case for the defense.
First, six comparative syntheses of research (including Epstein and Prak?s lucid introduction) emphasize different aspects of the craft guilds? economic function and role in innovation. Ulrich Pfister?s contribution is divided between two chapters, the first of which has relatively little to say about technical innovation, but offers an enlightening exploration of craft guilds through the modern theory of the firm. His argument, that ?craft guilds and firms were functional substitutes? (p. 50), rests on a demonstration of the guilds? firm-like behavior in delegated monitoring and vertical integration, both of which reduced their members? agency costs. Focusing on the entrepreneurial activities of master artisans engaged in the export trades, Catharina Lys and Hugo Soly explore the development of subcontracting amongst them and compare it (not unfavorably) with proto-industrialization. Reith Reinhold condenses an extensive body of research, most of it previously only available in German, on the circulation of skilled labor through central Europe since the fourteenth century. Not only does he emphasize migrant artisans? role as the principal conduit of technological diffusion, especially of ?tacit? knowledge, but he also shows how ?tramping? acquired an important function in the acquisition of skills and completion of a journeyman?s training, to the point where some guilds began to insist on it.
A further six contributions investigate individual cities and/or crafts: London commands the lion?s share, justified by the conventional belief that its guilds, being incompatible with industrialization, were the first to disappear. This justification is dismantled implicitly throughout but explicitly by Ian Anders Gadd?s and Patrick Wallis? demonstration of how four metropolitan guilds succeeded in establishing nationwide jurisdictions in the period 1500-1700 (without the harmful effects that Ogilvie has identified elsewhere), and by Michael Berlin?s analysis of the varying fortunes of London?s guilds through to their legal termination in 1837: ?far from experiencing a long ?natural? decline, the regulatory mechanisms of many of the companies were abrogated as a result of historical conjunctions and circumstances unique to each trade? (p. 337). Anthony Turner compares the various ways in which the novel trades of horology and instrument making were absorbed into early modern Europe?s corporate structure and highlights their generally positive attitudes towards technical innovation. Guilds? hostility to patents, which they opposed as restraints on trade, stood in sharp contrast to the ferment of ?collective invention? that placed these crafts among the most technically dynamic. Similarly, Francesca Trivellato?s exposition of how Venice?s silk and glass trades adapted to innovation downplays the significance of patents in this, their legislative ?home? (Venice enacted Europe?s first patent law in 1474). Instead, she highlights the importance in glassmaking of private recipe books, which were ?so precious that they were included in women?s dowries? (p. 224n), as both revealing of constant product innovation and intra-guild competitiveness. Perhaps most surprising of all, we find seventeenth-century Dutch artists clamoring to be organized into guilds. Yet, as Maarten Prak suggests, Holland?s booming art market could only be supplied through large increases in productivity, implying extensive specialization and division of labor, such that ?painters had to get used to working for a market that was not fundamentally different from the market for wine or furniture? (p. 150). Painters? guilds offered their members expanded facilities, including corporate salesrooms where the pricing of such hard-to-value products could be publicly determined and events for the discreet education of newly rich customers.
Three contributions stand out for their particular concern to specify the links between guilds and innovation. Epstein?s, reprinted from the Journal of Economic History (1998), contends that the craft guilds? primary function was to police the transmission of skills via the regulation of apprenticeship, thereby sharing out ?the unattributed costs and benefits of training among its members? (p. 56). Adam Smith?s mistaken belief that apprenticeship?s purpose was rather to defend a labor-market monopsony, argues Epstein, stemmed from his undervaluing the difficulty and cost of transmitting skill, especially its ?tacit? component which could only be taught through personal demonstration and repeated practice; simultaneously, the apprentice learned his master?s trade secrets. From the resulting high investment in human capital flowed three unintended but systematic boosts to innovation: ?by establishing a favourable environment for technical change; by promoting technical specialisation through training and technical recombination through artisan mobility; and by providing inventors with monopoly rents? (p. 73). Such incremental innovation via quotidian problem-solving was of infinitely greater significance, Epstein suggests, than the more visible cases of guilds overtly resisting labor-saving machinery.
The ironic implication of Epstein?s argument for Liliane P?rez?s study of pre-revolutionary Lyon is the guilds? own ignorance of this involuntary progress. For, while most contributors offer examples of guilds passively accepting product innovations and even new processes provided they were labor- or skill-intensive, P?rez shows the Grande Fabrique (Lyon?s powerful silk guild) taking great pains to actively promote and disseminate them. French guilds generally were in tune with the ?enlightened? state?s policy of promoting innovation through offering financial incentives. Yet, Lyon was demonstrably ?the most technologically innovative city in France? (p. 242). In its quest to forestall secrecy and private appropriations of knowledge, the Grande Fabrique mobilized various local institutions to validate inventions and assess appropriate levels of reward; it instituted a public repository of models; and it paid bonuses in proportion to the number of new devices sold to Lyon weavers. Ultimately, however, such interventionism proved not merely unnecessary but possibly counter-productive: P?rez points to the bitter contests over priority and ?unfair? reward that erupted.
Pfister?s second chapter takes the bull of innovation by the horns, investigating the checkered career of the engine loom for weaving silk ribbons. Although the labor-saving engine loom was predictably resisted by most guilds, Pfister?s analysis demonstrates that this was neither universal ? it depended on local economic and institutional contexts ? nor without other implications for the organization of labor, such as cutting costs to compete with mechanization through the increased employment of women (as Trivellato shows happening in Italy).
What emerges from this exceptionally coherent volume is not only the complexity of this institution, whose history spans more than half a millennium and a myriad of particular trades and local circumstances, but also the persistent tensions to which it was subjected, both internally from individualistic and capitalist challenges to its collective ethos and externally from the exigencies of nation states. Moreover, it adds another spur to the demanding search for innovation in the workshop and on the construction site, rather than in the too easily accessed and counted records of the patent office.
Christine MacLeod is Professor of History at the University of Bristol and author of Heroes of Invention: Technology, Liberalism and British Identity, 1750-1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Subject(s):
Published by EH.NET (October 2006)
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Maarten Prak, Catharina Lis, Jan Lucassen and Hugo Soly, editors, Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power, and Representation. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2006. xii + 269 pp. $100 (cloth), ISBN: 0-7546-5339-0.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Gary Richardson, Department of Economics, University of California, Irvine.
Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries is an edited collection that summarizes the conclusions of a group of scholars who have, during the last decade, revolutionized our understanding of craft guilds in the late-medieval and early-modern Netherlands. The volume is a seminal contribution to several literatures, a must-read for scholars interested in the economy of early modern Europe, and filled with insights likely to influence scholars interested in a wide range of nations, topics, and time periods.
The collection contains nine chapters. All of them contain valuable insights. In this brief review, I try, but cannot possibly, thoroughly describe them all. My goal is to briefly describe a handful of the most intriguing and important insights in each chapter, in hopes of encouraging readers of this review to read the book.
The first chapter is “Craft Guilds in Comparative Perspective: The Northern and Southern Netherlands, a Survey,” by Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly. This chapter discusses the traditional scholarship concerning guilds, describes issues of recent interest, defines the organizations to be examined, and outlines the broad conclusions of the group. The chapter points out that “few institutions have been so omnipresent as craft guilds in the lives of such a multitude of city dwellers in so many European countries” (p. 1). The chapter notes that craft guilds had many functions. Some of the most important were occupational, social, religious, political, and mutual-aid. The chapter asks why apparently similar institutions served so many different purposes and had such varying effects. The rest of the essay answers these questions.
Chapter 2 is “The Establishment and Distribution of Craft Guilds in the Low Countries: 1000-1800,” by Bert De Munck, Piet Lourens and Jan Lucassen. This chapter examines a database of several thousand guilds representing a large portion of the occupational organizations that existed in the Netherlands over the last one thousand years. The analysis yields a number of distinct patterns. To a large extent, the rise of guilds paralleled the rise of cities and procurement of civic charters. The prosperity of guilds and cities went hand in hand. The guilds played an important part in encouraging the expansion of commerce in cities such as Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, and Amsterdam; but also played a role in their decline, probably by inhibiting innovation and protecting the interests of members at the expense of the public interest. Guilds developed first in the southern Netherlands. On the eve of the Dutch Revolt, the pattern in the North and South was similar. The guild system had matured in most sizeable towns and cities. After the Dutch revolt, developments diverged. The economic and demographic center shifted to the North, where the economy continued to flourish and guilds continued to grow. The political success of the Reformation in the northern Netherlands caused a reorientation of guilds away from religious and towards social functions, such as care for the poor. An appendix to the chapter describes the data, which will probably form the basis for the quantitative study of Dutch guilds into the foreseeable future.
Chapter 3 is “Corporate Politics in the Low Countries: Guilds as Institutions, 14th to 18th Centuries,” by Maarten Prak. The chapter begins with the observation that “the origins and evolution of craft guilds were influenced as much by political developments as economic ones.” The evidence and analysis laid out in the chapter substantiates that statement. The first section discusses the revolutionary activities of guilds in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, beginning with the Battle of the Spurs, on 11 July 1302, when an army of Flemish artisans defeated a force of French aristocratic infantry. During the next two centuries, towns throughout the Low Countries provided artisans in their municipal constitution, a revolutionary act that linked guilds and local politics and the defense of urban social and political orders. Guilds’ involvement in urban politics had in important and symbiotic influence on the evolution of guilds and governments for the next several centuries. Patterns diverged between the south, east, and west. Much can be learned from studying this divergence.
Chapter 4 is “Export Industries, Craft Guilds and Capitalist Trajectories, 13th to 18th Centuries,” by Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly. The chapter examines the trajectories of industries during the late medieval and early modern eras. The chapter concludes that guilds did not intrinsically promote or impede the rise of export industries. The success or failure of industries depended upon which groups wielded economic and political control. The involvement of groups with divergent and conflicting interests in the production of export goods explains the transformations that guilds underwent over time. The organizational structure of export industries followed different courses in the North and the South. Institutional developments in Flanders and Brabant paved the way for the rise of industrial export capitalism from the fourteenth century onward, while seventeenth-century Holland reached the most advanced stage of merchant capitalism.
Chapter 5 is “Dressed to Work: A Gendered Comparison of the Tailoring Trades in the Northern and Southern Netherlands, 16th to 18th Centuries,” by Harald Deceulaer and Bibi Panhuysen. This chapter compares Northern and Southern industries during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, examining the relationship between women and guilds, and the extent to and ways in which women were excluded from the organizations. The comparison shows that economic challenges to the same sector in different regions could elicit entirely different institutional responses, which in turn could affect the way the market operated. In the northern Netherlands, which possessed more women and fewer men as a percentage of the population, female seamstresses grew in prominence in garment production during the eighteenth century, while in the southern Netherlands, craft guilds and the garment industry remained more exclusively male.
Chapter 6 is “Religion and Social Structure: Religious Rituals in Pre-industrial Trade Associations in the Low Countries,” by Alfons K. L. Thijs. This chapter shows that from the later Middle Ages onward, craft guilds engaged in religious activities as well as social and economic functions. Free associations of fellow tradesmen even propagated religious worship as their chief mission. Craft guilds and religious brotherhoods often existed alongside one another and were in some cases affiliated. Many craft guilds arose from brotherhoods during the early modern period. After the Reformation in the northern Netherlands, collective requiems to commemorate dead guild members ceased. The decline occurred even in the southern Netherlands, despite the eventual military and political victory of Catholicism there, because the Counter Reformation infringed upon the guild system’s religious, popular, and devotional traditions.
Chapter 7 is “A Tradition of Giving and Receiving: Mutual Aid within the Guild System,” by Sandra Bos. The chapter begins with the observation that “mutual aid for and by the members has figured among the guilds’ responsibilities from the outset” (p. 174) and that guilds struggled to overcome “the problems inherent in insuring small populations” (p. 174). The chapter goes on to explore the variety of mutual insurance systems in early modern guild associations and inquires into the role of religion, municipal administration and economic prosperity in the emergence of these systems. Before the Reformation, mutual aid was often a religious arrangement. After the Reformation, mutual aid continued to be provided, even in the Northern Netherlands, where guilds abandoned their religious roles. The mutual aid consisted of aid to craftsmen who were unable to support themselves due to illness, disability, or infirmity in old age; assistance to widows and surviving children; and funding for funerals and burials of the deceased.
Chapter 8 is “Corporative Capital and Social Representation in the Southern and Northern Netherlands, 1500-1800,” by Johan Dambruyne. This chapter investigates the sources and influence of corporate capital created and accumulated by guilds in the early modern Netherlands. Three kinds of capital are examined. The first is economic capital, or in other words, the material form of accumulated labor. The second is social capital, defined as the benefits arising from a self-sustaining network of relationships. The third is cultural capital, principally being education, science, art, and ideas. The chapter concludes that early modern guilds clearly invested in capital of all three types, but heterogeneity existed in strategies for accumulating and employing capital. Differences existed across industries, time, and towns. Differences also existed between the northern Netherlands, where guilds invested more in economic capital, and the southern Netherlands, where guilds invested more in social capital.
The last chapter, by Jan Lucassen and Maarten Prak, concludes that craft guilds in the Low Countries contributed to the economic, political, social, and religious fabric of the region. Craft guilds fostered medieval and early modern economic development. Craft guilds varied greatly in the tasks that they undertook, structures that they adopted, and ways in which they interacted with the political and cultural systems in which they were embedded. The importance of the local context cannot be overstated, yet a general conclusion can be drawn. “Guilds in the Low Countries played a highly significant role, not only in the lives of their own members, but also in shaping the societies they were part of.”
Now, it is time for my general conclusions. I believe this volume summarizes a wide range of insights into the economy, polity, and society of the late-medieval and early-modern Netherlands. It should be read by scholars interested in that period and scholars interested in the general relationship between institutions and economic development.
Gary Richardson is the author of “Guilds, Laws, and Markets for Manufactured Merchandise in Late-Medieval England,” Explorations in Economic History (2004) and “The Prudent Village: Risk Pooling Institutions in Medieval English Agriculture,” Journal of Economic History (2005).
Subject(s):
Bossenga, Gail
Published by EH.Net (September 2015)
Jeff Horn, Economic Development in Early Modern France: The Privilege of Liberty, 1650-1820. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. viii + 319 pp. $105 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-107-04628-3.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Gail Bossenga, Elizabethtown College.
It has often been said that economic growth in France during the old regime suffered from the stranglehold of a welter of privileges that prevented efficiency, innovation, and competition. At the same time, historians have observed that economic growth in eighteenth-century France was quite robust and compared favorably with Great Britain. In this ambitious study, Jeff Horn, Professor of History at Manhattan College, takes on this seeming contradiction and argues that although some privileges did check economic development, the Bourbon government was able to use other privileges effectively as a way to counteract these blockages and open up France to economic opportunities. These countervailing privileges freed businessmen from regulations, inspections, guild reception fees, limitations on workforce size, taxes, militia service, and other such requirements associated with the jumble of privileged bodies in the old regime. Because these privileges liberated entrepreneurs from other, undesirable privileges, Horn calls the government’s strategy the “privilege of liberty.” Not only did businessmen acquire the liberty that they needed to create dynamic enterprises, the French government found a way to create dynamic growth that allowed it to compete with its rivals internationally.
Several types of privileges contributed to this strategy. Enclaves outside city walls controlled by seigneurs with rights of high justices were unimpeded by guild regulations, allowed manufacturers to hire as many workers as they needed, and provided the freedom to experiment with innovative products. Territories, such as Avignon and Orange, enjoyed rights of transit, which allowed them to sell silk at costs lower than a rival like Lyon. The special status of “royal manufacture” exempted entrepreneurs from burdens such as guild controls and customs duties, and sometimes even provided subsidies. Rights of naturalization and de facto toleration allowed highly successful Jewish, Protestant and foreign businessmen to continue to build up their enterprises, even though religious minorities as a whole suffered legal disabilities.
Colbert and many of his successors believed that quality control was essential to win foreign markets, and used a combination of strict regulation and privilege to achieve this end. The poor quality of the woolens in Languedoc, for example, had led Turkish markets to reject them. By subsidizing woolen manufacturers there, setting up a cartel that limited debilitating competition, and requiring members of the cartel to adhere to rigorous quality controls, officials were able to stimulate a noticeable increase in woolen exports.
In the realm of colonial commerce, the Bourbon state used privileged, chartered trading companies to raise the necessary capital to exploit overseas markets. Under Louis XIV, the government created 39 trading companies with monopolies over trade in particular regions. All of these companies, however, with the exception of the East Indies Company, failed. Greater freedom to trade in the Antilles, by contrast, led to spectacular commercial growth. In this case, by contrast to Horn’s other examples, “liberty was more effective than privilege in encouraging colonial development” (p. 118).
After 1750, reforming government officials began to embrace liberty and competition as the watchword of economic vitality. As a result, Horn argues, Bourbon policy became characterized by the “privilege of liberty,” that is, officials “increasingly deployed the language of liberty to justify the long-standing practice of granting privileges” (p. 5). Liberty proved difficult to implement, and was no panacea for the economy. Turgot’s unsuccessful attempt to abolish the guilds, for example, destabilized the work force and undid years of regulatory quality measures that had supported exports.
The Revolution changed the rules of the game by embracing liberty as a foundational principle. Some economic privileges survived one or two years, but overall the slate was wiped clean. Horn argues that after the Revolution privilege started to return under the guise of regulations, but the goal of administrators was always to protect consumers and guarantee the quality of exports. No lasting privileges took root, except for a reduced version of Marseille’s old free port status and a set of state-regulated trademarks that could be used in regions known for producing high-quality textiles.
Horn’s book draws on an impressive array of sources in the secondary literature, as well as national and regional archives. He shows that the Bourbon state was more flexible and pragmatic than one might have assumed, and he makes a good case that privilege had a role to play in helping to advance the cause of economic progress.
At the same time, some features of the book are problematic. The author has a disconcerting and recurring tendency to start with one generalization and end with another that appears to contradict the first. Thus one runs into statements like, “chapters two to seven demonstrate that reliance on privilege made the practice of mercantilism both capitalist and absolutist.” The next paragraph states, “Even though it created a potentially hegemonic fiscal-military state, the Bourbon monarchy was never ‘absolute’” (p. 12). Does this mean that the mercantilist use of privilege was absolutist, but the Bourbon government employing it was not?
There is reason to suspect that crony capitalism was more involved in the distribution of privilege than Horn’s narrative suggests. There are occasional allusions to favoritism. Thus, in Guyenne, “close ties to administrative and social elites” allowed protected entrepreneurs to drive out competitors, so that glass making there stagnated (p. 212). Yet it would be surprising if more of these deals were not present. Royally chartered joint stock companies, for example, were notorious for relying on insiders at the royal court.
Finally, evaluating the relationship of privilege to economic growth requires a more comprehensive understanding of the fiscal underpinnings of the state. According to Horn, the “quid pro quo demanded by the state in exchange for the granting of privilege was development” (p. 22). Too often, however, the quid pro quo was the payment of cold cash into the perennially bankrupt French treasury. The French monarchy had a longstanding habit of manipulating privilege as a source of much-needed revenue. Cities were forced to purchase offices or make “free gifts” to the king. The consortium of financiers known as the “General Farm” not only leased the right to collect indirect taxes including customs, but also, in the absence of a national bank like the Bank of England, served as a banker to the crown by advancing short-term credit to it. Periodically, the monarchy sold offices of inspectors and masterships in the guilds to raise money.
Each of these payments to the crown was backed by local revenue sources, which then had to be protected. Cities had a vested interest in guarding the tax-paying population within their walls. The Farmers General were naturally vigilant about collecting every last toll and custom duty under their lease. Guilds raised the cost of their masterships to raise required sums for the crown.
In other words, by using privilege periodically to support its finances, the Bourbon state itself contributed to the blockages and market fragmentation that its administrators tried to circumvent in other circumstances by using “the liberty of privilege.” This fundamental contradiction in state policies may help to explain why when the monarchy tried to “liberate” or “rationalize” the economy, it was reduced to nibbling around the edges by applying counteracting privileges and liberties. To reform the economy as a whole would have meant alienating powerful allies and finding alternative sources of revenue.
Overall, then, Horn demonstrates why economic privileges need not be viewed in uniformly negative terms and were used in certain situations to stimulate economic growth. His broader claim about “the effectiveness and the dynamism” (p. 5) of state-sponsored reform relying on privilege, however, ignores other, less praiseworthy uses of economic privilege that the crown also employed.
Gail Bossenga is a Scholar in Residence at Elizabethtown College. She is the author of “Financial Origins of the French Revolution,” in Dale Van Kley and Thomas E. Kaiser, eds., Origins of the French Revolution (Stanford University Press, 2011), and “A Divided Nobility: Status, Markets, and the Patrimonial State in the Old Regime,” in Jay Smith, ed., The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: Reassessments and New Approaches (Penn State University Press, 2006). [email protected]
Copyright (c) 2015 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator ([email protected]). Published by EH.Net (September 2015). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://eh.net/book-reviews/
Subject(s):
Ryckbosch, Wouter
Published by EH.Net (September 2015)
Mary Lindemann, The Merchant Republics: Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Hamburg, 1648-1790. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. xv + 356 pp. $99 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-107-07443-9.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Wouter Ryckbosch, Centre for Urban History, University of Antwerp.
Although few would deny the importance of Northern Germany or the Low Countries to the economic history of early modern Europe, we know relatively little about the self-perceptions that reigned in these places, the political ideas that circulated, or the political economies that governed them. Compared to the libraries that have been written on Florence, Paris or London, the list of works dealing with the politics and ideas of the North-West European cities is rather short. It is this gap that Mary Lindemann ( Professor of History at the University of Miami) aims to fill with The Merchant Republics. The book focuses on three major port cities in the long eighteenth century (roughly from 1648 to the 1790s): Antwerp, Amsterdam and Hamburg.
All three towns were — to rather varying degrees — important commercial centers during this period, as well as “republics.” In this book, a republic is understood as “a political entity governed by citizens who assumed the task of administration as part of the civic and political duties incumbent on them.” Moreover, according to Lindemann all three cities were specifically “merchant republics,” in the sense that they considered merchants and mercantile values as essential components of their republicanism. Starting out from this loose but nevertheless informative definition, Lindemann explores the similarities and differences (both of which are numerous) in the political economy of the three cities.
After a first chapter that presents a general introduction to the three cities under scrutiny, the second and third chapters examine the structures of government and the political ideas surrounding them. The political issues that dominated the agenda were very different in all three cities: Amsterdam was characterized by conflicts between the party of the stadhouder and the party of true freedom; Hamburg was marred by recurrent disagreements between the Bürgershaft and the Senate; and in Antwerp the opposition of the ruling elites to centralization from the monarchical rulers in Brussels/Madrid/Vienna proved the dominant theme. Nevertheless, Lindemann makes a convincing argument that in all three there existed a general self-perception of republicanism — which at the very least implied an opposition to monarchical political structures, even if that did not preclude these urban elites from demonstrating strong aristocratic and oligarchic tendencies, or from preaching civic virtue while being plagued by corruption.
Chapters 4, 5 and 6 shift attention towards the mercantile aspect of these “merchant republics,” considering how the (upper crust of) these cities’ inhabitants perceived themselves and their values as opposed to aristocratic and monarchical societies. This includes a very illuminating segment on the problems presented by “impostors” and how these were perceived as antithetical to mercantile and republican values, as well as chapters on the problems posed to republican virtues by speculation and bankruptcy. To scholars interested in the history of economic thought these latter two chapters will be of most interest, as they lend themselves most easily to comparisons with the extensive literature on the republican tradition and the development of enlightenment mentalities on commerce, virtue and the common weal elsewhere.
Unlike much scholarly work on the republication tradition, political self-representation, or early modern economic thought, Lindemann does not limit herself to studying only the most well-known authors and publications of the time, but instead delves into a wonderfully rich variety of pamphlets, court cases, and political commentaries to substantiate her arguments. Admittedly, Antwerp, Amsterdam and Hamburg did not bring forth political commentators of the same renown as Machiavelli, Mandeville or Montesquieu (with the possible exception of Amsterdam’s Pieter de la Court), but the wide range of sources on which Lindemann draws her story is nevertheless impressive. To be sure, this can at times be overwhelming. The number of protagonists that crowds the pages, as well as the three different political structures with their specific terminologies in which they figured, does not always make for light reading.
The title of the book does not simply describe the common features of the three cities studied. It also advances a specific historical interpretation (p. 310). What The Merchant Republics, in all its nuance and complexity, argues is that in the commercial ports of north-western Europe a peculiar republicanism developed that was compatible with a highly commercial society (quite contrary to Pocock’s classical republicanism), and that celebrated trade and merchants for their republican virtues. As valuable and generally convincing as this interpretation is, it also raises many questions, some of which unfortunately remain unanswered in the book.
To begin with, the structure of the book presents plenty of comparison between three merchant republics — and thus highlights the large potential for variety within this concept — but the overarching argument actually seems to call for comparison between these merchant republics as a whole, and the political economies of other “republicanisms” throughout the classical, early modern and modern world. In the end, I could not help wondering how the political economy of these merchant republicans differed from that of Machiavelli and quattrocento Florence. And how does it compare to enlightenment economic thought across the channel, and Adam Smith in particular? Most of all, perhaps, the argument invites comparison with the French tradition of assessing the virtue in commerce, including Montesquieu and the concept of “le doux commerce.”
Despite the wide range of sources on which the book draws, most of the voices heard throughout belonged to the (mercantile) upper crust of these cities. This raises the question whether the self-image of a merchant republic was limited to the mercantile community alone, or whether it did indeed encompass the whole town. Although Lindemann pays plenty of attention to dissent and conflict within the ruling classes, there’s relatively little attention to conflict between the mercantile groups and those who had been only relatively recently excluded from political power (at least in Antwerp and, to a lesser extent, Amsterdam): the middling groups, and the craft guilds in particular. After all, in sixteenth-century Antwerp the Chambers of Rhetoric only embraced a more positive view of commerce after merchant-entrepreneurs had wrested political power from the craft guilds. It is perhaps ironic that they did so with the support of their monarchical overlord, which makes one wonder if the “mercantile” and “republican” components of the book’s argument were everywhere and always as closely tied to one another as Lindemann suggests.
The applicability of the term “merchant republic” to this or that city and this or that timeframe can be endlessly debated, but Lindemann shows that as a conceptual framework for understanding politics, self-representation and economic thought in eighteenth-century North-Western Europe it has clear value. Moreover, as a historical interpretation it serves as a useful reminder that both “republicanism” and “mercantile mentalities” could take many forms in early modern Europe. However, first and foremost this volume is a rich and erudite account of political economy in three different stages of success and decline in merchant capitalism.
Wouter Ryckbosch is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Urban History, University of Antwerp. He specializes in the histories of inequality and consumption in the early modern period, with a particular focus on the Low Countries in the eighteenth century.
Copyright (c) 2015 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator ([email protected]). Published by EH.Net (September 2015). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://eh.net/book-reviews/
Subject(s):
Coşgel, Metin
Published by EH.Net (December 2014)
Fatih Ermiş, A History of Ottoman Economic Thought: Developments before the Nineteenth Century. New York: Routledge, 2013. xv + 218 pp. $140 (hardback), ISBN: 978-0-415-54006-3.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Metin Coşgel, Department of Economics, University of Connecticut.
What we know about pre-modern economic thought is little enough to fit into a short chapter in most textbooks on the history of economic ideas. The problem is magnified for economic thought in the Ottoman Empire because only a small fraction of the archived writings of intellectuals and bureaucrats, the only sources available for the period before the nineteenth century, have been uncovered and translated to modern languages. By attempting the first book-length manuscript on economic thought in the Ottoman Empire, Fatih Ermiş has made a significant contribution to the literature that has thus far consisted of a few commentaries and journal articles.
The book is a revised version of Ermiş’s doctoral dissertation, submitted to the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies in Germany. It is based on primary sources obtained in archives and libraries in Austria, Germany, and Turkey. These sources include the chronicles of Ottoman bureaucrats, writings giving counsel to the ruler (siyāsatnāme), political writings (lāyiha), reports of Ottoman ambassadors (sefāretnāme), and the correspondence between the ruler and high bureaucrats (hatt-ı hümayūn). Offering translations from original sources, Ermiş provides lengthy excerpts and summary discussion of the views of Ottoman intellectuals and bureaucrats on the organization of society, organization of production, and economics of regulation. The volume consists of eight chapters that include an introductory chapter and a conclusion. Although the coverage of the book is given in the title as the period before the nineteenth century, the majority of the discussion is devoted to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
In the introductory chapter, Ermiş summarizes the main objectives, historical context, important questions, and primary sources of the book. The next chapter offers a brief description (in an encyclopedic style) of some of the basic elements of the Ottoman economy and introduces the terms and concepts that will be used in the discussion of economic ideas in subsequent chapters. For example, Ermiş describes the Ottoman land and tax regime, units of accounting, and administrative structure, and he typically uses both the Ottoman terms and English equivalents to facilitate common understanding. Since the book does not include a separate glossary, this chapter serves an important purpose for the non-specialist reader to form a basic understanding of relevant Ottoman institutions and to gain a conceptual framework of reference.
In Chapter 3, Ermiş discusses the Ottoman theory of the state, more specifically how the intellectuals and bureaucrats conceptualized the groups comprising society and legitimized the authority of the ruler. According to them, the Ottoman subjects consisted of scholars, bureaucrats, merchants, and peasants. The ruler’s responsibility was to maintain the balance between these groups because they could not realize order if left on their own. In discussing the nature of the ruler’s authority, Ottoman intellectuals adopted a “humour theory of the state” to explain the balance between the four groups of the society based on an analogy between the body and the society, an analogy that was also used by ancient Greek philosophers and previous Islamic scholars. According to the analogy, scholars were like blood, merchants were like yellow bile, peasants were like black bile, and bureaucrats were like phlegm. The function of the ruler in this setup was to ensure social order between the groups as the society went through stages of social development, just as the physician ensured the balance of the body as individuals went through stages of physical development. At the end of the chapter, Ermiş discusses how the concept of balance is closely related to justice. Once again using an analogy that goes back to Greek philosophers, Ottoman intellectuals formulated the concept of “the circle of justice” to illustrate the interconnectedness between social groups and how the balance between them is a prerequisite for justice.
Chapter 4 is about the economy of the household, the basic unit in the division of labor in the society, also a concept applicable to the society as a whole, the “household” of the ruler. Ermiş discusses the historical origins of the concept of household economy and how the Ottoman intellectuals used this framework to understand the economy. He gives examples from the writings of Ottoman thinkers on the role of money, division of labor in society, and savings and expenditures.
In Chapter 5, Ermiş offers a brief survey of the views of Ottoman thinkers on state intervention in markets. Ottoman rulers regulated the markets through price controls and market supervisors. He reviews the debate among Ottoman thinkers on whether price controls could be justified under Islamic Law and what conditions required the state to undertake such control. Prices and other government regulations were enforced through the market supervisor, an official who was responsible for making sure that the sellers did not exceed the ceiling prices, their scales and measures were accurate, and in general buyers and sellers observed the regulations in market transactions.
Chapters 6 and 7 are devoted to discussing how economic thought and its applications changed at the end of the eighteenth century. This was a difficult period for the Ottoman Empire because of lost wars and the growing challenges of economic and political developments in western Europe. These changes prompted Ottoman intellectuals to debate how to reform the state to ensure its health and continuity. In Chapter 6, Ermiş discusses the debates surrounding the conception of the state, the legitimacy relationship between the ruler and subjects, bureaucratic reforms and corruption, and trade and monetary policies. Turning attention to applications of these ideas in reality in Chapter 7, Ermiş examines money in circulation, state interventions in markets, and the treatment of merchants. Chapter 8 consists of a brief account of the book’s arguments and concluding comments.
We must applaud Ermiş for taking a significant step towards building a comprehensive survey of economic thought in the Ottoman Empire. This book contributes significantly to cataloging the views of leading intellectuals, describing their methods and concerns, and identifying the genesis of their ideas. It is particularly useful that Ermiş has quoted extensively from the writings of Ottoman bureaucrats and intellectuals, making them available to an international audience.
Given the paucity of sources on Ottoman economic thought and the linguistic and other obstacles that prevent their widespread availability, the completion of a satisfactory survey will clearly require several other steps. So while we applaud this first attempt, we must also identify its shortcomings for future studies to improve. The most immediate and obvious are the need for a serious revision of the text toward better clarity and comprehension and a careful reorganization of the material toward greater coherence. In future editions, the author and the editors would be well advised to take additional steps to transform the doctoral dissertation into a quality manuscript aimed at a broad audience.
The author could have improved contents by covering all periods comprehensively and by choosing topics more systematically and consistently. In the early chapters the author has focused primarily on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with additional references to Ibn Khaldun — not an Ottoman scholar — possibly because of the greater availability of sources for this period, despite advertising the coverage as being “the classical period.” Since Chapter 6 is devoted to changes in economic thought in the eighteenth century, one would need to identify systematic changes prompted by the challenges of modernity beyond the conventional discussion of the views of Ottoman intellectuals on the state’s need for bureaucratic reforms. It’s useful that this chapter introduces new topics, such as trade, corruption, and monetary policy, but it would be a further improvement to include these topics in earlier chapters for continuity or to clarify why they emerged as topics of new interest in the later period.
There is also the problem of coverage being dictated by the sources, which may result in overrepresentation of topics that were of great interest to the rulers and bureaucratic intellectuals. This may explain this book’s extensive coverage of the ruler’s legitimacy, his ability to maintain social order, and his reasons for market regulation. It likely causes the exclusion of other important topics, such as the Islamic law of taxation and the provision of public goods, which could be just as important for public finance but does not receive as much attention in the set of archival sources examined by the author as they do elsewhere. Moreover, it also likely causes the exclusion of various other topics of private economy, such as the guilds, financial markets, and the organization of production, which were likely discussed by Ottoman intellectuals but possibly left little trace in the sources examined here.
By having a clear methodological position and a coherent analytical framework, the author could have better categorized the quoted sources and interpreted their meaning and intention more appropriately. The author seems to have taken the writings of Ottoman bureaucrats and intellectuals at face value, without questioning how their proximity to the ruler and official positions likely affected their ideas and writings. For example, did any of these ideas represent rent-seeking behavior, the same way that western mercantilism was argued to be the outcome of rent-seeking behavior rather than a school of thought based on pure ideology? Regarding the notion of circle of justice, was this a framework that justified the legitimacy of the ruler and surrounding bureaucracy, or was it pure ideology that grounded the true care of Ottoman rulers for justice in the society? To appraise competing ideas, one could have asked whether there were serious challenges to the views expressed by covered bureaucrats on the circle of justice. If not, why not? Likewise, were there any writings that represented the interests of other groups, such as the merchants and the guilds? If not, why not?
To put the Ottoman economic thought in context, the author could have compared it to other schools or related it to broader debates in intellectual history. What were the contributions of Ottoman intellectuals to Islamic or western schools of thought, for example Scholasticism? Ermiş discusses the historical background to the ideas of Ottoman intellectuals and how their origins could be found in Greek philosophers and Islamic scholars, but he does not discuss systematically how the Ottomans differed from their predecessors. Nor does he discuss how the Ottoman economic thought differed from that of contemporary Islamic empires or western states. Instead, seemingly subscribing to an outdated and problematic notion, he simply asserts (but does not fully argue) the uniqueness of the Ottoman economic experience and its interconnectedness with the social, political, and religious spheres. Although the Ottoman experience was certainly unique in many ways, this does not mean that the ideas of Ottoman intellectuals cannot be productively compared to others to identify systematic similarities and differences.
Ermiş’s book is a good start to including economic ideas of Ottoman bureaucrats and public intellectuals in the stock of knowledge about the history of economic thought prior to the nineteenth century. Being the first attempt towards a comprehensive survey of Ottoman thought, it is incomplete, but there is much in it to form the foundation for future scholars to build on.
Metin Coşgel is Professor and Head, Department of Economics at the University of Connecticut. In recent research on the economic history of the Ottoman Empire, he has studied the system of taxation, transmission and inequality of wealth, resolution of disputes in courts, and the organization of law enforcement. His publications have appeared in the Journal of Economic History, Explorations in Economic History, Economic History Review, History of Political Economy, Economics and Philosophy, and other economics and history journals. His recent book, coauthored by Boğaç Ergene, titled A Court in Time: An Economic Approach to Settlement and Trial in an Ottoman Court is nearing completion. See www.cosgel.uconn.edu.
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Subject(s):
Women Workers in the British Industrial Revolution
Joyce Burnette, Wabash College
Historians disagree about whether the British Industrial Revolution (1760-1830) was beneficial for women. Frederick Engels, writing in the late nineteenth century, thought that the Industrial Revolution increased women’s participation in labor outside the home, and claimed that this change was emancipating. 1 More recent historians dispute the claim that women’s labor force participation rose, and focus more on the disadvantages women experienced during this time period. 2 One thing is certain: the Industrial Revolution was a time of important changes in the way that women worked.
The Census
Unfortunately, the historical sources on women’s work are neither as complete nor as reliable as we would like. Aggregate information on the occupations of women is available only from the census, and while census data has the advantage of being comprehensive, it is not a very good measure of work done by women during the Industrial Revolution. For one thing, the census does not provide any information on individual occupations until 1841, which is after the period we wish to study. 3 Even then the data on women’s occupations is questionable. For the 1841 census, the directions for enumerators stated that “The professions &c. of wives, or of sons or daughters living with and assisting their parents but not apprenticed or receiving wages, need not be inserted.” Clearly this census would not give us an accurate measure of female labor force participation. Table One illustrates the problem further; it shows the occupations of men and women recorded in the 1851 census, for 20 occupational categories. These numbers suggest that female labor force participation was low, and that 40 percent of occupied women worked in domestic service. However, economic historians have demonstrated that these numbers are misleading. First, many women who were actually employed were not listed as employed in the census. Women who appear in farm wage books have no recorded occupation in the census. 4 At the same time, the census over-estimates participation by listing in the “domestic service” category women who were actually family members. In addition, the census exaggerates the extent to which women were concentrated in domestic service occupations because many women listed as “maids”, and included in the domestic servant category in the aggregate tables, were really agricultural workers. 5
Table One
Source: B.R. Mitchell, Abstract of British Historical Statistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962, p. 60.
Domestic Service
Domestic work – cooking, cleaning, caring for children and the sick, fetching water, making and mending clothing – took up the bulk of women’s time during the Industrial Revolution period. Most of this work was unpaid. Some families were well-off enough that they could employ other women to do this work, as live-in servants, as charring women, or as service providers. Live-in servants were fairly common; even middle-class families had maids to help with the domestic chores. Charring women did housework on a daily basis. In London women were paid 2s.6d. per day for washing, which was more than three times the 8d. typically paid for agricultural labor in the country. However, a “day’s work” in washing could last 20 hours, more than twice as long as a day’s work in agriculture. 6 Other women worked as laundresses, doing the washing in their own homes.
Cottage Industry
Before factories appeared, most textile manufacture (including the main processes of spinning and weaving) was carried out under the “putting-out” system. Since raw materials were expensive, textile workers rarely had enough capital to be self-employed, but would take raw materials from a merchant, spin or weave the materials in their homes, and then return the finished product and receive a piece-rate wage. This system disappeared during the Industrial Revolution as new machinery requiring water or steam power appeared, and work moved from the home to the factory.
Before the Industrial Revolution, hand spinning had been a widespread female employment. It could take as many as ten spinners to provide one hand-loom weaver with yarn, and men did not spin, so most of the workers in the textile industry were women. The new textile machines of the Industrial Revolution changed that. Wages for hand-spinning fell, and many rural women who had previously spun found themselves unemployed. In a few locations, new cottage industries such as straw-plaiting and lace-making grew and took the place of spinning, but in other locations women remained unemployed.
Another important cottage industry was the pillow-lace industry, so called because women wove the lace on pins stuck in a pillow. In the late-eighteenth century women in Bedford could earn 6s. a week making lace, which was about 50 percent more than women earned in argiculture. However, this industry too disappeared due to mechanization. Following Heathcote’s invention of the bobbinet machine (1809), cheaper lace could be made by embroidering patterns on machine-made lace net. This new type of lace created a new cottage industry, that of “lace-runners” who emboidered patterns on the lace.
The straw-plaiting industry employed women braiding straw into bands used for making hats and bonnets. The industry prospered around the turn of the century due to the invention of a simple tool for splitting the straw and war, which cut off competition from Italy. At this time women could earn 4s. to 6s. per week plaiting straw. This industry also declined, though, following the increase in free trade with the Continent in the 1820s.
Factories
A defining feature of the Industrial Revolution was the rise of factories, particularly textile factories. Work moved out of the home and into a factory, which used a central power source to run its machines. Water power was used in most of the early factories, but improvements in the steam engine made steam power possible as well. The most dramatic productivity growth occurred in the cotton industry. The invention of James Hargreaves’ spinning jenny (1764), Richard Arkwright’s “throstle” or “water frame” (1769), and Samuel Crompton’s spinning mule (1779, so named because it combined features of the two earlier machines) revolutionized spinning. Britain began to manufacture cotton cloth, and declining prices for the cloth encouraged both domestic consumption and export. Machines also appeared for other parts of the cloth-making process, the most important of which was Edmund Cartwright’s powerloom, which was adopted slowly because of imperfections in the early designs, but was widely used by the 1830s. While cotton was the most important textile of the Industrial Revolution, there were advances in machinery for silk, flax, and wool production as well. 7
The advent of new machinery changed the gender division of labor in textile production. Before the Industrial Revolution, women spun yarn using a spinning wheel (or occasionally a distaff and spindle). Men didn’t spin, and this division of labor made sense because women were trained to have more dexterity than men, and because men’s greater strength made them more valuable in other occupations. In contrast to spinning, handloom weaving was done by both sexes, but men outnumbered women. Men monopolized highly skilled preparation and finishing processes such as wool combing and cloth-dressing. With mechanization, the gender division of labor changed. Women used the spinning jenny and water frame, but mule spinning was almost exclusively a male occupation because it required more strength, and because the male mule-spinners actively opposed the employment of female mule-spinners. Women mule-spinners in Glasgow, and their employers, were the victims of violent attacks by male spinners trying to reduce the competition in their occupation. 8 While they moved out of spinning, women seem to have increased their employment in weaving (both in handloom weaving and eventually in powerloom factories). Both sexes were employed as powerloom operators.
Table Two
48.0
56.8
Source: “Report from Dr. James Mitchell to the Central Board of Commissioners, respecting the Returns made from the Factories, and the Results obtained from them.” British Parliamentary Papers, 1834 (167) XIX. Mitchell collected data from 82 cotton factories, 65 wool factories, 73 flax factories, 29 silk factories, 7 potteries, 11 lace factories, one dyehouse, one “glass works”, and 2 paper mills throughout Great Britain.
While the highly skilled and highly paid task of mule-spinning was a male occupation, many women and girls were engaged in other tasks in textile factories. For example, the wet-spinning of flax, introduced in Leeds in 1825, employed mainly teenage girls. Girls often worked as assistants to mule-spinners, piecing together broken threads. In fact, females were a majority of the factory labor force. Table Two shows that 57 percent of factory workers were female, most of them under age 20. Women were widely employed in all the textile industries, and constituted the majority of workers in cotton, flax, and silk. Outside of textiles, women were employed in potteries and paper factories, but not in dye or glass manufacture. Of the women who worked in factories, 16 percent were under age 13, 51 percent were between the ages of 13 and 20, and 33 percent were age 21 and over. On average, girls earned the same wages as boys. Children’s wages rose from about 1s.6d. per week at age 7 to about 5s. per week at age 15. Beginning at age 16, and a large gap between male and female wages appeared. At age 30, women factory workers earned only one-third as much as men.
Figure One
Distribution of Male and Female Factory Employment by Age, 1833
Source: “Report from Dr. James Mitchell to the Central Board of Commissioners, respecting the Returns made from the Factories, and the Results obtained from them.” British Parliamentary Papers, 1834 (167) XIX.
The y-axis shows the percentage of total employment within each sex that is in that five-year age category.
Figure Two
Wages of Factory Workers in 1833
Source: “Report from Dr. James Mitchell to the Central Board of Commissioners, respecting the Returns made from the Factories, and the Results obtained from them.” British Parliamentary Papers, 1834 (167) XIX.
Agriculture
Wage Workers
Wage-earners in agriculture generally fit into one of two broad categories – servants who were hired annually and received part of their wage in room and board, and day-laborers who lived independently and were paid a daily or weekly wage. Before industrialization servants comprised between one-third and one-half of labor in agriculture. 9 For servants the value of room and board was a substantial portion of their compensation, so the ratio of money wages is an under-estimate of the ratio of total wages (see Table Three). Most servants were young and unmarried. Because servants were paid part of their wage in kind, as board, the use of the servant contract tended to fall when food prices were high. During the Industrial Revolution the use of servants seems to have fallen in the South and East. 10 The percentage of servants who were female also declined in the first half of the nineteenth century. 11
Table Three
0.42
0.57
Source: Joyce Burnette, “An Investigation of the Female-Male Wage Gap during the Industrial Revolution in Britain,” Economic History Review 50 (May 1997): 257-281.
While servants lived with the farmer and received food and lodging as part of their wage, laborers lived independently, received fewer in-kind payments, and were paid a daily or a weekly wage. Though the majority of laborers were male, some were female. Table Four shows the percentage of laborers who were female at various farms in the late-18th and early-19th centuries. These numbers suggest that female employment was widespread, but varied considerably from one location to the next. Compared to men, female laborers generally worked fewer days during the year. The employment of female laborers was concentrated around the harvest, and women rarely worked during the winter. While men commonly worked six days per week, outside of harvest women generally averaged around four days per week.
Year
Dunster Castle Farm, Somerset
29
Sources: Joyce Burnette, “Labourers at the Oakes: Changes in the Demand for Female Day-Laborers at a Farm near Sheffield During the Agricultural Revolution,” Journal of Economic History 59 (March 1999): 41-67; Helen Speechley, Female and Child Agricultural Day Labourers in Somerset, c. 1685-1870, dissertation, Univ. of Exeter, 1999. Sotheron-Estcourt accounts, G.R.O. D1571; Ketton-Cremer accounts, N.R.O. WKC 5/250
The wages of female day-laborers were fairly uniform; generally a farmer paid the same wage to all the adult women he hired. Women’s daily wages were between one-third and one-half of male wages. Women generally worked shorter days, though, so the gap in hourly wages was not quite this large. 12 In the less populous counties of Northumberland and Durham, male laborers were required to provide a “bondager,” a woman (usually a family member) who was available for day-labor whenever the employer wanted her. 13
Table Five
18
0.50
Source: Joyce Burnette, “An Investigation of the Female-Male Wage Gap during the Industrial Revolution in Britain,” Economic History Review 50 (May 1997): 257-281.
Various sources suggest that women’s employment in agriculture declined during the early nineteenth century. Enclosure increased farm size and changed the patterns of animal husbandry, both of which seem to have led to reductions in female employment. 14 More women were employed during harvest than during other seasons, but women’s employment during harvest declined as the scythe replaced the sickle as the most popular harvest tool. While women frequently harvested with the sickle, they did not use the heavier scythe. 15 Female employment fell the most in the East, where farms increasingly specialized in grain production. Women had more work in the West, which specialized more in livestock and dairy farming. 16
Non-Wage-Earners
During the eighteenth century there were many opportunities for women to be productively employed in farm work on their own account, whether they were wives of farmers on large holdings, or wives of landless laborers. In the early nineteenth century, however, many of these opportunities disappeared, and women’s participation in agricultural production fell.
In a village that had a commons, even if the family merely rented a cottage the wife could be self-employed in agriculture because she could keep a cow, or other animals, on the commons. By careful management of her stock, a woman might earn as much during the year as her husband earned as a laborer. Women also gathered fuel from the commons, saving the family considerable expense. The enclosure of the commons, though, eliminated these opportunities. In an enclosure, land was re-assigned so as to eliminate the commons and consolidate holdings. Even when the poor had clear legal rights to use the commons, these rights were not always compensated in the enclosure agreement. While enclosure occurred at different times for different locations, the largest waves of enclosures occurred in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, meaning that, for many, opportunities for self-employment in agriculture declined as the same time as employment in cottage industry declined. 17
Only a few opportunities for agricultural production remained for the landless laboring family. In some locations landlords permitted landless laborers to rent small allotments, on which they could still grow some of their own food. The right to glean on fields after harvest seems to have been maintained at least through the middle of the nineteenth century, by which time it had become one of the few agricultural activities available to women in some areas. Gleaning was a valuable right; the value of the grain gleaned was often between 5 and 10 percent of the family’s total annual income. 18
In the eighteenth century it was common for farmers’ wives to be actively involved in farm work, particularly in managing the dairy, pigs, and poultry. The diary was an important source of income for many farms, and its success depended on the skill of the mistress, who usually ran the operation with no help from men. In the nineteenth century, however, farmer’s wives were more likely to withdraw from farm management, leaving the dairy to the management of dairymen who paid a fixed fee for the use of the cows. 19 While poor women withdrew from self-employment in agriculture because of lost opportunities, farmer’s wives seem to have withdraw because greater prosperity allowed them to enjoy more leisure.
It was less common for women to manage their own farms, but not unknown. Commercial directories list numerous women farmers. For example, the 1829 Directory of the County of Derby lists 3354 farmers, of which 162, or 4.8%, were clearly female. 20 While the commercial directories themselves do not indicate to what extent these women were actively involved in their farms, other evidence suggests that at least some women farmers were actively involved in the work of the farm. 21
Self-Employed
During the Industrial Revolution period women were also active businesswomen in towns. Among business owners listed in commercial directories, about 10 percent were female. Table Seven shows the percentage female in all the trades with at least 25 people listed in the 1788 Manchester commercial directory. Single women, married women, and widows are included in these numbers. Sometimes these women were widows carrying on the businesses of their deceased husbands, but even in this case that does not mean they were simply figureheads. Widows often continued their husband’s businesses because they had been active in management of the business while their husband was alive, and wished to continue. 22 Sometimes married women were engaged in trade separately from their husbands. Women most commonly ran shops and taverns, and worked as dressmakers and milliners, but they were not confined to these areas, and appear in most of the trades listed in commercial directories. Manchester, for example, had six female blacksmiths and five female machine makers in 1846. Between 1730 and 1800 there were 121 “rouping women” selling off estates in Edinburgh. 23
Table Six
0.0
Source: Lewis’s Manchester Directory for 1788 (reprinted by Neil Richardson, Manchester, 1984)
Guilds often controlled access to trades, admitting only those who had served an apprenticeship and thus earned the “freedom” of the trade. Women could obtain “freedom” not only by apprenticeship, but also by widowhood. The widow of a tradesman was often considered knowledgeable enough in the trade that she was given the right to carry on the trade even without an apprenticeship. In the eighteenth century women were apprenticed to a wide variety of trades, including butchery, bookbinding, brush making, carpentry, ropemaking and silversmithing. 24 Between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the number of females apprenticed to trades declined, possibly suggesting reduced participation by women. However, the power of the guilds and the importance of apprenticeship were also declining during this time, so the decline in female apprenticeships may not have been an important barrier to employment. 25
Many women worked in the factories of the Industrial Revolution, and a few women actually owned factories. In Keighley, West Yorkshire, Ann Illingworth, Miss Rachael Leach, and Mrs. Betty Hudson built and operated textile mills. 26 In 1833 Mrs. Doig owned a powerloom factory in Scotland, which employed 60 workers. 27
While many women did successfully enter trades, there were obstacles to women’s employment that kept their numbers low. Women generally received less education than men (though education of the time was of limited practical use). Women may have found it more difficult than men to raise the necessary capital because English law did not consider a married woman to have any legal existence; she could not sue or be sued. A married woman was a feme covert and technically could not make any legally binding contracts, a fact which may have discouraged others from loaning money to or making other contracts with married women. However, this law was not as limiting in practice as it would seem to be in theory because a married woman engaged in trade on her own account was treated by the courts as a feme sole and was responsible for her own debts. 28
The professionalization of certain occupations resulted in the exclusion of women from work they had previously done. Women had provided medical care for centuries, but the professionalization of medicine in the early-nineteenth century made it a male occupation. The Royal College of Physicians admitted only graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, schools to which women were not admitted until the twentieth century. Women were even replaced by men in midwifery. The process began in the late-eighteenth century, when we observe the use of the term “man-midwife,” an oxymoronic title suggestive of changing gender roles. In the nineteenth century the “man-midwife” disappeared, and women were replaced by physicians or surgeons for assisting childbirth. Professionalization of the clergy was also effective in excluding women. While the Church of England did not allow women ministers, the Methodists movement had many women preachers during its early years. However, even among the Methodists female preachers disappeared when lay preachers were replaced with a professional clergy in the early nineteenth century. 29
In other occupations where professionalization was not as strong, women remained an important part of the workforce. Teaching, particularly in the lower grades, was a common profession for women. Some were governesses, who lived as household servants, but many opened their own schools and took in pupils. The writing profession seems to have been fairly open to women; the leading novelists of the period include Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Fanny Burney, George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans), Elizabeth Gaskell, and Frances Trollope. Female non-fiction writers of the period include Jane Marcet, Hannah More, and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Other Occupations
The occupations listed above are by no means a complete listing of the occupations of women during the Industrial Revolution. Women made buttons, nails, screws, and pins. They worked in the tin plate, silver plate, pottery and Birmingham “toy” trades (which made small articles like snuff boxes). Women worked in the mines until The Mines Act of 1842 prohibited them from working underground, but afterwards women continued to pursue above-ground mining tasks.
Married Women in the Labor Market
While there are no comprehensive sources of information on the labor force participation of married women, household budgets reported by contemporary authors give us some information on women’s participation. 30 For the period 1787 to 1815, 66 percent of married women in working-class households had either a recorded occupation or positive earnings. For the period 1816-20 the rate fell to 49 percent, but in 1821-40 it recovered to 62 percent. Table Eight gives participation rates of women by date and occupation of the husband.
Table Eight
63
62
Source: Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, “Women’s Labour Force Participation and the Transition to the male-Breadwinner Family, 1790-1865,” Economic History Review 48 (February 1995): 89-117
While many wives worked, the amount of their earnings was small relative to their husband’s earnings. Annual earnings of married women who did work averaged only about 28 percent of their husband’s earnings. Because not all women worked, and because children usually contributed more to the family budget than their mothers, for the average family the wife contributed only around seven percent of total family income.
Childcare
Women workers used a variety of methods to care for their children. Sometimes childcare and work were compatible, and women took their children with them to the fields or shops where they worked. 31 Sometimes women working at home would give their infants opiates such as “Godfrey’s Cordial” in order to keep the children quiet while their mothers worked. 32 The movement of work into factories increased the difficulty of combining work and childcare. In most factory work the hours were rigidly set, and women who took the jobs had to accept the twelve or thirteen hour days. Work in the factories was very disciplined, so the women could not bring their children to the factory, and could not take breaks at will. However, these difficulties did not prevent women with small children from working.
Nineteenth-century mothers used older siblings, other relatives, neighbors, and dame schools to provide child care while they worked. 33 Occasionally mothers would leave young children home alone, but this was dangerous enough that only a few did so. 34 Children as young as two might be sent to dame schools, in which women would take children into their home and provide child care, as well as some basic literacy instruction. 35 In areas where lace-making or straw-plaiting thrived, children were sent from about age seven to “schools” where they learned the trade. 36
Mothers might use a combination of different types of childcare. Elizabeth Wells, who worked in a Leicester worsted factory, had five children, ages 10, 8, 6, 2, and four months. The eldest, a daughter, stayed home to tend the house and care for the infant. The second child worked, and the six-year-old and two-year-old were sent to “an infant school.” 37 Mary Wright, an “over-looker” in the rag-cutting room of a Buckinghamshire paper factory, had five children. The eldest worked in the rag-cutting room with her, the youngest was cared for at home, and the middle three were sent to a school; “for taking care of an infant she pays 1s.6d. a-week, and 3d. a-week for the three others. They go to a school, where they are taken care of and taught to read.” 38
The cost of childcare was substantial. At the end of the eighteenth century the price of child-care was about 1s. a week, which was about a quarter of a woman’s weekly earnings in agriculture. 39 In the 1840s mothers paid anywhere from 9d. to 2s.6d. per week for child care, out of a wage of around 7s. per week. 40
For Further Reading
Burnette, Joyce. “An Investigation of the Female-Male Wage Gap during the Industrial Revolution in Britain.” Economic History Review 50 (1997): 257-281.
Davidoff, Leonore, and Catherine Hall. Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Honeyman, Katrina. Women, Gender and Industrialisation in England, 1700-1870. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
Horrell, Sara, and Jane Humphries. “Women’s Labour Force Participation and the Transition to the Male-Breadwinner Family, 1790-1865.” Economic History Review 48 (1995): 89-117.
Humphries, Jane. “Enclosures, Common Rights, and Women: The Proletarianization of Families in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” Journal of Economic History 50 (1990): 17-42.
King, Peter. “Customary Rights and Women’s Earnings: The Importance of Gleaning to the Rural Labouring Poor, 1750-1850.” Economic History Review 44 (1991): 461-476
Kussmaul, Ann. Servants in Husbandry in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Pinchbeck, Ivy. Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850, London: Routledge, 1930.
Sanderson, Elizabeth. Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century Edinburgh. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
Snell, K.D.M. Annals of the Labouring Poor: Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Valenze, Deborah. Prophetic Sons and Daughters: Female Preaching and Popular Religion in Industrial England. Princeton University Press, 1985.
Valenze, Deborah. The First Industrial Woman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
1 “Since large-scale industry has transferred the woman from the house to the labour market and the factory, and makes her, often enough, the bread-winner of the family, the last remnants of male domination in the proletarian home have lost all foundation – except, perhaps, for some of that brutality towards women which became firmly rooted with the establishment of monogamy. . . .It will then become evidence that the first premise for the emancipation of women is the reintroduction of the entire female sex into public industry.” Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Selected Works, New York: International Publishers, 1986, p. 508, 510.
2 Ivy Pinchbeck (Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, Routledge, 1930) claimed that higher incomes allowed some women to withdraw from the labor force. While she saw some disadvantages resulting from this withdrawal, particularly the loss of independence, she thought that overall women benefited from having more time to devote to their homes and families. Davidoff and Hall (Family Fortunes: Man and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1987) agree that women withdrew from work, but they see the change as a negative result of gender discrimination. Similarly, Horrell and Humphries (“Women’s Labour Force Participation and the Transition to the Male-Breadwinner Family, 1790-1865,” Economic History Review, Feb. 1995, XLVIII:89-117) do not find that rising incomes caused declining labor force participation, and they believe that declining demand for female workers caused the female exodus from the workplace.
3 While the British census began in 1801, individual enumeration did not begin until 1841. For a detailed description of the British censuses of the nineteenth century, see Edward Higgs, Making Sense of the Census, London: HMSO, 1989.
4 For example, Helen Speechley, in her dissertation, showed that seven women who worked for wages at a Somerset farm had no recorded occupation in the 1851 census See Helen Speechley, Female and Child Agricultural Day Labourers in Somerset, c. 1685-1870, dissertation, Univ. of Exeter, 1999.
5 Edward Higgs finds that removing family members from the “servants” category reduced the number of servants in Rochdale in 1851. Enumerators did not clearly distinguish between the terms “housekeeper” and “housewife.” See Edward Higgs, “Domestic Service and Household Production” in Angela John, ed., Unequal Opportunities, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, and “Women, Occupations and Work in the Nineteenth Century Censuses,” History Workshop, 1987, 23:59-80. In contrast, the censuses of the early 20th century seem to be fairly accurate; see Tim Hatton and Roy Bailey, “Women’s Work in Census and Survey, 1911-1931,” Economic History Review, Feb. 2001, LIV:87-107.
6 A shilling was equal to 12 pence, so if women earned 2s.6d. for 20 hours, they earned 1.5d. per hour. Women agricultural laborers earned closer to 1d. per hour, so the London wage was higher. See Dorothy George, London Life in the Eighteenth-Century, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1925, p. 208, and Patricia Malcolmson, English Laundresses, Univ. of Illinois Press, 1986, p. 25. .
7 On the technology of the Industrial Revolution, see David Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1969, and Joel Mokyr, The Lever of Riches, Oxford Univ. Press, 1990.
8 A petition from Glasgow cotton manufactures makes the following claim, “In almost every department of the cotton spinning business, the labour of women would be equally efficient with that of men; yet in several of these departments, such measures of violence have been adopted by the combination, that the women who are willing to be employed, and who are anxious by being employed to earn the bread of their families, have been driven from their situations by violence. . . . Messrs. James Dunlop and Sons, some years ago, erected cotton mills in Calton of Glasgow, on which they expended upwards of [£]27,000 forming their spinning machines, (Chiefly with the view of ridding themselves of the combination [the male union],) of such reduced size as could easily be wrought by women. They employed women alone, as not being parties to the combination, and thus more easily managed, and less insubordinate than male spinners. These they paid at the same rate of wages, as were paid at other works to men. But they were waylaid and attacked, in going to, and returning from their work; the houses in which they resided, were broken open in the night. The women themselves were cruelly beaten and abused; and the mother of one of them killed; . . . And these nefarious attempts were persevered in so systematically, and so long, that Messrs. Dunlop and sons, found it necessary to dismiss all female spinners from their works, and to employ only male spinners, most probably the very men who had attempted their ruin.” First Report from the Select Committee on Artizans and Machinery, British Parliamentary Papers, 1824 vol. V, p. 525.
9 Ann Kussmaul, Servants in Husbandry in Early Modern England, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981, Ch. 1
10 See Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, Routledge, 1930, Ch. 1, and K.D.M. Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, Ch. 2.
11 For the period 1574 to 1821 about 45 percent of servants were female, but this fell to 32 percent in 1851. See Ann Kussmaul, Servants in Husbandry in Early Modern England, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981, Ch. 1.
12 Men usually worked 12-hour days, and women averaged closer to 10 hours. See Joyce Burnette, “An Investigation of the Female-Male Wage Gap during the Industrial Revolution in Britain,” Economic History Review, May 1997, 50:257-281.
13 See Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, Routledge, 1930, p. 65.
14 See Robert Allen, Enclosure and the Yeoman, Clarendon Press, 1992, and Joyce Burnette, “Labourers at the Oakes: Changes in the Demand for Female Day-Laborers at a Farm near Sheffield During the Agricultural Revolution,” Journal of Economics History, March 1999, 59:41-67.
15 While the scythe had been used for mowing grass for hay or cheaper grains for some time, the sickle was used for harvesting wheat until the nineteenth century. Thus adoption of the scythe for harvesting wheat seems to be a response to changing prices rather than invention of a new technology. The scythe required less labor to harvest a given acre, but left more grain on the ground, so as grain prices fell relative to wages, farmers substituted the scythe for the sickle. See E.J.T. Collins, “Harvest Technology and Labour Supply in Britain, 1790-1870,” Economic History Review, Dec. 1969, XXIII:453-473.
16 K.D.M. Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor, Cambridge, 1985.
17 See Jane Humphries, “Enclosures, Common Rights, and Women: The Proletarianization of Families in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries,” Journal of Economic History, March 1990, 50:17-42, and J.M. Neeson, Commoners: Common Rights, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993.
18 See Peter King, “Customary Rights and Women’s Earnings: The Importance of Gleaning to the Rural Labouring Poor, 1750-1850,” Economic History Review, 1991, XLIV:461-476.
19 Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, Routledge, 1930, p. 41-42 See also Deborah Valenze, The First Industrial Woman, Oxford Univ. Press, 1995
20 Stephen Glover, The Directory of the County of Derby, Derby: Henry Mozley and Son, 1829.
21 Eden gives an example of gentlewomen who, on the death of their father, began to work as farmers. He notes, “not seldom, in one and the same day, they have divided their hours in helping to fill the dung-cart, and receiving company of the highest rank and distinction.” (F.M. Eden, The State of the Poor, vol. i., p. 626.) One woman farmer who was clearly an active manager celebrated her success in a letter sent to the Annals of Agriculture, (quoted by Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, Routledge, 1930, p. 30): “I bought a small estate, and took possession of it in the month of July, 1803. . . . As a woman undertaking to farm is generally a subject of ridicule, I bought the small estate by way of experiment: the gentlemen of the county have now complimented me so much on having set so good and example to the farmers, that I have determined on taking a very large farm into my hands.” The Annals of Agriculture give a number of examples of women farmers cited for their experiments or their prize-winning crops.
22 Tradesmen considered themselves lucky to find a wife who was good at business. In his autobiography James Hopkinson, a cabinetmaker, said of his wife, “I found I had got a good and suitable companion one with whom I could take sweet council and whose love and affections was only equall’d by her ability as a business woman.” Victorian Cabinet Maker: The Memoirs of James Hopkinson, 1819-1894, 1968, p. 96.
23 See Elizabeth Sanderson, Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century Edinburgh, St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
24 See K.D.M. Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, Table 6.1.
25 The law requiring a seven-year apprenticeship before someone could work in a trade was repealed in 1814.
26 See Francois Crouzet, The First Industrialists, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, and M.L. Baumber, From Revival to Regency: A History of Keighley and Haworth, 1740-1820, Crabtree Ltd., Keighley, 1983.
27 First Report of the Central Board of His Majesty’s Commissioners for inquiry into the Employment of Children in Factories, with Minutes of Evidence, British Parliamentary Papers, 1833 (450) XX, A1, p. 120. \
28 For example, in the case of “LaVie and another Assignees against Philips and another Assignees,” the court upheld the right of a woman to operate as feme sole. In 1764 James Cox and his wife Jane were operating separate businesses, and both went bankrupt within the space of two months. Jane’s creditors sued James’s creditors for the recovery of five fans, goods from her shop that had been taken for James’s debts. The court ruled that, since Jane was trading as a feme sole, her husband did not own the goods in her shop, and thus James’s creditors had no right to seize them. See William Blackstone, Reports of Cases determined in the several Courts of Westminster-Hall, from 1746 to 1779, London, 1781, p. 570-575.
29 See Deborah Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters: Female Preaching and Popular Religion in Industrial England, Princeton Univ. Press, 1985.
30 See Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, “Women’s Labour Force Participation and the Transition to the male-Breadwinner Family, 1790-1865,” Economic History Review, Feb. 1995, XLVIII:89-117.
31 In his autobiography James Hopkinson says of his wife, “How she laboured at the press and assisted me in the work of my printing office, with a child in her arms, I have no space to tell, nor in fact have I space to allude to the many ways she contributed to my good fortune.” James Hopkinson, Victorian Cabinet Marker: The Memoirs of James Hopkinson, 1819-1894, J.B. Goodman, ed., Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968, p. 96. A 1739 poem by Mary Collier suggests that carrying babies into the field was fairly common; it contains these lines:
Our tender Babes into the Field we bear,
And wrap them in our Cloaths to keep them warm,
While round about we gather up the Corn;
. . .
When Night comes on, unto our Home we go,
Our Corn we carry, and our Infant too.
Mary Collier, The Woman’s Labour, Augustan Reprint Society, #230, 1985, p. 10. A 1835 Poor Law report stated that in Sussex, “the custom of the mother of a family carrying her infant with her in its cradle into the field, rather than lose the opportunity of adding her earnings to the general stock, though partially practiced before, is becoming very much more general now.” (Quoted in Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, Routledge, 1930, p. 85.)
32 Sarah Johnson of Nottingham claimed that she ” Knows it is quite a common custom for mothers to give Godfrey’s and the Anodyne cordial to their infants, ‘it is quite too common.’ It is given to infants at the breast; it is not given because the child is ill, but ‘to compose it to rest, to sleep it,’ so that the mother may get to work. ‘Has seen an infant lay asleep on its mother’s lap whilst at the lace-frame for six or eight hours at a time.’ This has been from the effects of the cordial.” [Reports from Assistant Handloom-Weavers’ Commissioners, British Parliamentary Papers, 1840 (43) XXIII, p. 157] Mary Colton, a lace worker from Nottingham, described her use of the drug to parliamentary investigators thus: ‘Was confined of an illegitimate child in November, 1839. When the child was a week old she gave it a half teaspoonful of Godfrey’s twice a-day. She could not afford to pay for the nursing of the child, and so gave it Godfrey’s to keep it quiet, that she might not be interrupted at the lace piece; she gradually increased the quantity by a drop or two at a time until it reached a teaspoonful; when the infant was four months old it was so “wankle” and thin that folks persuaded her to give it laudanum to bring it on, as it did other children. A halfpenny worth, which was about a teaspoonful and three-quarters, was given in two days; continued to give her this quantity since February, 1840, until this last past (1841), and then reduced the quantity. She now buys a halfpenny worth of laudanum and a halfpenny worth of Godfrey’s mixed, which lasts her three days. . . . If it had not been for her having to sit so close to work she would never have given the child Godfrey’s. She has tried to break it off many times but cannot, for if she did, she should not have anything to eat.” [Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary
Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 630].
33 Elizabeth Leadbeater, who worked for a Birmingham brass-founder, worked while she was nursing and had her mother look after the infant. [Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 710.] Mrs. Smart, an agricultural worker from Calne, Wiltshire, noted, “Sometimes I have had my mother, and sometimes my sister, to take care of the children, or I could not have gone out.” [Reports of Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (510) XII, p. 65.] More commonly, though, older siblings provided the childcare. “Older siblings” generally meant children of nine or ten years old, and included boys as well as girls. Mrs. Britton of Calne, Wiltshire, left her children in the care of her eldest boy. [Reports of Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (510) XII, p. 66] In a family from Presteign, Wales, containing children aged 9, 7, 5, 3, and 1, we find that “The oldest children nurse the youngest.” [F.M. Eden, State of the Poor, London: Davis, 1797, vol. iii, p. 904] When asked what income a labourer’s wife and children could earn, some respondents to the 1833 “Rural Queries” assumed that the eldest child would take care of the others, leaving the mother free to work. The returns from Bengeworth, Worcester, report that, “If the Mother goes to field work, the eldest Child had need to stay at home, to tend the younger branches of the Family.” Ewhurst, Surrey, reported that “If the Mother were employed, the elder Children at home would probably be required to attend to the younger Children.” [Report of His Majesty’s Commissioners for Inquiry in the Administration and Practical Operation of the Poor Law, Appendix B,
“Rural Queries,” British Parliamentary Papers, 1834 (44) XXX, p. 488 and 593]
34 Parents heard of incidents, such as one reported in the Times (Feb. 6, 1819):
A shocking accident occurred at Llandidno, near Conway, on Tuesday night, during the absence of a miner and his wife, who had gone to attend a methodist meeting, and locked the house door, leaving two children within; the house by some means took fire, and was, together with the unfortunate children, consumed to ashes; the eldest only four years old!
Mothers were aware of these dangers. One mother who admitted to leaving her children at home worried greatly about the risks:
I have always left my children to themselves, and, God be praised! nothing has ever happened to them, though I thought it dangerous. I have many a time come home, and have thought it a mercy to find nothing has happened to them. . . . Bad accidents often happen. [Reports of Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (510) XII, p. 68.]
Leaving young children home without child care had real dangers, and the fact that most working mothers paid for childcare suggests that they did not consider leaving young children alone to be an acceptable option.
35 In 1840 an observer of Spitalfields noted, “In this neighborhood, where the women as well as the men are employed in the manufacture of silk, many children are sent to small schools, not for instruction, but to be taken care of whilst their mothers are at work.”[ Reports from Assistant Handloom-Weavers’ Commissioners, British Parliamentary Papers, 1840 (43) XXIII, p. 261] In 1840 the wife of a Gloucester weaver earned 2s. a week from running a school; she had twelve students and charged each 2d. a week. [Reports from Assistant Handloom Weavers’ Commissioners, British Parliamentary Papers, 1840 (220) XXIV, p. 419] In 1843 the lace-making schools of the midlands generally charged 3d. per week. [Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 46, 64, 71, 72]
36 At one straw-plaiting school in Hertfordshire,
Children commence learning the trade about seven years old: parents pay 3d. a-week for each child, and for this they are taught the trade and taught to read. The mistress employs about from 15 to 20 at work in a room; the parents get the profits of the children’s labour.[ Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 64]
At these schools there was very little instruction; some time was devoted to teaching the children to read, but they spent most of their time working. One mistress complained that the children worked too much and learned too little, “In my judgment I think the mothers task the children too much; the mistress is obliged to make them perform it, otherwise they would put them to other schools.” Ann Page of Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, had “eleven scholars” and claimed to “teach them all reading once a-day.” [Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 66, 71] The standard rate of 3d. per week seems to have been paid for supervision of the children rather than for the instruction.
37 First Report of the Central Board of His Majesty’s Commissioners for Inquiring into the Employment of Children in Factories, British Parliamentary Papers, 1833 (450) XX, C1 p. 33.
38 Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 46.
39 David Davies, The Case of Labourers in Husbandry Stated and Considered, London: Robinson, 1795, p.14. Agricultural wages for this time period are found in Eden, State of the Poor, London: Davis, 1797.
40 In 1843 parliamentary investigator Alfred Austin reports, “Where a girl is hired to take care of children, she is paid about 9d. a week, and has her food besides, which is a serious deduction from the wages of the woman at work.”[ Reports of Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, British Parliamentary Papers,1843 (510) XII, p.26] Agricultural wages in the area were 8d. per day, so even without the cost of food, the cost of child care was about one-fifth a woman’s wage. One Scottish woman earned 7s. per week in a coal mine and paid 2s.6d., or 36 percent of her income, for the care of her children.[ B.P.P. 1844 (592) XVI, p. 6] In 1843 Mary Wright, a “over-looker” at a Buckinghamshire paper factory, paid even more for child care; she told parliamentary investigators that “for taking care of an infant she pays 1s.6d. a-week, and 3d. a-week for three others.” [Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 46] She earned 10s.6d. per week, so her total child-care payments were 21 percent of her wage. Engels put the cost of child care at 1s. or 18d. a week. [Engels, [1845] 1926, p. 143] Factory workers often made 7s. a week, so again these women may have paid around one-fifth of their earnings for child care. Some estimates suggest even higher fractions of women’s income went to child care. The overseer of Wisbech, Cambridge, suggests a higher fraction; he reports, “The earnings of the Wife we consider comparatively small, in cases where she has a large family to attend to; if she has one or two children, she has to pay half, or perhaps more of her earnings for a person to take care of them.” [Report of His Majesty’s Commissioners for Inquiry in the Administration and Practical Operation of the Poor Law, Appendix B, “Rural Queries,”
British Parliamentary Papers, 1834 (44) XXX, p. 76]
English Poor Laws
George Boyer, Cornell University
A compulsory system of poor relief was instituted in England during the reign of Elizabeth I. Although the role played by poor relief was significantly modified by the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, the Crusade Against Outrelief of the 1870s, and the adoption of various social insurance programs in the early twentieth century, the Poor Law continued to assist the poor until it was replaced by the welfare state in 1948. For nearly three centuries, the Poor Law constituted “a welfare state in miniature,” relieving the elderly, widows, children, the sick, the disabled, and the unemployed and underemployed (Blaug 1964). This essay will outline the changing role played by the Poor Law, focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The Origins of the Poor Law
While legislation dealing with vagrants and beggars dates back to the fourteenth century, perhaps the first English poor law legislation was enacted in 1536, instructing each parish to undertake voluntary weekly collections to assist the “impotent” poor. The parish had been the basic unit of local government since at least the fourteenth century, although Parliament imposed few if any civic functions on parishes before the sixteenth century. Parliament adopted several other statutes relating to the poor in the next sixty years, culminating with the Acts of 1597-98 and 1601 (43 Eliz. I c. 2), which established a compulsory system of poor relief that was administered and financed at the parish (local) level. These Acts laid the groundwork for the system of poor relief up to the adoption of the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834. Relief was to be administered by a group of overseers, who were to assess a compulsory property tax, known as the poor rate, to assist those within the parish “having no means to maintain them.” The poor were divided into three groups: able-bodied adults, children, and the old or non-able-bodied (impotent). The overseers were instructed to put the able-bodied to work, to give apprenticeships to poor children, and to provide “competent sums of money” to relieve the impotent.
Deteriorating economic conditions and loss of traditional forms of charity in the 1500s
The Elizabethan Poor Law was adopted largely in response to a serious deterioration in economic circumstances, combined with a decline in more traditional forms of charitable assistance. Sixteenth century England experienced rapid inflation, caused by rapid population growth, the debasement of the coinage in 1526 and 1544-46, and the inflow of American silver. Grain prices more than tripled from 1490-1509 to 1550-69, and then increased by an additional 73 percent from 1550-69 to 1590-1609. The prices of other commodities increased nearly as rapidly — the Phelps Brown and Hopkins price index rose by 391 percent from 1495-1504 to 1595-1604. Nominal wages increased at a much slower rate than did prices; as a result, real wages of agricultural and building laborers and of skilled craftsmen declined by about 60 percent over the course of the sixteenth century. This decline in purchasing power led to severe hardship for a large share of the population. Conditions were especially bad in 1595-98, when four consecutive poor harvests led to famine conditions. At the same time that the number of workers living in poverty increased, the supply of charitable assistance declined. The dissolution of the monasteries in 1536-40, followed by the dissolution of religious guilds, fraternities, almshouses, and hospitals in 1545-49, “destroyed much of the institutional fabric which had provided charity for the poor in the past” (Slack 1990). Given the circumstances, the Acts of 1597-98 and 1601 can be seen as an attempt by Parliament both to prevent starvation and to control public order.
The Poor Law, 1601-1750
It is difficult to determine how quickly parishes implemented the Poor Law. Paul Slack (1990) contends that in 1660 a third or more of parishes regularly were collecting poor rates, and that by 1700 poor rates were universal. The Board of Trade estimated that in 1696 expenditures on poor relief totaled £400,000 (see Table 1), slightly less than 1 percent of national income. No official statistics exist for this period concerning the number of persons relieved or the demographic characteristics of those relieved, but it is possible to get some idea of the makeup of the “pauper host” from local studies undertaken by historians. These suggest that, during the seventeenth century, the bulk of relief recipients were elderly, orphans, or widows with young children. In the first half of the century, orphans and lone-parent children made up a particularly large share of the relief rolls, while by the late seventeenth century in many parishes a majority of those collecting regular weekly “pensions” were aged sixty or older. Female pensioners outnumbered males by as much as three to one (Smith 1996). On average, the payment of weekly pensions made up about two-thirds of relief spending in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; the remainder went to casual benefits, often to able-bodied males in need of short-term relief because of sickness or unemployment.
Settlement Act of 1662
One of the issues that arose in the administration of relief was that of entitlement: did everyone within a parish have a legal right to relief? Parliament addressed this question in the Settlement Act of 1662, which formalized the notion that each person had a parish of settlement, and which gave parishes the right to remove within forty days of arrival any newcomer deemed “likely to be chargeable” as well as any non-settled applicant for relief. While Adam Smith, and some historians, argued that the Settlement Law put a serious brake on labor mobility, available evidence suggests that parishes used it selectively, to keep out economically undesirable migrants such as single women, older workers, and men with large families.
Relief expenditures increased sharply in the first half of the eighteenth century, as can be seen in Table 1. Nominal expenditures increased by 72 percent from 1696 to 1748-50 despite the fact that prices were falling and population was growing slowly; real expenditures per capita increased by 84 percent. A large part of this rise was due to increasing pension benefits, especially for the elderly. Some areas also experienced an increase in the number of able-bodied relief recipients. In an attempt to deter some of the poor from applying for relief, Parliament in 1723 adopted the Workhouse Test Act, which empowered parishes to deny relief to any applicant who refused to enter a workhouse. While many parishes established workhouses as a result of the Act, these were often short-lived, and the vast majority of paupers continued to receive outdoor relief (that is, relief in their own homes).
The Poor Law, 1750-1834
The period from 1750 to 1820 witnessed an explosion in relief expenditures. Real per capita expenditures more than doubled from 1748-50 to 1803, and remained at a high level until the Poor Law was amended in 1834 (see Table 1). Relief expenditures increased from 1.0% of GDP in 1748-50 to a peak of 2.7% of GDP in 1818-20 (Lindert 1998). The demographic characteristics of the pauper host changed considerably in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially in the rural south and east of England. There was a sharp increase in numbers receiving casual benefits, as opposed to regular weekly pensions. The age distribution of those on relief became younger — the share of paupers who were prime-aged (20- 59) increased significantly, and the share aged 60 and over declined. Finally, the share of relief recipients in the south and east who were male increased from about a third in 1760 to nearly two-thirds in 1820. In the north and west there also were shifts toward prime-age males and casual relief, but the magnitude of these changes was far smaller than elsewhere (King 2000).
Gilbert’s Act and the Removal Act
There were two major pieces of legislation during this period. Gilbert’s Act (1782) empowered parishes to join together to form unions for the purpose of relieving their poor. The Act stated that only the impotent poor should be relieved in workhouses; the able-bodied should either be found work or granted outdoor relief. To a large extent, Gilbert’s Act simply legitimized the policies of a large number of parishes that found outdoor relief both less and expensive and more humane that workhouse relief. The other major piece of legislation was the Removal Act of 1795, which amended the Settlement Law so that no non-settled person could be removed from a parish unless he or she applied for relief.
Speenhamland System and other forms of poor relief
During this period, relief for the able-bodied took various forms, the most important of which were: allowances-in-aid-of-wages (the so-called Speenhamland system), child allowances for laborers with large families, and payments to seasonally unemployed agricultural laborers. The system of allowances-in-aid-of-wages was adopted by magistrates and parish overseers throughout large parts of southern England to assist the poor during crisis periods. The most famous allowance scale, though by no means the first, was that adopted by Berkshire magistrates at Speenhamland on May 6, 1795. Under the allowance system, a household head (whether employed or unemployed) was guaranteed a minimum weekly income, the level of which was determined by the price of bread and by the size of his or her family. Such scales typically were instituted only during years of high food prices, such as 1795-96 and 1800-01, and removed when prices declined. Child allowance payments were widespread in the rural south and east, which suggests that laborers’ wages were too low to support large families. The typical parish paid a small weekly sum to laborers with four or more children under age 10 or 12. Seasonal unemployment had been a problem for agricultural laborers long before 1750, but the extent of seasonality increased in the second half of the eighteenth century as farmers in southern and eastern England responded to the sharp increase in grain prices by increasing their specialization in grain production. The increase in seasonal unemployment, combined with the decline in other sources of income, forced many agricultural laborers to apply for poor relief during the winter.
Regional differences in relief expenditures and recipients
Table 2 reports data for fifteen counties located throughout England on per capita relief expenditures for the years ending in March 1783-85, 1803, 1812, and 1831, and on relief recipients in 1802-03. Per capita expenditures were higher on average in agricultural counties than in more industrial counties, and were especially high in the grain-producing southern counties — Oxford, Berkshire, Essex, Suffolk, and Sussex. The share of the population receiving poor relief in 1802-03 varied significantly across counties, being 15 to 23 percent in the grain- producing south and less than 10 percent in the north. The demographic characteristics of those relieved also differed across regions. In particular, the share of relief recipients who were elderly or disabled was higher in the north and west than it was in the south; by implication, the share that were able-bodied was higher in the south and east than elsewhere. Economic historians typically have concluded that these regional differences in relief expenditures and numbers on relief were caused by differences in economic circumstances; that is, poverty was more of a problem in the agricultural south and east than it was in the pastoral southwest or in the more industrial north (Blaug 1963; Boyer 1990). More recently, King (2000) has argued that the regional differences in poor relief were determined not by economic structure but rather by “very different welfare cultures on the part of both the poor and the poor law administrators.”
Causes of the Increase in Relief to Able-bodied Males
What caused the increase in the number of able-bodied males on relief? In the second half of the eighteenth century, a large share of rural households in southern England suffered significant declines in real income. County-level cross-sectional data suggest that, on average, real wages for day laborers in agriculture declined by 19 percent from 1767-70 to 1795 in fifteen southern grain-producing counties, then remained roughly constant from 1795 to 1824, before increasing to a level in 1832 about 10 percent above that of 1770 (Bowley 1898). Farm-level time-series data yield a similar result — real wages in the southeast declined by 13 percent from 1770-79 to 1800-09, and remained low until the 1820s (Clark 2001).
Enclosures
Some historians contend that the Parliamentary enclosure movement, and the plowing over of commons and waste land, reduced the access of rural households to land for growing food, grazing animals, and gathering fuel, and led to the immiseration of large numbers of agricultural laborers and their families (Hammond and Hammond 1911; Humphries 1990). More recent research, however, suggests that only a relatively small share of agricultural laborers had common rights, and that there was little open access common land in southeastern England by 1750 (Shaw-Taylor 2001; Clark and Clark 2001). Thus, the Hammonds and Humphries probably overstated the effect of late eighteenth-century enclosures on agricultural laborers’ living standards, although those laborers who had common rights must have been hurt by enclosures.
Declining cottage industry
Finally, in some parts of the south and east, women and children were employed in wool spinning, lace making, straw plaiting, and other cottage industries. Employment opportunities in wool spinning, the largest cottage industry, declined in the late eighteenth century, and employment in the other cottage industries declined in the early nineteenth century (Pinchbeck 1930; Boyer 1990). The decline of cottage industry reduced the ability of women and children to contribute to household income. This, in combination with the decline in agricultural laborers’ wage rates and, in some villages, the loss of common rights, caused many rural household’s incomes in southern England to fall dangerously close to subsistence by 1795.
North and Midlands
The situation was different in the north and midlands. The real wages of day laborers in agriculture remained roughly constant from 1770 to 1810, and then increased sharply, so that by the 1820s wages were about 50 percent higher than they were in 1770 (Clark 2001). Moreover, while some parts of the north and midlands experienced a decline in cottage industry, in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire the concentration of textile production led to increased employment opportunities for women and children.
The Political Economy of the Poor Law, 1795-1834
A comparison of English poor relief with poor relief on the European continent reveals a puzzle: from 1795 to 1834 relief expenditures per capita, and expenditures as a share of national product, were significantly higher in England than on the continent. However, differences in spending between England and the continent were relatively small before 1795 and after 1834 (Lindert 1998). Simple economic explanations cannot account for the different patterns of English and continental relief.
Labor-hiring farmers take advantage of the poor relief system
The increase in relief spending in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries was partly a result of politically-dominant farmers taking advantage of the poor relief system to shift some of their labor costs onto other taxpayers (Boyer 1990). Most rural parish vestries were dominated by labor-hiring farmers as a result of “the principle of weighting the right to vote according to the amount of property occupied,” introduced by Gilbert’s Act (1782), and extended in 1818 by the Parish Vestry Act (Brundage 1978). Relief expenditures were financed by a tax levied on all parishioners whose property value exceeded some minimum level. A typical rural parish’s taxpayers can be divided into two groups: labor-hiring farmers and non-labor-hiring taxpayers (family farmers, shopkeepers, and artisans). In grain-producing areas, where there were large seasonal variations in the demand for labor, labor-hiring farmers anxious to secure an adequate peak season labor force were able to reduce costs by laying off unneeded workers during slack seasons and having them collect poor relief. Large farmers used their political power to tailor the administration of poor relief so as to lower their labor costs. Thus, some share of the increase in relief spending in the early nineteenth century represented a subsidy to labor-hiring farmers rather than a transfer from farmers and other taxpayers to agricultural laborers and their families. In pasture farming areas, where the demand for labor was fairly constant over the year, it was not in farmers’ interests to shed labor during the winter, and the number of able-bodied laborers receiving casual relief was smaller. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 reduced the political power of labor-hiring farmers, which helps to account for the decline in relief expenditures after that date.
The New Poor Law, 1834-70
The increase in spending on poor relief in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, combined with the attacks on the Poor Laws by Thomas Malthus and other political economists and the agricultural laborers’ revolt of 1830-31 (the Captain Swing riots), led the government in 1832 to appoint the Royal Commission to Investigate the Poor Laws. The Commission published its report, written by Nassau Senior and Edwin Chadwick, in March 1834. The report, described by historian R. H. Tawney (1926) as “brilliant, influential and wildly unhistorical,” called for sweeping reforms of the Poor Law, including the grouping of parishes into Poor Law unions, the abolition of outdoor relief for the able-bodied and their families, and the appointment of a centralized Poor Law Commission to direct the administration of poor relief. Soon after the report was published Parliament adopted the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which implemented some of the report’s recommendations and left others, like the regulation of outdoor relief, to the three newly appointed Poor Law Commissioners.
By 1839 the vast majority of rural parishes had been grouped into poor law unions, and most of these had built or were building workhouses. On the other hand, the Commission met with strong opposition when it attempted in 1837 to set up unions in the industrial north, and the implementation of the New Poor Law was delayed in several industrial cities. In an attempt to regulate the granting of relief to able-bodied males, the Commission, and its replacement in 1847, the Poor Law Board, issued several orders to selected Poor Law Unions. The Outdoor Labour Test Order of 1842, sent to unions without workhouses or where the workhouse test was deemed unenforceable, stated that able-bodied males could be given outdoor relief only if they were set to work by the union. The Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order of 1844 prohibited outdoor relief for both able-bodied males and females except on account of sickness or “sudden and urgent necessity.” The Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of 1852 extended the labor test for those relieved outside of workhouses.
Historical debate about the effect of the New Poor Law
Historians do not agree on the effect of the New Poor Law on the local administration of relief. Some contend that the orders regulating outdoor relief largely were evaded by both rural and urban unions, many of whom continued to grant outdoor relief to unemployed and underemployed males (Rose 1970; Digby 1975). Others point to the falling numbers of able- bodied males receiving relief in the national statistics and the widespread construction of union workhouses, and conclude that the New Poor Law succeeded in abolishing outdoor relief for the able-bodied by 1850 (Williams 1981). A recent study by Lees (1998) found that in three London parishes and six provincial towns in the years around 1850 large numbers of prime-age males continued to apply for relief, and that a majority of those assisted were granted outdoor relief. The Poor Law also played an important role in assisting the unemployed in industrial cities during the cyclical downturns of 1841-42 and 1847-48 and the Lancashire cotton famine of 1862-65 (Boot 1990; Boyer 1997). There is no doubt, however, that spending on poor relief declined after 1834 (see Table 1). Real per capita relief expenditures fell by 43 percent from 1831 to 1841, and increased slowly thereafter.
Beginning in 1840, data on the number of persons receiving poor relief are available for two days a year, January 1 and July 1; the “official” estimates in Table 1 of the annual number relieved were constructed as the average of the number relieved on these two dates. Studies conducted by Poor Law administrators indicate that the number recorded in the day counts was less than half the number assisted during the year. Lees’s “revised” estimates of annual relief recipients (see Table 1) assumes that the ratio of actual to counted paupers was 2.24 for 1850- 1900 and 2.15 for 1905-14; these suggest that from 1850 to 1870 about 10 percent of the population was assisted by the Poor Law each year. Given the temporary nature of most spells of relief, over a three year period as much as 25 percent of the population made use of the Poor Law (Lees 1998).
The Crusade Against Outrelief
In the 1870s Poor Law unions throughout England and Wales curtailed outdoor relief for all types of paupers. This change in policy, known as the Crusade Against Outrelief, was not a result of new government regulations, although it was encouraged by the newly formed Local Government Board (LGB). The Board was aided in convincing the public of the need for reform by the propaganda of the Charity Organization Society (COS), founded in 1869. The LGB and the COS maintained that the ready availability of outdoor relief destroyed the self-reliance of the poor. The COS went on to argue that the shift from outdoor to workhouse relief would significantly reduce the demand for assistance, since most applicants would refuse to enter workhouses, and therefore reduce Poor Law expenditures. A policy that promised to raise the morals of the poor and reduce taxes was hard for most Poor Law unions to resist (MacKinnon 1987).
The effect of the Crusade can be seen in Table 1. The deterrent effect associated with the workhouse led to a sharp fall in numbers on relief — from 1871 to 1876, the number of paupers receiving outdoor relief fell by 33 percent. The share of paupers relieved in workhouses increased from 12-15 percent in 1841-71 to 22 percent in 1880, and it continued to rise to 35 percent in 1911. The extent of the crusade varied considerably across poor law unions. Urban unions typically relieved a much larger share of their paupers in workhouses than did rural unions, but there were significant differences in practice across cities. In 1893, over 70 percent of the paupers in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and in many London Poor Law unions received indoor relief; however, in Leeds, Bradford, Newcastle, Nottingham and several other industrial and mining cities the majority of paupers continued to receive outdoor relief (Booth 1894).
Change in the attitude of the poor toward relief
The last third of the nineteenth century also witnessed a change in the attitude of the poor towards relief. Prior to 1870, a large share of the working class regarded access to public relief as an entitlement, although they rejected the workhouse as a form of relief. Their opinions changed over time, however, and by the end of the century most workers viewed poor relief as stigmatizing (Lees 1998). This change in perceptions led many poor people to go to great lengths to avoid applying for relief, and available evidence suggests that there were large differences between poverty rates and pauperism rates in late Victorian Britain. For example, in York in 1900, 3,451 persons received poor relief at some point during the year, less than half of the 7,230 persons estimated by Rowntree to be living in primary poverty.
The Declining Role of the Poor Law, 1870-1914
Increased availability of alternative sources of assistance
The share of the population on relief fell sharply from 1871 to 1876, and then continued to decline, at a much slower pace, until 1914. Real per capita relief expenditures increased from 1876 to 1914, largely because the Poor Law provided increasing amounts of medical care for the poor. Otherwise, the role played by the Poor Law declined over this period, due in large part to an increase in the availability of alternative sources of assistance. There was a sharp increase in the second half of the nineteenth century in the membership of friendly societies — mutual help associations providing sickness, accident, and death benefits, and sometimes old age (superannuation) benefits — and of trade unions providing mutual insurance policies. The benefits provided workers and their families with some protection against income loss, and few who belonged to friendly societies or unions providing “friendly” benefits ever needed to apply to the Poor Law for assistance.
Work relief
Local governments continued to assist unemployed males after 1870, but typically not through the Poor Law. Beginning with the Chamberlain Circular in 1886 the Local Government Board encouraged cities to set up work relief projects when unemployment was high. The circular stated that “it is not desirable that the working classes should be familiarised with Poor Law relief,” and that the work provided should “not involve the stigma of pauperism.” In 1905 Parliament adopted the Unemployed Workman Act, which established in all large cities distress committees to provide temporary employment to workers who were unemployed because of a “dislocation of trade.”
Liberal welfare reforms, 1906-1911
Between 1906 and 1911 Parliament passed several pieces of social welfare legislation collectively known as the Liberal welfare reforms. These laws provided free meals and medical inspections (later treatment) for needy school children (1906, 1907, 1912) and weekly pensions for poor persons over age 70 (1908), and established national sickness and unemployment insurance (1911). The Liberal reforms purposely reduced the role played by poor relief, and paved the way for the abolition of the Poor Law.
The Last Years of the Poor Law
During the interwar period the Poor Law served as a residual safety net, assisting those who fell through the cracks of the existing social insurance policies. The high unemployment of 1921-38 led to a sharp increase in numbers on relief. The official count of relief recipients rose from 748,000 in 1914 to 1,449,000 in 1922; the number relieved averaged 1,379,800 from 1922 to 1938. A large share of those on relief were unemployed workers and their dependents, especially in 1922-26. Despite the extension of unemployment insurance in 1920 to virtually all workers except the self-employed and those in agriculture or domestic service, there still were large numbers who either did not qualify for unemployment benefits or who had exhausted their benefits, and many of them turned to the Poor Law for assistance. The vast majority were given outdoor relief; from 1921 to 1923 the number of outdoor relief recipients increased by 1,051,000 while the number receiving indoor relieve increased by 21,000.
The Poor Law becomes redundant and is repealed
Despite the important role played by poor relief during the interwar period, the government continued to adopt policies, which bypassed the Poor Law and left it “to die by attrition and surgical removals of essential organs” (Lees 1998). The Local Government Act of 1929 abolished the Poor Law unions, and transferred the administration of poor relief to the counties and county boroughs. In 1934 the responsibility for assisting those unemployed who were outside the unemployment insurance system was transferred from the Poor Law to the Unemployment Assistance Board. Finally, from 1945 to 1948, Parliament adopted a series of laws that together formed the basis for the welfare state, and made the Poor Law redundant. The National Assistance Act of 1948 officially repealed all existing Poor Law legislation, and replaced the Poor Law with the National Assistance Board to act as a residual relief agency.
Table 1
Relief Expenditures and Numbers on Relief, 1696-1936
Expend.
33.0
References
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Citation: Boyer, George. “English Poor Laws”. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. May 7, 2002. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/english-poor-laws/
Gerald Friedman, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Unions and Collective Action
In capitalist labor markets, which developed in the nineteenth-century in the United States and Western Europe, workers exchange their time and effort for wages. But even while laboring under the supervision of others, wage earners have never been slaves, because they have recourse from abuse. They can quit to seek better employment. Or they are free to join with others to take collective action, forming political movements or labor unions. By the end of the nineteenth century, labor unions and labor-oriented political parties had become major forces influencing wages and working conditions. This article explores the nature and development of labor unions in the United States. It reviews the growth and recent decline of the American labor movement and makes comparisons with the experience of foreign labor unions to clarify particular aspects of the history of labor unions in the United States.
Unions and the Free-Rider Problem
Quitting, exit, is straightforward, a simple act for individuals unhappy with their employment. By contrast, collective action, such as forming a labor union, is always difficult because it requires that individuals commit themselves to produce “public goods” enjoyed by all, including those who “free ride” rather than contribute to the group effort. If the union succeeds, free riders receive the same benefits as do activists; but if it fails, the activists suffer while those who remained outside lose nothing. Because individualist logic leads workers to “free ride,” unions cannot grow by appealing to individual self-interest (Hirschman, 1970; 1982; Olson, 1966; Gamson, 1975).
Union Growth Comes in Spurts
Free riding is a problem for all collective movements, including Rotary Clubs, the Red Cross, and the Audubon Society. But unionization is especially difficult because unions must attract members against the opposition of often-hostile employers. Workers who support unions sacrifice money and risk their jobs, even their lives. Success comes only when large numbers simultaneously follow a different rationality. Unions must persuade whole groups to abandon individualism to throw themselves into the collective project. Rarely have unions grown incrementally, gradually adding members. Instead, workers have joined unions en masse in periods of great excitement, attracted by what the French sociologist Emile Durkheim labeled “collective effervescence” or the joy of participating in a common project without regard for individual interest. Growth has come in spurts, short periods of social upheaval punctuated by major demonstrations and strikes when large numbers see their fellow workers publicly demonstrating a shared commitment to the collective project. Union growth, therefore, is concentrated in short periods of dramatic social upheaval; in the thirteen countries listed in Tables 1 and 2, 67 percent of growth comes in only five years, and over 90 percent in only ten years. As Table 3 shows, in these thirteen countries, unions grew by over 10 percent a year in years with the greatest strike activity but by less than 1 percent a year in the years with the fewest strikers (Friedman, 1999; Shorter and Tilly, 1974; Zolberg, 1972).
Table 1
Union Members per 100 Nonagricultural Workers, 1880-1985: Selected Countries
Year
60.7
79.4
Note: This table shows that most union growth comes in a few years. Union membership growth (net of membership losses) has been calculated for each country for each year. Years were then sorted for each country according to membership growth. This table reports growth for each country for the five and the ten years with the fastest growth and compares this with total growth over all years for which data are available. Excess growth has been calculated as the difference between the share of growth in the top five or ten years and the share that would have come in these periods if growth had been distributed evenly across all years.
Note that years of rapid growth are not necessarily contiguous. There can be more growth in years of rapid growth than over the entire period. This is because some is temporary when years of rapid growth are followed by years of decline.
Sources: Bain and Price (1980): 39, Visser (1989)
Table 3
Impact of Strike Activity on Union Growth
Average Union Membership Growth in Years Sorted by Proportion of Workers Striking
Country
10.49
9.78
Note: This table shows that except in Australia unions grew fastest in years with large number of strikers. The proportion of workers striking was calculated for each country for each year as the number of strikers divided by the nonagricultural labor force. Years were then sorted into quartiles, each including one-fourth of the years, according to this striker rate statistic. The average annual union membership growth rate was then calculated for each quartile as the mean of the growth rate in each year in the quartile.
Rapid Union Growth Provokes a Hostile Reaction
These periods of rapid union growth end because social upheaval provokes a hostile reaction. Union growth leads employers to organize, to discover their own collective interests. Emulating their workers, they join together to discharge union activists, to support each other in strikes, and to demand government action against unions. This rising opposition ends periods of rapid union growth, beginning a new phase of decline followed by longer periods of stagnant membership. The weakest unions formed during the union surge succumb to the post-boom reaction; but if enough unions survive they leave a movement larger and broader than before.
Early Labor Unions, Democrats and Socialists
Guilds
Before modern labor unions, guilds united artisans and their employees. Craftsmen did the work of early industry, “masters” working beside “journeymen” and apprentices in small workplaces. Throughout the cities and towns of medieval Europe, guilds regulated production by setting minimum prices and quality, and capping wages, employment, and output. Controlled by independent craftsmen, “masters” who employed journeymen and trained apprentices, guilds regulated industry to protect the comfort and status of the masters. Apprentices and journeymen benefited from guild restrictions only when they advanced to master status.
Guild power was gradually undermined in the early-modern period. Employing workers outside the guild system, including rural workers and semiskilled workers in large urban workplaces, merchants transformed medieval industry. By the early 1800s, few could anticipate moving up to becoming a master artisan or owning their own establishment. Instead, facing the prospect of a lifetime of wage labor punctuated by periods of unemployment, some wage earners began to seek a collective regulation of their individual employment (Thompson, 1966; Scott, 1974; Dawley, 1976; Sewell, 1980; Wilentz, 1984; Blewett, 1988).
The labor movement within the broader movement for democracy
This new wage-labor regime led to the modern labor movement. Organizing propertyless workers who were laboring for capitalists, organized labor formed one wing of a broader democratic movement struggling for equality and for the rights of commoners (Friedman, 1998). Within the broader democratic movement for legal and political equality, labor fought the rise of a new aristocracy that controlled the machinery of modern industry just as the old aristocracy had monopolized land. Seen in this light, the fundamental idea of the labor movement, that employees should have a voice in the management of industry, is comparable to the demand that citizens should have a voice in the management of public affairs. Democratic values do not, by any means, guarantee that unions will be fair and evenhanded to all workers. In the United States, by reserving good jobs for their members, unions of white men sometimes contributed to the exploitation of women and nonwhites. Democracy only means that exploitation will be carried out at the behest of a political majority rather than at the say of an individual capitalist (Roediger, 1991; Arnesen, 2001; Foner, 1974; 1979; Milkman, 1985).
Craft unions’ strategy
Workers formed unions to voice their interests against their employers, and also against other workers. Rejecting broad alliances along class lines, alliances uniting workers on the basis of their lack of property and their common relationship with capitalists, craft unions followed a narrow strategy, uniting workers with the same skill against both the capitalists and against workers in different trades. By using their monopoly of knowledge of the work process to restrict access to the trade, craft unions could have a strong bargaining position that was enhanced by alliances with other craftsmen to finance long strikes. A narrow craft strategy was followed by the first successful unions throughout Europe and America, especially in small urban shops using technologies that still depended on traditional specialized skills, including printers, furniture makers, carpenters, gold beaters and jewelry makers, iron molders, engineers, machinists, and plumbers. Craft unions’ characteristic action was the small, local strike, the concerted withdrawal of labor by a few workers critical to production. Typically, craft unions would present a set of demands to local employers on a “take-it-or-leave-it” basis; either the employer accepted their demands or fought a contest of strength to determine whether the employers could do without the skilled workers for longer than the workers could manage without their jobs.
The craft strategy offered little to the great masses of workers. Because it depends on restricting access to trades it could not be applied by common laborers, who were untrained, nor by semi-skilled employees in modern mass-production establishments whose employers trained them on-the-job. Shunned by craft unions, most women and African-Americans in the United States were crowded into nonunion occupations. Some sought employment as strikebreakers in occupations otherwise monopolized by craft unions controlled by white, native-born males (Washington, 1913; Whatley, 1993).
Unions among unskilled workers
To form unions, the unskilled needed a strategy of the weak that would utilize their numbers rather than specialized knowledge and accumulated savings. Inclusive unions have succeeded but only when they attract allies among politicians, state officials, and the affluent public. Sponsoring unions and protecting them from employer repression, allies can allow organization among workers without specialized skills. When successful, inclusive unions can grow quickly in mass mobilization of common laborers. This happened, for example, in Germany at the beginning of the Weimar Republic, during the French Popular Front of 1936-37, and in the United States during the New Deal of the 1930s. These were times when state support rewarded inclusive unions for organizing the unskilled. The bill for mass mobilization usually came later. Each boom was followed by a reaction against the extensive promises of the inclusive labor movement when employers and conservative politicians worked to put labor’s genie back in the bottle.
Solidarity and the Trade Unions
Unionized occupations of the late 1800s
By the late-nineteenth century, trade unions had gained a powerful position in several skilled occupations in the United States and elsewhere. Outside of mining, craft unions were formed among well-paid skilled craft workers — workers whom historian Eric Hobsbawm labeled the “labor aristocracy” (Hobsbawm, 1964; Geary, 1981). In 1892, for example, nearly two-thirds of British coal miners were union members, as were a third of machinists, millwrights and metal workers, cobblers and shoe makers, glass workers, printers, mule spinners, and construction workers (Bain and Price, 1980). French miners had formed relatively strong unions, as had skilled workers in the railroad operating crafts, printers, jewelry makers, cigar makers, and furniture workers (Friedman, 1998). Cigar makers, printers, furniture workers, some construction and metal craftsmen took the lead in early German unions (Kocka, 1986). In the United States, there were about 160,000 union members in 1880, including 120,000 belonging to craft unions, including carpenters, engineers, furniture makers, stone-cutters, iron puddlers and rollers, printers, and several railroad crafts. Another 40,000 belonged to “industrial” unions organized without regard for trade. About half of these were coal miners; most of the rest belonged to the Knights of Labor (KOL) (Friedman, 1999).
The Knights of Labor
In Europe, these craft organizations were to be the basis of larger, mass unions uniting workers without regard for trade or, in some cases, industry (Ansell, 2001). This process began in the United States in the 1880s when craft workers in the Knights of Labor reached out to organize more broadly. Formed by skilled male, native-born garment cutters in 1869, the Knights of Labor would seem an odd candidate to mobilize the mass of unskilled workers. But from a few Philadelphia craft workers, the Knights grew to become a national and even international movement. Membership reached 20,000 in 1881 and grew to 100,000 in 1885. Then, in 1886, when successful strikes on some western railroads attracted a mass of previously unorganized unskilled workers, the KOL grew to a peak membership of a million workers. For a brief time, the Knights of Labor was a general movement of the American working class (Ware, 1929; Voss, 1993).
The KOL became a mass movement with an ideology and program that united workers without regard for occupation, industry, race or gender (Hattam, 1993). Never espousing Marxist or socialist doctrines, the Knights advanced an indigenous form of popular American radicalism, a “republicanism” that would overcome social problems by extending democracy to the workplace. Valuing citizens according to their work, their productive labor, the Knights were true heirs of earlier bourgeois radicals. Open to all producers, including farmers and other employers, they excluded only those seen to be parasitic on the labor of producers — liquor dealers, gamblers, bankers, stock manipulators and lawyers. Welcoming all others without regard for race, gender, or skill, the KOL was the first American labor union to attract significant numbers of women, African-Americans, and the unskilled (Foner, 1974; 1979; Rachleff, 1984).
The KOL’s strategy
In practice, most KOL local assemblies acted like craft unions. They bargained with employers, conducted boycotts, and called members out on strike to demand higher wages and better working conditions. But unlike craft unions that depended on the bargaining leverage of a few strategically positioned workers, the KOL’s tactics reflected its inclusive and democratic vision. Without a craft union’s resources or control over labor supply, the Knights sought to win labor disputes by widening them to involve political authorities and the outside public able to pressure employers to make concessions. Activists hoped that politicizing strikes would favor the KOL because its large membership would tempt ambitious politicians while its members’ poverty drew public sympathy.
In Europe, a strategy like that of the KOL succeeded in promoting the organization of inclusive unions. But it failed in the United States. Comparing the strike strategies of trade unions and the Knights provides insight into the survival and eventual success of the trade unions and their confederation, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in late-nineteenth century America. Seeking to transform industrial relations, local assemblies of the KOL struck frequently with large but short strikes involving skilled and unskilled workers. The Knights’ industrial leverage depended on political and social influence. It could succeed where trade unions would not go because the KOL strategy utilized numbers, the one advantage held by common laborers. But this strategy could succeed only where political authorities and the outside public might sympathize with labor. Later industrial and regional unions tried the same strategy, conducting short but large strikes. By demonstrating sufficient numbers and commitment, French and Italian unions, for example, would win from state officials concessions they could not force from recalcitrant employers (Shorter and Tilly, 1974; Friedman, 1998). But compared with the small strikes conducted by craft unions, “solidarity” strikes must walk a fine line, aggressive enough to draw attention but not so threatening to provoke a hostile reaction from threatened authorities. Such a reaction doomed the KOL.
The Knights’ collapse in 1886
In 1886, the Knights became embroiled in a national general strike demanding an eight-hour workday, the world’s first May Day. This led directly to the collapse of the KOL. The May Day strike wave in 1886 and the bombing at Haymarket Square in Chicago provoked a “red scare” of historic proportions driving membership down to half a million in September 1887. Police in Chicago, for example, broke up union meetings, seized union records, and even banned the color red from advertisements. The KOL responded politically, sponsoring a wave of independent labor parties in the elections of 1886 and supporting the Populist Party in 1890 (Fink, 1983). But even relatively strong showings by these independent political movements could not halt the KOL’s decline. By 1890, its membership had fallen by half again, and it fell to under 50,000 members by 1897.
Unions and radical political movements in Europe in the late 1800s
The KOL spread outside the United States, attracting an energetic following in the Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and other European countries. Industrial and regional unionism fared better in these countries than in the United States. Most German unionists belonged to industrial unions allied with the Social Democratic Party. Under Marxist leadership, unions and political party formed a centralized labor movement to maximize labor’s political leverage. English union membership was divided between members of a stable core of craft unions and a growing membership in industrial and regional unions based in mining, cotton textiles, and transportation. Allied with political radicals, these industrial and regional unions formed the backbone of the Labor Party, which held the balance of power in British politics after 1906.
The most radical unions were found in France. By the early 1890s, revolutionary syndicalists controlled the national union center, the Confédération générale du travail (or CGT), which they tried to use as a base for a revolutionary general strike where the workers would seize economic and political power. Consolidating craft unions into industrial and regional unions, the Bourses du travail, syndicalists conducted large strikes designed to demonstrate labor’s solidarity. Paradoxically, the syndicalists’ large strikes were effective because they provoked friendly government mediation. In the United States, state intervention was fatal for labor because government and employers usually united to crush labor radicalism. But in France, officials were more concerned to maintain a center-left coalition with organized labor against reactionary employers opposed to the Third Republic. State intervention helped French unionists to win concessions beyond any they could win with economic leverage. A radical strategy of inclusive industrial and regional unionism could succeed in France because the political leadership of the early Third Republic needed labor’s support against powerful economic and social groups who would replace the Republic with an authoritarian regime. Reminded daily of the importance of republican values and the coalition that sustained the Republic, French state officials promoted collective bargaining and labor unions. Ironically, it was the support of liberal state officials that allowed French union radicalism to succeed, and allowed French unions to grow faster than American unions and to organize the semi-skilled workers in the large establishments of France’s modern industries (Friedman, 1997; 1998).
The AFL and American Exceptionalism
By 1914, unions outside the United States had found that broad organization reduced the availability of strike breakers, advanced labor’s political goals, and could lead to state intervention on behalf of the unions. The United States was becoming exceptional, the only advanced capitalist country without a strong, united labor movement. The collapse of the Knights of Labor cleared the way for the AFL. Formed in 1881 as the Federation of Trade and Labor Unions, the AFL was organized to uphold the narrow interests of craft workers against the general interests of common laborers in the KOL. In practice, AFL-craft unions were little labor monopolies, able to win concessions because of their control over uncommon skills and because their narrow strategy did not frighten state officials. Many early AFL leaders, notably the AFL’s founding president Samuel Gompers and P. J. McGuire of the Carpenters, had been active in radical political movements. But after 1886, they learned to reject political involvements for fear that radicalism might antagonize state officials or employers and provoke repression.
AFL successes in the early twentieth-century
Entering the twentieth century, the AFL appeared to have a winning strategy. Union membership rose sharply in the late 1890s, doubling between 1896 and 1900 and again between 1900 and 1904. Fewer than 5 percent of industrial wage earners belonged to labor unions in 1895, but this share rose to 7 percent in 1900 and 13 percent in 1904, including over 21 percent of industrial wage earners (workers outside of commerce, government, and the professions). Half of coal miners in 1904 belonged to an industrial union (the United Mine Workers of America), but otherwise, most union members belonged to craft organizations, including nearly half the printers, and a third of cigar makers, construction workers and transportation workers. As shown in Table 4, other pockets of union strength included skilled workers in the metal trades, leather, and apparel. These craft unions had demonstrated their economic power, raising wages by around 15 percent and reducing hours worked (Friedman, 1991; Mullin, 1993).
Table 4
Unionization rates by industry in the United States, 1880-2000
Industry
20.4
14.1
Note: This table shows the unionization rate, the share of workers belonging to unions, in different industries in the United States, 1880-1996.
Sources: 1880 and 1910: Friedman (1999): 83; 1930: Union membership from Wolman (1936); employment from United States, Bureau of the Census (1932); 1953: Troy (1957); 1974, 1986, 2000: United States, Current Population Survey.
Limits to the craft strategy
Even at this peak, the craft strategy had clear limits. Craft unions succeeded only in a declining part of American industry among workers still performing traditional tasks where training was through apprenticeship programs controlled by the workers themselves. By contrast, there were few unions in the rapidly growing industries employing semi-skilled workers. Nor was the AFL able to overcome racial divisions and state opposition to organize in the South (Friedman, 2000; Letwin, 1998). Compared with the KOL in the early 1880s, or with France’s revolutionary syndicalist unions, American unions were weak in steel, textiles, chemicals, paper and metal fabrication using technologies without traditional craft skills. AFL strongholds included construction, printing, cigar rolling, apparel cutting and pressing, and custom metal engineering, employed craft workers in relatively small establishments little changed from 25 years earlier (see Table 4).
Dependent on skilled craftsmen’s economic leverage, the AFL was poorly organized to battle large, technologically dynamic corporations. For a brief time, the revolutionary International Workers of the World (IWW), formed in 1905, organized semi-skilled workers in some mass production industries. But by 1914, it too had failed. It was state support that forced powerful French employers to accept unions. Without such assistance, no union strategy could force large American employers to accept unions.
Unions in the World War I Era
The AFL and World War I
For all its limits, it must be acknowledged that the AFL and its craft affiliates survived after their rivals ignited and died. The AFL formed a solid union movement among skilled craftsmen that with favorable circumstances could form the core of a broader union movement like what developed in Europe after 1900. During World War I, the Wilson administration endorsed unionization and collective bargaining in exchange for union support for the war effort. AFL affiliates used state support to organize mass-production workers in shipbuilding, metal fabrication, meatpacking and steel doubling union membership between 1915 and 1919. But when Federal support ended after the war’s end, employers mobilized to crush the nascent unions. The post-war union collapse has been attributed to the AFL’s failings. The larger truth is that American unions needed state support to overcome the entrenched power of capital. The AFL did not fail because of its deficient economic strategy; it failed because it had an ineffective political strategy (Friedman, 1998; Frank, 1994; Montgomery, 1987).
International effects of World War I
War gave labor extraordinary opportunities. Combatant governments rewarded pro-war labor leaders with positions in the expanded state bureaucracy and support for collective bargaining and unions. Union growth also reflected economic conditions when wartime labor shortages strengthened the bargaining position of workers and unions. Unions grew rapidly during and immediately after the war. British unions, for example, doubled their membership between 1914 and 1920, to enroll eight million workers, almost half the nonagricultural labor force (Bain and Price, 1980; Visser, 1989). Union membership tripled in Germany and Sweden, doubled in Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway, and almost doubled in the United States (see Table 5 and Table 1). For twelve countries, membership grew by 121 percent between 1913 and 1920, including 119 percent growth in seven combatant countries and 160 percent growth in five neutral states.
Table 5
Impact of World War I on Union Membership Growth
Membership Growth in Wartime and After
12 Countries
-34%
Shift toward the revolutionary left
Even before the war, frustration with the slow pace of social reform had led to a shift towards the revolutionary socialist and syndicalist left in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Nolan, 1981; Montgomery, 1987). In Europe, frustrations with rising prices, declining real wages and working conditions, and anger at catastrophic war losses fanned the flames of discontent into a raging conflagration. Compared with pre-war levels, the number of strikers rose ten or even twenty times after the war, including 2.5 million strikers in France in 1919 and 1920, compared with 200,000 strikers in 1913, 13 million German strikers, up from 300,000 in 1913, and 5 million American strikers, up from under 1 million in 1913. British Prime Minister Lloyd George warned in March 1919 that “The whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution. There is a deep sense not only of discontent, but of anger and revolt among the workmen . . . The whole existing order in its political, social and economic aspects is questioned by the masses of the population from one end of Europe to the other” (quoted in Cronin, 1983: 22).
Impact of Communists
Inspired by the success of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, revolutionary Communist Parties were organized throughout the world to promote revolution by organizing labor unions, strikes, and political protest. Communism was a mixed blessing for labor. The Communists included some of labor’s most dedicated activists and organizers who contributed greatly to union organization. But Communist help came at a high price. Secretive, domineering, intolerant of opposition, the Communists divided unions between their dwindling allies and a growing collection of outraged opponents. Moreover, they galvanized opposition, depriving labor of needed allies among state officials and the liberal bourgeoisie.
The “Lean Years”: Welfare Capitalism and the Open Shop
Aftermath of World War I
As with most great surges in union membership, the postwar boom was self-limiting. Helped by a sharp post- war economic contraction, employers and state officials ruthlessly drove back the radical threat, purging their workforce of known union activists and easily absorbing futile strikes during a period of rising unemployment. Such campaigns drove membership down by a third from a 1920 peak of 26 million members in eleven countries in 1920 to fewer than 18 million in 1924. In Austria, France, Germany, and the United States, labor unrest contributed to the election of conservative governments; in Hungary, Italy, and Poland it led to the installation of anti- democratic dictatorships that ruthlessly crushed labor unions. Economic stagnation, state repression, and anti-union campaigns by employers prevented any union resurgence through the rest of the 1920s. By 1929, unions in these eleven countries had added only 30,000 members, one-fifth of one percent.
Injunctions and welfare capitalism
The 1920s was an especially dark period for organized labor in the United States where weaknesses visible before World War I became critical failures. Labor’s opponents used fear of Communism to foment a post-war red scare that targeted union activists for police and vigilante violence. Hundreds of foreign-born activists were deported, and mobs led by the American Legion and the Ku Klux Klan broke up union meetings and destroyed union offices (see, for example, Frank, 1994: 104-5). Judges added law to the campaign against unions. Ignoring the intent of the Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914) they used anti-trust law and injunctions against unions, forbidding activists from picketing or publicizing disputes, holding signs, or even enrolling new union members. Employers competed for their workers’ allegiance, offering paternalist welfare programs and systems of employee representation as substitutes for independent unions. They sought to build a nonunion industrial relations system around welfare capitalism (Cohen, 1990).
Stagnation and decline
After the promises of the war years, the defeat of postwar union drives in mass production industries like steel and meatpacking inaugurated a decade of union stagnation and decline. Membership fell by a third between 1920 and 1924. Unions survived only in the older trades where employment was usually declining. By 1924, they were almost completely eliminated from the dynamic industries of the second industrial revolution: including steel, automobiles, consumer electronics, chemicals and rubber manufacture.
New Deals for Labor
Great Depression
The nonunion industrial relations system of the 1920s might have endured and produced a docile working class organized in company unions (Brody, 1985). But the welfare capitalism of the 1920s collapsed when the Great Depression of the 1930s exposed its weaknesses and undermined political support for the nonunion, open shop. Between 1929 and 1933, real national income in the United States fell by one third, nonagricultural employment fell by a quarter, and unemployment rose from under 2 million in 1929 to 13 million in 1933, a quarter of the civilian labor force. Economic decline was nearly as great elsewhere, raising unemployment to over 15 percent in Austria, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom (Maddison, 1991: 260-61). Only the Soviet Union, with its authoritarian political economy was largely spared the scourge of unemployment and economic collapse — a point emphasized by Communists throughout the 1930s and later. Depression discredited the nonunion industrial relations system by forcing welfare capitalists to renege on promises to stabilize employment and to maintain wages. Then, by ignoring protests from members of employee representation plans, welfare capitalists further exposed the fundamental weakness of their system. Lacking any independent support, paternalist promises had no standing but depended entirely on the variable good will of employers. And sometimes that was not enough (Cohen, 1990).
Depression-era political shifts
Voters, too, lost confidence in employers. The Great Depression discredited the old political economy. Even before Franklin Roosevelt’s election as President of the United States in 1932, American states enacted legislation restricting the rights of creditors and landlords, restraining the use of the injunction in labor disputes, and providing expanded relief for the unemployed (Ely, 1998; Friedman, 2001). European voters abandoned centrist parties, embracing extremists of both left and right, Communists and Fascists. In Germany, the Nazis won, but Popular Front governments uniting Communists and socialists with bourgeois liberals assumed power in other countries, including Sweden, France and Spain. (The Spanish Popular Front was overthrown by a Fascist rebellion that installed a dictatorship led by Francisco Franco.) Throughout there was an impulse to take public control over the economy because free market capitalism and orthodox finance had led to disaster (Temin, 1990).
Economic depression lowers union membership when unemployed workers drop their membership and employers use their stronger bargaining position to defeat union drives (Bain and Elsheikh, 1976). Indeed, union membership fell with the onset of the Great Depression but, contradicting the usual pattern, membership rebounded sharply after 1932 despite high unemployment, rising by over 76 percent in ten countries by 1938 (see Table 6 and Table 1). The fastest growth came in countries with openly pro-union governments. In France, where the Socialist Léon Blum led a Popular Front government, and the United States, during Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, membership rose by 160 percent 1933-38. But membership grew by 33 percent in eight other countries even without openly pro-labor governments.
Table 6
Impact of the Great Depression and World War II on Union Membership Growth
11 Countries (no Germany)
86.7%
French unions and the Matignon agreements
French union membership rose from under 900,000 in 1935 to over 4,500,000 in 1937. The Popular Front’s victory in the elections of June 1936 precipitated a massive strike wave and the occupation of factories and workplaces throughout France. Remembered in movie, song and legend, the factory occupations were a nearly spontaneous uprising of French workers that brought France’s economy to a halt. Contemporaries were struck by the extraordinarily cheerful feelings that prevailed, the “holiday feeling” and sense that the strikes were a new sort of non-violent revolution that would overturn hierarchy and replace capitalist authoritarianism with true social democracy (Phillippe and Dubief, 1993: 307-8). After Blum assumed office, he brokered the Matignon agreements, named after the premier’s official residence in Paris. Union leaders and heads of France’s leading employer associations agreed to end the strikes and occupations in exchange for wage increases of around 15 percent, a 40 hour workweek, annual vacations, and union recognition. Codified in statute by the Popular Front government, French unions gained new rights and protections from employer repression. Only then did workers flock into unions. In a few weeks, French unions gained four million members with the fastest growth in the new industries of the second industrial revolution. Unions in metal fabrication and chemicals grew by 1,450 percent and 4,000 percent respectively (Magraw, 1992: 2, 287-88).
French union leader Léon Jouhaux hailed the Matignon agreements as “the greatest victory of the workers’ movement.” It included lasting gains, including annual vacations and shorter workweeks. But Simone Weil described the strikers of May 1936 as “soldiers on leave,” and they were soon returned to work. Regrouping, employers discharged union activists and attacked the precarious unity of the Popular Front government. Fighting an uphill battle against renewed employer resistance, the Popular Front government fell before it could build a new system of cooperative industrial relations. Contained, French unions were unable to maintain their momentum towards industrial democracy. Membership fell by a third in 1937-39.
The National Industrial Recovery Act
A different union paradigm was developed in the United States. Rather than vehicles for a democratic revolution, the New Deal sought to integrate organized labor into a reformed capitalism that recognized capitalist hierarchy in the workplace, using unions only to promote macroeconomic stabilization by raising wages and consumer spending (Brinkley, 1995). Included as part of a program for economic recovery was section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) giving “employees . . . the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing . . . free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of employers.” AFL-leader William Green pronounced this a “charter of industrial freedom” and workers rushed into unions in a wave unmatched since the Knights of Labor in 1886. As with the KOL, the greatest increase came among the unskilled. Coal miners, southern textile workers, northern apparel workers, Ohio tire makers, Detroit automobile workers, aluminum, lumber and sawmill workers all rushed into unions. For the first time in fifty years, American unions gained a foothold in mass production industries.
AFL’s lack of enthusiasm
Promises of state support brought common laborers into unions. But once there, the new unionists received little help from aging AFL leaders. Fearing that the new unionists’ impetuous zeal and militant radicalism would provoke repression, AFL leaders tried to scatter the new members among contending craft unions with archaic craft jurisdictions. The new unionists were swept up in the excitement of unity and collective action but a half-century of experience had taught the AFL’s leadership to fear such enthusiasms.
The AFL dampened the union boom of 1933-34, but, again, the larger problem was not with the AFL’s flawed tactics but with its lack of political leverage. Doing little to enforce the promises of Section 7(a), the Federal government left employers free to ignore the law. Some flatly prohibited union organization; others formally honored the law but established anemic employee representation plans while refusing to deal with independent unions (Irons, 2000). By 1935 almost as many industrial establishments had employer-dominated employee- representation plans (27 percent) as had unions (30 percent). The greatest number had no labor organization at all (43 percent).
Birth of the CIO
Implacable management resistance and divided leadership killed the early New Deal union surge. It died even before the NIRA was ruled unconstitutional in 1935. Failure provoked rebellion within the AFL. Led by John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, eight national unions launched a campaign for industrial organization as the Committee for Industrial Organization. After Lewis punched Carpenter’s Union leader William L Hutcheson on the floor of the AFL convention in 1935, the Committee became an independent Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO). Including many Communist activists, CIO committees fanned out to organize workers in steel, automobiles, retail trade, journalism and other industries. Building effectively on local rank and file militancy, including sitdown strikes in automobiles, rubber, and other industries, the CIO quickly won contracts from some of the strongest bastions of the open shop, including United States Steel and General Motors (Zieger, 1995).
The Wagner Act
Creative strategy and energetic organizing helped. But the CIO owed its lasting success to state support. After the failure of the NIRA, New Dealers sought another way to strengthen labor as a force for economic stimulus. This led to the enactment in 1935 of the National Labor Relations Act, also known as the “Wagner Act.” The Wagner Act established a National Labor Relations Board charged to enforce employees’ “right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” It provided for elections to choose union representation and required employers to negotiate “in good faith” with their workers’ chosen representatives. Shifting labor conflict from strikes to elections and protecting activists from dismissal for their union work, the Act lowered the cost to individual workers of supporting collective action. It also put the Federal government’s imprimatur on union organization.
Crucial role of rank-and-file militants and state government support
Appointed by President Roosevelt, the first NLRB was openly pro-union, viewing the Act’s preamble as mandate to promote organization. By 1945 the Board had supervised 24,000 union elections involving some 6,000,000 workers, leading to the unionization of nearly 5,000,000 workers. Still, the NLRB was not responsible for the period’s union boom. The Wagner Act had no direct role in the early CIO years because it was ignored for two years until its constitutionality was established by the Supreme Court in National Labor Relations Board v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Company (1937). Furthermore, the election procedure’s gross contribution of 5,000,000 members was less than half of the period’s net union growth of 11,000,000 members. More important than the Wagner Act were crucial union victories over prominent open shop employers in cities like Akron, Ohio, Flint, Michigan, and among Philadelphia-area metal workers. Dedicated rank-and-file militants and effective union leadership were crucial in these victories. As important was the support of pro-New Deal local and state governments. The Roosevelt landslides of 1934 and 1936 brought to office liberal Democratic governors and mayors who gave crucial support to the early CIO. Placing a right to collective bargaining above private property rights, liberal governors and other elected officials in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere refused to send police to evict sit-down strikers who had seized control of factories. This state support allowed the minority of workers who actively supported unionization to use force to overcome the passivity of the majority of workers and the opposition of the employers. The Open Shop of the 1920s was not abandoned; it was overwhelmed by an aggressive, government-backed labor movement (Gall, 1999; Harris, 2000).
World War II
Federal support for union organization was also crucial during World War II. Again, war helped unions both by eliminating unemployment and because state officials supported unions to gain support for the war effort. Established to minimize labor disputes that might disrupt war production, the National War Labor Board instituted a labor truce where unions exchanged a no-strike pledge for employer recognition. During World War II, employers conceded union security and “maintenance of membership” rules requiring workers to pay their union dues. Acquiescing to government demands, employers accepted the institutionalization of the American labor movement, guaranteeing unions a steady flow of dues to fund an expanded bureaucracy, new benefit programs, and even to raise funds for political action. After growing from 3.5 to 10.2 million members between 1935 and 1941, unions added another 4 million members during the war. “Maintenance of membership” rules prevented free riders even more effectively than had the factory takeovers and violence of the late-1930s. With millions of members and money in the bank, labor leaders like Sidney Hillman and Phillip Murray had the ear of business leaders and official Washington. Large, established, and respected: American labor had made it, part of a reformed capitalism committed to both property and prosperity.
Even more than the First World War, World War Two promoted unions and social change. A European civil war, the war divided the continent not only between warring countries but within countries between those, usually on the political right, who favored fascism over liberal parliamentary government and those who defended democracy. Before the war, left and right contended over the appeasement of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy; during the war, many businesses and conservative politicians collaborated with the German occupation against a resistance movement dominated by the left. Throughout Europe, victory over Germany was a triumph for labor that led directly to the entry into government of socialists and Communists.
Successes and Failures after World War II
Union membership exploded during and after the war, nearly doubling between 1938 and 1946. By 1947, unions had enrolled a majority of nonagricultural workers in Scandinavia, Australia, and Italy, and over 40 percent in most other European countries (see Table 1). Accumulated depression and wartime grievances sparked a post- war strike wave that included over 6 million strikers in France in 1948, 4 million in Italy in 1949 and 1950, and 5 million in the United States in 1946. In Europe, popular unrest led to a dramatic political shift to the left. The Labor Party government elected in the United Kingdom in 1945 established a new National Health Service, and nationalized mining, the railroads, and the Bank of England. A center-left post-war coalition government in France expanded the national pension system and nationalized the Bank of France, Renault, and other companies associated with the wartime Vichy regime. Throughout Europe, the share of national income devoted to social services jumped dramatically, as did the share of income going to the working classes.
Europeans unions and the state after World War II
Unions and the political left were stronger everywhere throughout post-war Europe, but in some countries labor’s position deteriorated quickly. In France, Italy, and Japan, the popular front uniting Communists, socialists, and bourgeois liberals dissolved, and labor’s management opponents recovered state support, with the onset of the Cold War. In these countries, union membership dropped after 1947 and unions remained on the defensive for over a decade in a largely adversarial industrial relations system. Elsewhere, notably in countries with weak Communist movements, such as in Scandinavia but also in Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands, labor was able to compel management and state officials to accept strong and centralized labor movements as social partners. In these countries, stable industrial relations allowed cooperation between management and labor to raise productivity and to open new markets for national companies. High-union-density and high-union-centralization allowed Scandinavian and German labor leaders to negotiate incomes policies with governments and employers restraining wage inflation in exchange for stable employment, investment, and wages linked to productivity growth. Such policies could not be instituted in countries with weaker and less centralized labor movements, including France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States because their unions had not been accepted as bargaining partners by management and they lacked the centralized authority to enforce incomes policies and productivity bargains (Alvarez, Garrett, and Lange, 1992).
Europe since the 1960s
Even where European labor was the weakest, in France or Italy in the 1950s, unions were stronger than before World War II. Working with entrenched socialist and labor political parties, European unions were able to maintain high wages, restrictions on managerial autonomy, and social security. The wave of popular unrest in the late 1960s and early 1970s would carry most European unions to new heights, briefly bringing membership to over 50 percent of the labor force in the United Kingdom and in Italy, and bringing socialists into the government in France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Since 1980, union membership has declined some and there has been some retrenchment in the welfare state. But the essentials of European welfare states and labor relations have remained (Western, 1997; Golden and Pontusson, 1992).
Unions begin to decline in the US
It was after World War II that American Exceptionalism became most valid, when the United States emerged as the advanced, capitalist democracy with the weakest labor movement. The United States was the only advanced capitalist democracy where unions went into prolonged decline right after World War II. At 35 percent, the unionization rate in 1945 was the highest in American history, but even then it was lower than in most other advanced capitalist economies. It has been falling since. The post-war strike wave, including three million strikers in 1945 and five million in 1946, was the largest in American history but it did little to enhance labor’s political position or bargaining leverage. Instead, it provoked a powerful reaction among employers and others suspicious of growing union power. A concerted drive by the CIO to organize the South, “Operation Dixie,” failed dismally in 1946. Unable to overcome private repression, racial divisions, and the pro-employer stance of southern local and state governments, the CIO’s defeat left the South as a nonunion, low-wage domestic enclave and a bastion of anti- union politics (Griffith, 1988). Then, in 1946, a conservative Republican majority was elected to Congress, dashing hopes for a renewed, post-war New Deal.
The Taft-Hartley Act and the CIO’s Expulsion of Communists
Quickly, labor’s wartime dreams turned to post-war nightmares. The Republican Congress amended the Wagner Act, enacting the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 to give employers and state officials new powers against strikers and unions. The law also required union leaders to sign a non-Communist affidavit as a condition for union participation in NLRB-sponsored elections. This loyalty oath divided labor during a time of weakness. With its roots in radical politics and an alliance of convenience between Lewis and the Communists, the CIO was torn by the new Red Scare. Hoping to appease the political right, the CIO majority in 1949 expelled ten Communist-led unions with nearly a third of the organization’s members. This marked the end of the CIO’s expansive period. Shorn of its left, the CIO lost its most dynamic and energetic organizers and leaders. Worse, it plunged the CIO into a civil war; non-Communist affiliates raided locals belonging to the “communist-led” unions fatally distracting both sides from the CIO’s original mission to organize the unorganized and empower the dispossessed. By breaking with the Communists, the CIO’s leadership signaled that it had accepted its place within a system of capitalist hierarchy. Little reason remained for the CIO to remain independent. In 1955 it merged with the AFL to form the AFL-CIO.
The Golden Age of American Unions
Without the revolutionary aspirations now associated with the discredited Communists, America’s unions settled down to bargain over wages and working conditions without challenging such managerial prerogatives as decisions about prices, production, and investment. Some labor leaders, notably James Hoffa of the Teamsters but also local leaders in construction and service trades, abandoned all higher aspirations to use their unions for purely personal financial gain. Allying themselves with organized crime, they used violence to maintain their power over employers and their own rank-and-file membership. Others, including former-CIO leaders, like Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers, continued to push the envelope of legitimate bargaining topics, building challenges to capitalist authority at the workplace. But even the UAW was unable to force major managerial prerogatives onto the bargaining table.
The quarter century after 1950 formed a ‘golden age’ for American unions. Established unions found a secure place at the bargaining table with America’s leading firms in such industries as autos, steel, trucking, and chemicals. Contracts were periodically negotiated providing for the exchange of good wages for cooperative workplace relations. Rules were negotiated providing a system of civil authority at work, with negotiated regulations for promotion and layoffs, and procedures giving workers opportunities to voice grievances before neutral arbitrators. Wages rose steadily, by over 2 percent per year and union workers earned a comfortable 20 percent more than nonunion workers of similar age, experience and education. Wages grew faster in Europe but American wages were higher and growth was rapid enough to narrow the gap between rich and poor, and between management salaries and worker wages. Unions also won a growing list of benefit programs, medical and dental insurance, paid holidays and vacations, supplemental unemployment insurance, and pensions. Competition for workers forced many nonunion employers to match the benefit packages won by unions, but unionized employers provided benefits worth over 60 percent more than were given nonunion workers (Freeman and Medoff, 1984; Hirsch and Addison, 1986).
Impact of decentralized bargaining in the US
In most of Europe, strong labor movements limit the wage and benefit advantages of union membership by forcing governments to extend union gains to all workers in an industry regardless of union status. By compelling nonunion employers to match union gains, this limited the competitive penalty borne by unionized firms. By contrast, decentralized bargaining and weak unions in the United States created large union wage differentials that put unionized firms at a competitive disadvantage, encouraging them to seek out nonunion labor and localities. A stable and vocal workforce with more experience and training did raise unionized firms’ labor productivity by 15 percent or more above the level of nonunion firms and some scholars have argued that unionized workers earn much of their wage gain. Others, however, find little productivity gain for unionized workers after account is taken of greater use of machinery and other nonlabor inputs by unionized firms (compare Freeman and Medoff, 1984 and Hirsch and Addison, 1986). But even unionized firms with higher labor productivity were usually more conscious of the wages and benefits paid to union worker than they were of unionization’s productivity benefits.
Unions and the Civil Rights Movement
Post-war unions remained politically active. European unions were closely associated with political parties, Communists in France and Italy, socialists or labor parties elsewhere. In practice, notwithstanding revolutionary pronouncements, even the Communist’s political agenda came to resemble that of unions in the United States, liberal reform including a commitment to full employment and the redistribution of income towards workers and the poor (Boyle, 1998). Golden age unions have also been at the forefront of campaigns to extend individual rights. The major domestic political issue of the post-war United States, civil rights, was troubling for many unions because of the racist provisions in their own practice. Nonetheless, in the 1950s and 1960s, the AFL-CIO strongly supported the civil rights movement, funded civil rights organizations and lobbied in support of civil rights legislation. The AFL-CIO pushed unions to open their ranks to African-American workers, even at the expense of losing affiliates in states like Mississippi. Seizing the opportunity created by the civil rights movement, some unions gained members among nonwhites. The feminist movement of the 1970s created new challenges for the masculine and sometimes misogynist labor movement. But, here too, the search for members and a desire to remove sources of division eventually brought organized labor to the forefront. The AFL-CIO supported the Equal Rights Amendment and began to promote women to leadership positions.
Shift of unions to the public sector
In no other country have women and members of racial minorities assumed such prominent positions in the labor movement as they have in the United States. The movement of African-American and women to leadership positions in the late-twentieth century labor movement was accelerated by a shift in the membership structure of the United States union movement. Maintaining their strength in traditional, masculine occupations in manufacturing, construction, mining, and transportation, European unions remained predominantly male. Union decline in these industries combined with growth in heavily female public sector employments in the United States led to the femininization of the American labor movement. Union membership began to decline in the private sector in the United States immediately after World War II. Between 1953 and 1983, for example, the unionization rate fell from 42 percent to 28 percent in manufacturing, by nearly half in transportation, and by over half in construction and mining (see Table 4). By contrast, after 1960, public sector workers won new opportunities to form unions. Because women and racial minorities form a disproportionate share of these public sector workers, increasing union membership there has changed the American labor movement’s racial and gender composition. Women comprised only 19 percent of American union members in the mid-1950s but their share rose to 40 percent by the late 1990s. By then, the most unionized workers were no longer the white male skilled craftsmen of old. Instead, they were nurses, parole officers, government clerks, and most of all, school teachers.
Union Collapse and Union Avoidance in the US
Outside the United States, unions grew through the 1970s and, despite some decline since the 1980s, European and Canadian unions remain large and powerful. The United States is different. Union decline since World War II has brought the United States private-sector labor movement down to early twentieth century levels. As a share of the nonagricultural labor force, union membership fell from its 1945 peak of 35 percent down to under 30 percent in the early 1970s. From there, decline became a general rout. In the 1970s, rising unemployment, increasing international competition, and the movement of industry to the nonunion South and to rural areas undermined the bargaining position of many American unions leaving them vulnerable to a renewed management offensive. Returning to pre-New Deal practices, some employers established new welfare and employee representation programs, hoping to lure worker away from unions (Heckscher, 1987; Jacoby, 1997). Others returned to pre-New Deal repression. By the early 1980s, union avoidance had become an industry. Anti-union consultants and lawyers openly counseled employers how to use labor law to evade unions. Findings of employers’ unfair labor practices in violation of the Wagner Act tripled in the 1970s; by the 1980s, the NLRB reinstated over 10,000 workers a year who were illegally discharged for union activity, nearly one for every twenty who voted for a union in an NLRB election (Weiler, 1983). By the 1990s, the unionization rate in the United States fell to under 14 percent, including only 9 percent of the private sector workers and 37 percent of those in the public sector. Unions now have minimal impact on wages or working conditions for most American workers.
Nowhere else have unions collapsed as in the United States. With a unionization rate dramatically below that of other countries, including Canada, the United States has achieved exceptional status (see Table 7). There remains great interest in unions among American workers; where employers do not resist, unions thrive. In the public sector and in some private employers where workers have free choice to join a union, they are as likely as they ever were, and as likely as workers anywhere. In the past, as after 1886 and in the 1920s, when American employers broke unions, they revived when a government committed to workplace democracy sheltered them from employer repression. If we see another such government, we may yet see another union revival.
Table 7
Union Membership Rates for the United States and Six Other Leading Industrial Economies, 1970 to 1990
1970
0.168
0.083
Note: The unionization rate reported is the number of union members out of 100 workers in the specified industry. The ratio shown is the unionization rate for the United States divided by the unionization rate for the other countries. The six countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Data on union membership in financial services in France are not available.
Source: Visser (1991): 110.
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Medieval Guilds
Gary Richardson, University of California, Irvine
Guilds existed throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. Guilds were groups of individuals with common goals. The term guild probably derives from the Anglo-Saxon root geld which meant ‘to pay, contribute.’ The noun form of geld meant an association of persons contributing money for some common purpose. The root also meant ‘to sacrifice, worship.’ The dual definitions probably reflected guilds’ origins as both secular and religious organizations.
The term guild had many synonyms in the Middle Ages. These included association, brotherhood, college, company, confraternity, corporation, craft, fellowship, fraternity, livery, society, and equivalents of these terms in Latin, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Romance languages such as ambach, arte, collegium, corporatio, fraternitas, gilda, innung, corps de métier, societas, and zunft. In the late nineteenth century, as a professional lexicon evolved among historians, the term guild became the universal reference for these groups of merchants, artisans, and other individuals from the ordinary (non-priestly and non-aristocratic) classes of society which were not part of the established religious, military, or governmental hierarchies.
Much of the academic debate about guilds stems from confusion caused by incomplete lexicographical standardization. Scholars study guilds in one time and place and then assume that their findings apply to guilds everywhere and at all times or assert that the organizations that they studied were the one type of true guild, while other organizations deserved neither the distinction nor serious study. To avoid this mistake, this encyclopedia entry begins with the recognition that guilds were groups whose activities, characteristics, and composition varied greatly across centuries, regions, and industries.
Guild Activities and Taxonomy
Guilds filled many niches in medieval economy and society. Typical taxonomies divide urban occupational guilds into two types: merchant and craft.
Merchant guilds were organizations of merchants who were involved in long-distance commerce and local wholesale trade, and may also have been retail sellers of commodities in their home cities and distant venues where they possessed rights to set up shop. The largest and most influential merchant guilds participated in international commerce and politics and established colonies in foreign cities. In many cases, they evolved into or became inextricably intertwined with the governments of their home towns.
Merchant guilds enforced contracts among members and between members and outsiders. Guilds policed members’ behavior because medieval commerce operated according to the community responsibility system. If a merchant from a particular town failed to fulfill his part of a bargain or pay his debts, all members of his guild could be held liable. When they were in a foreign port, their goods could be seized and sold to alleviate the bad debt. They would then return to their hometown, where they would seek compensation from the original defaulter.
Merchant guilds also protected members against predation by rulers. Rulers seeking revenue had an incentive to seize money and merchandise from foreign merchants. Guilds threatened to boycott the realms of rulers who did this, a practice known as withernam in medieval England. Since boycotts impoverished both kingdoms which depended on commerce and governments for whom tariffs were the principal source of revenue, the threat of retaliation deterred medieval potentates from excessive expropriations.
Merchant guilds tended to be wealthier and of higher social status than craft guilds. Merchants’ organizations usually possessed privileged positions in religious and secular ceremonies and inordinately influenced local governments.
Craft guilds were organized along lines of particular trades. Members of these guilds typically owned and operated small businesses or family workshops. Craft guilds operated in many sectors of the economy. Guilds of victuallers bought agricultural commodities, converted them to consumables, and sold finished foodstuffs. Examples included bakers, brewers, and butchers. Guilds of manufacturers made durable goods, and when profitable, exported them from their towns to consumers in distant markets. Examples include makers of textiles, military equipment, and metal ware. Guilds of a third type sold skills and services. Examples include clerks, teamsters, and entertainers.
These occupational organizations engaged in a wide array of economic activities. Some manipulated input and output markets to their own advantage. Others established reputations for quality, fostering the expansion of anonymous exchange and making everyone better off. Because of the underlying economic realities, victualling guilds tended towards the former. Manufacturing guilds tended towards the latter. Guilds of service providers fell somewhere in between. All three types of guilds managed labor markets, lowered wages, and advanced their own interests at their subordinates’ expense. These undertakings had a common theme. Merchant and craft guilds acted to increase and stabilize members’ incomes.
Non-occupational guilds also operated in medieval towns and cities. These organizations had both secular and religious functions. Historians refer to these organizations as social, religious, or parish guilds as well as fraternities and confraternities. The secular activities of these organizations included providing members with mutual insurance, extending credit to members in times of need, aiding members in courts of law, and helping the children of members afford apprenticeships and dowries.
The principal pious objective was the salvation of the soul and escape from Purgatory. The doctrine of Purgatory was the belief that there lay between Heaven and Hell an intermediate place, by passing though which the souls of the dead might cleanse themselves of guilt attached to the sins committed during their lifetime by submitting to a graduated scale of divine punishment. The suffering through which they were cleansed might be abbreviated by the prayers of the living, and most especially by masses. Praying devoutly, sponsoring masses, and giving alms were three of the most effective methods of redeeming one’s soul. These works of atonement could be performed by the penitent on their own or by someone else on their behalf.
Guilds served as mechanisms for organizing, managing, and financing the collective quest for eternal salvation. Efforts centered on three types of tasks. The first were routine and participatory religious services. Members of guilds gathered at church on Sundays and often also on other days of the week. Members marked ceremonial occasions, such as the day of their patron saint or Good Friday, with prayers, processions, banquets, masses, the singing of psalms, the illumination of holy symbols, and the distribution of alms to the poor. Some guilds kept chaplains on call. Others hired priests when the need arose. These clerics hosted regular religious services, such as vespers each evening or mass on Sunday morning, and prayed for the souls of members living and deceased.
The second category consisted of actions performed on members’ behalf after their deaths and for the benefit of their souls. Postmortem services began with funerals and burials, which guilds arranged for the recently departed. The services were elaborate and extensive. On the day before internment, members gathered around the corpse, lit candles, and sung a placebo and a dirge, which were the vespers and matins from the Office of the Dead. On the day of internment, a procession marched from churchyard to graveyard, buried the body, distributed alms, and attended mass. Additional masses numbering one to forty occurred later that day and sometimes for months thereafter. Postmortem prayers continued even further into the future and in theory into perpetuity. All guilds prayed for the souls of deceased members. These prayers were a prominent part of all guild events. Many guilds also hired priests to pray for the souls of the deceased. A few guilds built chantries where priests said those prayers.
The third category involved indoctrination and monitoring to maintain the piety of members. The Christian catechism of the era contained clear commandments. Rest on the Sabbath and religious holidays. Be truthful. Do not deceive others. Be chaste. Do not commit adultery. Be faithful to your family. Obey authorities. Be modest. Do not covet thy neighbors’ possessions. Do not steal. Do not gamble. Work hard. Support the church. Guild ordinances echoed these exhortations. Members should neither gamble nor lie nor steal nor drink to excess. They should restrain their gluttony, lust, avarice, and corporal impulses. They should pray to the Lord, live like His son, and give alms to the poor.
Righteous living was important because members’ fates were linked together. The more pious one’s brethren, the more helpful their prayers, and the quicker one escaped from purgatory. The worse one’s brethren, the less salutary their supplications and the longer one suffered during the afterlife. So, in hopes of minimizing purgatorial pain and maximizing eternal happiness, guilds beseeched members to restrain physical desires and forgo worldly pleasures.
Guilds also operated in villages and the countryside. Rural guilds performed the same tasks as social and religious guilds in towns and cities. Recent research on medieval England indicates that guilds operated in most, if not all, villages. Villages often possessed multiple guilds. Most rural residents belonged to a guild. Some may have joined more than one organization.
Guilds often spanned multiple dimensions of this taxonomy. Members of craft guilds participated in wholesale commerce. Members of merchant guilds opened retail shops. Social and religious guilds evolved into occupational associations. All merchant and craft guilds possessed religious and fraternal features.
In sum, guild members sought prosperity in this life and providence in the next. Members wanted high and stable incomes, quick passage through Purgatory, and eternity in Heaven. Guilds helped them coordinate their collective efforts to attain these goals.
Guild Structure and Organization
To attain their collective goals, guild members had to cooperate. If some members slacked off, all would suffer. Guilds that wished to lower the costs of labor had to get all masters to reduce wages. Guilds that wished to raise the prices of products had to get all members to restrict output. Guilds that wished to develop respected reputations had to get all members to sell superior merchandise. Guild members contributed money – to pay priests and purchase pious paraphernalia – and contributed time, emotion, and personal energy, as well. Members participated in frequent religious services, attended funerals, and prayed for the souls of the brethren. Members had to live piously, abstaining both from the pleasures of the flesh and the material temptations of secular life. Members also had to administer their associations. The need for coordination was a common denominator.
To convince members to cooperate and advance their common interests, guilds formed stable, self-enforcing associations that possessed structures for making and implementing collective decisions.
A guild’s members met at least once a year (and in most cases more often) to elect officers, audit accounts, induct new members, debate policies, and amend ordinances. Officers such as aldermen, stewards, deans, and clerks managed the guild’s day to day affairs. Aldermen directed guild activities and supervised lower-ranking officers. Stewards kept guild funds, and their accounts were periodically audited. Deans summoned members to meetings, feasts, and funerals, and in many cases, policed members’ behavior. Clerks kept records. Decisions were usually made by majority vote among the master craftsmen.
These officers administered a nexus of agreements among a guild’s members. Details of these agreements varied greatly from guild to guild, but the issues addressed were similar in all cases. Members agreed to contribute certain resources and/or take certain actions that furthered the guild’s occupational and spiritual endeavors. Officers of the guild monitored members’ contributions. Manufacturing guilds, for example, employed officers known as searchers who scrutinized members’ merchandise to make sure it met guild standards and inspected members’ shops and homes seeking evidence of attempts to circumvent the rules. Members who failed to fulfill their obligations faced punishments of various sorts.
Punishments varied across transgressions, guilds, time, and space, but a pattern existed. First time offenders were punished lightly, perhaps suffering public scolding and paying small monetary fines, and repeat offenders punished harshly. The ultimate threat was expulsion. Guilds could do nothing harsher because laws protected persons and property from arbitrary expropriations and physical abuse. The legal system set the rights of individuals above the interests of organizations. Guilds were voluntary associations. Members facing harsh punishments could quit the guild and walk away. The most the guild could extract was the value of membership. Abundant evidence indicates that guilds enforced agreements in this manner.
Other game-theoretic options existed, of course. Guilds could have punished uncooperative members by taking actions with wider consequences. Members of a manufacturing guild who caught one of their own passing off shoddy merchandise under the guilds’ good name could have punished the offender by collectively lowering the quality of their products for a prolonged period. That would lower the offender’s income, albeit at the cost of lowering the income of all other members as well. Similarly, members of a guild that caught one of their brethren shirking on prayers and sinning incessantly could have punished the offender by collectively forsaking the Lord and descending into debauchery. Then, no one would or could pray for the soul of the offender, and his period in Purgatory would be extended significantly. In broader terms, cheaters could have been punished by any action that reduced the average incomes of all guild members or increased the pain that all members expected to endure in Purgatory. In theory, such threats could have convinced even the most recalcitrant members to contribute to the common good.
But, no evidence exists that craft guilds ever operated in such a manner. None of the hundreds of surviving guild ordinances contains threats of such a kind. No surviving guild documents describe punishing the innocent along with the guilty. Guilds appear to have eschewed indiscriminant retaliation for several salient reasons. First, monitoring members’ behavior was costly and imperfect. Time and risk preferences varied across individuals. Uncertainty of many kinds influenced craftsmen’s decisions. Some members would have attempted to cheat regardless of the threatened punishment. Punishments, in other words, would have occurred in equilibrium. The cost of carrying out an equilibrium-sustaining threat of expulsion would have been lower than the cost of carrying out an equilibrium-sustaining threat that reduced average income. Thus, expelling members caught violating the rules was an efficient method of enforcing the rules. Second, punishing free riders by indiscriminately harming all guild members may not have been a convincing threat. Individuals may not have believed that threats of mutual assured destruction would be carried out. The incentive to renegotiate was strong. Third, skepticism probably existed about threats to do onto others as they had done onto you. That concept contradicted a fundamental teaching of the church, to do onto others as you would have them do onto you. It also contradicted Jesus’ admonition to turn the other cheek. Thus, indiscriminant retaliation based upon hair-trigger strategies was not an organizing principle likely to be adopted by guilds whose members hoped to speed passage through Purgatory.
A hierarchy existed in large guilds. Masters were full members who usually owned their own workshops, retail outlets, or trading vessels. Masters employed journeymen, who were laborers who worked for wages on short term contracts or a daily basis (hence the term journeyman, from the French word for day). Journeymen hoped to one day advance to the level of master. To do this, journeymen usually had to save enough money to open a workshop and pay for admittance, or if they were lucky, receive a workshop through marriage or inheritance.
Masters also supervised apprentices, who were usually boys in their teens who worked for room, board, and perhaps a small stipend in exchange for a vocational education. Both guilds and government regulated apprenticeships, usually to ensure that masters fulfilled their part of the apprenticeship agreement. Terms of apprenticeships varied, usually lasting from five to nine years.
The internal structure of guilds varied widely across Europe. Little is known for certain about the structure of smaller guilds, since they left few written documents. Most of the evidence comes from large, successful associations whose internal records survive to the present day. The description above is based on such documents. It seems likely that smaller organizations fulfilled many of the same functions, but their structure was probably less formal and more horizontal.
Relationships between guilds and governments also varied across Europe. Most guilds aspired to attain recognition as a self-governing association with the right to possess property and other legal privileges. Guilds often purchased these rights from municipal and national authorities. In England, for example, a guild which wished to possess property had to purchase from the royal government a writ allowing it to do so. But, most guilds operated without formal sanction from the government. Guilds were spontaneous, voluntary, and self-enforcing associations.
Guild Chronology and Impact
Reconstructing the history of guilds poses several problems. Few written records survive from the twelfth century and earlier. Surviving documents consist principally of the records of rulers – kings, princes, churches – that taxed, chartered, and granted privileges to organizations. Some evidence also exists in the records of notaries and courts, which recorded and enforced contracts between guild masters and outsiders, such as the parents of apprentices. From the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, records survive in larger numbers. Surviving records include statute books and other documents describing the internal organization and operation of guilds. The evidence at hand links the rise and decline of guilds to several important events in the history of Western Europe.
In the late Roman Empire, organizations resembling guilds existed in most towns and cities. These voluntary associations of artisans, known as collegia, were occasionally regulated by the state but largely left alone. They were organized along trade lines and possessed a strong social base, since their members shared religious observances and fraternal dinners. Most of these organizations disappeared during the Dark Ages, when the Western Roman Empire disintegrated and urban life collapsed. In the Eastern Empire, some collegia appear to have survived from antiquity into the Middle Ages, particularly in Constantinople, where Leo the Wise codified laws concerning commerce and crafts at the beginning of the tenth century and sources reveal an unbroken tradition of state management of guilds from ancient times. Some scholars suspect that in the West, a few of the most resilient collegia in the surviving urban areas may have evolved in an unbroken descent into medieval guilds, but the absence of documentary evidence makes it appear unlikely and unprovable.
In the centuries following the Germanic invasions, evidence indicates that numerous guild-like associations existed in towns and rural areas. These organizations functioned as modern burial and benefit societies, whose objectives included prayers for the souls of deceased members, payments of weregilds in cases of justifiable homicide, and supporting members involved in legal disputes. These rural guilds were descendents of Germanic social organizations known as gilda which the Roman historian Tacitus referred to as convivium.
During the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, considerable economic development occurred. The sources of development were increases in the productivity of medieval agriculture, the abatement of external raiding by Scandinavian and Muslim brigands, and population increases. The revival of long-distance trade coincided with the expansion of urban areas. Merchant guilds formed an institutional foundation for this commercial revolution. Merchant guilds flourished in towns throughout Europe, and in many places, rose to prominence in urban political structures. In many towns in England, for example, the merchant guild became synonymous with the body of burgesses and evolved into the municipal government. In Genoa and Venice, the merchant aristocracy controlled the city government, which promoted their interests so well as to preclude the need for a formal guild.
Merchant guilds’ principal accomplishment was establishing the institutional foundations for long-distance commerce. Italian sources provide the best picture of guilds’ rise to prominence as an economic and social institution. Merchant guilds appear in many Italian cities in the twelfth century. Craft guilds became ubiquitous during the succeeding century.
In northern Europe, merchant guilds rose to prominence a few generations later. In the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, local merchant guilds in trading cities such as Lubeck and Bremen formed alliances with merchants throughout the Baltic region. The alliance system grew into the Hanseatic League which dominated trade around the Baltic and North Seas and in Northern Germany.
Social and religious guilds existed at this time, but few records survive. Small numbers of craft guilds developed, principally in prosperous industries such as cloth manufacturing, but records are also rare, and numbers appear to have been small.
As economic expansion continued in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the influence of the Catholic Church grew, and the doctrine of Purgatory developed. The doctrine inspired the creation of countless religious guilds, since the doctrine provided members with strong incentives to want to belong to a group whose prayers would help one enter heaven and it provided guilds with mechanisms to induce members to exert effort on behalf of the organization. Many of these religious associations evolved into occupational guilds. Most of the Livery Companies of London, for example, began as intercessory societies around this time.
The number of guilds continued to grow after the Black Death. There are several potential explanations. The decline in population raised per-capita incomes, which encouraged the expansion of consumption and commerce, which in turn necessitated the formation of institutions to satisfy this demand. Repeated epidemics decreased family sizes, particularly in cities, where the typical adult had on average perhaps 1.5 surviving children, few surviving siblings, and only a small extended family, if any. Guilds replaced extended families in a form of fictive kinship. The decline in family size and impoverishment of the church also forced individuals to rely on their guild more in times of trouble, since they no longer could rely on relatives and priests to sustain them through periods of crisis. All of these changes bound individuals more closely to guilds, discouraged free riding, and encouraged the expansion of collective institutions.
For nearly two centuries after the Black Death, guilds dominated life in medieval towns. Any town resident of consequence belonged to a guild. Most urban residents thought guild membership to be indispensable. Guilds dominated manufacturing, marketing, and commerce. Guilds dominated local politics and influenced national and international affairs. Guilds were the center of social and spiritual life.
The heyday of guilds lasted into the sixteenth century. The Reformation weakened guilds in most newly Protestant nations. In England, for example, the royal government suppressed thousands of guilds in the 1530s and 1540s. The king and his ministers dispatched auditors to every guild in the realm. The auditors seized spiritual paraphernalia and funds retained for religious purposes, disbanded guilds which existed for purely pious purposes, and forced craft and merchant guilds to pay large sums for the right to remain in operation. Those guilds that did still lost the ability to provide members with spiritual services.
In Protestant nations after the Reformation, the influence of guilds waned. Many turned to governments for assistance. They requested monopolies on manufacturing and commerce and asked courts to force members to live up to their obligations. Guilds lingered where governments provided such assistance. Guilds faded where governments did not. By the seventeenth century, the power of guilds had withered in England. Guilds retained strength in nations which remained Catholic. France abolished its guilds during the French Revolution in 1791, and Napoleon’s armies disbanded guilds in most of the continental nations which they occupied during the next two decades.
References
Basing, Patricia. Trades and Crafts in Medieval Manuscripts. London: British Library, 1990.
Cooper, R.C.H. The Archives of the City of London Livery Companies and Related Organizations. London: Guildhall Library, 1985.
Davidson, Clifford. Technology, Guilds, and Early English Drama. Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series, 23. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1996
Epstein, S. R. “Craft Guilds, Apprenticeships, and Technological Change in Pre-Industrial Europe.” Journal of Economic History 58 (1998): 684-713.
Epstein, Steven. Wage and Labor Guilds in Medieval Europe. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
Gross, Charles. The Gild Merchant; A Contribution to British Municipal History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890.
Gustafsson, Bo. “The Rise and Economic Behavior of Medieval Craft Guilds: An Economic-Theoretical Interpretation.” Scandinavian Journal of Economics 35, no. 1 (1987): 1-40.
Hanawalt, Barbara. “Keepers of the Lights: Late Medieval English Parish Gilds.” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 14 (1984).
Hatcher, John and Edward Miller. Medieval England: Towns, Commerce and Crafts, 1086 – 1348. London: Longman, 1995.
Hickson, Charles R. and Earl A. Thompson. “A New Theory of Guilds and European Economic Development.” Explorations in Economic History. 28 (1991): 127-68.
Lopez, Robert. The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950-1350. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
Mokyr, Joel. The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990
Pirenne, Henri. Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade. Frank Halsey (translator). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952.
Richardson, Gary. “A Tale of Two Theories: Monopolies and Craft Guilds in Medieval England and Modern Imagination.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought (2001).
Richardson, Gary. “Brand Names Before the Industrial Revolution.” UC Irvine Working Paper, 2000.
Richardson, Gary. “Guilds, Laws, and Markets for Manufactured Merchandise in Late-Medieval England,” Explorations in Economic History 41 (2004): 1–25.
Richardson, Gary. “Christianity and Craft Guilds in Late Medieval England: A Rational Choice Analysis” Rationality and Society 17 (2005): 139-89
Richardson, Gary. “The Prudent Village: Risk Pooling Institutions in Medieval English Agriculture,” Journal of Economic History 65, no. 2 (2005): 386–413.
Smith, Toulmin. English Gilds. London: N. Trübner & Co., 1870.
Swanson, Heather. 1983. Building Craftsmen in Late Medieval York. York: University of York, 1983.
Thrupp, Sylvia. The Merchant Class of Medieval London 1300-1500. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Unwin, George. The Guilds and Companies of London. London: Methuen & Company, 1904.
Ward, Joseph. Metropolitan Communities: Trade Guilds, Identity, and Change in Early Modern London. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1997.
Westlake, H. F. The Parish Gilds of Mediaeval England. London: Society for Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1919.
Citation: Richardson, Gary. “Medieval Guilds”. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. March 16, 2008. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/medieval-guilds/
Harreld, Donald J.
Published by EH.NET (December 2011)
Sheilagh Ogilvie, Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. vi + 493 pp. $38 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-521-74792-9.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Donald J. Harreld, Department of History, Brigham Young University.
Why did merchant guilds exist for such a long time in Europe? This is an obvious question to ask of an institution that persisted for hundreds of years, but one for which it turns out there is not an easy answer. Most scholars who have studied merchant guilds have insisted that merchant guilds must have existed, and persisted, because they were efficient institutions; inefficient institutions, on the other hand, are doomed to be short lived.
Ogilvie begins her book by asking one overriding and very penetrating question: were merchant guilds efficient institutions that benefitted the entire economy? For Ogilvie, this is the heart of the matter. Because merchant guilds do not exhibit all of the characteristics of efficient institutions, she asks us to consider why they arose, why they survived for such a long time, and why they ultimately declined. Merchant guilds regulated trade, they operated as monopolies, they distorted markets, fixed prices, and restricted entrance into the guild. Does this, she wonders, sound like an efficient institution? For Ogilvie, the only way to answer these questions is to look at everything merchant guilds did — both positive and negative — in order to understand how and if they were beneficial to economic development. She is asking us to back away from the assumption that merchant guilds were efficient institutions. This will not be easy for the many scholars of merchant guilds who have hitched their wagon to the efficiency theory. This book presents us with a ?radical reassessment of both merchant guilds in economic history and institutions in economic theory? (p. 5).
What was a merchant guild? This is, indeed, the title of the book?s second chapter as well as a very good question. Scholars well versed in the history of merchant guilds could skim this chapter, but it provides a foundation for those newer to the topic. Merchant guilds were associations of wholesale traders. They could be either an association of local merchants, or an association of merchants from one geographical area who formed colonies abroad for long-distance trade (what Ogilvie calls, alien merchant guilds). These merchant guilds obtained certain privileges from a ruler that gave its members ?exclusive rights to practice certain commercial activities? (p. 20). Merchant guilds were institutions that enjoyed monopoly rights (the exclusive right to trade, right to decide membership, and a right to regulate their trade). Although of ancient origin, they experienced a hey-day in the high and late Middle Ages. Alien merchant guilds date to the early twelfth century, appearing first in the eastern Mediterranean and later in the Italian cities. By the end of the thirteenth century, alien merchant guilds had spread to all of Europe?s major trading centers. Merchant guilds began to decline in the sixteenth century, first in the Low Countries and England, but persisted elsewhere in Europe until the eighteenth century. Ogilvie points out that the merchant companies of the early modern period shared characteristics with earlier merchant guilds.
But Ogilvie is not presenting a simple narrative history of the merchant guild in this book. She is actively engaging — and challenging — the literature, the bulk of which she suggests has only unconvincingly argued that while monopolistic in theory, merchant guilds were in practice non-monopolistic. Ogilvie?s reading of the evidence suggests that merchant guilds, both local and alien, not only negotiated monopoly privileges from rulers, they actively and enthusiastically sought to enforce these monopoly privileges. Indeed, for Ogilvie, merchant guilds were not at all the efficient institutions many scholars have made them out to be.
But, again, if they were not efficient, why did merchant guilds persist? Ogilvie suggests that the answer is found not in questions of efficiency, but in distribution. According to her, ?an institution that keeps the economic pie small but distributes large slices to powerful groups can be sustained for centuries by its powerful beneficiaries? (p. 160). So merchant guilds did not necessarily increase the size of the economic pie, but they did allow merchants and rulers to take the biggest slices themselves. Of course, benefits were not uniform across merchant guilds because each guild negotiated individually with rulers so that both would obtain the best ?bundle? of benefits. Although merchants and rulers benefitted from these arrangements, the wider economy was actually affected negatively. According to Ogilvie, ?commercial monopolies reduced the volume of exchange and diminished gains from trade? (p. 163).
The book includes chapters that examine a variety of propositions scholars have put forward about why merchants guilds existed and what functions they performed that prompted scholars to characterize them as efficient: commercial security, contract enforcement, principal-agent problems, information exchange, and price volatility. In all cases, Ogilvie rehearses the ?standard? interpretations and systematically challenges them all, showing that merchant guilds were only one of many mechanisms (and probably the least efficient) in place that could potentially solve these problems for medieval and early modern merchants.
So if merchant guilds were not the efficient institutions they have so often been made out to be, how can we explain their longevity? Of course, Ogilvie has already provided an answer. It is found ?in the distributional services guilds offered to two powerful groups? (p. 417). They affected the ruler?s ability to ?extract extra revenues? from the population, and, for merchants, the ability to ?extract profit from trade? (p. 417-18). Ogilvie clearly rejects throughout this book the notion that merchant guilds were able to solve commercial problems in a way that benefitted the entire economy. Indeed, merchant guilds, according to Ogilvie, benefitted their own members at the expense of the wider economy.
Ogilvie?s conclusion has profound implications for the study of economic institutions, and that is what makes this an important book — one might even call it a game-changer. For Ogilvie, institutions cannot be adequately explained in terms of efficiency; indeed, the entirety of an institution?s actions as well as all of its economic effects needs to be considered. She admits that taking such an all-encompassing approach will make our analyses more complicated, but the result will be a much better understanding of the ways institutions ?behave and develop? (p. 426).?
Donald J. Harreld is Associate Professor and Chair of the History Department at Brigham Young University. Harreld is the author of High Germans in the Low Countries: German Merchants and Commerce in Golden Age Antwerp (Leiden, 2004), and several articles that examine social and economic history including: ?Foreign Merchants and International Trade Networks in the Sixteenth-Century Low Countries,? Journal of European Economic History, Vol. 39/1 (2010) and ?An Education in Commerce: Transmitting Business Information in Early Modern Europe? in Information Flows: New Approaches in the Historical Study of Business Information (Helsinki, 2007). His current research projects include a book-length study of early seventeenth-century Dutch commercial voyages, and broader research into early modern commercial networks.
Copyright (c) 2011 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator ([email protected]). Published by EH.Net (December 2011). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
Subject(s):
MacLeod, Christine
Published by EH.NET (December 2008)
S. R. Epstein and Maarten Prak, editors, Guilds, Innovation and the European Economy, 1400-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. viii + 352 pp. $99 (cloth), ISBN: 978-0-521-88717-5.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Christine MacLeod, School of Humanities, University of Bristol.
Until recently, Adam Smith?s condemnation of craft guilds as ?a conspiracy against the public? has implied that the juxtaposition of ?guilds? and ?innovation? is an oxymoron. That this no longer so is thanks to three decades of lively revisionist scholarship, which has seen guilds rehabilitated as significant political and cultural institutions, especially by historians of pre-revolutionary France. Economic historians, however, with one or two exceptions ? one thinks especially of R. W. Unger?s Dutch Shipbuilding before 1800 (Assen, 1978) ? have been slow to relinquish the stereotype of moribund rent-seekers whose habitual reaction to technical innovation was resistance and rejection. Yet, a fruitful debate has now been joined, with the revisionist camp ably represented here, not least by S. R. (Larry) Epstein, whose untimely death occurred during the preparation of this volume. Their claim is a bold one: ?that the impact of [craft] guilds on the early modern economy was more positive than has so far been acknowledged by historians of the traditional, and even of the revisionist, school? (p. 23). As several contributors explicitly recognize, they have an arch-critic in Sheilagh Ogilvie, whose important work on early modern Germany challenges the natural tendency of revisionists to over-compensate, reminding us in particular of the guilds? economically inefficient patriarchal, hierarchical and anti-Semitic exclusivity. With that in mind, let us examine the case for the defense.
First, six comparative syntheses of research (including Epstein and Prak?s lucid introduction) emphasize different aspects of the craft guilds? economic function and role in innovation. Ulrich Pfister?s contribution is divided between two chapters, the first of which has relatively little to say about technical innovation, but offers an enlightening exploration of craft guilds through the modern theory of the firm. His argument, that ?craft guilds and firms were functional substitutes? (p. 50), rests on a demonstration of the guilds? firm-like behavior in delegated monitoring and vertical integration, both of which reduced their members? agency costs. Focusing on the entrepreneurial activities of master artisans engaged in the export trades, Catharina Lys and Hugo Soly explore the development of subcontracting amongst them and compare it (not unfavorably) with proto-industrialization. Reith Reinhold condenses an extensive body of research, most of it previously only available in German, on the circulation of skilled labor through central Europe since the fourteenth century. Not only does he emphasize migrant artisans? role as the principal conduit of technological diffusion, especially of ?tacit? knowledge, but he also shows how ?tramping? acquired an important function in the acquisition of skills and completion of a journeyman?s training, to the point where some guilds began to insist on it.
A further six contributions investigate individual cities and/or crafts: London commands the lion?s share, justified by the conventional belief that its guilds, being incompatible with industrialization, were the first to disappear. This justification is dismantled implicitly throughout but explicitly by Ian Anders Gadd?s and Patrick Wallis? demonstration of how four metropolitan guilds succeeded in establishing nationwide jurisdictions in the period 1500-1700 (without the harmful effects that Ogilvie has identified elsewhere), and by Michael Berlin?s analysis of the varying fortunes of London?s guilds through to their legal termination in 1837: ?far from experiencing a long ?natural? decline, the regulatory mechanisms of many of the companies were abrogated as a result of historical conjunctions and circumstances unique to each trade? (p. 337). Anthony Turner compares the various ways in which the novel trades of horology and instrument making were absorbed into early modern Europe?s corporate structure and highlights their generally positive attitudes towards technical innovation. Guilds? hostility to patents, which they opposed as restraints on trade, stood in sharp contrast to the ferment of ?collective invention? that placed these crafts among the most technically dynamic. Similarly, Francesca Trivellato?s exposition of how Venice?s silk and glass trades adapted to innovation downplays the significance of patents in this, their legislative ?home? (Venice enacted Europe?s first patent law in 1474). Instead, she highlights the importance in glassmaking of private recipe books, which were ?so precious that they were included in women?s dowries? (p. 224n), as both revealing of constant product innovation and intra-guild competitiveness. Perhaps most surprising of all, we find seventeenth-century Dutch artists clamoring to be organized into guilds. Yet, as Maarten Prak suggests, Holland?s booming art market could only be supplied through large increases in productivity, implying extensive specialization and division of labor, such that ?painters had to get used to working for a market that was not fundamentally different from the market for wine or furniture? (p. 150). Painters? guilds offered their members expanded facilities, including corporate salesrooms where the pricing of such hard-to-value products could be publicly determined and events for the discreet education of newly rich customers.
Three contributions stand out for their particular concern to specify the links between guilds and innovation. Epstein?s, reprinted from the Journal of Economic History (1998), contends that the craft guilds? primary function was to police the transmission of skills via the regulation of apprenticeship, thereby sharing out ?the unattributed costs and benefits of training among its members? (p. 56). Adam Smith?s mistaken belief that apprenticeship?s purpose was rather to defend a labor-market monopsony, argues Epstein, stemmed from his undervaluing the difficulty and cost of transmitting skill, especially its ?tacit? component which could only be taught through personal demonstration and repeated practice; simultaneously, the apprentice learned his master?s trade secrets. From the resulting high investment in human capital flowed three unintended but systematic boosts to innovation: ?by establishing a favourable environment for technical change; by promoting technical specialisation through training and technical recombination through artisan mobility; and by providing inventors with monopoly rents? (p. 73). Such incremental innovation via quotidian problem-solving was of infinitely greater significance, Epstein suggests, than the more visible cases of guilds overtly resisting labor-saving machinery.
The ironic implication of Epstein?s argument for Liliane P?rez?s study of pre-revolutionary Lyon is the guilds? own ignorance of this involuntary progress. For, while most contributors offer examples of guilds passively accepting product innovations and even new processes provided they were labor- or skill-intensive, P?rez shows the Grande Fabrique (Lyon?s powerful silk guild) taking great pains to actively promote and disseminate them. French guilds generally were in tune with the ?enlightened? state?s policy of promoting innovation through offering financial incentives. Yet, Lyon was demonstrably ?the most technologically innovative city in France? (p. 242). In its quest to forestall secrecy and private appropriations of knowledge, the Grande Fabrique mobilized various local institutions to validate inventions and assess appropriate levels of reward; it instituted a public repository of models; and it paid bonuses in proportion to the number of new devices sold to Lyon weavers. Ultimately, however, such interventionism proved not merely unnecessary but possibly counter-productive: P?rez points to the bitter contests over priority and ?unfair? reward that erupted.
Pfister?s second chapter takes the bull of innovation by the horns, investigating the checkered career of the engine loom for weaving silk ribbons. Although the labor-saving engine loom was predictably resisted by most guilds, Pfister?s analysis demonstrates that this was neither universal ? it depended on local economic and institutional contexts ? nor without other implications for the organization of labor, such as cutting costs to compete with mechanization through the increased employment of women (as Trivellato shows happening in Italy).
What emerges from this exceptionally coherent volume is not only the complexity of this institution, whose history spans more than half a millennium and a myriad of particular trades and local circumstances, but also the persistent tensions to which it was subjected, both internally from individualistic and capitalist challenges to its collective ethos and externally from the exigencies of nation states. Moreover, it adds another spur to the demanding search for innovation in the workshop and on the construction site, rather than in the too easily accessed and counted records of the patent office.
Christine MacLeod is Professor of History at the University of Bristol and author of Heroes of Invention: Technology, Liberalism and British Identity, 1750-1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Subject(s):
Published by EH.NET (October 2006)
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Maarten Prak, Catharina Lis, Jan Lucassen and Hugo Soly, editors, Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power, and Representation. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2006. xii + 269 pp. $100 (cloth), ISBN: 0-7546-5339-0.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Gary Richardson, Department of Economics, University of California, Irvine.
Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries is an edited collection that summarizes the conclusions of a group of scholars who have, during the last decade, revolutionized our understanding of craft guilds in the late-medieval and early-modern Netherlands. The volume is a seminal contribution to several literatures, a must-read for scholars interested in the economy of early modern Europe, and filled with insights likely to influence scholars interested in a wide range of nations, topics, and time periods.
The collection contains nine chapters. All of them contain valuable insights. In this brief review, I try, but cannot possibly, thoroughly describe them all. My goal is to briefly describe a handful of the most intriguing and important insights in each chapter, in hopes of encouraging readers of this review to read the book.
The first chapter is “Craft Guilds in Comparative Perspective: The Northern and Southern Netherlands, a Survey,” by Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly. This chapter discusses the traditional scholarship concerning guilds, describes issues of recent interest, defines the organizations to be examined, and outlines the broad conclusions of the group. The chapter points out that “few institutions have been so omnipresent as craft guilds in the lives of such a multitude of city dwellers in so many European countries” (p. 1). The chapter notes that craft guilds had many functions. Some of the most important were occupational, social, religious, political, and mutual-aid. The chapter asks why apparently similar institutions served so many different purposes and had such varying effects. The rest of the essay answers these questions.
Chapter 2 is “The Establishment and Distribution of Craft Guilds in the Low Countries: 1000-1800,” by Bert De Munck, Piet Lourens and Jan Lucassen. This chapter examines a database of several thousand guilds representing a large portion of the occupational organizations that existed in the Netherlands over the last one thousand years. The analysis yields a number of distinct patterns. To a large extent, the rise of guilds paralleled the rise of cities and procurement of civic charters. The prosperity of guilds and cities went hand in hand. The guilds played an important part in encouraging the expansion of commerce in cities such as Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, and Amsterdam; but also played a role in their decline, probably by inhibiting innovation and protecting the interests of members at the expense of the public interest. Guilds developed first in the southern Netherlands. On the eve of the Dutch Revolt, the pattern in the North and South was similar. The guild system had matured in most sizeable towns and cities. After the Dutch revolt, developments diverged. The economic and demographic center shifted to the North, where the economy continued to flourish and guilds continued to grow. The political success of the Reformation in the northern Netherlands caused a reorientation of guilds away from religious and towards social functions, such as care for the poor. An appendix to the chapter describes the data, which will probably form the basis for the quantitative study of Dutch guilds into the foreseeable future.
Chapter 3 is “Corporate Politics in the Low Countries: Guilds as Institutions, 14th to 18th Centuries,” by Maarten Prak. The chapter begins with the observation that “the origins and evolution of craft guilds were influenced as much by political developments as economic ones.” The evidence and analysis laid out in the chapter substantiates that statement. The first section discusses the revolutionary activities of guilds in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, beginning with the Battle of the Spurs, on 11 July 1302, when an army of Flemish artisans defeated a force of French aristocratic infantry. During the next two centuries, towns throughout the Low Countries provided artisans in their municipal constitution, a revolutionary act that linked guilds and local politics and the defense of urban social and political orders. Guilds’ involvement in urban politics had in important and symbiotic influence on the evolution of guilds and governments for the next several centuries. Patterns diverged between the south, east, and west. Much can be learned from studying this divergence.
Chapter 4 is “Export Industries, Craft Guilds and Capitalist Trajectories, 13th to 18th Centuries,” by Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly. The chapter examines the trajectories of industries during the late medieval and early modern eras. The chapter concludes that guilds did not intrinsically promote or impede the rise of export industries. The success or failure of industries depended upon which groups wielded economic and political control. The involvement of groups with divergent and conflicting interests in the production of export goods explains the transformations that guilds underwent over time. The organizational structure of export industries followed different courses in the North and the South. Institutional developments in Flanders and Brabant paved the way for the rise of industrial export capitalism from the fourteenth century onward, while seventeenth-century Holland reached the most advanced stage of merchant capitalism.
Chapter 5 is “Dressed to Work: A Gendered Comparison of the Tailoring Trades in the Northern and Southern Netherlands, 16th to 18th Centuries,” by Harald Deceulaer and Bibi Panhuysen. This chapter compares Northern and Southern industries during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, examining the relationship between women and guilds, and the extent to and ways in which women were excluded from the organizations. The comparison shows that economic challenges to the same sector in different regions could elicit entirely different institutional responses, which in turn could affect the way the market operated. In the northern Netherlands, which possessed more women and fewer men as a percentage of the population, female seamstresses grew in prominence in garment production during the eighteenth century, while in the southern Netherlands, craft guilds and the garment industry remained more exclusively male.
Chapter 6 is “Religion and Social Structure: Religious Rituals in Pre-industrial Trade Associations in the Low Countries,” by Alfons K. L. Thijs. This chapter shows that from the later Middle Ages onward, craft guilds engaged in religious activities as well as social and economic functions. Free associations of fellow tradesmen even propagated religious worship as their chief mission. Craft guilds and religious brotherhoods often existed alongside one another and were in some cases affiliated. Many craft guilds arose from brotherhoods during the early modern period. After the Reformation in the northern Netherlands, collective requiems to commemorate dead guild members ceased. The decline occurred even in the southern Netherlands, despite the eventual military and political victory of Catholicism there, because the Counter Reformation infringed upon the guild system’s religious, popular, and devotional traditions.
Chapter 7 is “A Tradition of Giving and Receiving: Mutual Aid within the Guild System,” by Sandra Bos. The chapter begins with the observation that “mutual aid for and by the members has figured among the guilds’ responsibilities from the outset” (p. 174) and that guilds struggled to overcome “the problems inherent in insuring small populations” (p. 174). The chapter goes on to explore the variety of mutual insurance systems in early modern guild associations and inquires into the role of religion, municipal administration and economic prosperity in the emergence of these systems. Before the Reformation, mutual aid was often a religious arrangement. After the Reformation, mutual aid continued to be provided, even in the Northern Netherlands, where guilds abandoned their religious roles. The mutual aid consisted of aid to craftsmen who were unable to support themselves due to illness, disability, or infirmity in old age; assistance to widows and surviving children; and funding for funerals and burials of the deceased.
Chapter 8 is “Corporative Capital and Social Representation in the Southern and Northern Netherlands, 1500-1800,” by Johan Dambruyne. This chapter investigates the sources and influence of corporate capital created and accumulated by guilds in the early modern Netherlands. Three kinds of capital are examined. The first is economic capital, or in other words, the material form of accumulated labor. The second is social capital, defined as the benefits arising from a self-sustaining network of relationships. The third is cultural capital, principally being education, science, art, and ideas. The chapter concludes that early modern guilds clearly invested in capital of all three types, but heterogeneity existed in strategies for accumulating and employing capital. Differences existed across industries, time, and towns. Differences also existed between the northern Netherlands, where guilds invested more in economic capital, and the southern Netherlands, where guilds invested more in social capital.
The last chapter, by Jan Lucassen and Maarten Prak, concludes that craft guilds in the Low Countries contributed to the economic, political, social, and religious fabric of the region. Craft guilds fostered medieval and early modern economic development. Craft guilds varied greatly in the tasks that they undertook, structures that they adopted, and ways in which they interacted with the political and cultural systems in which they were embedded. The importance of the local context cannot be overstated, yet a general conclusion can be drawn. “Guilds in the Low Countries played a highly significant role, not only in the lives of their own members, but also in shaping the societies they were part of.”
Now, it is time for my general conclusions. I believe this volume summarizes a wide range of insights into the economy, polity, and society of the late-medieval and early-modern Netherlands. It should be read by scholars interested in that period and scholars interested in the general relationship between institutions and economic development.
Gary Richardson is the author of “Guilds, Laws, and Markets for Manufactured Merchandise in Late-Medieval England,” Explorations in Economic History (2004) and “The Prudent Village: Risk Pooling Institutions in Medieval English Agriculture,” Journal of Economic History (2005).
Subject(s):
Bossenga, Gail
Published by EH.Net (September 2015)
Jeff Horn, Economic Development in Early Modern France: The Privilege of Liberty, 1650-1820. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. viii + 319 pp. $105 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-107-04628-3.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Gail Bossenga, Elizabethtown College.
It has often been said that economic growth in France during the old regime suffered from the stranglehold of a welter of privileges that prevented efficiency, innovation, and competition. At the same time, historians have observed that economic growth in eighteenth-century France was quite robust and compared favorably with Great Britain. In this ambitious study, Jeff Horn, Professor of History at Manhattan College, takes on this seeming contradiction and argues that although some privileges did check economic development, the Bourbon government was able to use other privileges effectively as a way to counteract these blockages and open up France to economic opportunities. These countervailing privileges freed businessmen from regulations, inspections, guild reception fees, limitations on workforce size, taxes, militia service, and other such requirements associated with the jumble of privileged bodies in the old regime. Because these privileges liberated entrepreneurs from other, undesirable privileges, Horn calls the government’s strategy the “privilege of liberty.” Not only did businessmen acquire the liberty that they needed to create dynamic enterprises, the French government found a way to create dynamic growth that allowed it to compete with its rivals internationally.
Several types of privileges contributed to this strategy. Enclaves outside city walls controlled by seigneurs with rights of high justices were unimpeded by guild regulations, allowed manufacturers to hire as many workers as they needed, and provided the freedom to experiment with innovative products. Territories, such as Avignon and Orange, enjoyed rights of transit, which allowed them to sell silk at costs lower than a rival like Lyon. The special status of “royal manufacture” exempted entrepreneurs from burdens such as guild controls and customs duties, and sometimes even provided subsidies. Rights of naturalization and de facto toleration allowed highly successful Jewish, Protestant and foreign businessmen to continue to build up their enterprises, even though religious minorities as a whole suffered legal disabilities.
Colbert and many of his successors believed that quality control was essential to win foreign markets, and used a combination of strict regulation and privilege to achieve this end. The poor quality of the woolens in Languedoc, for example, had led Turkish markets to reject them. By subsidizing woolen manufacturers there, setting up a cartel that limited debilitating competition, and requiring members of the cartel to adhere to rigorous quality controls, officials were able to stimulate a noticeable increase in woolen exports.
In the realm of colonial commerce, the Bourbon state used privileged, chartered trading companies to raise the necessary capital to exploit overseas markets. Under Louis XIV, the government created 39 trading companies with monopolies over trade in particular regions. All of these companies, however, with the exception of the East Indies Company, failed. Greater freedom to trade in the Antilles, by contrast, led to spectacular commercial growth. In this case, by contrast to Horn’s other examples, “liberty was more effective than privilege in encouraging colonial development” (p. 118).
After 1750, reforming government officials began to embrace liberty and competition as the watchword of economic vitality. As a result, Horn argues, Bourbon policy became characterized by the “privilege of liberty,” that is, officials “increasingly deployed the language of liberty to justify the long-standing practice of granting privileges” (p. 5). Liberty proved difficult to implement, and was no panacea for the economy. Turgot’s unsuccessful attempt to abolish the guilds, for example, destabilized the work force and undid years of regulatory quality measures that had supported exports.
The Revolution changed the rules of the game by embracing liberty as a foundational principle. Some economic privileges survived one or two years, but overall the slate was wiped clean. Horn argues that after the Revolution privilege started to return under the guise of regulations, but the goal of administrators was always to protect consumers and guarantee the quality of exports. No lasting privileges took root, except for a reduced version of Marseille’s old free port status and a set of state-regulated trademarks that could be used in regions known for producing high-quality textiles.
Horn’s book draws on an impressive array of sources in the secondary literature, as well as national and regional archives. He shows that the Bourbon state was more flexible and pragmatic than one might have assumed, and he makes a good case that privilege had a role to play in helping to advance the cause of economic progress.
At the same time, some features of the book are problematic. The author has a disconcerting and recurring tendency to start with one generalization and end with another that appears to contradict the first. Thus one runs into statements like, “chapters two to seven demonstrate that reliance on privilege made the practice of mercantilism both capitalist and absolutist.” The next paragraph states, “Even though it created a potentially hegemonic fiscal-military state, the Bourbon monarchy was never ‘absolute’” (p. 12). Does this mean that the mercantilist use of privilege was absolutist, but the Bourbon government employing it was not?
There is reason to suspect that crony capitalism was more involved in the distribution of privilege than Horn’s narrative suggests. There are occasional allusions to favoritism. Thus, in Guyenne, “close ties to administrative and social elites” allowed protected entrepreneurs to drive out competitors, so that glass making there stagnated (p. 212). Yet it would be surprising if more of these deals were not present. Royally chartered joint stock companies, for example, were notorious for relying on insiders at the royal court.
Finally, evaluating the relationship of privilege to economic growth requires a more comprehensive understanding of the fiscal underpinnings of the state. According to Horn, the “quid pro quo demanded by the state in exchange for the granting of privilege was development” (p. 22). Too often, however, the quid pro quo was the payment of cold cash into the perennially bankrupt French treasury. The French monarchy had a longstanding habit of manipulating privilege as a source of much-needed revenue. Cities were forced to purchase offices or make “free gifts” to the king. The consortium of financiers known as the “General Farm” not only leased the right to collect indirect taxes including customs, but also, in the absence of a national bank like the Bank of England, served as a banker to the crown by advancing short-term credit to it. Periodically, the monarchy sold offices of inspectors and masterships in the guilds to raise money.
Each of these payments to the crown was backed by local revenue sources, which then had to be protected. Cities had a vested interest in guarding the tax-paying population within their walls. The Farmers General were naturally vigilant about collecting every last toll and custom duty under their lease. Guilds raised the cost of their masterships to raise required sums for the crown.
In other words, by using privilege periodically to support its finances, the Bourbon state itself contributed to the blockages and market fragmentation that its administrators tried to circumvent in other circumstances by using “the liberty of privilege.” This fundamental contradiction in state policies may help to explain why when the monarchy tried to “liberate” or “rationalize” the economy, it was reduced to nibbling around the edges by applying counteracting privileges and liberties. To reform the economy as a whole would have meant alienating powerful allies and finding alternative sources of revenue.
Overall, then, Horn demonstrates why economic privileges need not be viewed in uniformly negative terms and were used in certain situations to stimulate economic growth. His broader claim about “the effectiveness and the dynamism” (p. 5) of state-sponsored reform relying on privilege, however, ignores other, less praiseworthy uses of economic privilege that the crown also employed.
Gail Bossenga is a Scholar in Residence at Elizabethtown College. She is the author of “Financial Origins of the French Revolution,” in Dale Van Kley and Thomas E. Kaiser, eds., Origins of the French Revolution (Stanford University Press, 2011), and “A Divided Nobility: Status, Markets, and the Patrimonial State in the Old Regime,” in Jay Smith, ed., The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: Reassessments and New Approaches (Penn State University Press, 2006). [email protected]
Copyright (c) 2015 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator ([email protected]). Published by EH.Net (September 2015). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://eh.net/book-reviews/
Subject(s):
Ryckbosch, Wouter
Published by EH.Net (September 2015)
Mary Lindemann, The Merchant Republics: Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Hamburg, 1648-1790. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. xv + 356 pp. $99 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-107-07443-9.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Wouter Ryckbosch, Centre for Urban History, University of Antwerp.
Although few would deny the importance of Northern Germany or the Low Countries to the economic history of early modern Europe, we know relatively little about the self-perceptions that reigned in these places, the political ideas that circulated, or the political economies that governed them. Compared to the libraries that have been written on Florence, Paris or London, the list of works dealing with the politics and ideas of the North-West European cities is rather short. It is this gap that Mary Lindemann ( Professor of History at the University of Miami) aims to fill with The Merchant Republics. The book focuses on three major port cities in the long eighteenth century (roughly from 1648 to the 1790s): Antwerp, Amsterdam and Hamburg.
All three towns were — to rather varying degrees — important commercial centers during this period, as well as “republics.” In this book, a republic is understood as “a political entity governed by citizens who assumed the task of administration as part of the civic and political duties incumbent on them.” Moreover, according to Lindemann all three cities were specifically “merchant republics,” in the sense that they considered merchants and mercantile values as essential components of their republicanism. Starting out from this loose but nevertheless informative definition, Lindemann explores the similarities and differences (both of which are numerous) in the political economy of the three cities.
After a first chapter that presents a general introduction to the three cities under scrutiny, the second and third chapters examine the structures of government and the political ideas surrounding them. The political issues that dominated the agenda were very different in all three cities: Amsterdam was characterized by conflicts between the party of the stadhouder and the party of true freedom; Hamburg was marred by recurrent disagreements between the Bürgershaft and the Senate; and in Antwerp the opposition of the ruling elites to centralization from the monarchical rulers in Brussels/Madrid/Vienna proved the dominant theme. Nevertheless, Lindemann makes a convincing argument that in all three there existed a general self-perception of republicanism — which at the very least implied an opposition to monarchical political structures, even if that did not preclude these urban elites from demonstrating strong aristocratic and oligarchic tendencies, or from preaching civic virtue while being plagued by corruption.
Chapters 4, 5 and 6 shift attention towards the mercantile aspect of these “merchant republics,” considering how the (upper crust of) these cities’ inhabitants perceived themselves and their values as opposed to aristocratic and monarchical societies. This includes a very illuminating segment on the problems presented by “impostors” and how these were perceived as antithetical to mercantile and republican values, as well as chapters on the problems posed to republican virtues by speculation and bankruptcy. To scholars interested in the history of economic thought these latter two chapters will be of most interest, as they lend themselves most easily to comparisons with the extensive literature on the republican tradition and the development of enlightenment mentalities on commerce, virtue and the common weal elsewhere.
Unlike much scholarly work on the republication tradition, political self-representation, or early modern economic thought, Lindemann does not limit herself to studying only the most well-known authors and publications of the time, but instead delves into a wonderfully rich variety of pamphlets, court cases, and political commentaries to substantiate her arguments. Admittedly, Antwerp, Amsterdam and Hamburg did not bring forth political commentators of the same renown as Machiavelli, Mandeville or Montesquieu (with the possible exception of Amsterdam’s Pieter de la Court), but the wide range of sources on which Lindemann draws her story is nevertheless impressive. To be sure, this can at times be overwhelming. The number of protagonists that crowds the pages, as well as the three different political structures with their specific terminologies in which they figured, does not always make for light reading.
The title of the book does not simply describe the common features of the three cities studied. It also advances a specific historical interpretation (p. 310). What The Merchant Republics, in all its nuance and complexity, argues is that in the commercial ports of north-western Europe a peculiar republicanism developed that was compatible with a highly commercial society (quite contrary to Pocock’s classical republicanism), and that celebrated trade and merchants for their republican virtues. As valuable and generally convincing as this interpretation is, it also raises many questions, some of which unfortunately remain unanswered in the book.
To begin with, the structure of the book presents plenty of comparison between three merchant republics — and thus highlights the large potential for variety within this concept — but the overarching argument actually seems to call for comparison between these merchant republics as a whole, and the political economies of other “republicanisms” throughout the classical, early modern and modern world. In the end, I could not help wondering how the political economy of these merchant republicans differed from that of Machiavelli and quattrocento Florence. And how does it compare to enlightenment economic thought across the channel, and Adam Smith in particular? Most of all, perhaps, the argument invites comparison with the French tradition of assessing the virtue in commerce, including Montesquieu and the concept of “le doux commerce.”
Despite the wide range of sources on which the book draws, most of the voices heard throughout belonged to the (mercantile) upper crust of these cities. This raises the question whether the self-image of a merchant republic was limited to the mercantile community alone, or whether it did indeed encompass the whole town. Although Lindemann pays plenty of attention to dissent and conflict within the ruling classes, there’s relatively little attention to conflict between the mercantile groups and those who had been only relatively recently excluded from political power (at least in Antwerp and, to a lesser extent, Amsterdam): the middling groups, and the craft guilds in particular. After all, in sixteenth-century Antwerp the Chambers of Rhetoric only embraced a more positive view of commerce after merchant-entrepreneurs had wrested political power from the craft guilds. It is perhaps ironic that they did so with the support of their monarchical overlord, which makes one wonder if the “mercantile” and “republican” components of the book’s argument were everywhere and always as closely tied to one another as Lindemann suggests.
The applicability of the term “merchant republic” to this or that city and this or that timeframe can be endlessly debated, but Lindemann shows that as a conceptual framework for understanding politics, self-representation and economic thought in eighteenth-century North-Western Europe it has clear value. Moreover, as a historical interpretation it serves as a useful reminder that both “republicanism” and “mercantile mentalities” could take many forms in early modern Europe. However, first and foremost this volume is a rich and erudite account of political economy in three different stages of success and decline in merchant capitalism.
Wouter Ryckbosch is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Urban History, University of Antwerp. He specializes in the histories of inequality and consumption in the early modern period, with a particular focus on the Low Countries in the eighteenth century.
Copyright (c) 2015 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator ([email protected]). Published by EH.Net (September 2015). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://eh.net/book-reviews/
Subject(s):
Coşgel, Metin
Published by EH.Net (December 2014)
Fatih Ermiş, A History of Ottoman Economic Thought: Developments before the Nineteenth Century. New York: Routledge, 2013. xv + 218 pp. $140 (hardback), ISBN: 978-0-415-54006-3.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Metin Coşgel, Department of Economics, University of Connecticut.
What we know about pre-modern economic thought is little enough to fit into a short chapter in most textbooks on the history of economic ideas. The problem is magnified for economic thought in the Ottoman Empire because only a small fraction of the archived writings of intellectuals and bureaucrats, the only sources available for the period before the nineteenth century, have been uncovered and translated to modern languages. By attempting the first book-length manuscript on economic thought in the Ottoman Empire, Fatih Ermiş has made a significant contribution to the literature that has thus far consisted of a few commentaries and journal articles.
The book is a revised version of Ermiş’s doctoral dissertation, submitted to the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies in Germany. It is based on primary sources obtained in archives and libraries in Austria, Germany, and Turkey. These sources include the chronicles of Ottoman bureaucrats, writings giving counsel to the ruler (siyāsatnāme), political writings (lāyiha), reports of Ottoman ambassadors (sefāretnāme), and the correspondence between the ruler and high bureaucrats (hatt-ı hümayūn). Offering translations from original sources, Ermiş provides lengthy excerpts and summary discussion of the views of Ottoman intellectuals and bureaucrats on the organization of society, organization of production, and economics of regulation. The volume consists of eight chapters that include an introductory chapter and a conclusion. Although the coverage of the book is given in the title as the period before the nineteenth century, the majority of the discussion is devoted to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
In the introductory chapter, Ermiş summarizes the main objectives, historical context, important questions, and primary sources of the book. The next chapter offers a brief description (in an encyclopedic style) of some of the basic elements of the Ottoman economy and introduces the terms and concepts that will be used in the discussion of economic ideas in subsequent chapters. For example, Ermiş describes the Ottoman land and tax regime, units of accounting, and administrative structure, and he typically uses both the Ottoman terms and English equivalents to facilitate common understanding. Since the book does not include a separate glossary, this chapter serves an important purpose for the non-specialist reader to form a basic understanding of relevant Ottoman institutions and to gain a conceptual framework of reference.
In Chapter 3, Ermiş discusses the Ottoman theory of the state, more specifically how the intellectuals and bureaucrats conceptualized the groups comprising society and legitimized the authority of the ruler. According to them, the Ottoman subjects consisted of scholars, bureaucrats, merchants, and peasants. The ruler’s responsibility was to maintain the balance between these groups because they could not realize order if left on their own. In discussing the nature of the ruler’s authority, Ottoman intellectuals adopted a “humour theory of the state” to explain the balance between the four groups of the society based on an analogy between the body and the society, an analogy that was also used by ancient Greek philosophers and previous Islamic scholars. According to the analogy, scholars were like blood, merchants were like yellow bile, peasants were like black bile, and bureaucrats were like phlegm. The function of the ruler in this setup was to ensure social order between the groups as the society went through stages of social development, just as the physician ensured the balance of the body as individuals went through stages of physical development. At the end of the chapter, Ermiş discusses how the concept of balance is closely related to justice. Once again using an analogy that goes back to Greek philosophers, Ottoman intellectuals formulated the concept of “the circle of justice” to illustrate the interconnectedness between social groups and how the balance between them is a prerequisite for justice.
Chapter 4 is about the economy of the household, the basic unit in the division of labor in the society, also a concept applicable to the society as a whole, the “household” of the ruler. Ermiş discusses the historical origins of the concept of household economy and how the Ottoman intellectuals used this framework to understand the economy. He gives examples from the writings of Ottoman thinkers on the role of money, division of labor in society, and savings and expenditures.
In Chapter 5, Ermiş offers a brief survey of the views of Ottoman thinkers on state intervention in markets. Ottoman rulers regulated the markets through price controls and market supervisors. He reviews the debate among Ottoman thinkers on whether price controls could be justified under Islamic Law and what conditions required the state to undertake such control. Prices and other government regulations were enforced through the market supervisor, an official who was responsible for making sure that the sellers did not exceed the ceiling prices, their scales and measures were accurate, and in general buyers and sellers observed the regulations in market transactions.
Chapters 6 and 7 are devoted to discussing how economic thought and its applications changed at the end of the eighteenth century. This was a difficult period for the Ottoman Empire because of lost wars and the growing challenges of economic and political developments in western Europe. These changes prompted Ottoman intellectuals to debate how to reform the state to ensure its health and continuity. In Chapter 6, Ermiş discusses the debates surrounding the conception of the state, the legitimacy relationship between the ruler and subjects, bureaucratic reforms and corruption, and trade and monetary policies. Turning attention to applications of these ideas in reality in Chapter 7, Ermiş examines money in circulation, state interventions in markets, and the treatment of merchants. Chapter 8 consists of a brief account of the book’s arguments and concluding comments.
We must applaud Ermiş for taking a significant step towards building a comprehensive survey of economic thought in the Ottoman Empire. This book contributes significantly to cataloging the views of leading intellectuals, describing their methods and concerns, and identifying the genesis of their ideas. It is particularly useful that Ermiş has quoted extensively from the writings of Ottoman bureaucrats and intellectuals, making them available to an international audience.
Given the paucity of sources on Ottoman economic thought and the linguistic and other obstacles that prevent their widespread availability, the completion of a satisfactory survey will clearly require several other steps. So while we applaud this first attempt, we must also identify its shortcomings for future studies to improve. The most immediate and obvious are the need for a serious revision of the text toward better clarity and comprehension and a careful reorganization of the material toward greater coherence. In future editions, the author and the editors would be well advised to take additional steps to transform the doctoral dissertation into a quality manuscript aimed at a broad audience.
The author could have improved contents by covering all periods comprehensively and by choosing topics more systematically and consistently. In the early chapters the author has focused primarily on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with additional references to Ibn Khaldun — not an Ottoman scholar — possibly because of the greater availability of sources for this period, despite advertising the coverage as being “the classical period.” Since Chapter 6 is devoted to changes in economic thought in the eighteenth century, one would need to identify systematic changes prompted by the challenges of modernity beyond the conventional discussion of the views of Ottoman intellectuals on the state’s need for bureaucratic reforms. It’s useful that this chapter introduces new topics, such as trade, corruption, and monetary policy, but it would be a further improvement to include these topics in earlier chapters for continuity or to clarify why they emerged as topics of new interest in the later period.
There is also the problem of coverage being dictated by the sources, which may result in overrepresentation of topics that were of great interest to the rulers and bureaucratic intellectuals. This may explain this book’s extensive coverage of the ruler’s legitimacy, his ability to maintain social order, and his reasons for market regulation. It likely causes the exclusion of other important topics, such as the Islamic law of taxation and the provision of public goods, which could be just as important for public finance but does not receive as much attention in the set of archival sources examined by the author as they do elsewhere. Moreover, it also likely causes the exclusion of various other topics of private economy, such as the guilds, financial markets, and the organization of production, which were likely discussed by Ottoman intellectuals but possibly left little trace in the sources examined here.
By having a clear methodological position and a coherent analytical framework, the author could have better categorized the quoted sources and interpreted their meaning and intention more appropriately. The author seems to have taken the writings of Ottoman bureaucrats and intellectuals at face value, without questioning how their proximity to the ruler and official positions likely affected their ideas and writings. For example, did any of these ideas represent rent-seeking behavior, the same way that western mercantilism was argued to be the outcome of rent-seeking behavior rather than a school of thought based on pure ideology? Regarding the notion of circle of justice, was this a framework that justified the legitimacy of the ruler and surrounding bureaucracy, or was it pure ideology that grounded the true care of Ottoman rulers for justice in the society? To appraise competing ideas, one could have asked whether there were serious challenges to the views expressed by covered bureaucrats on the circle of justice. If not, why not? Likewise, were there any writings that represented the interests of other groups, such as the merchants and the guilds? If not, why not?
To put the Ottoman economic thought in context, the author could have compared it to other schools or related it to broader debates in intellectual history. What were the contributions of Ottoman intellectuals to Islamic or western schools of thought, for example Scholasticism? Ermiş discusses the historical background to the ideas of Ottoman intellectuals and how their origins could be found in Greek philosophers and Islamic scholars, but he does not discuss systematically how the Ottomans differed from their predecessors. Nor does he discuss how the Ottoman economic thought differed from that of contemporary Islamic empires or western states. Instead, seemingly subscribing to an outdated and problematic notion, he simply asserts (but does not fully argue) the uniqueness of the Ottoman economic experience and its interconnectedness with the social, political, and religious spheres. Although the Ottoman experience was certainly unique in many ways, this does not mean that the ideas of Ottoman intellectuals cannot be productively compared to others to identify systematic similarities and differences.
Ermiş’s book is a good start to including economic ideas of Ottoman bureaucrats and public intellectuals in the stock of knowledge about the history of economic thought prior to the nineteenth century. Being the first attempt towards a comprehensive survey of Ottoman thought, it is incomplete, but there is much in it to form the foundation for future scholars to build on.
Metin Coşgel is Professor and Head, Department of Economics at the University of Connecticut. In recent research on the economic history of the Ottoman Empire, he has studied the system of taxation, transmission and inequality of wealth, resolution of disputes in courts, and the organization of law enforcement. His publications have appeared in the Journal of Economic History, Explorations in Economic History, Economic History Review, History of Political Economy, Economics and Philosophy, and other economics and history journals. His recent book, coauthored by Boğaç Ergene, titled A Court in Time: An Economic Approach to Settlement and Trial in an Ottoman Court is nearing completion. See www.cosgel.uconn.edu.
Copyright (c) 2014 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator ([email protected]). Published by EH.Net (December 2014). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview
Subject(s):
Women Workers in the British Industrial Revolution
Joyce Burnette, Wabash College
Historians disagree about whether the British Industrial Revolution (1760-1830) was beneficial for women. Frederick Engels, writing in the late nineteenth century, thought that the Industrial Revolution increased women’s participation in labor outside the home, and claimed that this change was emancipating. 1 More recent historians dispute the claim that women’s labor force participation rose, and focus more on the disadvantages women experienced during this time period. 2 One thing is certain: the Industrial Revolution was a time of important changes in the way that women worked.
The Census
Unfortunately, the historical sources on women’s work are neither as complete nor as reliable as we would like. Aggregate information on the occupations of women is available only from the census, and while census data has the advantage of being comprehensive, it is not a very good measure of work done by women during the Industrial Revolution. For one thing, the census does not provide any information on individual occupations until 1841, which is after the period we wish to study. 3 Even then the data on women’s occupations is questionable. For the 1841 census, the directions for enumerators stated that “The professions &c. of wives, or of sons or daughters living with and assisting their parents but not apprenticed or receiving wages, need not be inserted.” Clearly this census would not give us an accurate measure of female labor force participation. Table One illustrates the problem further; it shows the occupations of men and women recorded in the 1851 census, for 20 occupational categories. These numbers suggest that female labor force participation was low, and that 40 percent of occupied women worked in domestic service. However, economic historians have demonstrated that these numbers are misleading. First, many women who were actually employed were not listed as employed in the census. Women who appear in farm wage books have no recorded occupation in the census. 4 At the same time, the census over-estimates participation by listing in the “domestic service” category women who were actually family members. In addition, the census exaggerates the extent to which women were concentrated in domestic service occupations because many women listed as “maids”, and included in the domestic servant category in the aggregate tables, were really agricultural workers. 5
Table One
Source: B.R. Mitchell, Abstract of British Historical Statistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962, p. 60.
Domestic Service
Domestic work – cooking, cleaning, caring for children and the sick, fetching water, making and mending clothing – took up the bulk of women’s time during the Industrial Revolution period. Most of this work was unpaid. Some families were well-off enough that they could employ other women to do this work, as live-in servants, as charring women, or as service providers. Live-in servants were fairly common; even middle-class families had maids to help with the domestic chores. Charring women did housework on a daily basis. In London women were paid 2s.6d. per day for washing, which was more than three times the 8d. typically paid for agricultural labor in the country. However, a “day’s work” in washing could last 20 hours, more than twice as long as a day’s work in agriculture. 6 Other women worked as laundresses, doing the washing in their own homes.
Cottage Industry
Before factories appeared, most textile manufacture (including the main processes of spinning and weaving) was carried out under the “putting-out” system. Since raw materials were expensive, textile workers rarely had enough capital to be self-employed, but would take raw materials from a merchant, spin or weave the materials in their homes, and then return the finished product and receive a piece-rate wage. This system disappeared during the Industrial Revolution as new machinery requiring water or steam power appeared, and work moved from the home to the factory.
Before the Industrial Revolution, hand spinning had been a widespread female employment. It could take as many as ten spinners to provide one hand-loom weaver with yarn, and men did not spin, so most of the workers in the textile industry were women. The new textile machines of the Industrial Revolution changed that. Wages for hand-spinning fell, and many rural women who had previously spun found themselves unemployed. In a few locations, new cottage industries such as straw-plaiting and lace-making grew and took the place of spinning, but in other locations women remained unemployed.
Another important cottage industry was the pillow-lace industry, so called because women wove the lace on pins stuck in a pillow. In the late-eighteenth century women in Bedford could earn 6s. a week making lace, which was about 50 percent more than women earned in argiculture. However, this industry too disappeared due to mechanization. Following Heathcote’s invention of the bobbinet machine (1809), cheaper lace could be made by embroidering patterns on machine-made lace net. This new type of lace created a new cottage industry, that of “lace-runners” who emboidered patterns on the lace.
The straw-plaiting industry employed women braiding straw into bands used for making hats and bonnets. The industry prospered around the turn of the century due to the invention of a simple tool for splitting the straw and war, which cut off competition from Italy. At this time women could earn 4s. to 6s. per week plaiting straw. This industry also declined, though, following the increase in free trade with the Continent in the 1820s.
Factories
A defining feature of the Industrial Revolution was the rise of factories, particularly textile factories. Work moved out of the home and into a factory, which used a central power source to run its machines. Water power was used in most of the early factories, but improvements in the steam engine made steam power possible as well. The most dramatic productivity growth occurred in the cotton industry. The invention of James Hargreaves’ spinning jenny (1764), Richard Arkwright’s “throstle” or “water frame” (1769), and Samuel Crompton’s spinning mule (1779, so named because it combined features of the two earlier machines) revolutionized spinning. Britain began to manufacture cotton cloth, and declining prices for the cloth encouraged both domestic consumption and export. Machines also appeared for other parts of the cloth-making process, the most important of which was Edmund Cartwright’s powerloom, which was adopted slowly because of imperfections in the early designs, but was widely used by the 1830s. While cotton was the most important textile of the Industrial Revolution, there were advances in machinery for silk, flax, and wool production as well. 7
The advent of new machinery changed the gender division of labor in textile production. Before the Industrial Revolution, women spun yarn using a spinning wheel (or occasionally a distaff and spindle). Men didn’t spin, and this division of labor made sense because women were trained to have more dexterity than men, and because men’s greater strength made them more valuable in other occupations. In contrast to spinning, handloom weaving was done by both sexes, but men outnumbered women. Men monopolized highly skilled preparation and finishing processes such as wool combing and cloth-dressing. With mechanization, the gender division of labor changed. Women used the spinning jenny and water frame, but mule spinning was almost exclusively a male occupation because it required more strength, and because the male mule-spinners actively opposed the employment of female mule-spinners. Women mule-spinners in Glasgow, and their employers, were the victims of violent attacks by male spinners trying to reduce the competition in their occupation. 8 While they moved out of spinning, women seem to have increased their employment in weaving (both in handloom weaving and eventually in powerloom factories). Both sexes were employed as powerloom operators.
Table Two
48.0
56.8
Source: “Report from Dr. James Mitchell to the Central Board of Commissioners, respecting the Returns made from the Factories, and the Results obtained from them.” British Parliamentary Papers, 1834 (167) XIX. Mitchell collected data from 82 cotton factories, 65 wool factories, 73 flax factories, 29 silk factories, 7 potteries, 11 lace factories, one dyehouse, one “glass works”, and 2 paper mills throughout Great Britain.
While the highly skilled and highly paid task of mule-spinning was a male occupation, many women and girls were engaged in other tasks in textile factories. For example, the wet-spinning of flax, introduced in Leeds in 1825, employed mainly teenage girls. Girls often worked as assistants to mule-spinners, piecing together broken threads. In fact, females were a majority of the factory labor force. Table Two shows that 57 percent of factory workers were female, most of them under age 20. Women were widely employed in all the textile industries, and constituted the majority of workers in cotton, flax, and silk. Outside of textiles, women were employed in potteries and paper factories, but not in dye or glass manufacture. Of the women who worked in factories, 16 percent were under age 13, 51 percent were between the ages of 13 and 20, and 33 percent were age 21 and over. On average, girls earned the same wages as boys. Children’s wages rose from about 1s.6d. per week at age 7 to about 5s. per week at age 15. Beginning at age 16, and a large gap between male and female wages appeared. At age 30, women factory workers earned only one-third as much as men.
Figure One
Distribution of Male and Female Factory Employment by Age, 1833
Source: “Report from Dr. James Mitchell to the Central Board of Commissioners, respecting the Returns made from the Factories, and the Results obtained from them.” British Parliamentary Papers, 1834 (167) XIX.
The y-axis shows the percentage of total employment within each sex that is in that five-year age category.
Figure Two
Wages of Factory Workers in 1833
Source: “Report from Dr. James Mitchell to the Central Board of Commissioners, respecting the Returns made from the Factories, and the Results obtained from them.” British Parliamentary Papers, 1834 (167) XIX.
Agriculture
Wage Workers
Wage-earners in agriculture generally fit into one of two broad categories – servants who were hired annually and received part of their wage in room and board, and day-laborers who lived independently and were paid a daily or weekly wage. Before industrialization servants comprised between one-third and one-half of labor in agriculture. 9 For servants the value of room and board was a substantial portion of their compensation, so the ratio of money wages is an under-estimate of the ratio of total wages (see Table Three). Most servants were young and unmarried. Because servants were paid part of their wage in kind, as board, the use of the servant contract tended to fall when food prices were high. During the Industrial Revolution the use of servants seems to have fallen in the South and East. 10 The percentage of servants who were female also declined in the first half of the nineteenth century. 11
Table Three
0.42
0.57
Source: Joyce Burnette, “An Investigation of the Female-Male Wage Gap during the Industrial Revolution in Britain,” Economic History Review 50 (May 1997): 257-281.
While servants lived with the farmer and received food and lodging as part of their wage, laborers lived independently, received fewer in-kind payments, and were paid a daily or a weekly wage. Though the majority of laborers were male, some were female. Table Four shows the percentage of laborers who were female at various farms in the late-18th and early-19th centuries. These numbers suggest that female employment was widespread, but varied considerably from one location to the next. Compared to men, female laborers generally worked fewer days during the year. The employment of female laborers was concentrated around the harvest, and women rarely worked during the winter. While men commonly worked six days per week, outside of harvest women generally averaged around four days per week.
Year
Dunster Castle Farm, Somerset
29
Sources: Joyce Burnette, “Labourers at the Oakes: Changes in the Demand for Female Day-Laborers at a Farm near Sheffield During the Agricultural Revolution,” Journal of Economic History 59 (March 1999): 41-67; Helen Speechley, Female and Child Agricultural Day Labourers in Somerset, c. 1685-1870, dissertation, Univ. of Exeter, 1999. Sotheron-Estcourt accounts, G.R.O. D1571; Ketton-Cremer accounts, N.R.O. WKC 5/250
The wages of female day-laborers were fairly uniform; generally a farmer paid the same wage to all the adult women he hired. Women’s daily wages were between one-third and one-half of male wages. Women generally worked shorter days, though, so the gap in hourly wages was not quite this large. 12 In the less populous counties of Northumberland and Durham, male laborers were required to provide a “bondager,” a woman (usually a family member) who was available for day-labor whenever the employer wanted her. 13
Table Five
18
0.50
Source: Joyce Burnette, “An Investigation of the Female-Male Wage Gap during the Industrial Revolution in Britain,” Economic History Review 50 (May 1997): 257-281.
Various sources suggest that women’s employment in agriculture declined during the early nineteenth century. Enclosure increased farm size and changed the patterns of animal husbandry, both of which seem to have led to reductions in female employment. 14 More women were employed during harvest than during other seasons, but women’s employment during harvest declined as the scythe replaced the sickle as the most popular harvest tool. While women frequently harvested with the sickle, they did not use the heavier scythe. 15 Female employment fell the most in the East, where farms increasingly specialized in grain production. Women had more work in the West, which specialized more in livestock and dairy farming. 16
Non-Wage-Earners
During the eighteenth century there were many opportunities for women to be productively employed in farm work on their own account, whether they were wives of farmers on large holdings, or wives of landless laborers. In the early nineteenth century, however, many of these opportunities disappeared, and women’s participation in agricultural production fell.
In a village that had a commons, even if the family merely rented a cottage the wife could be self-employed in agriculture because she could keep a cow, or other animals, on the commons. By careful management of her stock, a woman might earn as much during the year as her husband earned as a laborer. Women also gathered fuel from the commons, saving the family considerable expense. The enclosure of the commons, though, eliminated these opportunities. In an enclosure, land was re-assigned so as to eliminate the commons and consolidate holdings. Even when the poor had clear legal rights to use the commons, these rights were not always compensated in the enclosure agreement. While enclosure occurred at different times for different locations, the largest waves of enclosures occurred in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, meaning that, for many, opportunities for self-employment in agriculture declined as the same time as employment in cottage industry declined. 17
Only a few opportunities for agricultural production remained for the landless laboring family. In some locations landlords permitted landless laborers to rent small allotments, on which they could still grow some of their own food. The right to glean on fields after harvest seems to have been maintained at least through the middle of the nineteenth century, by which time it had become one of the few agricultural activities available to women in some areas. Gleaning was a valuable right; the value of the grain gleaned was often between 5 and 10 percent of the family’s total annual income. 18
In the eighteenth century it was common for farmers’ wives to be actively involved in farm work, particularly in managing the dairy, pigs, and poultry. The diary was an important source of income for many farms, and its success depended on the skill of the mistress, who usually ran the operation with no help from men. In the nineteenth century, however, farmer’s wives were more likely to withdraw from farm management, leaving the dairy to the management of dairymen who paid a fixed fee for the use of the cows. 19 While poor women withdrew from self-employment in agriculture because of lost opportunities, farmer’s wives seem to have withdraw because greater prosperity allowed them to enjoy more leisure.
It was less common for women to manage their own farms, but not unknown. Commercial directories list numerous women farmers. For example, the 1829 Directory of the County of Derby lists 3354 farmers, of which 162, or 4.8%, were clearly female. 20 While the commercial directories themselves do not indicate to what extent these women were actively involved in their farms, other evidence suggests that at least some women farmers were actively involved in the work of the farm. 21
Self-Employed
During the Industrial Revolution period women were also active businesswomen in towns. Among business owners listed in commercial directories, about 10 percent were female. Table Seven shows the percentage female in all the trades with at least 25 people listed in the 1788 Manchester commercial directory. Single women, married women, and widows are included in these numbers. Sometimes these women were widows carrying on the businesses of their deceased husbands, but even in this case that does not mean they were simply figureheads. Widows often continued their husband’s businesses because they had been active in management of the business while their husband was alive, and wished to continue. 22 Sometimes married women were engaged in trade separately from their husbands. Women most commonly ran shops and taverns, and worked as dressmakers and milliners, but they were not confined to these areas, and appear in most of the trades listed in commercial directories. Manchester, for example, had six female blacksmiths and five female machine makers in 1846. Between 1730 and 1800 there were 121 “rouping women” selling off estates in Edinburgh. 23
Table Six
0.0
Source: Lewis’s Manchester Directory for 1788 (reprinted by Neil Richardson, Manchester, 1984)
Guilds often controlled access to trades, admitting only those who had served an apprenticeship and thus earned the “freedom” of the trade. Women could obtain “freedom” not only by apprenticeship, but also by widowhood. The widow of a tradesman was often considered knowledgeable enough in the trade that she was given the right to carry on the trade even without an apprenticeship. In the eighteenth century women were apprenticed to a wide variety of trades, including butchery, bookbinding, brush making, carpentry, ropemaking and silversmithing. 24 Between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the number of females apprenticed to trades declined, possibly suggesting reduced participation by women. However, the power of the guilds and the importance of apprenticeship were also declining during this time, so the decline in female apprenticeships may not have been an important barrier to employment. 25
Many women worked in the factories of the Industrial Revolution, and a few women actually owned factories. In Keighley, West Yorkshire, Ann Illingworth, Miss Rachael Leach, and Mrs. Betty Hudson built and operated textile mills. 26 In 1833 Mrs. Doig owned a powerloom factory in Scotland, which employed 60 workers. 27
While many women did successfully enter trades, there were obstacles to women’s employment that kept their numbers low. Women generally received less education than men (though education of the time was of limited practical use). Women may have found it more difficult than men to raise the necessary capital because English law did not consider a married woman to have any legal existence; she could not sue or be sued. A married woman was a feme covert and technically could not make any legally binding contracts, a fact which may have discouraged others from loaning money to or making other contracts with married women. However, this law was not as limiting in practice as it would seem to be in theory because a married woman engaged in trade on her own account was treated by the courts as a feme sole and was responsible for her own debts. 28
The professionalization of certain occupations resulted in the exclusion of women from work they had previously done. Women had provided medical care for centuries, but the professionalization of medicine in the early-nineteenth century made it a male occupation. The Royal College of Physicians admitted only graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, schools to which women were not admitted until the twentieth century. Women were even replaced by men in midwifery. The process began in the late-eighteenth century, when we observe the use of the term “man-midwife,” an oxymoronic title suggestive of changing gender roles. In the nineteenth century the “man-midwife” disappeared, and women were replaced by physicians or surgeons for assisting childbirth. Professionalization of the clergy was also effective in excluding women. While the Church of England did not allow women ministers, the Methodists movement had many women preachers during its early years. However, even among the Methodists female preachers disappeared when lay preachers were replaced with a professional clergy in the early nineteenth century. 29
In other occupations where professionalization was not as strong, women remained an important part of the workforce. Teaching, particularly in the lower grades, was a common profession for women. Some were governesses, who lived as household servants, but many opened their own schools and took in pupils. The writing profession seems to have been fairly open to women; the leading novelists of the period include Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Fanny Burney, George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans), Elizabeth Gaskell, and Frances Trollope. Female non-fiction writers of the period include Jane Marcet, Hannah More, and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Other Occupations
The occupations listed above are by no means a complete listing of the occupations of women during the Industrial Revolution. Women made buttons, nails, screws, and pins. They worked in the tin plate, silver plate, pottery and Birmingham “toy” trades (which made small articles like snuff boxes). Women worked in the mines until The Mines Act of 1842 prohibited them from working underground, but afterwards women continued to pursue above-ground mining tasks.
Married Women in the Labor Market
While there are no comprehensive sources of information on the labor force participation of married women, household budgets reported by contemporary authors give us some information on women’s participation. 30 For the period 1787 to 1815, 66 percent of married women in working-class households had either a recorded occupation or positive earnings. For the period 1816-20 the rate fell to 49 percent, but in 1821-40 it recovered to 62 percent. Table Eight gives participation rates of women by date and occupation of the husband.
Table Eight
63
62
Source: Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, “Women’s Labour Force Participation and the Transition to the male-Breadwinner Family, 1790-1865,” Economic History Review 48 (February 1995): 89-117
While many wives worked, the amount of their earnings was small relative to their husband’s earnings. Annual earnings of married women who did work averaged only about 28 percent of their husband’s earnings. Because not all women worked, and because children usually contributed more to the family budget than their mothers, for the average family the wife contributed only around seven percent of total family income.
Childcare
Women workers used a variety of methods to care for their children. Sometimes childcare and work were compatible, and women took their children with them to the fields or shops where they worked. 31 Sometimes women working at home would give their infants opiates such as “Godfrey’s Cordial” in order to keep the children quiet while their mothers worked. 32 The movement of work into factories increased the difficulty of combining work and childcare. In most factory work the hours were rigidly set, and women who took the jobs had to accept the twelve or thirteen hour days. Work in the factories was very disciplined, so the women could not bring their children to the factory, and could not take breaks at will. However, these difficulties did not prevent women with small children from working.
Nineteenth-century mothers used older siblings, other relatives, neighbors, and dame schools to provide child care while they worked. 33 Occasionally mothers would leave young children home alone, but this was dangerous enough that only a few did so. 34 Children as young as two might be sent to dame schools, in which women would take children into their home and provide child care, as well as some basic literacy instruction. 35 In areas where lace-making or straw-plaiting thrived, children were sent from about age seven to “schools” where they learned the trade. 36
Mothers might use a combination of different types of childcare. Elizabeth Wells, who worked in a Leicester worsted factory, had five children, ages 10, 8, 6, 2, and four months. The eldest, a daughter, stayed home to tend the house and care for the infant. The second child worked, and the six-year-old and two-year-old were sent to “an infant school.” 37 Mary Wright, an “over-looker” in the rag-cutting room of a Buckinghamshire paper factory, had five children. The eldest worked in the rag-cutting room with her, the youngest was cared for at home, and the middle three were sent to a school; “for taking care of an infant she pays 1s.6d. a-week, and 3d. a-week for the three others. They go to a school, where they are taken care of and taught to read.” 38
The cost of childcare was substantial. At the end of the eighteenth century the price of child-care was about 1s. a week, which was about a quarter of a woman’s weekly earnings in agriculture. 39 In the 1840s mothers paid anywhere from 9d. to 2s.6d. per week for child care, out of a wage of around 7s. per week. 40
For Further Reading
Burnette, Joyce. “An Investigation of the Female-Male Wage Gap during the Industrial Revolution in Britain.” Economic History Review 50 (1997): 257-281.
Davidoff, Leonore, and Catherine Hall. Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Honeyman, Katrina. Women, Gender and Industrialisation in England, 1700-1870. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
Horrell, Sara, and Jane Humphries. “Women’s Labour Force Participation and the Transition to the Male-Breadwinner Family, 1790-1865.” Economic History Review 48 (1995): 89-117.
Humphries, Jane. “Enclosures, Common Rights, and Women: The Proletarianization of Families in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” Journal of Economic History 50 (1990): 17-42.
King, Peter. “Customary Rights and Women’s Earnings: The Importance of Gleaning to the Rural Labouring Poor, 1750-1850.” Economic History Review 44 (1991): 461-476
Kussmaul, Ann. Servants in Husbandry in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Pinchbeck, Ivy. Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850, London: Routledge, 1930.
Sanderson, Elizabeth. Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century Edinburgh. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
Snell, K.D.M. Annals of the Labouring Poor: Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Valenze, Deborah. Prophetic Sons and Daughters: Female Preaching and Popular Religion in Industrial England. Princeton University Press, 1985.
Valenze, Deborah. The First Industrial Woman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
1 “Since large-scale industry has transferred the woman from the house to the labour market and the factory, and makes her, often enough, the bread-winner of the family, the last remnants of male domination in the proletarian home have lost all foundation – except, perhaps, for some of that brutality towards women which became firmly rooted with the establishment of monogamy. . . .It will then become evidence that the first premise for the emancipation of women is the reintroduction of the entire female sex into public industry.” Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Selected Works, New York: International Publishers, 1986, p. 508, 510.
2 Ivy Pinchbeck (Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, Routledge, 1930) claimed that higher incomes allowed some women to withdraw from the labor force. While she saw some disadvantages resulting from this withdrawal, particularly the loss of independence, she thought that overall women benefited from having more time to devote to their homes and families. Davidoff and Hall (Family Fortunes: Man and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1987) agree that women withdrew from work, but they see the change as a negative result of gender discrimination. Similarly, Horrell and Humphries (“Women’s Labour Force Participation and the Transition to the Male-Breadwinner Family, 1790-1865,” Economic History Review, Feb. 1995, XLVIII:89-117) do not find that rising incomes caused declining labor force participation, and they believe that declining demand for female workers caused the female exodus from the workplace.
3 While the British census began in 1801, individual enumeration did not begin until 1841. For a detailed description of the British censuses of the nineteenth century, see Edward Higgs, Making Sense of the Census, London: HMSO, 1989.
4 For example, Helen Speechley, in her dissertation, showed that seven women who worked for wages at a Somerset farm had no recorded occupation in the 1851 census See Helen Speechley, Female and Child Agricultural Day Labourers in Somerset, c. 1685-1870, dissertation, Univ. of Exeter, 1999.
5 Edward Higgs finds that removing family members from the “servants” category reduced the number of servants in Rochdale in 1851. Enumerators did not clearly distinguish between the terms “housekeeper” and “housewife.” See Edward Higgs, “Domestic Service and Household Production” in Angela John, ed., Unequal Opportunities, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, and “Women, Occupations and Work in the Nineteenth Century Censuses,” History Workshop, 1987, 23:59-80. In contrast, the censuses of the early 20th century seem to be fairly accurate; see Tim Hatton and Roy Bailey, “Women’s Work in Census and Survey, 1911-1931,” Economic History Review, Feb. 2001, LIV:87-107.
6 A shilling was equal to 12 pence, so if women earned 2s.6d. for 20 hours, they earned 1.5d. per hour. Women agricultural laborers earned closer to 1d. per hour, so the London wage was higher. See Dorothy George, London Life in the Eighteenth-Century, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1925, p. 208, and Patricia Malcolmson, English Laundresses, Univ. of Illinois Press, 1986, p. 25. .
7 On the technology of the Industrial Revolution, see David Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1969, and Joel Mokyr, The Lever of Riches, Oxford Univ. Press, 1990.
8 A petition from Glasgow cotton manufactures makes the following claim, “In almost every department of the cotton spinning business, the labour of women would be equally efficient with that of men; yet in several of these departments, such measures of violence have been adopted by the combination, that the women who are willing to be employed, and who are anxious by being employed to earn the bread of their families, have been driven from their situations by violence. . . . Messrs. James Dunlop and Sons, some years ago, erected cotton mills in Calton of Glasgow, on which they expended upwards of [£]27,000 forming their spinning machines, (Chiefly with the view of ridding themselves of the combination [the male union],) of such reduced size as could easily be wrought by women. They employed women alone, as not being parties to the combination, and thus more easily managed, and less insubordinate than male spinners. These they paid at the same rate of wages, as were paid at other works to men. But they were waylaid and attacked, in going to, and returning from their work; the houses in which they resided, were broken open in the night. The women themselves were cruelly beaten and abused; and the mother of one of them killed; . . . And these nefarious attempts were persevered in so systematically, and so long, that Messrs. Dunlop and sons, found it necessary to dismiss all female spinners from their works, and to employ only male spinners, most probably the very men who had attempted their ruin.” First Report from the Select Committee on Artizans and Machinery, British Parliamentary Papers, 1824 vol. V, p. 525.
9 Ann Kussmaul, Servants in Husbandry in Early Modern England, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981, Ch. 1
10 See Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, Routledge, 1930, Ch. 1, and K.D.M. Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, Ch. 2.
11 For the period 1574 to 1821 about 45 percent of servants were female, but this fell to 32 percent in 1851. See Ann Kussmaul, Servants in Husbandry in Early Modern England, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981, Ch. 1.
12 Men usually worked 12-hour days, and women averaged closer to 10 hours. See Joyce Burnette, “An Investigation of the Female-Male Wage Gap during the Industrial Revolution in Britain,” Economic History Review, May 1997, 50:257-281.
13 See Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, Routledge, 1930, p. 65.
14 See Robert Allen, Enclosure and the Yeoman, Clarendon Press, 1992, and Joyce Burnette, “Labourers at the Oakes: Changes in the Demand for Female Day-Laborers at a Farm near Sheffield During the Agricultural Revolution,” Journal of Economics History, March 1999, 59:41-67.
15 While the scythe had been used for mowing grass for hay or cheaper grains for some time, the sickle was used for harvesting wheat until the nineteenth century. Thus adoption of the scythe for harvesting wheat seems to be a response to changing prices rather than invention of a new technology. The scythe required less labor to harvest a given acre, but left more grain on the ground, so as grain prices fell relative to wages, farmers substituted the scythe for the sickle. See E.J.T. Collins, “Harvest Technology and Labour Supply in Britain, 1790-1870,” Economic History Review, Dec. 1969, XXIII:453-473.
16 K.D.M. Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor, Cambridge, 1985.
17 See Jane Humphries, “Enclosures, Common Rights, and Women: The Proletarianization of Families in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries,” Journal of Economic History, March 1990, 50:17-42, and J.M. Neeson, Commoners: Common Rights, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993.
18 See Peter King, “Customary Rights and Women’s Earnings: The Importance of Gleaning to the Rural Labouring Poor, 1750-1850,” Economic History Review, 1991, XLIV:461-476.
19 Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, Routledge, 1930, p. 41-42 See also Deborah Valenze, The First Industrial Woman, Oxford Univ. Press, 1995
20 Stephen Glover, The Directory of the County of Derby, Derby: Henry Mozley and Son, 1829.
21 Eden gives an example of gentlewomen who, on the death of their father, began to work as farmers. He notes, “not seldom, in one and the same day, they have divided their hours in helping to fill the dung-cart, and receiving company of the highest rank and distinction.” (F.M. Eden, The State of the Poor, vol. i., p. 626.) One woman farmer who was clearly an active manager celebrated her success in a letter sent to the Annals of Agriculture, (quoted by Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, Routledge, 1930, p. 30): “I bought a small estate, and took possession of it in the month of July, 1803. . . . As a woman undertaking to farm is generally a subject of ridicule, I bought the small estate by way of experiment: the gentlemen of the county have now complimented me so much on having set so good and example to the farmers, that I have determined on taking a very large farm into my hands.” The Annals of Agriculture give a number of examples of women farmers cited for their experiments or their prize-winning crops.
22 Tradesmen considered themselves lucky to find a wife who was good at business. In his autobiography James Hopkinson, a cabinetmaker, said of his wife, “I found I had got a good and suitable companion one with whom I could take sweet council and whose love and affections was only equall’d by her ability as a business woman.” Victorian Cabinet Maker: The Memoirs of James Hopkinson, 1819-1894, 1968, p. 96.
23 See Elizabeth Sanderson, Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century Edinburgh, St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
24 See K.D.M. Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, Table 6.1.
25 The law requiring a seven-year apprenticeship before someone could work in a trade was repealed in 1814.
26 See Francois Crouzet, The First Industrialists, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, and M.L. Baumber, From Revival to Regency: A History of Keighley and Haworth, 1740-1820, Crabtree Ltd., Keighley, 1983.
27 First Report of the Central Board of His Majesty’s Commissioners for inquiry into the Employment of Children in Factories, with Minutes of Evidence, British Parliamentary Papers, 1833 (450) XX, A1, p. 120. \
28 For example, in the case of “LaVie and another Assignees against Philips and another Assignees,” the court upheld the right of a woman to operate as feme sole. In 1764 James Cox and his wife Jane were operating separate businesses, and both went bankrupt within the space of two months. Jane’s creditors sued James’s creditors for the recovery of five fans, goods from her shop that had been taken for James’s debts. The court ruled that, since Jane was trading as a feme sole, her husband did not own the goods in her shop, and thus James’s creditors had no right to seize them. See William Blackstone, Reports of Cases determined in the several Courts of Westminster-Hall, from 1746 to 1779, London, 1781, p. 570-575.
29 See Deborah Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters: Female Preaching and Popular Religion in Industrial England, Princeton Univ. Press, 1985.
30 See Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, “Women’s Labour Force Participation and the Transition to the male-Breadwinner Family, 1790-1865,” Economic History Review, Feb. 1995, XLVIII:89-117.
31 In his autobiography James Hopkinson says of his wife, “How she laboured at the press and assisted me in the work of my printing office, with a child in her arms, I have no space to tell, nor in fact have I space to allude to the many ways she contributed to my good fortune.” James Hopkinson, Victorian Cabinet Marker: The Memoirs of James Hopkinson, 1819-1894, J.B. Goodman, ed., Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968, p. 96. A 1739 poem by Mary Collier suggests that carrying babies into the field was fairly common; it contains these lines:
Our tender Babes into the Field we bear,
And wrap them in our Cloaths to keep them warm,
While round about we gather up the Corn;
. . .
When Night comes on, unto our Home we go,
Our Corn we carry, and our Infant too.
Mary Collier, The Woman’s Labour, Augustan Reprint Society, #230, 1985, p. 10. A 1835 Poor Law report stated that in Sussex, “the custom of the mother of a family carrying her infant with her in its cradle into the field, rather than lose the opportunity of adding her earnings to the general stock, though partially practiced before, is becoming very much more general now.” (Quoted in Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, Routledge, 1930, p. 85.)
32 Sarah Johnson of Nottingham claimed that she ” Knows it is quite a common custom for mothers to give Godfrey’s and the Anodyne cordial to their infants, ‘it is quite too common.’ It is given to infants at the breast; it is not given because the child is ill, but ‘to compose it to rest, to sleep it,’ so that the mother may get to work. ‘Has seen an infant lay asleep on its mother’s lap whilst at the lace-frame for six or eight hours at a time.’ This has been from the effects of the cordial.” [Reports from Assistant Handloom-Weavers’ Commissioners, British Parliamentary Papers, 1840 (43) XXIII, p. 157] Mary Colton, a lace worker from Nottingham, described her use of the drug to parliamentary investigators thus: ‘Was confined of an illegitimate child in November, 1839. When the child was a week old she gave it a half teaspoonful of Godfrey’s twice a-day. She could not afford to pay for the nursing of the child, and so gave it Godfrey’s to keep it quiet, that she might not be interrupted at the lace piece; she gradually increased the quantity by a drop or two at a time until it reached a teaspoonful; when the infant was four months old it was so “wankle” and thin that folks persuaded her to give it laudanum to bring it on, as it did other children. A halfpenny worth, which was about a teaspoonful and three-quarters, was given in two days; continued to give her this quantity since February, 1840, until this last past (1841), and then reduced the quantity. She now buys a halfpenny worth of laudanum and a halfpenny worth of Godfrey’s mixed, which lasts her three days. . . . If it had not been for her having to sit so close to work she would never have given the child Godfrey’s. She has tried to break it off many times but cannot, for if she did, she should not have anything to eat.” [Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary
Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 630].
33 Elizabeth Leadbeater, who worked for a Birmingham brass-founder, worked while she was nursing and had her mother look after the infant. [Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 710.] Mrs. Smart, an agricultural worker from Calne, Wiltshire, noted, “Sometimes I have had my mother, and sometimes my sister, to take care of the children, or I could not have gone out.” [Reports of Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (510) XII, p. 65.] More commonly, though, older siblings provided the childcare. “Older siblings” generally meant children of nine or ten years old, and included boys as well as girls. Mrs. Britton of Calne, Wiltshire, left her children in the care of her eldest boy. [Reports of Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (510) XII, p. 66] In a family from Presteign, Wales, containing children aged 9, 7, 5, 3, and 1, we find that “The oldest children nurse the youngest.” [F.M. Eden, State of the Poor, London: Davis, 1797, vol. iii, p. 904] When asked what income a labourer’s wife and children could earn, some respondents to the 1833 “Rural Queries” assumed that the eldest child would take care of the others, leaving the mother free to work. The returns from Bengeworth, Worcester, report that, “If the Mother goes to field work, the eldest Child had need to stay at home, to tend the younger branches of the Family.” Ewhurst, Surrey, reported that “If the Mother were employed, the elder Children at home would probably be required to attend to the younger Children.” [Report of His Majesty’s Commissioners for Inquiry in the Administration and Practical Operation of the Poor Law, Appendix B,
“Rural Queries,” British Parliamentary Papers, 1834 (44) XXX, p. 488 and 593]
34 Parents heard of incidents, such as one reported in the Times (Feb. 6, 1819):
A shocking accident occurred at Llandidno, near Conway, on Tuesday night, during the absence of a miner and his wife, who had gone to attend a methodist meeting, and locked the house door, leaving two children within; the house by some means took fire, and was, together with the unfortunate children, consumed to ashes; the eldest only four years old!
Mothers were aware of these dangers. One mother who admitted to leaving her children at home worried greatly about the risks:
I have always left my children to themselves, and, God be praised! nothing has ever happened to them, though I thought it dangerous. I have many a time come home, and have thought it a mercy to find nothing has happened to them. . . . Bad accidents often happen. [Reports of Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (510) XII, p. 68.]
Leaving young children home without child care had real dangers, and the fact that most working mothers paid for childcare suggests that they did not consider leaving young children alone to be an acceptable option.
35 In 1840 an observer of Spitalfields noted, “In this neighborhood, where the women as well as the men are employed in the manufacture of silk, many children are sent to small schools, not for instruction, but to be taken care of whilst their mothers are at work.”[ Reports from Assistant Handloom-Weavers’ Commissioners, British Parliamentary Papers, 1840 (43) XXIII, p. 261] In 1840 the wife of a Gloucester weaver earned 2s. a week from running a school; she had twelve students and charged each 2d. a week. [Reports from Assistant Handloom Weavers’ Commissioners, British Parliamentary Papers, 1840 (220) XXIV, p. 419] In 1843 the lace-making schools of the midlands generally charged 3d. per week. [Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 46, 64, 71, 72]
36 At one straw-plaiting school in Hertfordshire,
Children commence learning the trade about seven years old: parents pay 3d. a-week for each child, and for this they are taught the trade and taught to read. The mistress employs about from 15 to 20 at work in a room; the parents get the profits of the children’s labour.[ Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 64]
At these schools there was very little instruction; some time was devoted to teaching the children to read, but they spent most of their time working. One mistress complained that the children worked too much and learned too little, “In my judgment I think the mothers task the children too much; the mistress is obliged to make them perform it, otherwise they would put them to other schools.” Ann Page of Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, had “eleven scholars” and claimed to “teach them all reading once a-day.” [Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 66, 71] The standard rate of 3d. per week seems to have been paid for supervision of the children rather than for the instruction.
37 First Report of the Central Board of His Majesty’s Commissioners for Inquiring into the Employment of Children in Factories, British Parliamentary Papers, 1833 (450) XX, C1 p. 33.
38 Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 46.
39 David Davies, The Case of Labourers in Husbandry Stated and Considered, London: Robinson, 1795, p.14. Agricultural wages for this time period are found in Eden, State of the Poor, London: Davis, 1797.
40 In 1843 parliamentary investigator Alfred Austin reports, “Where a girl is hired to take care of children, she is paid about 9d. a week, and has her food besides, which is a serious deduction from the wages of the woman at work.”[ Reports of Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, British Parliamentary Papers,1843 (510) XII, p.26] Agricultural wages in the area were 8d. per day, so even without the cost of food, the cost of child care was about one-fifth a woman’s wage. One Scottish woman earned 7s. per week in a coal mine and paid 2s.6d., or 36 percent of her income, for the care of her children.[ B.P.P. 1844 (592) XVI, p. 6] In 1843 Mary Wright, a “over-looker” at a Buckinghamshire paper factory, paid even more for child care; she told parliamentary investigators that “for taking care of an infant she pays 1s.6d. a-week, and 3d. a-week for three others.” [Children’s Employment Commission: Second Report of the Commissioners (Trades and Manufactures), British Parliamentary Papers, 1843 (431) XIV, p. 46] She earned 10s.6d. per week, so her total child-care payments were 21 percent of her wage. Engels put the cost of child care at 1s. or 18d. a week. [Engels, [1845] 1926, p. 143] Factory workers often made 7s. a week, so again these women may have paid around one-fifth of their earnings for child care. Some estimates suggest even higher fractions of women’s income went to child care. The overseer of Wisbech, Cambridge, suggests a higher fraction; he reports, “The earnings of the Wife we consider comparatively small, in cases where she has a large family to attend to; if she has one or two children, she has to pay half, or perhaps more of her earnings for a person to take care of them.” [Report of His Majesty’s Commissioners for Inquiry in the Administration and Practical Operation of the Poor Law, Appendix B, “Rural Queries,”
British Parliamentary Papers, 1834 (44) XXX, p. 76]
English Poor Laws
George Boyer, Cornell University
A compulsory system of poor relief was instituted in England during the reign of Elizabeth I. Although the role played by poor relief was significantly modified by the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, the Crusade Against Outrelief of the 1870s, and the adoption of various social insurance programs in the early twentieth century, the Poor Law continued to assist the poor until it was replaced by the welfare state in 1948. For nearly three centuries, the Poor Law constituted “a welfare state in miniature,” relieving the elderly, widows, children, the sick, the disabled, and the unemployed and underemployed (Blaug 1964). This essay will outline the changing role played by the Poor Law, focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The Origins of the Poor Law
While legislation dealing with vagrants and beggars dates back to the fourteenth century, perhaps the first English poor law legislation was enacted in 1536, instructing each parish to undertake voluntary weekly collections to assist the “impotent” poor. The parish had been the basic unit of local government since at least the fourteenth century, although Parliament imposed few if any civic functions on parishes before the sixteenth century. Parliament adopted several other statutes relating to the poor in the next sixty years, culminating with the Acts of 1597-98 and 1601 (43 Eliz. I c. 2), which established a compulsory system of poor relief that was administered and financed at the parish (local) level. These Acts laid the groundwork for the system of poor relief up to the adoption of the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834. Relief was to be administered by a group of overseers, who were to assess a compulsory property tax, known as the poor rate, to assist those within the parish “having no means to maintain them.” The poor were divided into three groups: able-bodied adults, children, and the old or non-able-bodied (impotent). The overseers were instructed to put the able-bodied to work, to give apprenticeships to poor children, and to provide “competent sums of money” to relieve the impotent.
Deteriorating economic conditions and loss of traditional forms of charity in the 1500s
The Elizabethan Poor Law was adopted largely in response to a serious deterioration in economic circumstances, combined with a decline in more traditional forms of charitable assistance. Sixteenth century England experienced rapid inflation, caused by rapid population growth, the debasement of the coinage in 1526 and 1544-46, and the inflow of American silver. Grain prices more than tripled from 1490-1509 to 1550-69, and then increased by an additional 73 percent from 1550-69 to 1590-1609. The prices of other commodities increased nearly as rapidly — the Phelps Brown and Hopkins price index rose by 391 percent from 1495-1504 to 1595-1604. Nominal wages increased at a much slower rate than did prices; as a result, real wages of agricultural and building laborers and of skilled craftsmen declined by about 60 percent over the course of the sixteenth century. This decline in purchasing power led to severe hardship for a large share of the population. Conditions were especially bad in 1595-98, when four consecutive poor harvests led to famine conditions. At the same time that the number of workers living in poverty increased, the supply of charitable assistance declined. The dissolution of the monasteries in 1536-40, followed by the dissolution of religious guilds, fraternities, almshouses, and hospitals in 1545-49, “destroyed much of the institutional fabric which had provided charity for the poor in the past” (Slack 1990). Given the circumstances, the Acts of 1597-98 and 1601 can be seen as an attempt by Parliament both to prevent starvation and to control public order.
The Poor Law, 1601-1750
It is difficult to determine how quickly parishes implemented the Poor Law. Paul Slack (1990) contends that in 1660 a third or more of parishes regularly were collecting poor rates, and that by 1700 poor rates were universal. The Board of Trade estimated that in 1696 expenditures on poor relief totaled £400,000 (see Table 1), slightly less than 1 percent of national income. No official statistics exist for this period concerning the number of persons relieved or the demographic characteristics of those relieved, but it is possible to get some idea of the makeup of the “pauper host” from local studies undertaken by historians. These suggest that, during the seventeenth century, the bulk of relief recipients were elderly, orphans, or widows with young children. In the first half of the century, orphans and lone-parent children made up a particularly large share of the relief rolls, while by the late seventeenth century in many parishes a majority of those collecting regular weekly “pensions” were aged sixty or older. Female pensioners outnumbered males by as much as three to one (Smith 1996). On average, the payment of weekly pensions made up about two-thirds of relief spending in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; the remainder went to casual benefits, often to able-bodied males in need of short-term relief because of sickness or unemployment.
Settlement Act of 1662
One of the issues that arose in the administration of relief was that of entitlement: did everyone within a parish have a legal right to relief? Parliament addressed this question in the Settlement Act of 1662, which formalized the notion that each person had a parish of settlement, and which gave parishes the right to remove within forty days of arrival any newcomer deemed “likely to be chargeable” as well as any non-settled applicant for relief. While Adam Smith, and some historians, argued that the Settlement Law put a serious brake on labor mobility, available evidence suggests that parishes used it selectively, to keep out economically undesirable migrants such as single women, older workers, and men with large families.
Relief expenditures increased sharply in the first half of the eighteenth century, as can be seen in Table 1. Nominal expenditures increased by 72 percent from 1696 to 1748-50 despite the fact that prices were falling and population was growing slowly; real expenditures per capita increased by 84 percent. A large part of this rise was due to increasing pension benefits, especially for the elderly. Some areas also experienced an increase in the number of able-bodied relief recipients. In an attempt to deter some of the poor from applying for relief, Parliament in 1723 adopted the Workhouse Test Act, which empowered parishes to deny relief to any applicant who refused to enter a workhouse. While many parishes established workhouses as a result of the Act, these were often short-lived, and the vast majority of paupers continued to receive outdoor relief (that is, relief in their own homes).
The Poor Law, 1750-1834
The period from 1750 to 1820 witnessed an explosion in relief expenditures. Real per capita expenditures more than doubled from 1748-50 to 1803, and remained at a high level until the Poor Law was amended in 1834 (see Table 1). Relief expenditures increased from 1.0% of GDP in 1748-50 to a peak of 2.7% of GDP in 1818-20 (Lindert 1998). The demographic characteristics of the pauper host changed considerably in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially in the rural south and east of England. There was a sharp increase in numbers receiving casual benefits, as opposed to regular weekly pensions. The age distribution of those on relief became younger — the share of paupers who were prime-aged (20- 59) increased significantly, and the share aged 60 and over declined. Finally, the share of relief recipients in the south and east who were male increased from about a third in 1760 to nearly two-thirds in 1820. In the north and west there also were shifts toward prime-age males and casual relief, but the magnitude of these changes was far smaller than elsewhere (King 2000).
Gilbert’s Act and the Removal Act
There were two major pieces of legislation during this period. Gilbert’s Act (1782) empowered parishes to join together to form unions for the purpose of relieving their poor. The Act stated that only the impotent poor should be relieved in workhouses; the able-bodied should either be found work or granted outdoor relief. To a large extent, Gilbert’s Act simply legitimized the policies of a large number of parishes that found outdoor relief both less and expensive and more humane that workhouse relief. The other major piece of legislation was the Removal Act of 1795, which amended the Settlement Law so that no non-settled person could be removed from a parish unless he or she applied for relief.
Speenhamland System and other forms of poor relief
During this period, relief for the able-bodied took various forms, the most important of which were: allowances-in-aid-of-wages (the so-called Speenhamland system), child allowances for laborers with large families, and payments to seasonally unemployed agricultural laborers. The system of allowances-in-aid-of-wages was adopted by magistrates and parish overseers throughout large parts of southern England to assist the poor during crisis periods. The most famous allowance scale, though by no means the first, was that adopted by Berkshire magistrates at Speenhamland on May 6, 1795. Under the allowance system, a household head (whether employed or unemployed) was guaranteed a minimum weekly income, the level of which was determined by the price of bread and by the size of his or her family. Such scales typically were instituted only during years of high food prices, such as 1795-96 and 1800-01, and removed when prices declined. Child allowance payments were widespread in the rural south and east, which suggests that laborers’ wages were too low to support large families. The typical parish paid a small weekly sum to laborers with four or more children under age 10 or 12. Seasonal unemployment had been a problem for agricultural laborers long before 1750, but the extent of seasonality increased in the second half of the eighteenth century as farmers in southern and eastern England responded to the sharp increase in grain prices by increasing their specialization in grain production. The increase in seasonal unemployment, combined with the decline in other sources of income, forced many agricultural laborers to apply for poor relief during the winter.
Regional differences in relief expenditures and recipients
Table 2 reports data for fifteen counties located throughout England on per capita relief expenditures for the years ending in March 1783-85, 1803, 1812, and 1831, and on relief recipients in 1802-03. Per capita expenditures were higher on average in agricultural counties than in more industrial counties, and were especially high in the grain-producing southern counties — Oxford, Berkshire, Essex, Suffolk, and Sussex. The share of the population receiving poor relief in 1802-03 varied significantly across counties, being 15 to 23 percent in the grain- producing south and less than 10 percent in the north. The demographic characteristics of those relieved also differed across regions. In particular, the share of relief recipients who were elderly or disabled was higher in the north and west than it was in the south; by implication, the share that were able-bodied was higher in the south and east than elsewhere. Economic historians typically have concluded that these regional differences in relief expenditures and numbers on relief were caused by differences in economic circumstances; that is, poverty was more of a problem in the agricultural south and east than it was in the pastoral southwest or in the more industrial north (Blaug 1963; Boyer 1990). More recently, King (2000) has argued that the regional differences in poor relief were determined not by economic structure but rather by “very different welfare cultures on the part of both the poor and the poor law administrators.”
Causes of the Increase in Relief to Able-bodied Males
What caused the increase in the number of able-bodied males on relief? In the second half of the eighteenth century, a large share of rural households in southern England suffered significant declines in real income. County-level cross-sectional data suggest that, on average, real wages for day laborers in agriculture declined by 19 percent from 1767-70 to 1795 in fifteen southern grain-producing counties, then remained roughly constant from 1795 to 1824, before increasing to a level in 1832 about 10 percent above that of 1770 (Bowley 1898). Farm-level time-series data yield a similar result — real wages in the southeast declined by 13 percent from 1770-79 to 1800-09, and remained low until the 1820s (Clark 2001).
Enclosures
Some historians contend that the Parliamentary enclosure movement, and the plowing over of commons and waste land, reduced the access of rural households to land for growing food, grazing animals, and gathering fuel, and led to the immiseration of large numbers of agricultural laborers and their families (Hammond and Hammond 1911; Humphries 1990). More recent research, however, suggests that only a relatively small share of agricultural laborers had common rights, and that there was little open access common land in southeastern England by 1750 (Shaw-Taylor 2001; Clark and Clark 2001). Thus, the Hammonds and Humphries probably overstated the effect of late eighteenth-century enclosures on agricultural laborers’ living standards, although those laborers who had common rights must have been hurt by enclosures.
Declining cottage industry
Finally, in some parts of the south and east, women and children were employed in wool spinning, lace making, straw plaiting, and other cottage industries. Employment opportunities in wool spinning, the largest cottage industry, declined in the late eighteenth century, and employment in the other cottage industries declined in the early nineteenth century (Pinchbeck 1930; Boyer 1990). The decline of cottage industry reduced the ability of women and children to contribute to household income. This, in combination with the decline in agricultural laborers’ wage rates and, in some villages, the loss of common rights, caused many rural household’s incomes in southern England to fall dangerously close to subsistence by 1795.
North and Midlands
The situation was different in the north and midlands. The real wages of day laborers in agriculture remained roughly constant from 1770 to 1810, and then increased sharply, so that by the 1820s wages were about 50 percent higher than they were in 1770 (Clark 2001). Moreover, while some parts of the north and midlands experienced a decline in cottage industry, in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire the concentration of textile production led to increased employment opportunities for women and children.
The Political Economy of the Poor Law, 1795-1834
A comparison of English poor relief with poor relief on the European continent reveals a puzzle: from 1795 to 1834 relief expenditures per capita, and expenditures as a share of national product, were significantly higher in England than on the continent. However, differences in spending between England and the continent were relatively small before 1795 and after 1834 (Lindert 1998). Simple economic explanations cannot account for the different patterns of English and continental relief.
Labor-hiring farmers take advantage of the poor relief system
The increase in relief spending in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries was partly a result of politically-dominant farmers taking advantage of the poor relief system to shift some of their labor costs onto other taxpayers (Boyer 1990). Most rural parish vestries were dominated by labor-hiring farmers as a result of “the principle of weighting the right to vote according to the amount of property occupied,” introduced by Gilbert’s Act (1782), and extended in 1818 by the Parish Vestry Act (Brundage 1978). Relief expenditures were financed by a tax levied on all parishioners whose property value exceeded some minimum level. A typical rural parish’s taxpayers can be divided into two groups: labor-hiring farmers and non-labor-hiring taxpayers (family farmers, shopkeepers, and artisans). In grain-producing areas, where there were large seasonal variations in the demand for labor, labor-hiring farmers anxious to secure an adequate peak season labor force were able to reduce costs by laying off unneeded workers during slack seasons and having them collect poor relief. Large farmers used their political power to tailor the administration of poor relief so as to lower their labor costs. Thus, some share of the increase in relief spending in the early nineteenth century represented a subsidy to labor-hiring farmers rather than a transfer from farmers and other taxpayers to agricultural laborers and their families. In pasture farming areas, where the demand for labor was fairly constant over the year, it was not in farmers’ interests to shed labor during the winter, and the number of able-bodied laborers receiving casual relief was smaller. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 reduced the political power of labor-hiring farmers, which helps to account for the decline in relief expenditures after that date.
The New Poor Law, 1834-70
The increase in spending on poor relief in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, combined with the attacks on the Poor Laws by Thomas Malthus and other political economists and the agricultural laborers’ revolt of 1830-31 (the Captain Swing riots), led the government in 1832 to appoint the Royal Commission to Investigate the Poor Laws. The Commission published its report, written by Nassau Senior and Edwin Chadwick, in March 1834. The report, described by historian R. H. Tawney (1926) as “brilliant, influential and wildly unhistorical,” called for sweeping reforms of the Poor Law, including the grouping of parishes into Poor Law unions, the abolition of outdoor relief for the able-bodied and their families, and the appointment of a centralized Poor Law Commission to direct the administration of poor relief. Soon after the report was published Parliament adopted the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which implemented some of the report’s recommendations and left others, like the regulation of outdoor relief, to the three newly appointed Poor Law Commissioners.
By 1839 the vast majority of rural parishes had been grouped into poor law unions, and most of these had built or were building workhouses. On the other hand, the Commission met with strong opposition when it attempted in 1837 to set up unions in the industrial north, and the implementation of the New Poor Law was delayed in several industrial cities. In an attempt to regulate the granting of relief to able-bodied males, the Commission, and its replacement in 1847, the Poor Law Board, issued several orders to selected Poor Law Unions. The Outdoor Labour Test Order of 1842, sent to unions without workhouses or where the workhouse test was deemed unenforceable, stated that able-bodied males could be given outdoor relief only if they were set to work by the union. The Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order of 1844 prohibited outdoor relief for both able-bodied males and females except on account of sickness or “sudden and urgent necessity.” The Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of 1852 extended the labor test for those relieved outside of workhouses.
Historical debate about the effect of the New Poor Law
Historians do not agree on the effect of the New Poor Law on the local administration of relief. Some contend that the orders regulating outdoor relief largely were evaded by both rural and urban unions, many of whom continued to grant outdoor relief to unemployed and underemployed males (Rose 1970; Digby 1975). Others point to the falling numbers of able- bodied males receiving relief in the national statistics and the widespread construction of union workhouses, and conclude that the New Poor Law succeeded in abolishing outdoor relief for the able-bodied by 1850 (Williams 1981). A recent study by Lees (1998) found that in three London parishes and six provincial towns in the years around 1850 large numbers of prime-age males continued to apply for relief, and that a majority of those assisted were granted outdoor relief. The Poor Law also played an important role in assisting the unemployed in industrial cities during the cyclical downturns of 1841-42 and 1847-48 and the Lancashire cotton famine of 1862-65 (Boot 1990; Boyer 1997). There is no doubt, however, that spending on poor relief declined after 1834 (see Table 1). Real per capita relief expenditures fell by 43 percent from 1831 to 1841, and increased slowly thereafter.
Beginning in 1840, data on the number of persons receiving poor relief are available for two days a year, January 1 and July 1; the “official” estimates in Table 1 of the annual number relieved were constructed as the average of the number relieved on these two dates. Studies conducted by Poor Law administrators indicate that the number recorded in the day counts was less than half the number assisted during the year. Lees’s “revised” estimates of annual relief recipients (see Table 1) assumes that the ratio of actual to counted paupers was 2.24 for 1850- 1900 and 2.15 for 1905-14; these suggest that from 1850 to 1870 about 10 percent of the population was assisted by the Poor Law each year. Given the temporary nature of most spells of relief, over a three year period as much as 25 percent of the population made use of the Poor Law (Lees 1998).
The Crusade Against Outrelief
In the 1870s Poor Law unions throughout England and Wales curtailed outdoor relief for all types of paupers. This change in policy, known as the Crusade Against Outrelief, was not a result of new government regulations, although it was encouraged by the newly formed Local Government Board (LGB). The Board was aided in convincing the public of the need for reform by the propaganda of the Charity Organization Society (COS), founded in 1869. The LGB and the COS maintained that the ready availability of outdoor relief destroyed the self-reliance of the poor. The COS went on to argue that the shift from outdoor to workhouse relief would significantly reduce the demand for assistance, since most applicants would refuse to enter workhouses, and therefore reduce Poor Law expenditures. A policy that promised to raise the morals of the poor and reduce taxes was hard for most Poor Law unions to resist (MacKinnon 1987).
The effect of the Crusade can be seen in Table 1. The deterrent effect associated with the workhouse led to a sharp fall in numbers on relief — from 1871 to 1876, the number of paupers receiving outdoor relief fell by 33 percent. The share of paupers relieved in workhouses increased from 12-15 percent in 1841-71 to 22 percent in 1880, and it continued to rise to 35 percent in 1911. The extent of the crusade varied considerably across poor law unions. Urban unions typically relieved a much larger share of their paupers in workhouses than did rural unions, but there were significant differences in practice across cities. In 1893, over 70 percent of the paupers in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and in many London Poor Law unions received indoor relief; however, in Leeds, Bradford, Newcastle, Nottingham and several other industrial and mining cities the majority of paupers continued to receive outdoor relief (Booth 1894).
Change in the attitude of the poor toward relief
The last third of the nineteenth century also witnessed a change in the attitude of the poor towards relief. Prior to 1870, a large share of the working class regarded access to public relief as an entitlement, although they rejected the workhouse as a form of relief. Their opinions changed over time, however, and by the end of the century most workers viewed poor relief as stigmatizing (Lees 1998). This change in perceptions led many poor people to go to great lengths to avoid applying for relief, and available evidence suggests that there were large differences between poverty rates and pauperism rates in late Victorian Britain. For example, in York in 1900, 3,451 persons received poor relief at some point during the year, less than half of the 7,230 persons estimated by Rowntree to be living in primary poverty.
The Declining Role of the Poor Law, 1870-1914
Increased availability of alternative sources of assistance
The share of the population on relief fell sharply from 1871 to 1876, and then continued to decline, at a much slower pace, until 1914. Real per capita relief expenditures increased from 1876 to 1914, largely because the Poor Law provided increasing amounts of medical care for the poor. Otherwise, the role played by the Poor Law declined over this period, due in large part to an increase in the availability of alternative sources of assistance. There was a sharp increase in the second half of the nineteenth century in the membership of friendly societies — mutual help associations providing sickness, accident, and death benefits, and sometimes old age (superannuation) benefits — and of trade unions providing mutual insurance policies. The benefits provided workers and their families with some protection against income loss, and few who belonged to friendly societies or unions providing “friendly” benefits ever needed to apply to the Poor Law for assistance.
Work relief
Local governments continued to assist unemployed males after 1870, but typically not through the Poor Law. Beginning with the Chamberlain Circular in 1886 the Local Government Board encouraged cities to set up work relief projects when unemployment was high. The circular stated that “it is not desirable that the working classes should be familiarised with Poor Law relief,” and that the work provided should “not involve the stigma of pauperism.” In 1905 Parliament adopted the Unemployed Workman Act, which established in all large cities distress committees to provide temporary employment to workers who were unemployed because of a “dislocation of trade.”
Liberal welfare reforms, 1906-1911
Between 1906 and 1911 Parliament passed several pieces of social welfare legislation collectively known as the Liberal welfare reforms. These laws provided free meals and medical inspections (later treatment) for needy school children (1906, 1907, 1912) and weekly pensions for poor persons over age 70 (1908), and established national sickness and unemployment insurance (1911). The Liberal reforms purposely reduced the role played by poor relief, and paved the way for the abolition of the Poor Law.
The Last Years of the Poor Law
During the interwar period the Poor Law served as a residual safety net, assisting those who fell through the cracks of the existing social insurance policies. The high unemployment of 1921-38 led to a sharp increase in numbers on relief. The official count of relief recipients rose from 748,000 in 1914 to 1,449,000 in 1922; the number relieved averaged 1,379,800 from 1922 to 1938. A large share of those on relief were unemployed workers and their dependents, especially in 1922-26. Despite the extension of unemployment insurance in 1920 to virtually all workers except the self-employed and those in agriculture or domestic service, there still were large numbers who either did not qualify for unemployment benefits or who had exhausted their benefits, and many of them turned to the Poor Law for assistance. The vast majority were given outdoor relief; from 1921 to 1923 the number of outdoor relief recipients increased by 1,051,000 while the number receiving indoor relieve increased by 21,000.
The Poor Law becomes redundant and is repealed
Despite the important role played by poor relief during the interwar period, the government continued to adopt policies, which bypassed the Poor Law and left it “to die by attrition and surgical removals of essential organs” (Lees 1998). The Local Government Act of 1929 abolished the Poor Law unions, and transferred the administration of poor relief to the counties and county boroughs. In 1934 the responsibility for assisting those unemployed who were outside the unemployment insurance system was transferred from the Poor Law to the Unemployment Assistance Board. Finally, from 1945 to 1948, Parliament adopted a series of laws that together formed the basis for the welfare state, and made the Poor Law redundant. The National Assistance Act of 1948 officially repealed all existing Poor Law legislation, and replaced the Poor Law with the National Assistance Board to act as a residual relief agency.
Table 1
Relief Expenditures and Numbers on Relief, 1696-1936
Expend.
33.0
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Gerald Friedman, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Unions and Collective Action
In capitalist labor markets, which developed in the nineteenth-century in the United States and Western Europe, workers exchange their time and effort for wages. But even while laboring under the supervision of others, wage earners have never been slaves, because they have recourse from abuse. They can quit to seek better employment. Or they are free to join with others to take collective action, forming political movements or labor unions. By the end of the nineteenth century, labor unions and labor-oriented political parties had become major forces influencing wages and working conditions. This article explores the nature and development of labor unions in the United States. It reviews the growth and recent decline of the American labor movement and makes comparisons with the experience of foreign labor unions to clarify particular aspects of the history of labor unions in the United States.
Unions and the Free-Rider Problem
Quitting, exit, is straightforward, a simple act for individuals unhappy with their employment. By contrast, collective action, such as forming a labor union, is always difficult because it requires that individuals commit themselves to produce “public goods” enjoyed by all, including those who “free ride” rather than contribute to the group effort. If the union succeeds, free riders receive the same benefits as do activists; but if it fails, the activists suffer while those who remained outside lose nothing. Because individualist logic leads workers to “free ride,” unions cannot grow by appealing to individual self-interest (Hirschman, 1970; 1982; Olson, 1966; Gamson, 1975).
Union Growth Comes in Spurts
Free riding is a problem for all collective movements, including Rotary Clubs, the Red Cross, and the Audubon Society. But unionization is especially difficult because unions must attract members against the opposition of often-hostile employers. Workers who support unions sacrifice money and risk their jobs, even their lives. Success comes only when large numbers simultaneously follow a different rationality. Unions must persuade whole groups to abandon individualism to throw themselves into the collective project. Rarely have unions grown incrementally, gradually adding members. Instead, workers have joined unions en masse in periods of great excitement, attracted by what the French sociologist Emile Durkheim labeled “collective effervescence” or the joy of participating in a common project without regard for individual interest. Growth has come in spurts, short periods of social upheaval punctuated by major demonstrations and strikes when large numbers see their fellow workers publicly demonstrating a shared commitment to the collective project. Union growth, therefore, is concentrated in short periods of dramatic social upheaval; in the thirteen countries listed in Tables 1 and 2, 67 percent of growth comes in only five years, and over 90 percent in only ten years. As Table 3 shows, in these thirteen countries, unions grew by over 10 percent a year in years with the greatest strike activity but by less than 1 percent a year in the years with the fewest strikers (Friedman, 1999; Shorter and Tilly, 1974; Zolberg, 1972).
Table 1
Union Members per 100 Nonagricultural Workers, 1880-1985: Selected Countries
Year
60.7
79.4
Note: This table shows that most union growth comes in a few years. Union membership growth (net of membership losses) has been calculated for each country for each year. Years were then sorted for each country according to membership growth. This table reports growth for each country for the five and the ten years with the fastest growth and compares this with total growth over all years for which data are available. Excess growth has been calculated as the difference between the share of growth in the top five or ten years and the share that would have come in these periods if growth had been distributed evenly across all years.
Note that years of rapid growth are not necessarily contiguous. There can be more growth in years of rapid growth than over the entire period. This is because some is temporary when years of rapid growth are followed by years of decline.
Sources: Bain and Price (1980): 39, Visser (1989)
Table 3
Impact of Strike Activity on Union Growth
Average Union Membership Growth in Years Sorted by Proportion of Workers Striking
Country
10.49
9.78
Note: This table shows that except in Australia unions grew fastest in years with large number of strikers. The proportion of workers striking was calculated for each country for each year as the number of strikers divided by the nonagricultural labor force. Years were then sorted into quartiles, each including one-fourth of the years, according to this striker rate statistic. The average annual union membership growth rate was then calculated for each quartile as the mean of the growth rate in each year in the quartile.
Rapid Union Growth Provokes a Hostile Reaction
These periods of rapid union growth end because social upheaval provokes a hostile reaction. Union growth leads employers to organize, to discover their own collective interests. Emulating their workers, they join together to discharge union activists, to support each other in strikes, and to demand government action against unions. This rising opposition ends periods of rapid union growth, beginning a new phase of decline followed by longer periods of stagnant membership. The weakest unions formed during the union surge succumb to the post-boom reaction; but if enough unions survive they leave a movement larger and broader than before.
Early Labor Unions, Democrats and Socialists
Guilds
Before modern labor unions, guilds united artisans and their employees. Craftsmen did the work of early industry, “masters” working beside “journeymen” and apprentices in small workplaces. Throughout the cities and towns of medieval Europe, guilds regulated production by setting minimum prices and quality, and capping wages, employment, and output. Controlled by independent craftsmen, “masters” who employed journeymen and trained apprentices, guilds regulated industry to protect the comfort and status of the masters. Apprentices and journeymen benefited from guild restrictions only when they advanced to master status.
Guild power was gradually undermined in the early-modern period. Employing workers outside the guild system, including rural workers and semiskilled workers in large urban workplaces, merchants transformed medieval industry. By the early 1800s, few could anticipate moving up to becoming a master artisan or owning their own establishment. Instead, facing the prospect of a lifetime of wage labor punctuated by periods of unemployment, some wage earners began to seek a collective regulation of their individual employment (Thompson, 1966; Scott, 1974; Dawley, 1976; Sewell, 1980; Wilentz, 1984; Blewett, 1988).
The labor movement within the broader movement for democracy
This new wage-labor regime led to the modern labor movement. Organizing propertyless workers who were laboring for capitalists, organized labor formed one wing of a broader democratic movement struggling for equality and for the rights of commoners (Friedman, 1998). Within the broader democratic movement for legal and political equality, labor fought the rise of a new aristocracy that controlled the machinery of modern industry just as the old aristocracy had monopolized land. Seen in this light, the fundamental idea of the labor movement, that employees should have a voice in the management of industry, is comparable to the demand that citizens should have a voice in the management of public affairs. Democratic values do not, by any means, guarantee that unions will be fair and evenhanded to all workers. In the United States, by reserving good jobs for their members, unions of white men sometimes contributed to the exploitation of women and nonwhites. Democracy only means that exploitation will be carried out at the behest of a political majority rather than at the say of an individual capitalist (Roediger, 1991; Arnesen, 2001; Foner, 1974; 1979; Milkman, 1985).
Craft unions’ strategy
Workers formed unions to voice their interests against their employers, and also against other workers. Rejecting broad alliances along class lines, alliances uniting workers on the basis of their lack of property and their common relationship with capitalists, craft unions followed a narrow strategy, uniting workers with the same skill against both the capitalists and against workers in different trades. By using their monopoly of knowledge of the work process to restrict access to the trade, craft unions could have a strong bargaining position that was enhanced by alliances with other craftsmen to finance long strikes. A narrow craft strategy was followed by the first successful unions throughout Europe and America, especially in small urban shops using technologies that still depended on traditional specialized skills, including printers, furniture makers, carpenters, gold beaters and jewelry makers, iron molders, engineers, machinists, and plumbers. Craft unions’ characteristic action was the small, local strike, the concerted withdrawal of labor by a few workers critical to production. Typically, craft unions would present a set of demands to local employers on a “take-it-or-leave-it” basis; either the employer accepted their demands or fought a contest of strength to determine whether the employers could do without the skilled workers for longer than the workers could manage without their jobs.
The craft strategy offered little to the great masses of workers. Because it depends on restricting access to trades it could not be applied by common laborers, who were untrained, nor by semi-skilled employees in modern mass-production establishments whose employers trained them on-the-job. Shunned by craft unions, most women and African-Americans in the United States were crowded into nonunion occupations. Some sought employment as strikebreakers in occupations otherwise monopolized by craft unions controlled by white, native-born males (Washington, 1913; Whatley, 1993).
Unions among unskilled workers
To form unions, the unskilled needed a strategy of the weak that would utilize their numbers rather than specialized knowledge and accumulated savings. Inclusive unions have succeeded but only when they attract allies among politicians, state officials, and the affluent public. Sponsoring unions and protecting them from employer repression, allies can allow organization among workers without specialized skills. When successful, inclusive unions can grow quickly in mass mobilization of common laborers. This happened, for example, in Germany at the beginning of the Weimar Republic, during the French Popular Front of 1936-37, and in the United States during the New Deal of the 1930s. These were times when state support rewarded inclusive unions for organizing the unskilled. The bill for mass mobilization usually came later. Each boom was followed by a reaction against the extensive promises of the inclusive labor movement when employers and conservative politicians worked to put labor’s genie back in the bottle.
Solidarity and the Trade Unions
Unionized occupations of the late 1800s
By the late-nineteenth century, trade unions had gained a powerful position in several skilled occupations in the United States and elsewhere. Outside of mining, craft unions were formed among well-paid skilled craft workers — workers whom historian Eric Hobsbawm labeled the “labor aristocracy” (Hobsbawm, 1964; Geary, 1981). In 1892, for example, nearly two-thirds of British coal miners were union members, as were a third of machinists, millwrights and metal workers, cobblers and shoe makers, glass workers, printers, mule spinners, and construction workers (Bain and Price, 1980). French miners had formed relatively strong unions, as had skilled workers in the railroad operating crafts, printers, jewelry makers, cigar makers, and furniture workers (Friedman, 1998). Cigar makers, printers, furniture workers, some construction and metal craftsmen took the lead in early German unions (Kocka, 1986). In the United States, there were about 160,000 union members in 1880, including 120,000 belonging to craft unions, including carpenters, engineers, furniture makers, stone-cutters, iron puddlers and rollers, printers, and several railroad crafts. Another 40,000 belonged to “industrial” unions organized without regard for trade. About half of these were coal miners; most of the rest belonged to the Knights of Labor (KOL) (Friedman, 1999).
The Knights of Labor
In Europe, these craft organizations were to be the basis of larger, mass unions uniting workers without regard for trade or, in some cases, industry (Ansell, 2001). This process began in the United States in the 1880s when craft workers in the Knights of Labor reached out to organize more broadly. Formed by skilled male, native-born garment cutters in 1869, the Knights of Labor would seem an odd candidate to mobilize the mass of unskilled workers. But from a few Philadelphia craft workers, the Knights grew to become a national and even international movement. Membership reached 20,000 in 1881 and grew to 100,000 in 1885. Then, in 1886, when successful strikes on some western railroads attracted a mass of previously unorganized unskilled workers, the KOL grew to a peak membership of a million workers. For a brief time, the Knights of Labor was a general movement of the American working class (Ware, 1929; Voss, 1993).
The KOL became a mass movement with an ideology and program that united workers without regard for occupation, industry, race or gender (Hattam, 1993). Never espousing Marxist or socialist doctrines, the Knights advanced an indigenous form of popular American radicalism, a “republicanism” that would overcome social problems by extending democracy to the workplace. Valuing citizens according to their work, their productive labor, the Knights were true heirs of earlier bourgeois radicals. Open to all producers, including farmers and other employers, they excluded only those seen to be parasitic on the labor of producers — liquor dealers, gamblers, bankers, stock manipulators and lawyers. Welcoming all others without regard for race, gender, or skill, the KOL was the first American labor union to attract significant numbers of women, African-Americans, and the unskilled (Foner, 1974; 1979; Rachleff, 1984).
The KOL’s strategy
In practice, most KOL local assemblies acted like craft unions. They bargained with employers, conducted boycotts, and called members out on strike to demand higher wages and better working conditions. But unlike craft unions that depended on the bargaining leverage of a few strategically positioned workers, the KOL’s tactics reflected its inclusive and democratic vision. Without a craft union’s resources or control over labor supply, the Knights sought to win labor disputes by widening them to involve political authorities and the outside public able to pressure employers to make concessions. Activists hoped that politicizing strikes would favor the KOL because its large membership would tempt ambitious politicians while its members’ poverty drew public sympathy.
In Europe, a strategy like that of the KOL succeeded in promoting the organization of inclusive unions. But it failed in the United States. Comparing the strike strategies of trade unions and the Knights provides insight into the survival and eventual success of the trade unions and their confederation, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in late-nineteenth century America. Seeking to transform industrial relations, local assemblies of the KOL struck frequently with large but short strikes involving skilled and unskilled workers. The Knights’ industrial leverage depended on political and social influence. It could succeed where trade unions would not go because the KOL strategy utilized numbers, the one advantage held by common laborers. But this strategy could succeed only where political authorities and the outside public might sympathize with labor. Later industrial and regional unions tried the same strategy, conducting short but large strikes. By demonstrating sufficient numbers and commitment, French and Italian unions, for example, would win from state officials concessions they could not force from recalcitrant employers (Shorter and Tilly, 1974; Friedman, 1998). But compared with the small strikes conducted by craft unions, “solidarity” strikes must walk a fine line, aggressive enough to draw attention but not so threatening to provoke a hostile reaction from threatened authorities. Such a reaction doomed the KOL.
The Knights’ collapse in 1886
In 1886, the Knights became embroiled in a national general strike demanding an eight-hour workday, the world’s first May Day. This led directly to the collapse of the KOL. The May Day strike wave in 1886 and the bombing at Haymarket Square in Chicago provoked a “red scare” of historic proportions driving membership down to half a million in September 1887. Police in Chicago, for example, broke up union meetings, seized union records, and even banned the color red from advertisements. The KOL responded politically, sponsoring a wave of independent labor parties in the elections of 1886 and supporting the Populist Party in 1890 (Fink, 1983). But even relatively strong showings by these independent political movements could not halt the KOL’s decline. By 1890, its membership had fallen by half again, and it fell to under 50,000 members by 1897.
Unions and radical political movements in Europe in the late 1800s
The KOL spread outside the United States, attracting an energetic following in the Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and other European countries. Industrial and regional unionism fared better in these countries than in the United States. Most German unionists belonged to industrial unions allied with the Social Democratic Party. Under Marxist leadership, unions and political party formed a centralized labor movement to maximize labor’s political leverage. English union membership was divided between members of a stable core of craft unions and a growing membership in industrial and regional unions based in mining, cotton textiles, and transportation. Allied with political radicals, these industrial and regional unions formed the backbone of the Labor Party, which held the balance of power in British politics after 1906.
The most radical unions were found in France. By the early 1890s, revolutionary syndicalists controlled the national union center, the Confédération générale du travail (or CGT), which they tried to use as a base for a revolutionary general strike where the workers would seize economic and political power. Consolidating craft unions into industrial and regional unions, the Bourses du travail, syndicalists conducted large strikes designed to demonstrate labor’s solidarity. Paradoxically, the syndicalists’ large strikes were effective because they provoked friendly government mediation. In the United States, state intervention was fatal for labor because government and employers usually united to crush labor radicalism. But in France, officials were more concerned to maintain a center-left coalition with organized labor against reactionary employers opposed to the Third Republic. State intervention helped French unionists to win concessions beyond any they could win with economic leverage. A radical strategy of inclusive industrial and regional unionism could succeed in France because the political leadership of the early Third Republic needed labor’s support against powerful economic and social groups who would replace the Republic with an authoritarian regime. Reminded daily of the importance of republican values and the coalition that sustained the Republic, French state officials promoted collective bargaining and labor unions. Ironically, it was the support of liberal state officials that allowed French union radicalism to succeed, and allowed French unions to grow faster than American unions and to organize the semi-skilled workers in the large establishments of France’s modern industries (Friedman, 1997; 1998).
The AFL and American Exceptionalism
By 1914, unions outside the United States had found that broad organization reduced the availability of strike breakers, advanced labor’s political goals, and could lead to state intervention on behalf of the unions. The United States was becoming exceptional, the only advanced capitalist country without a strong, united labor movement. The collapse of the Knights of Labor cleared the way for the AFL. Formed in 1881 as the Federation of Trade and Labor Unions, the AFL was organized to uphold the narrow interests of craft workers against the general interests of common laborers in the KOL. In practice, AFL-craft unions were little labor monopolies, able to win concessions because of their control over uncommon skills and because their narrow strategy did not frighten state officials. Many early AFL leaders, notably the AFL’s founding president Samuel Gompers and P. J. McGuire of the Carpenters, had been active in radical political movements. But after 1886, they learned to reject political involvements for fear that radicalism might antagonize state officials or employers and provoke repression.
AFL successes in the early twentieth-century
Entering the twentieth century, the AFL appeared to have a winning strategy. Union membership rose sharply in the late 1890s, doubling between 1896 and 1900 and again between 1900 and 1904. Fewer than 5 percent of industrial wage earners belonged to labor unions in 1895, but this share rose to 7 percent in 1900 and 13 percent in 1904, including over 21 percent of industrial wage earners (workers outside of commerce, government, and the professions). Half of coal miners in 1904 belonged to an industrial union (the United Mine Workers of America), but otherwise, most union members belonged to craft organizations, including nearly half the printers, and a third of cigar makers, construction workers and transportation workers. As shown in Table 4, other pockets of union strength included skilled workers in the metal trades, leather, and apparel. These craft unions had demonstrated their economic power, raising wages by around 15 percent and reducing hours worked (Friedman, 1991; Mullin, 1993).
Table 4
Unionization rates by industry in the United States, 1880-2000
Industry
20.4
14.1
Note: This table shows the unionization rate, the share of workers belonging to unions, in different industries in the United States, 1880-1996.
Sources: 1880 and 1910: Friedman (1999): 83; 1930: Union membership from Wolman (1936); employment from United States, Bureau of the Census (1932); 1953: Troy (1957); 1974, 1986, 2000: United States, Current Population Survey.
Limits to the craft strategy
Even at this peak, the craft strategy had clear limits. Craft unions succeeded only in a declining part of American industry among workers still performing traditional tasks where training was through apprenticeship programs controlled by the workers themselves. By contrast, there were few unions in the rapidly growing industries employing semi-skilled workers. Nor was the AFL able to overcome racial divisions and state opposition to organize in the South (Friedman, 2000; Letwin, 1998). Compared with the KOL in the early 1880s, or with France’s revolutionary syndicalist unions, American unions were weak in steel, textiles, chemicals, paper and metal fabrication using technologies without traditional craft skills. AFL strongholds included construction, printing, cigar rolling, apparel cutting and pressing, and custom metal engineering, employed craft workers in relatively small establishments little changed from 25 years earlier (see Table 4).
Dependent on skilled craftsmen’s economic leverage, the AFL was poorly organized to battle large, technologically dynamic corporations. For a brief time, the revolutionary International Workers of the World (IWW), formed in 1905, organized semi-skilled workers in some mass production industries. But by 1914, it too had failed. It was state support that forced powerful French employers to accept unions. Without such assistance, no union strategy could force large American employers to accept unions.
Unions in the World War I Era
The AFL and World War I
For all its limits, it must be acknowledged that the AFL and its craft affiliates survived after their rivals ignited and died. The AFL formed a solid union movement among skilled craftsmen that with favorable circumstances could form the core of a broader union movement like what developed in Europe after 1900. During World War I, the Wilson administration endorsed unionization and collective bargaining in exchange for union support for the war effort. AFL affiliates used state support to organize mass-production workers in shipbuilding, metal fabrication, meatpacking and steel doubling union membership between 1915 and 1919. But when Federal support ended after the war’s end, employers mobilized to crush the nascent unions. The post-war union collapse has been attributed to the AFL’s failings. The larger truth is that American unions needed state support to overcome the entrenched power of capital. The AFL did not fail because of its deficient economic strategy; it failed because it had an ineffective political strategy (Friedman, 1998; Frank, 1994; Montgomery, 1987).
International effects of World War I
War gave labor extraordinary opportunities. Combatant governments rewarded pro-war labor leaders with positions in the expanded state bureaucracy and support for collective bargaining and unions. Union growth also reflected economic conditions when wartime labor shortages strengthened the bargaining position of workers and unions. Unions grew rapidly during and immediately after the war. British unions, for example, doubled their membership between 1914 and 1920, to enroll eight million workers, almost half the nonagricultural labor force (Bain and Price, 1980; Visser, 1989). Union membership tripled in Germany and Sweden, doubled in Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway, and almost doubled in the United States (see Table 5 and Table 1). For twelve countries, membership grew by 121 percent between 1913 and 1920, including 119 percent growth in seven combatant countries and 160 percent growth in five neutral states.
Table 5
Impact of World War I on Union Membership Growth
Membership Growth in Wartime and After
12 Countries
-34%
Shift toward the revolutionary left
Even before the war, frustration with the slow pace of social reform had led to a shift towards the revolutionary socialist and syndicalist left in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Nolan, 1981; Montgomery, 1987). In Europe, frustrations with rising prices, declining real wages and working conditions, and anger at catastrophic war losses fanned the flames of discontent into a raging conflagration. Compared with pre-war levels, the number of strikers rose ten or even twenty times after the war, including 2.5 million strikers in France in 1919 and 1920, compared with 200,000 strikers in 1913, 13 million German strikers, up from 300,000 in 1913, and 5 million American strikers, up from under 1 million in 1913. British Prime Minister Lloyd George warned in March 1919 that “The whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution. There is a deep sense not only of discontent, but of anger and revolt among the workmen . . . The whole existing order in its political, social and economic aspects is questioned by the masses of the population from one end of Europe to the other” (quoted in Cronin, 1983: 22).
Impact of Communists
Inspired by the success of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, revolutionary Communist Parties were organized throughout the world to promote revolution by organizing labor unions, strikes, and political protest. Communism was a mixed blessing for labor. The Communists included some of labor’s most dedicated activists and organizers who contributed greatly to union organization. But Communist help came at a high price. Secretive, domineering, intolerant of opposition, the Communists divided unions between their dwindling allies and a growing collection of outraged opponents. Moreover, they galvanized opposition, depriving labor of needed allies among state officials and the liberal bourgeoisie.
The “Lean Years”: Welfare Capitalism and the Open Shop
Aftermath of World War I
As with most great surges in union membership, the postwar boom was self-limiting. Helped by a sharp post- war economic contraction, employers and state officials ruthlessly drove back the radical threat, purging their workforce of known union activists and easily absorbing futile strikes during a period of rising unemployment. Such campaigns drove membership down by a third from a 1920 peak of 26 million members in eleven countries in 1920 to fewer than 18 million in 1924. In Austria, France, Germany, and the United States, labor unrest contributed to the election of conservative governments; in Hungary, Italy, and Poland it led to the installation of anti- democratic dictatorships that ruthlessly crushed labor unions. Economic stagnation, state repression, and anti-union campaigns by employers prevented any union resurgence through the rest of the 1920s. By 1929, unions in these eleven countries had added only 30,000 members, one-fifth of one percent.
Injunctions and welfare capitalism
The 1920s was an especially dark period for organized labor in the United States where weaknesses visible before World War I became critical failures. Labor’s opponents used fear of Communism to foment a post-war red scare that targeted union activists for police and vigilante violence. Hundreds of foreign-born activists were deported, and mobs led by the American Legion and the Ku Klux Klan broke up union meetings and destroyed union offices (see, for example, Frank, 1994: 104-5). Judges added law to the campaign against unions. Ignoring the intent of the Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914) they used anti-trust law and injunctions against unions, forbidding activists from picketing or publicizing disputes, holding signs, or even enrolling new union members. Employers competed for their workers’ allegiance, offering paternalist welfare programs and systems of employee representation as substitutes for independent unions. They sought to build a nonunion industrial relations system around welfare capitalism (Cohen, 1990).
Stagnation and decline
After the promises of the war years, the defeat of postwar union drives in mass production industries like steel and meatpacking inaugurated a decade of union stagnation and decline. Membership fell by a third between 1920 and 1924. Unions survived only in the older trades where employment was usually declining. By 1924, they were almost completely eliminated from the dynamic industries of the second industrial revolution: including steel, automobiles, consumer electronics, chemicals and rubber manufacture.
New Deals for Labor
Great Depression
The nonunion industrial relations system of the 1920s might have endured and produced a docile working class organized in company unions (Brody, 1985). But the welfare capitalism of the 1920s collapsed when the Great Depression of the 1930s exposed its weaknesses and undermined political support for the nonunion, open shop. Between 1929 and 1933, real national income in the United States fell by one third, nonagricultural employment fell by a quarter, and unemployment rose from under 2 million in 1929 to 13 million in 1933, a quarter of the civilian labor force. Economic decline was nearly as great elsewhere, raising unemployment to over 15 percent in Austria, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom (Maddison, 1991: 260-61). Only the Soviet Union, with its authoritarian political economy was largely spared the scourge of unemployment and economic collapse — a point emphasized by Communists throughout the 1930s and later. Depression discredited the nonunion industrial relations system by forcing welfare capitalists to renege on promises to stabilize employment and to maintain wages. Then, by ignoring protests from members of employee representation plans, welfare capitalists further exposed the fundamental weakness of their system. Lacking any independent support, paternalist promises had no standing but depended entirely on the variable good will of employers. And sometimes that was not enough (Cohen, 1990).
Depression-era political shifts
Voters, too, lost confidence in employers. The Great Depression discredited the old political economy. Even before Franklin Roosevelt’s election as President of the United States in 1932, American states enacted legislation restricting the rights of creditors and landlords, restraining the use of the injunction in labor disputes, and providing expanded relief for the unemployed (Ely, 1998; Friedman, 2001). European voters abandoned centrist parties, embracing extremists of both left and right, Communists and Fascists. In Germany, the Nazis won, but Popular Front governments uniting Communists and socialists with bourgeois liberals assumed power in other countries, including Sweden, France and Spain. (The Spanish Popular Front was overthrown by a Fascist rebellion that installed a dictatorship led by Francisco Franco.) Throughout there was an impulse to take public control over the economy because free market capitalism and orthodox finance had led to disaster (Temin, 1990).
Economic depression lowers union membership when unemployed workers drop their membership and employers use their stronger bargaining position to defeat union drives (Bain and Elsheikh, 1976). Indeed, union membership fell with the onset of the Great Depression but, contradicting the usual pattern, membership rebounded sharply after 1932 despite high unemployment, rising by over 76 percent in ten countries by 1938 (see Table 6 and Table 1). The fastest growth came in countries with openly pro-union governments. In France, where the Socialist Léon Blum led a Popular Front government, and the United States, during Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, membership rose by 160 percent 1933-38. But membership grew by 33 percent in eight other countries even without openly pro-labor governments.
Table 6
Impact of the Great Depression and World War II on Union Membership Growth
11 Countries (no Germany)
86.7%
French unions and the Matignon agreements
French union membership rose from under 900,000 in 1935 to over 4,500,000 in 1937. The Popular Front’s victory in the elections of June 1936 precipitated a massive strike wave and the occupation of factories and workplaces throughout France. Remembered in movie, song and legend, the factory occupations were a nearly spontaneous uprising of French workers that brought France’s economy to a halt. Contemporaries were struck by the extraordinarily cheerful feelings that prevailed, the “holiday feeling” and sense that the strikes were a new sort of non-violent revolution that would overturn hierarchy and replace capitalist authoritarianism with true social democracy (Phillippe and Dubief, 1993: 307-8). After Blum assumed office, he brokered the Matignon agreements, named after the premier’s official residence in Paris. Union leaders and heads of France’s leading employer associations agreed to end the strikes and occupations in exchange for wage increases of around 15 percent, a 40 hour workweek, annual vacations, and union recognition. Codified in statute by the Popular Front government, French unions gained new rights and protections from employer repression. Only then did workers flock into unions. In a few weeks, French unions gained four million members with the fastest growth in the new industries of the second industrial revolution. Unions in metal fabrication and chemicals grew by 1,450 percent and 4,000 percent respectively (Magraw, 1992: 2, 287-88).
French union leader Léon Jouhaux hailed the Matignon agreements as “the greatest victory of the workers’ movement.” It included lasting gains, including annual vacations and shorter workweeks. But Simone Weil described the strikers of May 1936 as “soldiers on leave,” and they were soon returned to work. Regrouping, employers discharged union activists and attacked the precarious unity of the Popular Front government. Fighting an uphill battle against renewed employer resistance, the Popular Front government fell before it could build a new system of cooperative industrial relations. Contained, French unions were unable to maintain their momentum towards industrial democracy. Membership fell by a third in 1937-39.
The National Industrial Recovery Act
A different union paradigm was developed in the United States. Rather than vehicles for a democratic revolution, the New Deal sought to integrate organized labor into a reformed capitalism that recognized capitalist hierarchy in the workplace, using unions only to promote macroeconomic stabilization by raising wages and consumer spending (Brinkley, 1995). Included as part of a program for economic recovery was section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) giving “employees . . . the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing . . . free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of employers.” AFL-leader William Green pronounced this a “charter of industrial freedom” and workers rushed into unions in a wave unmatched since the Knights of Labor in 1886. As with the KOL, the greatest increase came among the unskilled. Coal miners, southern textile workers, northern apparel workers, Ohio tire makers, Detroit automobile workers, aluminum, lumber and sawmill workers all rushed into unions. For the first time in fifty years, American unions gained a foothold in mass production industries.
AFL’s lack of enthusiasm
Promises of state support brought common laborers into unions. But once there, the new unionists received little help from aging AFL leaders. Fearing that the new unionists’ impetuous zeal and militant radicalism would provoke repression, AFL leaders tried to scatter the new members among contending craft unions with archaic craft jurisdictions. The new unionists were swept up in the excitement of unity and collective action but a half-century of experience had taught the AFL’s leadership to fear such enthusiasms.
The AFL dampened the union boom of 1933-34, but, again, the larger problem was not with the AFL’s flawed tactics but with its lack of political leverage. Doing little to enforce the promises of Section 7(a), the Federal government left employers free to ignore the law. Some flatly prohibited union organization; others formally honored the law but established anemic employee representation plans while refusing to deal with independent unions (Irons, 2000). By 1935 almost as many industrial establishments had employer-dominated employee- representation plans (27 percent) as had unions (30 percent). The greatest number had no labor organization at all (43 percent).
Birth of the CIO
Implacable management resistance and divided leadership killed the early New Deal union surge. It died even before the NIRA was ruled unconstitutional in 1935. Failure provoked rebellion within the AFL. Led by John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, eight national unions launched a campaign for industrial organization as the Committee for Industrial Organization. After Lewis punched Carpenter’s Union leader William L Hutcheson on the floor of the AFL convention in 1935, the Committee became an independent Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO). Including many Communist activists, CIO committees fanned out to organize workers in steel, automobiles, retail trade, journalism and other industries. Building effectively on local rank and file militancy, including sitdown strikes in automobiles, rubber, and other industries, the CIO quickly won contracts from some of the strongest bastions of the open shop, including United States Steel and General Motors (Zieger, 1995).
The Wagner Act
Creative strategy and energetic organizing helped. But the CIO owed its lasting success to state support. After the failure of the NIRA, New Dealers sought another way to strengthen labor as a force for economic stimulus. This led to the enactment in 1935 of the National Labor Relations Act, also known as the “Wagner Act.” The Wagner Act established a National Labor Relations Board charged to enforce employees’ “right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” It provided for elections to choose union representation and required employers to negotiate “in good faith” with their workers’ chosen representatives. Shifting labor conflict from strikes to elections and protecting activists from dismissal for their union work, the Act lowered the cost to individual workers of supporting collective action. It also put the Federal government’s imprimatur on union organization.
Crucial role of rank-and-file militants and state government support
Appointed by President Roosevelt, the first NLRB was openly pro-union, viewing the Act’s preamble as mandate to promote organization. By 1945 the Board had supervised 24,000 union elections involving some 6,000,000 workers, leading to the unionization of nearly 5,000,000 workers. Still, the NLRB was not responsible for the period’s union boom. The Wagner Act had no direct role in the early CIO years because it was ignored for two years until its constitutionality was established by the Supreme Court in National Labor Relations Board v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Company (1937). Furthermore, the election procedure’s gross contribution of 5,000,000 members was less than half of the period’s net union growth of 11,000,000 members. More important than the Wagner Act were crucial union victories over prominent open shop employers in cities like Akron, Ohio, Flint, Michigan, and among Philadelphia-area metal workers. Dedicated rank-and-file militants and effective union leadership were crucial in these victories. As important was the support of pro-New Deal local and state governments. The Roosevelt landslides of 1934 and 1936 brought to office liberal Democratic governors and mayors who gave crucial support to the early CIO. Placing a right to collective bargaining above private property rights, liberal governors and other elected officials in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere refused to send police to evict sit-down strikers who had seized control of factories. This state support allowed the minority of workers who actively supported unionization to use force to overcome the passivity of the majority of workers and the opposition of the employers. The Open Shop of the 1920s was not abandoned; it was overwhelmed by an aggressive, government-backed labor movement (Gall, 1999; Harris, 2000).
World War II
Federal support for union organization was also crucial during World War II. Again, war helped unions both by eliminating unemployment and because state officials supported unions to gain support for the war effort. Established to minimize labor disputes that might disrupt war production, the National War Labor Board instituted a labor truce where unions exchanged a no-strike pledge for employer recognition. During World War II, employers conceded union security and “maintenance of membership” rules requiring workers to pay their union dues. Acquiescing to government demands, employers accepted the institutionalization of the American labor movement, guaranteeing unions a steady flow of dues to fund an expanded bureaucracy, new benefit programs, and even to raise funds for political action. After growing from 3.5 to 10.2 million members between 1935 and 1941, unions added another 4 million members during the war. “Maintenance of membership” rules prevented free riders even more effectively than had the factory takeovers and violence of the late-1930s. With millions of members and money in the bank, labor leaders like Sidney Hillman and Phillip Murray had the ear of business leaders and official Washington. Large, established, and respected: American labor had made it, part of a reformed capitalism committed to both property and prosperity.
Even more than the First World War, World War Two promoted unions and social change. A European civil war, the war divided the continent not only between warring countries but within countries between those, usually on the political right, who favored fascism over liberal parliamentary government and those who defended democracy. Before the war, left and right contended over the appeasement of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy; during the war, many businesses and conservative politicians collaborated with the German occupation against a resistance movement dominated by the left. Throughout Europe, victory over Germany was a triumph for labor that led directly to the entry into government of socialists and Communists.
Successes and Failures after World War II
Union membership exploded during and after the war, nearly doubling between 1938 and 1946. By 1947, unions had enrolled a majority of nonagricultural workers in Scandinavia, Australia, and Italy, and over 40 percent in most other European countries (see Table 1). Accumulated depression and wartime grievances sparked a post- war strike wave that included over 6 million strikers in France in 1948, 4 million in Italy in 1949 and 1950, and 5 million in the United States in 1946. In Europe, popular unrest led to a dramatic political shift to the left. The Labor Party government elected in the United Kingdom in 1945 established a new National Health Service, and nationalized mining, the railroads, and the Bank of England. A center-left post-war coalition government in France expanded the national pension system and nationalized the Bank of France, Renault, and other companies associated with the wartime Vichy regime. Throughout Europe, the share of national income devoted to social services jumped dramatically, as did the share of income going to the working classes.
Europeans unions and the state after World War II
Unions and the political left were stronger everywhere throughout post-war Europe, but in some countries labor’s position deteriorated quickly. In France, Italy, and Japan, the popular front uniting Communists, socialists, and bourgeois liberals dissolved, and labor’s management opponents recovered state support, with the onset of the Cold War. In these countries, union membership dropped after 1947 and unions remained on the defensive for over a decade in a largely adversarial industrial relations system. Elsewhere, notably in countries with weak Communist movements, such as in Scandinavia but also in Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands, labor was able to compel management and state officials to accept strong and centralized labor movements as social partners. In these countries, stable industrial relations allowed cooperation between management and labor to raise productivity and to open new markets for national companies. High-union-density and high-union-centralization allowed Scandinavian and German labor leaders to negotiate incomes policies with governments and employers restraining wage inflation in exchange for stable employment, investment, and wages linked to productivity growth. Such policies could not be instituted in countries with weaker and less centralized labor movements, including France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States because their unions had not been accepted as bargaining partners by management and they lacked the centralized authority to enforce incomes policies and productivity bargains (Alvarez, Garrett, and Lange, 1992).
Europe since the 1960s
Even where European labor was the weakest, in France or Italy in the 1950s, unions were stronger than before World War II. Working with entrenched socialist and labor political parties, European unions were able to maintain high wages, restrictions on managerial autonomy, and social security. The wave of popular unrest in the late 1960s and early 1970s would carry most European unions to new heights, briefly bringing membership to over 50 percent of the labor force in the United Kingdom and in Italy, and bringing socialists into the government in France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Since 1980, union membership has declined some and there has been some retrenchment in the welfare state. But the essentials of European welfare states and labor relations have remained (Western, 1997; Golden and Pontusson, 1992).
Unions begin to decline in the US
It was after World War II that American Exceptionalism became most valid, when the United States emerged as the advanced, capitalist democracy with the weakest labor movement. The United States was the only advanced capitalist democracy where unions went into prolonged decline right after World War II. At 35 percent, the unionization rate in 1945 was the highest in American history, but even then it was lower than in most other advanced capitalist economies. It has been falling since. The post-war strike wave, including three million strikers in 1945 and five million in 1946, was the largest in American history but it did little to enhance labor’s political position or bargaining leverage. Instead, it provoked a powerful reaction among employers and others suspicious of growing union power. A concerted drive by the CIO to organize the South, “Operation Dixie,” failed dismally in 1946. Unable to overcome private repression, racial divisions, and the pro-employer stance of southern local and state governments, the CIO’s defeat left the South as a nonunion, low-wage domestic enclave and a bastion of anti- union politics (Griffith, 1988). Then, in 1946, a conservative Republican majority was elected to Congress, dashing hopes for a renewed, post-war New Deal.
The Taft-Hartley Act and the CIO’s Expulsion of Communists
Quickly, labor’s wartime dreams turned to post-war nightmares. The Republican Congress amended the Wagner Act, enacting the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 to give employers and state officials new powers against strikers and unions. The law also required union leaders to sign a non-Communist affidavit as a condition for union participation in NLRB-sponsored elections. This loyalty oath divided labor during a time of weakness. With its roots in radical politics and an alliance of convenience between Lewis and the Communists, the CIO was torn by the new Red Scare. Hoping to appease the political right, the CIO majority in 1949 expelled ten Communist-led unions with nearly a third of the organization’s members. This marked the end of the CIO’s expansive period. Shorn of its left, the CIO lost its most dynamic and energetic organizers and leaders. Worse, it plunged the CIO into a civil war; non-Communist affiliates raided locals belonging to the “communist-led” unions fatally distracting both sides from the CIO’s original mission to organize the unorganized and empower the dispossessed. By breaking with the Communists, the CIO’s leadership signaled that it had accepted its place within a system of capitalist hierarchy. Little reason remained for the CIO to remain independent. In 1955 it merged with the AFL to form the AFL-CIO.
The Golden Age of American Unions
Without the revolutionary aspirations now associated with the discredited Communists, America’s unions settled down to bargain over wages and working conditions without challenging such managerial prerogatives as decisions about prices, production, and investment. Some labor leaders, notably James Hoffa of the Teamsters but also local leaders in construction and service trades, abandoned all higher aspirations to use their unions for purely personal financial gain. Allying themselves with organized crime, they used violence to maintain their power over employers and their own rank-and-file membership. Others, including former-CIO leaders, like Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers, continued to push the envelope of legitimate bargaining topics, building challenges to capitalist authority at the workplace. But even the UAW was unable to force major managerial prerogatives onto the bargaining table.
The quarter century after 1950 formed a ‘golden age’ for American unions. Established unions found a secure place at the bargaining table with America’s leading firms in such industries as autos, steel, trucking, and chemicals. Contracts were periodically negotiated providing for the exchange of good wages for cooperative workplace relations. Rules were negotiated providing a system of civil authority at work, with negotiated regulations for promotion and layoffs, and procedures giving workers opportunities to voice grievances before neutral arbitrators. Wages rose steadily, by over 2 percent per year and union workers earned a comfortable 20 percent more than nonunion workers of similar age, experience and education. Wages grew faster in Europe but American wages were higher and growth was rapid enough to narrow the gap between rich and poor, and between management salaries and worker wages. Unions also won a growing list of benefit programs, medical and dental insurance, paid holidays and vacations, supplemental unemployment insurance, and pensions. Competition for workers forced many nonunion employers to match the benefit packages won by unions, but unionized employers provided benefits worth over 60 percent more than were given nonunion workers (Freeman and Medoff, 1984; Hirsch and Addison, 1986).
Impact of decentralized bargaining in the US
In most of Europe, strong labor movements limit the wage and benefit advantages of union membership by forcing governments to extend union gains to all workers in an industry regardless of union status. By compelling nonunion employers to match union gains, this limited the competitive penalty borne by unionized firms. By contrast, decentralized bargaining and weak unions in the United States created large union wage differentials that put unionized firms at a competitive disadvantage, encouraging them to seek out nonunion labor and localities. A stable and vocal workforce with more experience and training did raise unionized firms’ labor productivity by 15 percent or more above the level of nonunion firms and some scholars have argued that unionized workers earn much of their wage gain. Others, however, find little productivity gain for unionized workers after account is taken of greater use of machinery and other nonlabor inputs by unionized firms (compare Freeman and Medoff, 1984 and Hirsch and Addison, 1986). But even unionized firms with higher labor productivity were usually more conscious of the wages and benefits paid to union worker than they were of unionization’s productivity benefits.
Unions and the Civil Rights Movement
Post-war unions remained politically active. European unions were closely associated with political parties, Communists in France and Italy, socialists or labor parties elsewhere. In practice, notwithstanding revolutionary pronouncements, even the Communist’s political agenda came to resemble that of unions in the United States, liberal reform including a commitment to full employment and the redistribution of income towards workers and the poor (Boyle, 1998). Golden age unions have also been at the forefront of campaigns to extend individual rights. The major domestic political issue of the post-war United States, civil rights, was troubling for many unions because of the racist provisions in their own practice. Nonetheless, in the 1950s and 1960s, the AFL-CIO strongly supported the civil rights movement, funded civil rights organizations and lobbied in support of civil rights legislation. The AFL-CIO pushed unions to open their ranks to African-American workers, even at the expense of losing affiliates in states like Mississippi. Seizing the opportunity created by the civil rights movement, some unions gained members among nonwhites. The feminist movement of the 1970s created new challenges for the masculine and sometimes misogynist labor movement. But, here too, the search for members and a desire to remove sources of division eventually brought organized labor to the forefront. The AFL-CIO supported the Equal Rights Amendment and began to promote women to leadership positions.
Shift of unions to the public sector
In no other country have women and members of racial minorities assumed such prominent positions in the labor movement as they have in the United States. The movement of African-American and women to leadership positions in the late-twentieth century labor movement was accelerated by a shift in the membership structure of the United States union movement. Maintaining their strength in traditional, masculine occupations in manufacturing, construction, mining, and transportation, European unions remained predominantly male. Union decline in these industries combined with growth in heavily female public sector employments in the United States led to the femininization of the American labor movement. Union membership began to decline in the private sector in the United States immediately after World War II. Between 1953 and 1983, for example, the unionization rate fell from 42 percent to 28 percent in manufacturing, by nearly half in transportation, and by over half in construction and mining (see Table 4). By contrast, after 1960, public sector workers won new opportunities to form unions. Because women and racial minorities form a disproportionate share of these public sector workers, increasing union membership there has changed the American labor movement’s racial and gender composition. Women comprised only 19 percent of American union members in the mid-1950s but their share rose to 40 percent by the late 1990s. By then, the most unionized workers were no longer the white male skilled craftsmen of old. Instead, they were nurses, parole officers, government clerks, and most of all, school teachers.
Union Collapse and Union Avoidance in the US
Outside the United States, unions grew through the 1970s and, despite some decline since the 1980s, European and Canadian unions remain large and powerful. The United States is different. Union decline since World War II has brought the United States private-sector labor movement down to early twentieth century levels. As a share of the nonagricultural labor force, union membership fell from its 1945 peak of 35 percent down to under 30 percent in the early 1970s. From there, decline became a general rout. In the 1970s, rising unemployment, increasing international competition, and the movement of industry to the nonunion South and to rural areas undermined the bargaining position of many American unions leaving them vulnerable to a renewed management offensive. Returning to pre-New Deal practices, some employers established new welfare and employee representation programs, hoping to lure worker away from unions (Heckscher, 1987; Jacoby, 1997). Others returned to pre-New Deal repression. By the early 1980s, union avoidance had become an industry. Anti-union consultants and lawyers openly counseled employers how to use labor law to evade unions. Findings of employers’ unfair labor practices in violation of the Wagner Act tripled in the 1970s; by the 1980s, the NLRB reinstated over 10,000 workers a year who were illegally discharged for union activity, nearly one for every twenty who voted for a union in an NLRB election (Weiler, 1983). By the 1990s, the unionization rate in the United States fell to under 14 percent, including only 9 percent of the private sector workers and 37 percent of those in the public sector. Unions now have minimal impact on wages or working conditions for most American workers.
Nowhere else have unions collapsed as in the United States. With a unionization rate dramatically below that of other countries, including Canada, the United States has achieved exceptional status (see Table 7). There remains great interest in unions among American workers; where employers do not resist, unions thrive. In the public sector and in some private employers where workers have free choice to join a union, they are as likely as they ever were, and as likely as workers anywhere. In the past, as after 1886 and in the 1920s, when American employers broke unions, they revived when a government committed to workplace democracy sheltered them from employer repression. If we see another such government, we may yet see another union revival.
Table 7
Union Membership Rates for the United States and Six Other Leading Industrial Economies, 1970 to 1990
1970
0.168
0.083
Note: The unionization rate reported is the number of union members out of 100 workers in the specified industry. The ratio shown is the unionization rate for the United States divided by the unionization rate for the other countries. The six countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Data on union membership in financial services in France are not available.
Source: Visser (1991): 110.
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Many scientists believe the continents once formed a super continent, called what? | Facts About Pangaea
The breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent.
Credit: U.S. Geological Survey
About 300 million years ago, Earth didn't have seven continents, but instead one massive supercontinent called Pangaea, which was surrounded by a single ocean called Panthalassa.
The explanation for Pangaea's formation ushered in the modern theory of plate tectonics , which posits that the Earth's outer shell is broken up into several plates that slide over Earth's rocky shell, the mantle.
Over the course of the planet's 3.5 billion-year history, several super continents have formed and broken up, a result of churning and circulation in the Earth's mantle , which makes up most of planet's volume. This breakup and formation of supercontinents has dramatically altered the planet's history.
"This is what's driven the entire evolution of the planet through time. This is the major backbeat of the planet," said Brendan Murphy, a geology professor at the St. Francis Xavier University, in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
History
More than a century ago, the scientist Alfred Wegener proposed the notion of an ancient supercontinent, which he named Pangaea (sometimes spelled Pangea), after putting together several lines of evidence.
The first and most obvious was that the "continents fit together like a tongue and groove," something that was quite noticeable on any accurate map, Murphy said. Another telltale hint that Earth's continents were all one land mass comes from the geologic record. Coal deposits found in Pennsylvania have a similar composition to those spanning across Poland, Great Britain and Germany from the same time period. That indicates that North America and Europe must have once been a single landmass. And the orientation of magnetic minerals in geologic sediments reveals how Earth's magnetic poles migrated over geologic time, Murphy said.
In the fossil record, identical plants, such as the extinct seed fern Glossopteris, are found on now widely disparate continents. And mountain chains that now lie on different continents, such as the Appalachians in the United States and the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, were all part of the Central Pangaea Mountains, formed through the collision of the supercontinents Gondwana and Laurussia.
Pangaea formed through a gradual process spanning a few hundred million years. Beginning about 480 million years ago, a continent called Laurentia, which includes parts of North America, merged with several other micro-continents to form Euramerica. Euramerica eventually collided with Gondwana, another supercontinent that included Africa, Australia, South America and the Indian subcontinent.
About 200 million years ago, the supercontinent began to break up. Gondwana (what is now Africa, South America, Antarctica, India and Australia) first split from Laurasia (Eurasia and North America). Then about 150 million years ago, Gondwana broke up. India peeled off from Antarctica, and Africa and South America rifted, according to a 1970 article in the Journal of Geophysical Research . Around 60 million years ago, North America split off from Eurasia.
Life and climate
Having one massive landmass would have made for very different climactic cycles. For instance, the interior of the continent may have utterly dry, as it was locked behind massive mountain chains that blocked all moisture or rainfall, Murphy said.
But the coal deposits found in the United States and Europe reveal that parts of the ancient supercontinent near the equator must have been a lush, tropical rainforest, similar to the Amazonian jungle, Murphy said. (Coal forms when dead plants and animals sink into swampy water, where pressure and water transform the material into peat, then coal.)
"The coal deposits are essentially telling us that there was plentiful life on land," Murphy told Live Science.
Pangaea existed for 100 million years, and during that time period several animals flourished, including the Traversodontidae , a family of plant-eating animals that includes the ancestors of mammals.
During the Permian period , insects such as beetles and dragonflies flourished. But the existence of Pangaea overlapped with the worst mass extinction in history, the Permian-Triassic (P-TR) extinction event. Also called the Great Dying, it occurred around 252 million years ago and caused most species on Earth to go extinct. The early Triassic period saw the rise of archosaurs, a group of animals that eventually gave rise to crocodiles and birds, and a plethora of reptiles. And about 230 million years ago some of the earliest dinosaurs emerged on Pangaea, including theropods, largely carnivorous dinosaurs that mostly had air-filled bones and feathers similar to birds.
Cycle in history
The current configuration of continents is unlikely to be the last. Supercontinents have formed several times in Earth's history, only to be split off into new continents. Right now for instance, Australia is inching toward Asia, and the eastern portion of Africa is slowly peeling off from the rest of the continent.
Geologists have noticed that there is a quasi-regular cycle in which supercontinents form and break up every 300 to 400 million years, but exactly why is a mystery, Murphy said. But most scientists believe that the supercontinent cycle is largely driven by circulation dynamics in the mantle, according to a 2010 article in the Journal of Geodynamics .
Beyond that, the details get fuzzy. While the heat formed in the mantle likely comes from the radioactive decay of unstable elements, such as uranium, scientists don't agree on whether there are mini-pockets of heat flow within the mantle, or if the entire shell is one big heat conveyor belt, Murphy said.
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Additional resources
| Pangaea |
Hazel, filbert, and kola are all types of what? | Activity 3: Plate Tectonics Theory - Bryce Canyon National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Activity 3: Plate Tectonics Theory
Activity 3: Plate Tectonics Theory
PUZZLING PLATE TECTONICS
Summary:
Theories concerning the development of landforms and the causes of geologic occurrences have developed through time. Individual ideas combined to result in the modern theory of plate tectonics. Students will create their own supercontinents by fitting modern continents together according to shape and plant and animal similarities.
Instructional Method: Individual Activity
Goal: Show how scientific theories and ideas develop, specifically the development of the theory of plate tectonics.
Objectives: Students will be able to:
State a few ways that scientists showed that the continents do move.
Use available theory information to construct a super continent with paper cutouts
Time:
Pangea Puzzle maps, copied onto cardstock, one per student or team of students
Map of the world or globe
Scissors
PDF maps of ancient landmass locations - Triassic
Multiple time periods small maps
Vocabulary:
plate tectonic
Background:
The plate tectonics theory suggests that Earth's crust is broken into many small pieces that move, and that the plate interactions result in earthquakes, mountain ranges, volcanoes and the separation of continents. It took many years before this theory was accepted as a valid concept. Geologists used a variety of evidence to support their ideas. The following is a history of how scientists developed the theory of plate tectonics, commonly called continental drift.
Each word below links you to a form of evidence used to support this hypothesis.
Convection cells
A French scientist Antonio Snider-Pellegrini (1859) first proposed that all the continents were once connected together during the Pennsylvanian Period (314-280 million years ago). He used identical plant fossils found in coal beds of Europe and the U.S. to support his idea. He attributed the supercontinent break up to the great flood of the bible.
Scientists of the day were very religious. Most of their research was directed toward explaining how God did things on earth, so finding biblical reasons for landforms seemed logical to them. Some people today still rely on biblical texts to explain the world around them.
Another Frenchman, Elisee Reclus (1872), attributed continental movement to random drifting of the continents. His proposal gave no explanation for why the continents floated around, but stated that their collision resulted in mountain ranges and earthquakes and formed voids for oceans.
An Australian scientist, Edward Seuss (1885) described how plants in Late Paleozoic coal beds of India, Australia, South Africa, and South America were all similar, and differed from plants found in northern continents. He proposed a large southern super-continent called Gondwanaland, where the plants were transported by animals over one large landmass
An American, Frank B. Tailor, proposed that gravitational or tidal forces caused by the moon moved continents around. Even though his idea concerning the causes of plate movement were on the edges of contemporary scientific thought, he is credited with the discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This ridge or submarine mountain range is a spreading point between two continental plates and allowed the Atlantic Ocean to form between Europe and North America. Scientists today believe that spread at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge caused America to separate from Europe, dissolving a large super-continent called Pangea.
Alfred Wegener, in 1915, is credited with the modern theory of continental drift. He based his theory on a several pieces of evidence including geological, paleontological and climatological factors. He noticed similar rock sequences of the same ages found on separated continents. He also noticed how mountain ranges and glacial deposits match up when continents are pushed together forming a continental jigsaw puzzle. Similar extinct plant and animal fossils are found on continents separated by large distances. All this suggests that the continents were once connected or close together. This large connecting landmass was named Pangea.
A supporter of Wegener named Alexander du Toit found further evidence supporting continental drift by comparing coal bed fossils. He discovered northern continents once formed a large super continent called Laurasia. His evidence includes large fresh water reptiles (Mesosaurus), two land reptiles (Cynognathus and Lystrsaurus), and a Permian plant (Glossopteris). He determined that it would be physically impossible for any of these creatures to be on the different continents unless the continents were in close proximity to each other.
Scientists of the past supported the idea of moving continents, but could not explain the cause of the movement. The theory remained relatively stagnant until the mid 1950's. A boom in paleomagnetic research reignited interest in and generated massive support for the theory of plate tectonics.
Paleomagnetism is a magnetic direction (polar magnetism) recorded in igneous rock at the time the rock solidified. When lava and magma is in its fluid state, small iron minerals in the flow align with the polar magnetism of Earth. When molten rock solidifies, those minerals stay pointing toward the magnetic north. If the rocks moved after that magnetic direction has been locked in, the rock compass does not align with the poles and scientist can determine the original position of the igneous rock along with the amount it has moved over time.
Scientists found that the magnetism in young rocks is aligned with the current north. Ancient rocks vary in orientation and in direction. Scientists determined that instead of magnetic poles wobbling around in different orientations for each continent, the continents moved and the poles stayed in their relative locations.
In 1962 Harry Hess proposed the theory of seafloor spreading. He used information gathered from seafloor basalt studies along the Mid-Atlantic spreading ridge. He suggested that the continents did not float about, but interacted with oceanic crust. Plate interactions formed mountain ranges, earthquakes and volcanoes. He also proposed a mechanism, for driving the movement of plates. This mechanism, known as convection cells, is discussed in greater detail in the Floating Continents activity.
Some continents fit together as though they were part of a continental puzzle. More importantly, much of the fossil, plant and animal life seems to match where the puzzle pieces fit together. In this activity, students will attempt to use the evidence presented to form their own super-continent and see how closely it relates to the most accepted vision of the Pangea Puzzle.
Instructional Procedures:
Show a map of the world and have the students draw a sketch of each continent. Have the students name each of the continents and locate them relative to one another.
Make photocopies of the blank map of the world onto cardstock paper, one for each student or team of students. Have the students write the name of the continents and a few distinguishing characteristics on each of those continents (to help with identification).
Cut out the drawings so that there are now seven puzzle pieces, each as one continent.
Have students experiment with putting the pieces together so that they all fit like a puzzle (there are no right or wrong answers to how the continents fit together).
Have each student or team of students explain on paper why they thought each continent fit best where they placed it.
Refer back to the world map. Are there some animals or plants closely related to plants and animals on different continents? Ask students to hypothesize why animals on different continents are similar to those on other continents.
Have the students experiment with putting the puzzle pieces together, explain that this time the plants and animals have to match as well as the contours of the land masses.
Show students a copy of the accepted version of Pangea and discuss how their version might have ended up different from the one that scientists accept.
Discussion:
Did your puzzle change shape when you thought about how the plants and animals also fit together? Why or why not? Did everybody's puzzle look the same when you were finished putting it together? What was it supposed to look like? (maybe like the accepted version of Pangea, but it's still just a theory). Did all of your plant and animal evidence match up? What about Australia, why are all the plants and animals so weird? (Australia separated from the other continents first, so it's animals had more time to adapt to their surroundings independent of outside influences). What caused the continents to move in the first place? Are they still moving? What is moving them today?
Extension:
Younger students - Have the students think about what life would be like on their own version of Pangea and write a creative story about the break up of the super-continent. In this story have them hypothesize what kind of force would have been strong enough to move the continents and how life would change as the continents separated (Time: one day homework).
Older students - have them defend their version of Pangea against the one that is accepted. In truth, we do not know if this accepted version is completely right, and their own version might be more correct. Have the students research the positive and negative aspects of both their own or the accepted version of Pangea. Allow for them to determine for themselves which version is the most likely. (Time: one week, homework).
Included National Parks and other sites:
| i don't know |
May 18, 1980 saw the eruption of what, causing the death of 57 people and over $3 billion in damages? | Mount St. Helens Eruptive History - Page 2
1 [ 2 ] 3
Lateral "blast"
Within a few seconds after the onset and mobilization of the debris avalanche, the climactic eruptions of May 18
began as the sudden unloading of much of the volcano's north flank abruptly released the pent-up pressure of the
volcanic system. The sudden removal of the upper part of the volcano by the landslides triggered the almost
instantaneous expansion (explosion) of high temperature-high pressure steam present in cracks and voids in the
volcano and of gases dissolved in the magma that caused the bulge of the cryptodome. The abrupt pressure
release, or "uncorking," of the volcano by the debris avalanche can be compared in some ways to the sudden
removal of the cap or a thumb from a vigorously shaken bottle of soda pop, or to punching a hole in a boiler tank
under high pressure.
At Mount St. Helens, the "uncorking" unleashed a tremendous, northward-directed lateral blast of rock, ash, and
hot gases that devastated an area of about 230 square miles in a fan-shaped sector north of the volcano. To the
south, the devastated area was much less, extending only a small distance downslope from the summit. Along with
older volcanic debris, the blast also included the first magmatic material erupted by Mount St. Helens, indicating
that the landslides and the ensuing blast had exposed the cryptodome magma.
What appear to be blades of mown grass are actually large trees, some over 100 feet tall, flattened by the
tremendous force of the lateral blast, even out to distances as far as 19 miles from the volcano (Photograph by
Daniel Dzurisin).
Although the lateral blast began some seconds later than the debris avalanche, the blast's velocity was much
greater, so that it soon overtook the avalanche. Calculations have shown that the blast's initial velocity of about
220 miles an hour quickly increased to about 670 miles an hour. The average velocity did not surpass the speed of
sound in the atmosphere (about 735 miles an hour). This observation is consistent with the lack of reports of loud
atmospheric shocks or "sonic booms" from nearby observers such as Keith and Dorothy Stoffel in the light plane or
survivors on the ground. In some areas near the blast front, however, the velocity may have approached, or even
exceeded, the supersonic rate for a few moments.
The blast was widely heard hundreds of miles away in the Pacific Northwest, including parts of British Columbia,
Montana, Idaho, and northern California. Yet, in many areas much closer to Mount St. Helens--for example,
Portland, Oregon, only 50 miles away--the blast was not heard. Subsequent studies by the Oregon Museum of
Science and Industry demonstrated a so-called "quiet zone" around Mount St. Helens, extending radially a few tens
of miles, in which the eruption was not heard. The creation of the "quiet zone" and the degree to which the eruption
was heard elsewhere depended on the complex response of the eruption sound waves to differences in
temperature and air motion of the atmospheric layers and, to a lesser extent, local topography.
Even heard in another Country: Don Botten in
Victoria B.C. said, "I heard it and thought it was the
navy, firing ships guns, then I realized it was Mt. St.
Helens. When I phoned my father, Bill Botten, who
lived on the waterfront, he told me that as he
pushed open his front door, the shock wave
pushed it back in his face. I have often heard
reports of the power of the mountain, but usually
from the perspective of Washington state. The
sound waves carried much farther, between Puget
Sound and Juan de Fuca Strait, they built
considerable force." This update recalled by Don
during 30th anniversary, May 18, 2010
Border area of the lateral-blast zone. Dead trees of the "seared zone" (middle ground) stand between the flatteded
trees of the "tree-down zone" (foreground) and unaffected forest (upper right) (Photograph by Lyn Topinka in April
1982).
The near-supersonic lateral blast, loaded with volcanic debris, caused widespread devastation as far as 19 miles
from the volcano. The area affected by the blast can be subdivided into three roughly concentric zones:
Direct blast zone, the innermost zone, averaged about 8 miles in radius, an area in which virtually everything,
natural or manmade, was obliterated or carried away. For this reason, this zone also has been called the tree-
removal zone." The flow of the material carried by the blast was not deflected by topographic features in this zone.
Channelized blast zone, an intermediate zone, extended out to distances as far as 19 miles from the volcano, an
area in which the flow flattened everything in its path and was channeled to some extent by topography. In this
zone, the force and direction of the blast are strikingly demonstrated by the parallel alignment of toppled large
trees, broken off at the base of the trunk as if they were blades of grass mown by a scythe. This zone was also
known as the "tree-down zone."
Seared zone, also called the "standing dead" zone, the outermost fringe of the impacted area, a zone in which
trees remained standing, but singed brown by the hot gases of the blast.
Generalized map showing the lateral-blast zones.
A similar, but narrower and northeast-trending, strong laterally directed explosion occurred at Mount St. Helens
about 1,100 years ago. The blast of May 18, 1980, however, traveled at least three times as far as the 1,100-year-
old blast. Thus, the occurrence of a lateral blast such as that of May 18 was not the first in Mount St. Helens'
history, but its power and resulting destruction were unprecedented. The lateral blast, debris avalanche, and
associated mudflows and floods caused most of the casualties and destruction on May 18; the adverse impact of
volcanic ash fallout downwind was minor by comparison.
Ash eruption and fallout
The early form of the May 18 eruption plume, which was not photographed, probably resembled the mushroom-
shaped ash cloud of the July 22, 1980, eruption shown here (Photograph by James Vallence).
Clear skies permitted tracking the advance of the drifting cloud by satellite imagery. Moving at an average speed of
about 60 miles an hour, the cloud reached Yakima, Washington, by 9:45 a.m. PDT and Spokane, Washington, by
11:45 a.m. The ash cloud was dense enough to screen out nearly all sunlight, activating darkness-sensitive
switches on street lights in Yakima and Spokane. Street lights remained on for the rest of the darkened day, as the
eruption continued vigorously for more than 9 hours, pumping ash into the atmosphere and feeding the drifting ash
cloud.
The eruptive column fluctuated in height through the day, but the eruption subsided by late afternoon on May 18.
By early May 19, the eruption had stopped. By that time, the ash cloud had spread to the central United States.
Two days later, even though the ash cloud had become more diffuse, fine ash was detected by systems used to
monitor air pollution in several cities of the northeastern United States. Some of the ash drifted around the globe
within about 2 weeks. After circling many more times, most of the ash settled to the Earth's surface, but some of the
smallest fragments and aerosols are likely to remain suspended in the upper atmosphere for years.
The generalized map shows the distribution of ash fallout from the May 18 eruption.
Prevailing winds distributed the fallout from the ash cloud over a wide region. Light ash falls were reported in most
of the Rocky Mountain States, including northern New Mexico, and fine ash dusted a few scattered areas farther
east and northeast of the main path. The heaviest ash deposition occurred in a 60-mile-long swath immediately
downwind of the volcano. Another area of thick ash deposition, however, occurred near Ritzville in eastern
Washington, about 195 miles from Mount St. Helens, where nearly 2 inches of ash blanketed the ground, more
than twice as much as at Yakima, which is only about half as far from the volcano. Scientists believe that this
unexpected variation in ash thickness may reflect differences in wind velocity and direction with altitude, fluctuations
in the height of the ash column during the 9 hours of activity, and the effect of localized clumping of fine ash
particles leading to preferential fallout of the large particle clumps.
7 percent of the amount of material that slid off in the debris avalanche. The eruption of ash also further enlarged
the depression formed initially by the debris avalanche and lateral blast, and helped to create a great amphitheater-
shaped crater open to the north. This new crater was about 1 mile by 2 miles wide and about 2,100 feet deep from
its rim to its lowest point. The area of this crater roughly encompassed that of the former bulge on the north flank of
the volcano and the former summit dome. After the eruption, the highest point on the volcano was about 8,364 feet,
or 1,313 feet lower than the former summit elevation.
Pyroclastic flows
The term "pyroclastic''--derived from the Greek words pyro (fire) and klastos (broken)--describes materials formed
by the fragmentation of magma and rock by explosive volcanic activity. Most volcanic ash is basically fine-grained
pyroclastic material composed of tiny particles of explosively disintegrated old volcanic rock or new magma. Larger
sized pyroclastic fragments are called lapilli, blocks, or bombs. Pyroclastic flows--sometimes called nuees ardentes
(French for "glowing clouds")--are hot, often incandescent mixtures of volcanic fragments and gases that sweep
along close to the ground. Depending on the volume of material, proportion of solids to gas, temperature, and
slope gradient, the flows can travel at velocities as great as 450 miles an hour. Pyroclastic flows can be extremely
destructive and deadly because of their high temperature and mobility. During the 1902 eruption of Mont Pelee
(Martinique, West Indies), for example, a nuee ardente demolished the coastal city of St. Pierre, killing nearly
30,000 inhabitants.
Pyroclastic flows commonly are produced either by the fallback and downslope movement of fragments from an
eruption column or by the direct frothing over at the vent of magma undergoing rapid gas loss. Volcanic froth so
formed is called pumice. Pyroclastic flows originated in both ways at Mount St. Helens on May 18, but flows of
mappable volume were of the latter type. The flows were entirely restricted to a small fan-shaped zone that flares
northward from the summit crater.
Explosion pits were formed by "secondary" eruptions when the hot volcanic debris came into contact with water or
moist ground. This picture also shows an eruption in progress (lower center) (Photograph by Daniel Dzurisin).
Pyroclastic flows were first directly observed shortly after noon, although they probably began to form a short time
after the lateral blast. They continued to occur intermittently during the next 5 hours of strong eruptive activity.
Eyewitness accounts indicated that the more voluminous pyroclastic flows originated by the upwelling of volcanic
ejecta to heights below the rim of the crater, followed by lateral flow northward through the breach of the crater.
One scientist likened this process to a "pot of oatmeal boiling over." Most of the rock in these flows was pumice. A
few smaller pyroclastic flows were observed to form by gravitational collapse of parts of the high eruption column.
The successive outpourings of pyroclastic material consisted mainly of new magmatic debris rather than fragments
of preexisting volcanic rocks. The resulting deposits formed a fan-like pattern of overlapping sheets, tongues, and
lobes. At least 17 separate pyroclastic flows occurred during the May 18 eruption, and their aggregate volume was
about 0.05 cubic mile.
When temperature measurements could safely be made in the pyroclastic flows 2 weeks after they were erupted,
the deposits ranged in temperature from about 570° to 785°F. As might be expected, when the hot material of the
debris avalanche and the even hotter pyroclastic flows encountered bodies of water or moist ground, the water
flashed explosively to steam; the resulting phreatic (steam-blast) explosions sent plumes of ash and steam as high
as 1.2 miles above the ground. These "secondary" or "rootless" steam-blast eruptions formed many explosion pits
on the northern margin of the pyroclastic flow deposits, at the south shore of Spirit Lake, and along the upper part
of the North Fork of the Toutle River. These steam-blast explosions continued sporadically for weeks or months
after the emplacement of pyroclastic flows, and at least one occurred about a year later, on May 16, 1981.
Mudflows and floods
Volcanic debris flows--mobile mixtures of volcanic debris and water popularly called mudflows--often accompany
pyroclastic eruptions, if water is available to erode and transport the loose pyroclastic deposits on the steep slopes
of stratovolcanoes. Destructive mudflows and debris flows began within minutes of the onset of the May 18
eruption, as the hot pyroclastic materials in the debris avalanche, lateral blast, and ash falls melted snow and
glacial ice on the upper slopes of Mount St. Helens. Such flows are also called lahars, a term borrowed from
Indonesia, where volcanic eruptions have produced many such deposits.
Mudflows were observed as early as 8:50 a.m. PDT in the upper reaches of the South Fork of the Toutle River.
The largest and most destructive mudflows, however, were those that developed several hours later in the North
Fork of the Toutle River, when the water-saturated parts of the massive debris avalanche deposits began to slump
and flow. The mudflows in the Toutle River drainage area ultimately dumped more than 65 million cubic yards of
sediment along the lower Cowlitz and Columbia Rivers. The water-carrying capacity of the Cowlitz River was
reduced by 85 percent, and the depth of the Columbia River navigational channel was decreased from 39 feet to
less than 13 feet, disrupting river traffic and choking off ocean shipping. Mudflows also swept down the southeast
flank of the volcano--along the Swift Creek, Pine Creek, and Muddy River drainages--and emptied nearly 18 million
cubic yards of water, mud, and debris into the Swift Reservoir. The water level of the reservoir had been purposely
kept low as a precaution to minimize the possibility that the reservoir could be overtopped by the additional water-
mud-debris load to cause flooding of the valley downstream. Fortunately, the volume of the additional load was
insufficient to cause overtopping even if the reservoir had been full.
Generalized geologic map showing the impact and deposits of the climactic eruption in the vicinity of the volcano.
On the upper steep slopes of the volcano, the mudflows traveled as fast as 90 miles an hour; the velocity then
progressively slowed to about 3 miles an hour as the flows encountered the flatter and wider parts of the Toutle
River drainage. Even after traveling many tens of miles from the volcano and mixing with cold waters, the mudflows
maintained temperatures in the range of about 84° to 91°F.; they undoubtedly had higher temperatures closer to
the eruption source. Shortly before 3 p.m., the mud and debris-choked Toutle River crested about 21 feet above
normal at a point just south of the confluence of the North and South Forks. Another stream gage at Castle Rock,
about 3 miles downstream from where the Toutle joins the Cowlitz, indicated a high-water (and mud) mark also
about 20 feet above normal at midnight of May 18. Locally the mudflows surged up the valley walls as much as 360
feet and over hills as high as 250 feet. From the evidence left by the "bathtub-ring" mudlines, the larger mudflows
at their peak averaged from 33 to 66 feet deep. The actual deposits left behind after the passage of the mudflow
crests, however, were considerably thinner, commonly less than 10 percent of their depth during peak flow. For
example, the mudflow deposits along much of the Toutle River averaged less than 3 feet thick.
Mudflow-damaged house along the Toutle River. The height of the mudflow is shown by the "bathtub-ring" mudlines
seen on the tree trunks and the house itself (Photograph by Dwight Crandell).
The catastrophic first minute
During the initial hours of the May 18 activity, people were obviously confused about the nature and sequence of
the phenomena taking place. Did the eruption trigger the 5.1 magnitude earthquake or did the earthquake trigger
the eruption? Or were both associated with some other, but unknown, cause or causes? At first, these questions
and others could not be answered because of the rapidity of developments and the initial lack of firsthand
observations by people who were close to the mountain and who survived the catastrophe. It was not until many
hours, indeed days, later that scientists were able to reconstruct clearly the sequence of events. The
reconstruction was aided by eyewitness accounts. Geologists Keith and Dorothy Stoffel, flying over the volcano in a
small plane when the earthquake struck, observed "minor landsliding of rock and ice debris" into the crater. Within
the next 15 seconds, the north flank of the volcano "began to ripple and churn up, without moving laterally." At the
same time the Stoffels were witnessing from the air the developing debris avalanche, a remarkable series of
ground-based photographs was being taken by Keith Ronnholm and Gary Rosenquist from Bear Meadows, a
camping area located about 11 miles northeast of Mount St. Helens. Seconds after the earthquake, William Dilly, a
member of the Rosenquist party, noticed through binoculars that the north flank was becoming "fuzzy, like there
was dust being thrown down the side" and shouted that the "mountain was going." Within seconds Rosenquist
began taking photographs in rapid succession.
Frame-by-frame analysis of the Rosenquist photographs, taken within a span of about 40 seconds, together with
seismic and other evidence, established the following sequence of events during the first minute of the climactic
eruptions. The times indicated are in hours, minutes, and seconds (Pacific Daylight Time).
These photographs were selected from the sequence taken by Gary Rosenquist (©copyright Gary Rosenquist
1980 ). ( These photo postcard strips are now available at Forest Learning Center after being out of print. )
The lateral blast at the vent probably lasted no more than about 30 seconds, but the northward radiating and
expanding blast cloud continued for about another minute, extending to areas more than 16 miles from the volcano.
Shortly after the blast shot out laterally, the vertically directed ash column rose to an altitude of about 16 miles in
less than 15 minutes, and the vigorous emission of ash continued for the next 9 hours. The eruption column began
to decline at about 5:30 p.m. and diminished to a very low level by early morning of May 19.
The extraordinary photographic documentation of the first minute enabled scientists to reconstruct accurately what
had happened. The 5.1-magnitude earthquake caused the gravitational collapse of Mount St. Helens' north flank,
which produced the debris avalanche and triggered the ensuing violent lateral and vertical eruptions. From a
scientific perspective, it was fortunate that the initial May 18 events occurred during daylight hours under cloudless
conditions; otherwise, the sequence of events during that crucial first minute following the earthquake would have
been difficult to reconstruct precisely.
Impact and aftermath
The May 18, 1980, eruption was the most destructive in the history of the United States. Novarupta (Katmai)
Volcano, Alaska, erupted considerably more material in 1912, but owing to the isolation and sparse population of
the region affected, there were no human deaths and little property damage. In contrast, Mount St. Helens' eruption
in a matter of hours caused loss of lives and widespread destruction of valuable property, primarily by the debris
avalanche, the lateral blast, and the mudflows.
Landscape changes caused by the May 18 eruption were readily seen on high-altitude photographs. Such images,
however, cannot reveal the impacts of the devastation on people and their works. The May 18 eruption resulted in
scores of injuries and the loss of 57 lives. Within the United States before May 18, 1980, only two known casualties
had been attributed to volcanic activity--a photographer was struck by falling rocks during the explosive eruption of
Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii, in 1924; and an Army sergeant who disappeared during the 1944 eruption of Cleveland
Volcano, Chuginadak Island, Aleutians. Autopsies indicated that most of Mount St. Helens' vicitims died by
asphyxiation from inhaling hot volcanic ash, and some by thermal and other injuries.
The lateral blast, debris avalanche, mudflows, and flooding caused extensive damage to land and civil works. All
buildings and related manmade structures in the vicinity of Spirit Lake were buried. More than 200 houses and
cabins were destroyed and many more were damaged in Skamania and Cowlitz Counties, leaving many people
homeless. Many tens of thousands of acres of prime forest, as well as recreational sites, bridges, roads, and trails,
were destroyed or heavily damaged. More than 185 miles of highways and roads and 15 miles of railways were
destroyed or extensively damaged.
Trees amounting to more than 4 billion board feet of salable timber were damaged or destroyed, primarily by the
lateral blast. At least 25 percent of the destroyed timber has been salvaged since September 1980. Hundreds of
loggers have been involved in the timber-salvage operations, and, during peak summer months, more than 600
truckloads of salvaged timber were retrieved each day. Wildlife in the Mount St. Helens area also suffered heavily.
The Washington State Department of Game estimated that nearly 7,000 big game animals (deer, elk, and bear)
perished in the area most affected by the eruption, as well as all birds and most small mammals. However, many
small animals, chiefly burrowing rodents, frogs, salamanders, and crawfish, managed to survive because they were
below ground level or water surface when the disaster struck. The Washington Department of Fisheries estimated
that 12 million Chinook and Coho salmon fingerlings were killed when hatcheries were destroyed; these might have
developed into about 360,000 adult salmon. Another estimated 40,000 young salmon were lost when they were
forced to swim through the turbine blades of hydroelectric generators because the levels of the reservoirs along
the Lewis River south of Mount St. Helens were kept low to accommodate possible mudflows and flooding.
Panoramic view of Mounts St. Helens from Mount Margaret, about 9 miles north
(Photograph [montage] by Maleah Taubman in August 1979).
Mount St. Helens viewed from the same point after the May 18, 1980, eruption
(Photograph [montage] by James Hughes in 1982).
Downwind of the volcano, in areas of thick ash accumulation, many agricultural crops, such as wheat, apples,
potatoes, and alfalfa, were destroyed. Many crops survived, however, in areas blanketed by only a thin covering of
ash. In fact, the apple and wheat production in 1980 was higher than normal due to greater-than-average summer
precipitation. The crusting of ash also helped to retain soil moisture through the summer. Moreover, in the long
term, the ash may provide beneficial chemical nutrients to the soils of eastern Washington, which themselves were
formed of older glacial deposits that contain a significant ash component. Effects of the ash fall on the water quality
of streams, lakes, and rivers were short-lived and minor.
Stand of timber in the "tree-down" zone north of Mount St. Helens devastated by the lateral blast. The downed trees were salvaged as
quickly as possible before the wood began to rot. Note the two people (circled) in lower right (Photograph by Lyn Topinka).
The ash fall, however, did pose some temporary major problems for transportation operations and for sewage-
disposal and water-treatment systems. Because visibility was greatly decreased during the ash fall, many highways
and roads were closed to traffic, some only for a few hours, but others for weeks. Interstate 90 from Seattle to
Spokane, Washington, was closed for a week. Air transportation was disrupted for a few days to 2 weeks as several
airports in eastern Washington shut down due to ash accumulation and attendant poor visibility. Over a thousand
commercial flights were canceled following airport closures.
The fine-grained, gritty ash caused substantial problems for internal-combustion engines and other mechanical
and electrical equipment. The ash contaminated oil systems, clogged air filters, and scratched moving surfaces.
Fine ash caused short circuits in electrical transformers, which in turn caused power blackouts. The sewage-
disposal systems of several municipalities that received about half an inch or more of ash, such as Moses Lake and
Yakima, Washington, were plagued by ash clogging and damage to pumps, filters, and other equipment.
Fortunately, as these same cities used deep wells and closed storage, their water-supply systems were only
minimally affected.
The removal and disposal of ash from highways, roads, buildings, and airport runways were monumental tasks for
some eastern Washington communities. State and Federal agencies estimated that over 2.4 million cubic yards of
ash--equivalent to about 900,000 tons in weight--were removed from highways and airports in Washington State.
Ash removal cost $2.2 million and took 10 weeks in Yakima. The need to remove ash quickly from transportation
routes and civil works dictated the selection of some disposal sites. Some cities used old quarries and existing
sanitary landfills; others created dumpsites wherever expedient. To minimize wind reworking of ash dumps, the
surfaces of some disposal sites have been covered with topsoil and seeded with grass. About 250,000 cubic yards
of ash have been stockpiled at five sites and can be retrieved easily for constructional or industrial use at some
future date if economic factors are favorable.
What was the cost of the destruction and damage caused by the May 18 eruption? Accurate cost figures remain
difficult to determine. Early estimates were too high and ranged from $2 to $3 billion, primarily reflecting the timber,
civil works, and agricultural losses. A refined estimate of $1.1 billion was determined in a study by the International
Trade Commission at the request of Congress. A supplemental appropriation of $951 million for disaster relief was
voted by Congress, of which the largest share went to the Small Business Administration, U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
There were indirect and intangible costs of the eruption as well. Unemployment in the immediate region of Mount
St. Helens rose tenfold in the weeks immediately following the eruption and then nearly returned to normal once
timber salvaging and ash cleanup operations were underway. Only a small percentage of residents left the region
because of lost jobs owing to the eruption. Several months after May 18, a few residents reported suffering stress
and emotional problems, even though they had coped successfully during the crisis. The counties in the region
requested funding for mental health programs to assist such people.
Initial public reaction to the May 18 eruption nearly dealt a crippling blow to tourism, an important industry in
Washington. Not only was tourism down in the Mount St. Helens-Gifford Pinchot National Forest area, but
conventions, meetings, and social gatherings also were canceled or postponed at cities and resorts elsewhere in
Washington and neighboring Oregon not affected by the eruption. The negative impact on tourism and
conventioneering, however, proved only temporary. Mount St. Helens, perhaps because of its eruptive activity, has
regained its appeal for tourists. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and State of Washington opened visitor centers
and provided access for people to view firsthand the volcano's awesome devastation.
The spectacular eruption impressed upon the people in the Pacific Northwest that they share their lands with both
active and potentially active volcanoes. With the passage of time, the damaged forests, streams, and fields will
heal, and the memory of the 1980 eruption and its impacts will fade in future generations. The Mount St. Helens
experience has been so thoroughly documented, however, that it likely will be a reminder for decades in the future
of the possibility of renewed volcanic activity and destruction.
The splintered and charred remains of a tree
removed in the direct blast zone. In this picture,
the direction of the blast was from right to left.
Tree trunk was originally about 2 feet in diameter
(Photograph by Robert Smith).
A strong, vertically directed explosion of ash
and steam began very shortly after the
lateral blast. The resulting eruptive column
rose very quickly. In less than 10 minutes,
the ash column reached an altitude of more
winds followed other paths determined by
complex wind directions.
(Left) The advancing ash cloud from Mount St. Helens, as seen from the ground in
eastern Washington.
During the 9 hours of vigorous eruptive activity, about 540 million tons of ash fell
over an area of more than 22,000 square miles. The total volume of the ash before
its compaction by rainfall was about 0.3 cubic mile, equivalent to an area the size of
a football field piled about 150 miles high with fluffy ash. The volume of the
uncompacted ash is equivalent to about 0.05 cubic mile of solid rock, or only about
08:27 (approximate) Pre-earthquake view of
the bulge on the volcano's north flank
produced by the growing cryptodome of
magma intruded since March 20. About 5
minutes later (08:32:11.4 PDT), a 5.1
magnitude earthquake struck beneath the
mountain at shallow depth.
08:32:53.3 The first slide block now had
dropped sufficiently to expose more of the
cryptodome magma, accelerating the
explosive expansion of gases in the magma
and the eruption of the first magmatic
material of the 1980 eruptions.
08:32:47.0 Estimate of the time of the first
photograph in Rosenquist's sequence that
shows movement of the mountain. By this
time, the first slide block had already
dropped about 2,300 feet and a second block
behind it had slid 330 feet. The beginning of
the north flank's collapse and downward
movement to initiate the debris avalanche
was estimated to be 26 seconds earlier
(08:32:21.0 PDT).
08:33:03.7 The continuing movement of the
slide blocks and explosions had now
thoroughly "uncorked" the magmatic system
of the cryptodome, and old and new
(magmatic) debris were blasted outward by
increasingly more powerful explosions. The
high-velocity lateral blast cloud, with its
clearly visible trajectory trails of large blocks,
was overtaking the slower moving debris
avalanche.
08:32:49.2 A little more than 2 seconds later,
as the slide blocks continued to move, the
initial explosions of the vertical eruption
column as well as the lateral blast, although
obscure, had already begun.
08:33:18.8 Less than a minute after the start
of the debris avalanche, the eruption of Mount
St. Helens was in full fury, further enlarging
the crater as smaller slide blocks fell into the
vent and were blasted away. The leading
front of the lateral blast now had completely
overtaken the debris avalanche.
ash from Mount St. Helens
as part of the massive
cleanup effort in eastern
| Mount St. Helens |
What member of Public enemy, known for always being able to tell what time it was, had his own VH1 reality show? | Volcanoes and Water | Watts Up With That?
Watts Up With That?
The world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change
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Anthony Watts / April 18, 2010
Guest Post by Steven Goddard
The Guardian image below taken this week near Iceland has the caption “Smoke and ash billows from a volcano in Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland Photograph: Ingolfur Juliusson/Reuters”
The Guardian caption is for the most part incorrect. Note that the volcanic cloud is largely indistinguishable from the other clouds, except for it’s shape. The reason for the similarity is that the vast majority of the volcanic plume is water vapour, not ash and definitely not smoke. Where would smoke come from??? There aren’t any trees on Iceland to burn.
From Wikipedia :
The abundance of gases varies considerably from volcano to volcano. However, water vapor is consistently the most common volcanic gas, normally comprising more than 60% of total emissions. Carbon dioxide typically accounts for 10 to 40% of emissions.
70% of the earth’s surface is covered with water. Where did that water come from? It is generally believed that most of it outgased from the interior of the earth during the first 700 million years of the earth’s existence.
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/oceano/oceans.htm
Steam from the interior
Today most authors believe that early steam from the hot mantle but already cool atmosphere, caused the oceans in the very early stages of the planet. They reason from studies of chondrites (space rocks) in space that under compression, enough water could be released to form an ocean. Today one can observe the gases escaping from active volcanoes, and these too contain water. In this scenario, the oceans would still be increasing in size, a gradual process that would never really end.
The amount of water stored in rocks of the primary lithosphere is estimated at 25E21kg (Hutchinson G E, 1957), whereas the water in all oceans is 1.35E21kg, so it is quite possible that all this water emerged slowly after rocks were compressed and heated while the atmosphere had cooled already.
We know that the oceans could not have condensed out of the early atmosphere, because even a 100% water vapour atmosphere would only contain 10 metres of liquid water. People have hypothesized that the oceans came from comets, but the hydrogen isotope ratios in the oceans are different than that seen in comets Halley, Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp .
The only plausible origin of the oceans is from the interior of the earth. So why don’t we see oceans on other planets and the moon? Liquid water only exists in a narrow range of temperatures and pressures. Other planets are too hot, too cold or too small to hold liquid water, though some of the moons of the giant planets may have liquid water .
Why is the relationship between volcanoes and water important? Because steam pressure is the primary driver of explosive volcanic eruptions.
Below are some images of potentially explosive eruptions :
Mt. St. Helens 1980 : Mostly steam, some ash, almost no smoke.
The video above shows the moment of the big eruption May 18, 1980
Mayon 1984 USGS photo : Steam rising, ash cloud falling down the sides of the mountain.
Fourpeaked Volcano, Alaska 2006 USGS photo : 100% steam
Tungurahua 2006 NASA EO image : Steam, ash and lava
Eyjafjallajökull 2010 NASA EO image : Steam, lava, ice
Below are USGS images of non-explosive eruptions at Mauna Loa, Hawaii
Note in the image above that there is some smoke on the left side – from burning trees, and a little steam at the summit. So what is the difference between explosive and non-explosive eruptions? The difference is mainly due to the presence or absence of water. Water mainly enters volcanoes from two primary sources.
Subduction on the sea floor, and transport upwards into a magma chamber. (Mt. St. Helens)
Melt from snow and ice above. (Eyjafjallajökull and Mt. St. Helens)
Mauna Loa on the other hand has very little water mixed in with the magma, as it is neither near a subduction zone nor is it covered with snow most of the time. So eruptions from Mauna Loa tend to produce lava rather than steam and ash.
Looking at the mechanics, it becomes clear that explosive volcanic eruptions can not occur in the absence of large amounts of steam. Liquids (like magma) have very low compressibility and can not store enough mechanical energy to cause an explosion. Gases on the other hand are extremely compressible and can store vast amounts of energy. Steam has the unique property that it is liquid until it comes in contact with the magma (or the overburden pressure becomes low enough to allow it to switch to vapour phase) – then it converts thermal energy into mechanical energy very efficiently. The world used to run off steam engines based on this principle.
Most modern power plants still use steam to convert thermal energy into mechanical energy. Same principle that makes volcanoes explode.
Rate this:
That was a steamy expose’
Tom_R
What is the definition of ‘smoke’? I always thought is was the combination of water + CO2 + maybe other stuff (SO2, particulates, …).
Thomas
Interestingly enough last night on a ‘discovery sunday’ episode called “journey to the center of the earth” Water in the mantle was discussed. It was claimed that water from the oceans went underground with the sub-ducting plates.
R Shearer
Don’t forget the brimstone (sulfur) that gets converted to sulfur dioxide! In any case, vulcanism is a gas.
MarbellaBoy
So it looks like we’re headed towards Waterworld in a few million years. Better teach your kids to swim!
Phil's Dad
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How many bonus points does a Scrabble player receive when playing all 7 of their tiles in a single turn? | The Official Rules of Scrabble - How to Play Scrabble - Learn Scrabble Rules
How to Play Scrabble
Travel Scrabble
Scrabble Rules - Scrabble Official Rules
When playing Scrabble, anywhere from two to four players will enjoy the game. The object when playing is to score more points than other players. As words are placed on the game board, points are collected and each letter that is used in the game will have a different point value. The main strategy is to play words that have the highest possible score based on the combination of letters.
The Scrabble Board
A standard Scrabble board will consist of cells that are located in a large square grid. The board offers 15 cells high and 15 cells wide. The tiles used on the game will fit in each cell on the board.
Scrabble Tiles
There are 100 tiles that are used in the game and 98 of them will contain letters and point values. There are 2 blank tiles that can be used as wild tiles to take the place of any letter. When a blank is played, it will remain in the game as the letter it substituted for.
Different letters in the game will have various point values and this will depend on how rare the letter is and how difficult it may be to lay that letter. Blank tiles will have no point values.
Tile Values
Below are the point values for each letter that is used in a Scrabble game.
0 Points - Blank tile.
1 Point - A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T and U.
2 Points - D and G.
3 Points - B, C, M and P.
4 Points - F, H, V, W and Y.
5 Points - K.
8 Points - J and X.
10 Points - Q and Z.
Extra Point Values
When looking at the board, players will see that some squares offer multipliers. Should a tile be placed on these squares, the value of the tile will be multiplied by 2x or 3x. Some squares will also multiply the total value of the word and not just the single point value of one tile.
Double Letter Scores - The light blue cells in the board are isolated and when these are used, they will double the value of the tile placed on that square.
Triple Letter Score - The dark blue cell in the board will be worth triple the amount, so any tile placed here will earn more points.
Double Word Score - When a cell is light red in colour, it is a double word cell and these run diagonally on the board, towards the four corners. When a word is placed on these squares, the entire value of the word will be doubled.
Triple Word Score - The dark red square is where the high points can be earned as this will triple the word score. Placing any word on these squares will boos points drastically. These are found on all four sides of the board and are equidistant from the corners.
One Single Use - When using the extra point squares on the board, they can only be used one time. If a player places a word here, it cannot be used as a multiplier by placing another word on the same square.
Starting the Game
Without looking at any of the tiles in the bag, players will take one tile. The player that has the letter that is closest to “A” will begin the game. A blank tile will win the start of the game. The tiles are them replaced to the bag and used in the remainder of the game.
Every player will start their turn by drawing seven tiles from the Scrabble bag. There are three options during any turn. The player can place a word, they can exchange tiles for new tiles or they can choose to pass. In most cases, players will try to place a word as the other two options will result in no score.
When a player chooses to exchange tiles, they can choose to exchange one or all of the tiles they currently hold. After tiles are exchanged, the turn is over and players will have to wait until their next turn to place a word on the board.
Players can choose to pass at any time. They will forfeit that turn and hope to be able to play the next time. If any player passes two times in a row, the game will end and the one with the highest score will win.
The First Word Score
When the game begins, the first player will place their word on the star spin in the centre of the board. The star is a double square and will offer a double word score. All players following will build their words off of this word, extending the game to other squares on the board.
Play continues in a clockwise direction around the Scrabble board.
Replacing Scrabble Tiles
Once tiles are played on the board, players will draw new tiles to replace those. Players will always have seven tiles during the game. Drawing tiles is always done without looking into the bag so that the letters are always unknown.
The Fifty Point Bonus
Exciting rewards can come when players use all seven tiles to create a word on the board. When this happens, players will receive a 50 point bonus, in addition to the value of the word. If the game is near the end and players are not holding seven tiles, they do not get the bonus for using all of their tiles. This is only collected for seven letter words placed.
The End of a Scrabble Game
Once all tiles are gone from the bag and a single player has placed all of their tiles, the game will end and the player with the highest score wins.
Tallying Scrabble Scores
When the game ends, each player will count all points that are remaining on their tiles that have not been played. This amount will be deducted from the final score.
An added bonus is awarded to the player that ended the game and has no remaining tiles. The tile values of all remaining players will be added to the score of the player who is out of tiles to produce the final score for the game.
The Scrabble player with the highest score after all final scores are tallied wins.
Accepted Scrabble Words
Any word that is found in a standard English dictionary can be used in the game of Scrabble. There are also Official Scrabble Dictionaries that can be purchased for more word options.
There are some words that are not allowed to be played and these include suffixes, prefixes and abbreviations. Any word that requires the use of a hyphen or apostrophe cannot be played in the game. Any word that required the use of a capital letter is not allowed.
When playing an English version of the game, foreign words are not allowed to be placed on the board. However, if the foreign word does appear in a standard English dictionary, it is allowed. The reason for this is due to the fact that the word is spoken enough and is considered part of the English language.
This website is intended for information and entertainment purposes only. We are in no way affiliated with the SCRABBLE® brand and registered trademark. These intellectual property rights belong to Hasbro, Inc. in which we are not affiliated.
© Copyright 2016, Scrabble Pages . All rights reserved
| 50 |
What is the wife of an Earl called? | How to Play Scrabble
How to Play Scrabble
First time playing Scrabble or a board game veteran who wants to make sure they're playing correctly? Watch this how-to video from About.com to learn the right way to play Scrabble. Show transcript Hide transcript
Transcript: How to Play Scrabble
Hi, I'm Aubrey for About.com. Today, I'm going to give you a basic idea how to play Scrabble. To get started, let's go over the equipment / game pieces.
The Scrabble Game Board
A Scrabble game board has a grid with 15 squares across and 15 squares high.
Scrabble Tiles
There are 100 Scrabble tiles. All but 2 of the tiles have a letter on them. The remaining 2 tiles are blank and can be substituted for any letter. The tiles are worth different points depending on how common or uncommon the letter is. Blank tiles aren't worth any points.
How to Play Scrabble
To get started, each of the players will select a tile out of the bag, without looking. Whoever picks the tile closest to the letter "A" will go first. A blank tile is considered better than an "A" tile. Players will then return all of the letters to the bag. Next, each player will start by selecting 7 tiles from the bag, again without looking into the bag.
The first player will use two or more of their the letters to compose a word. They will place this word on the board either vertically or horizontally. The first letter of the first word must be placed on the star square at the center of the board. This star will count as a double word score on the first play. Players will then take turns playing, going in a clockwise direction around the board. Once a player puts a word on the board, they must select new letters to replace those they played, so they always have 7 tiles.
During Your Turn in Scrabble
During their turn, a player can either place a word on the scrabble board, exchange tiles, or pass on their turn. If a player passes two consecutive times then the game ends. If a player decides to exchange their letters, they cannot place a word on the board until their next turn. Word scores are calculated by adding up the numbers on each of the tiles. Extra points can be earned by arranging a word over premium squares. These squares are multipliers, they either multiply an individual letter or the entire word by the value listed on the square. The specific values are printed on the board. If a player puts a word on the board and one of the tiles touches a tile in an adjacent row, it must also form a word. A players receives points for any of the words they play or modify during their play.
Extra Points in Scrabble
If someone plays all of their tiles in a single word, they receive a 50 point bonus, to be added after factoring in any multipliers from premium squares. All words in the Standard English dictionary can be used, except for: abbreviations, proper nouns, prefixes, suffixes, as well as words that have apostrophes or hyphens
A player can challenge a word by looking it up in an agreed upon dictionary. The tiles are removed if the word is incorrect.
Additionally, the player loses the turn. A tile is not to be moved once it has been placed on the board, unless a word has been challenged and successfully disproven. The game is over when all of the tiles have been selected from the bag, and one of the players has played all of their tiles.
Tallying Scrabble Scores
After tallying all of the points, the player with the highest score wins.
About videos are made available on an "as is" basis, subject to the Terms of Use .
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What famed Scottish author and physician, creator of Sherlock Holmes and The Lost World, had a birthday on the 22 May, 1859? | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Biography - Childhood, Life Achievements & Timeline
Writers
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Biography
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a Scottish author, poet & physician. This biography provides detailed information about his childhood, life and timeline.
Quick Facts
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
Famous as
Jean Leckie (m. 1907â1930), Louisa Hawkins (m. 1885â1906)
children
Adrian Conan Doyle, Jean Conan Doyle, Arthur Alleyne Kingsley, Denis Percy Stewart, Mary Louise
education
Jesuit preparatory school Hodder Place
Stonyhurst
University of Edinburgh
Image Credit http://www.culturalweekly.com/happy-birthday-sir-arthur-conan-doyle/
Arthur Conan Doyle is the widely read Scottish author who created the legendary, world famous fictional character, 'Sherlock Holmes'. He authored more than 60 'Sherlock Holmes' mystery stories, which captivated readers and transported them into a world of mystery. Some of his notable 'Sherlock Holmes' works include, âStories of Sherlock Holmes', 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes', 'The Hound of the Baskervilles', 'The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes' and 'The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes'. He also authored many non-fiction books, works of fantasy, science-fiction and wrote poetry. He has also published many historical novels. He created another fictional character named, âProfessor Challenger' and wrote a series of novels based on him. Born into a wealthy family in Edinburgh, Scotland, Doyle grew up listening to many enchanting tales narrated to him by his mother, Mary, a well read and masterful storyteller. He initially went to medical school and after he graduated he was briefly employed and later set up his own practice. Unfortunately, his medical career did not succeed and he began writing stories while he waited for patients, little knowing the fact that these stories would change his life forever.
Childhood & Early Life
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, to Charles Altamont Doyle, a Victorian artist and Mary Foley. His parents were of Irish-Catholic descent.
His family was affluent and well respected but his father was a heavy drinker and hence he was supported by his wealthy uncles. His mother was well read. When he was a child, she sparked his imagination with the great stories she narrated.
From 1868, he began to attend Hodder Place, a Roman Catholic Jesuit preparatory school and later went to the Stonyhurst College. He subsequently went to the Stella Matutina Jesuit School in Feldkirch, Austria.
In the year 1876, he enrolled at the medical school at the University of Edinburgh. During this period he also did many jobs and first began writing short stories. One of his earliest unpublished works of fiction was âThe Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe'.
On September 6, 1879, his piece, âThe Mystery of Sasassa Valley', was published in the Chambersâs Edinburgh Journal. This was his first publication. That year, his non-fiction work, âGelsemium as a Poison' was also published.
In 1880, he was employed as a physician abode the Greenland whaler 'Hope of Peterhead'. Following his graduation, he became a ship surgeon abode the âS SMayumbaâ.
In 1882, he set up an independent medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea. His practice did not prove to be very successful and he began writing stories while waiting for patients.
Career
In 1887, his piece âA Study in Scarlet' was first published in the Beeton's Christmas Annual. The piece received good reviews and first introduced the characters, 'Sherlock Holmes' and âDr John Watson'.
In 1888, âA Study in Scarlet' was published in book form. This was one of the first novels of that time to use the magnifying glass as an investigative tool. The following year, his historical novel, âMicah Clarke' was published.
In 1889, his novel âThe Mystery of Cloomber' was published while the year 1890 saw the publication of 'The Firm of Girdlestone', which was later made into a silent film of the same name.
In 1890, he went on to study ophthalmology in Vienna, after which he moved to London. He later set up a practice as an ophthalmologist at No.2 Devonshire Place.
In 1890, his second 'Sherlock Holmes' novel, âThe Sign of the Four' was published. It first appeared in the Lippincott's Monthly Magazine and later published in book form by Spencer Blackett.
In 1892, he published, âThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmes', which consisted of a series of twelve stories, featuring his well-known detective character, 'Sherlock Holmes'.
In 1893, his historical novel, âThe Refugees' was published. The following year, he published the novelette, âThe Parasiteâ and âThe Memoirs of Sherlock Holmesâ. In the latter book 'Sherlock Holmes' dies.
In 1893, along with J. M. Barrie, he co-authored the comic opera, âJane Annie, or The Good Conduct Prize'. The same year, it opened at the Savoy Theatre in London.
In 1895, he published his epistolary novel titled, 'The Stark Munro Letters'. The following year, his 'Sherlock Holmes' short story titled, âThe Field Bazaarâ was published.
In 1896, his Gothic mystery novel, 'Rodney Stone' was published. It was later made into a silent film titled, âThe House of Temperley'. The same year, his short story collection, âThe Exploits of Brigadier Gerard' was published.
In 1898, his novel, 'The Tragedy of the Korosko' was published. This was published earlier in a monthly UK publication, âThe Strand Magazine'. The following year, he came out with the novel, âA Duet, with an Occasional Chorus'.
In 1900, his non-fiction book on the Boer War, 'The Great Boer War' was published. After two years, he published a 'Sherlock Holmes' series novel titled, âThe Hound of the Baskervilles'.
In 1905, he came out with a series of 13 'Sherlock Holmes' stories titled, âThe Return of Sherlock Holmes'. In this collection the character âSherlock Holmes' reappeared after many years.
In 1906, his historical novel, 'Sir Nigel' was published. The book was about the early period of the Hundred Years' War. The following year, his book, 'Through The Magic Door' was published.
In 1912, came out with the novel, âThe Lost World'. This was the first novel in which he introduced the character, âProfessor Challengerâ. The next year, a second âProfessor Challengerâ novel, âThe Poison Belt' was published.
In 1915, he came out with his final 'Sherlock Holmes' novel titled, âThe Valley of Fear'. After two years, his book, âHis Last Bow', which was a collection of 7 âSherlock Holmes' stories, was published.
In 1918, he came out with a collection of short stories titled âDanger! And Other Stories' and a non-fiction work, âThe New Revelation'. The following year, he published his book, âThe Vital Messageâ.
In 1919, he came out with the work of poetry titled, âThe Guards Came Through, and Other Poems'. In the following years, he came out with the non-fiction works, 'The Coming of the Fairies' and 'The Case for Spirit Photography'.
In 1924, he published the âSherlock Holmes' short story, âHow Watson Learned the Trick'. After three years, he published his final collection of 12 Sherlock Holmes' short stories, âThe Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes'.
In 1926, he came out with his âProfessor Challenger' series novel, ' The Land of Mist', which was published by Hutchinson & Co. The same year, he came out with his non-fiction book, âThe History of Spiritualism'.
In 1928, he authored the âProfessor Challenger' short story titled, âWhen the World Screamed'. The following year another âProfessor Challenger' short story, 'The Disintegration Machine' was published in Stand Magazine.
Major Works
He is the creative genius behind the popular fictional character âSherlock Holmes', based on whom he authored more than 60 detective stories. His notable work, âStories of Sherlock Holmes' is widely read, till date.
Personal Life & Legacy
In 1885, he married Louisa Hawkins. Unfortunately she contracted tuberculosis and died of it in 1906. They had two children.
After the death of his first wife, he married Jean Elizabeth Leckie. The two married in 1907 and had three children. They fell in love when his first wife was still alive.
He suffered from Angina Pectoris.
He supported Christian Spiritualism and became a part of the Spiritualistsâ National Union. He was a member of âThe Ghost Club', an organisation that believed in the supernatural.
He played football and golf for clubs. He also played cricket for the Marylebone Cricket Club.
He died at the age of 71, after a heart attack.
In his honour, a statue of him is built in Crowborough, where he resided for almost 23 years.
Trivia
The widely acclaimed fictional character of âSherlock Holmesâ, the detective was conceived and created by this immensely talented author and medical practitioner.
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Usually consisting of 16 points, what is the name of the figure on a map or a chart that indicates the cardinal directions? | Six degrees of separation from Robert Downey Jnr | Post Magazine | South China Morning Post
South China Morning Post
Six degrees of separation from Robert Downey Jnr
Vanessa Assarasakorn
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Robert Downey Jnr. Photo: AFP
Robert Downey Jnr is blowing up box offices this month as billionaire philanthropist Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, in Avengers: Age of Ultron. A seasoned professional, Downey Jnr landed his first film role at the age of five in Pound (1970), playing – wait for it – a puppy. In 1992, his portrayal of Charlie Chaplin, in the Richard Attenborough-directed biopic of the British comic, received a royal stamp of approval when Queen Elizabeth attended its London premiere in Leicester Square and shook Downey Jnr’s hand. The American actor has portrayed other classic characters on screen, including Sherlock Holmes …
The London detective made his literary debut in 1887, in the novel A Study in Scarlet. The character is said to have been inspired by Joseph Bell, a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh for whom Holmes’ creator had worked as a clerk. Like the fictional detective, Bell would draw broad conclusions from minute observations. The stories of Holmes and his sidekick, Dr John H. Watson, were created by Scottish author and physician Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle …
Born on May 22, 1859, Conan Doyle was fascinated by mystical subjects, and was a friend of Harry Houdini, the Hungarian- American illusionist. At one point, Conan Doyle became convinced that Houdini possessed supernatural powers, while the magician insisted he only employed trickery to pull off feats such as walking through a brick wall. Houdini was apparently unable to convince the author of this, leading to a bitter fallout between the two. In 1902, Conan Doyle was made a Knight Bachelor by King Edward VII …
The second child of Queen Victoria, Edward was born on November 9, 1841. As the eldest son of the British sovereign, he became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay. He also claimed the title Prince of Wales – Edward remains the longest-serving holder of that title, at 59 years (his great-great grandson, Prince Charles, has held the title for 56 years). There have been many film portrayals of Edward’s life, including the 2003 television drama The Lost Prince, in which he was played by actor Michael Gambon …
Irish-born Gambon is perhaps best known for taking over the role of Albus Dumbledore, in the Harry Potter film franchise, after actor Richard Harris died in 2002. Gambon left school aged 15 and was a qualified engineer by the time he was 21, with a passion for collecting antique guns, clocks and classic cars. In 1962, Shakespeare changed his life, when Gambon made his professional stage debut at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, as the “Second Gentleman” in Othello. He went on to star in a National Theatre production of Hamlet directed by Laurence Olivier and starring Peter O’Toole …
O’Toole was born in 1932 in either County Galway, in Ireland, or Leeds, in England – the actor claimed to have had birth certificates from each country. Of his childhood, O’Toole once joked, “I’m not working class … I come from the criminal class.” Perhaps the most criminal thing about O’Toole is the fact he had been nominated eight times for the Academy Award for best actor in a leading role without ever winning – a record. In 1962, he achieved international acclaim for playing T.E. Lawrence in the film Lawrence of Arabia. In 1997, one Hollywood star named the famed hell raiser as his favourite actor of all time, citing his “selfassurance in his sexuality”. That actor was fellow wild child Robert Downey Jnr.
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Who is missing: Luke, Bo, Jesse, Coy, Vance? | TV ACRES: TV Character Bios > Luke and Bo Duke (The Dukes of Hazzard)
Now, Jesse, we been makin' moonshine for over 200 years. Now, why's gamblin' any different?
Jesse:
Because. Makin' whiskey was a fam'ly tradition long before they was a US of A federal government to tell us that we couldn't. An' passin' a law didn't change the fam'ly ways none. B'sides! When we was makin' corn whiskey, we paid taxes on the corn. Gamblin's a vice. How you gonna tax vice?
Luke:
Yeah, but, this is somethin' different.
Besides worrying about the terms of their probation, the Dukes' Boys main day-to-day threat was Boss Hogg, a fat little southern politician dressed in white who loved to eat and, even more, loved to frame the Duke Boys for crimes they didn't commit.
Here's a short list of the many times Boss Hogg tried to get the goods on the Duke Boys.
Boss hires two crooks disguised as Bo and Luke to rob an armored truck with a duplicate General Lee.
Boss frames Bo and Luke for passing a bad check. Jesse signs away the Duke farm to go his bail.
Boss hires a crooked magician to frame Bo and Luke for stealing the orphanage money and then asks Jesse for his moonshine recipe for the release of Bo and Luke.
Boss frames Miz Tisdale for mail fraud and the Dukes hide her out at the farm.
Boss frames the Dukes for possession of illegal gambling devices.
Boss frames the Dukes for stealing a bag full of stolen credit cards left by thieves.
Boss hires some crooks to rob the TV stores and frames Bo and Luke for it.
Boss Hogg schemes to steal $1 million in old, raggedy bills marked to be burned at the Federal Reserve and plans on framing the Duke boys for the armored truck robbery so his bank can collect on the insurance money.
Boss Hogg frames Bo and Luke for possession of illegal moonshine
Boss has Coy, Vance and Daisy framed and sends them to Chickasaw County where they are arrested by Sheriff Little
Bo and Luke are framed for gold robbery so Boss can to collect the insurance.
Bo and Luke are suspected of running a smuggling ring when they deliver cars to Augie Detwiler - the owner of the derby in town
Boss Hogg frames Bo and Luke for a series of tractor thefts committed by another group of thieves hired by the Boss.
As for the Duke Boys, Luke Duke is the oldest of the cousins. He is an ex-Marine, musically inclined and the more responsible of the Duke cousins. Luke always slid across the hood of the General Lee, to quickly gain access to the passenger side of the car. Bo Duke, the younger womanizing cousin, did most of the driving, but when Luke got behind the wheel, it can best be summarized in the trademark catchphrase of Bo Duke... "Yeeeee--Haaa!" However, Bo Duke was the one most likely to punch someone, jump the General Lee over a creek, river or ravine or run the bad guys off the road. Bo's CB handle is Lost Sheep #2; Luke's is Lost Sheep #1.
In late 1982 and early 1983, Luke spent time on the NASCAR circuit with cousin Bo. Surprisingly, in 1983 the Duke�s discovered that Luke�s baby brother Judd [thought dead] was well and alive. In later years, Luke become a firefighter for the forestry service while Bo Duke eventually returned to the Nascar circuit.
When Luke and Bo left to race NASCAR uncle Jesse supervised the antics of Coy and Vance, two other look alike cousins who continued the battle against Boss Hogg. With the return of Luke and Bo, Coy and Vance left leave Hazzard to take care of a sick relative. After successfully stopping a land developer build a theme park on his farm, Jesse quietly passed away on Christmas Day, 1997.
Jesse:
But Daisy. How many times have I said to you, 'boys, look out for Daisy�? And how many times have you said, 'we will Uncle Jesse'? And what do you do? You get her throwed in jail.
Bo:
Well, we didn't have no choice. See, Luke and me's on probation and can't own no guns. It's either use those bows there or throw rocks.
| Daisy |
What is the common name of the warning police officers give to arrestees that include phrases such as “You have the right to remain silent” and “You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning”? | The Family:, a dukes of hazzard fanfic | FanFiction
By: CassidyRachel
It's Christmastime in Hazzard once again, and nothing is more important to the Dukes, than family & friends, during the Holiday Season, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! IT'S COMPLETED!
Rated: Fiction K - English - Drama - Words: 1,918 - Reviews: 1 - Favs: 1 - Published: 12/1/2006 - Status: Complete - id: 3268845
+ - Full 3/4 1/2 Expand Tighten
Author's Note: Please gentle, here's another one of my Reunion Stories, so please R&R, I would appreciate it!
Summary: This another Christmas Story of mine, no villains, or crimes being committed, Vance & Coy are in this one too, so please read & enjoy this one, & understand the importance of family to the Dukes!
The Family:
It's Christmastime in Hazzard County, Georgia, & everyone is getting ready, by decorating their houses & trees, also making some cookies, they can't wait until it's Christmas, where everyone gets together. Let's see what's going on at the Duke Farm, Friends, Shall We?, Let's go….
Bo & Luke Duke were helping their uncle, Jesse Duke, with chopping the firewood, they hope that they can get enough, so they won't freeze, meanwhile, Daisy Duke was in the Kitchen, making some Cookies, & Hot Chocolate for her loved ones, who are working hard in the Freezing Weather. She looked at them from the window, & was thinking this to herself.
Daisy (thinking): They would die before letting this farm go into ruins, I sure hope that this Holiday Season, they would relax, & not worry so much about it, & about how to make money.
She snapped out of it, & continued her baking, she wants these cookies to be perfect for her cousins & uncle on Christmas Day, guilty of having a sweet tooth like her family, she set a huge plate aside for after dinner, she went to work with determination, cause if their cousins & uncle could do some hard work, so can she.
As Luke, Bo, & Jesse were chopping some wood, Luke stopped & took a break, & and this about Coy & Vance, the other Duke Cousins, to Bo & his uncle.
Luke: I miss Coy & Vance, I mean if it wasn't for them, (to Jesse): Daisy & You would had to break your backs to keep this farm going, I hope that they would come home for a visit, from Nashville, to spend Christmas with us.
Bo said this confidently smiling.
Bo (smiling): They will come, you'll see, they are going to come home, cause they missed their home & us.
Meanwhile Coy & Vance were making their way to Hazzard County, they were excited, cause they have a couple weeks off, they want to spend as much time with their family as they could.
Coy said with a smile to his cousin, who is riding Shotgun.
Coy: You think that Uncle Jesse & them would be surprise to see us.
Vance said with a bright smile to his young cousin.
Vance (smiling): They sure will, I mean, they wanted us to come home, & been bugging us so, & thanks to us saving up, we can make their Christmas wish come true.
They continued without stopping, & they want to make their way to the farm, by late afternoon, they brought some presents, which they knew their family would love.
Back at the Duke Farm, the boys came in & took off their boots on the mat, Daisy told them to get warm by the fire, she will bring some Christmas Cookies, & Hot Chocolate as a snack for them, they thanked her, & went to do just that, when she brought in the snack, they had a wonderful afternoon together.
Boss Jefferson Davis Hogg is up to something, & so is his Sheriff, Rosco P. Coltrane, Friends, I don't know about you, but I would be careful crossing paths with these two.
Boss said this as he looked over some documents; Rosco was besides him, wondering what plan did Boss come up with next.
Boss: I am going to give them Probation, I mean they saved my life more than once, yours too, they aren't really bad kids, I already gave Jeb Stuart Duke, his, he was really glad, Now, I just have to give Luke, Bo, Coy, & Vance Duke theirs, I even the score with them, & myself for all of the misdeeds, I have done.
Rosco said smiling to Boss, as he was impressed with the Boss's kindness, especially around the Holiday Season.
Rosco (smiling): Ohhh, I love it, Boss; you are especially wonderful around this time of year.
Boss smiled too, & told his long time brother-in-law, friend, & employee this.
Boss (smiling): Thanks, Rosco; I appreciate it, now let's go to the Dukes, & tell them the wonderful news.
Rosco nodded, & they went to get ready for the Duke Farm.
Meanwhile Coy & Vance made it to the farm, & they were greeted by their cousins & uncle, they went inside, & had a wonderful dinner, they all put their presents under the tree, then went to "The Boar's Nest" for some fun.
Boss & Rosco were happy that they were able to get the Dukes off of Probation early, for once, Boss Hogg doesn't want to be a bad guy, & he told Lulu his plan, & she was all for it, she encouraged him & Rosco to continue their good deed, & she promise to keep his secret, & not blab it to the Dukes.
At "The Boar's Nest" the Dukes were around a table, drinking Hot Chocolate & eating Christmas Cookies, they were having fun, as they continued the Hazzard Christmas tradition, of singing along with the Townspeople, to some Christmas Carols, then they went back to their table, they saw Cooter come in, & they invited him to sit with them, & Jesse made a toast exclaiming this.
Jesse (exclaiming): I would like to make a toast, here's to family, may they continue to be strong all the time!
Luke & Bo (in unison exclaiming): Cheers!
Vance & Coy (in unison exclaiming): Hear, Hear!
Daisy & Cooter (in unison exclaiming): Yes!
They clinked their glasses, & drank the rest of their Hot Chocolate, & finished their Christmas Cookies, they all went home to rest, & have peaceful dreams, that Christmas Eve evening.
Christmas came & went, the Dukes went to open their presents, they were half way through, when the Doorbell rang, & Jesse opened it, & was surprised to find Boss & Rosco there.
Jesse said this angrily towards his once best friend.
Jesse (angrily): J.D.! What are you doing here?
Boss put his hands up in surrender & said this to him.
Boss (putting his hands up): Jesse, It's the Lord's Birthday, I know you are mad about the past, but can't we put our differences aside?
Rosco: Yeah, Jesse, Can you?
Jesse softens up, & said smiling.
Jesse (smiling): Sure, J.D., Rosco, come on in.
The younger Dukes saw that J.D. & Rosco were there in their house, they quickly panicked, but Jesse assured them that it's OK, & nodded to Boss, indicating to say his peace.
Boss said this, as he handed over some papers to the boys, as he did this he handed Daisy some top of the line Roses too.
Boss (handing over the documents): Bo, Luke, Vance, & Coy, I am here to give you a present, As you well know, you have 2 more months of your Probation to serve, but you saved my life & Rosco's more than once, so I convinced the Judge, which he didn't need any, to let you off of your Probation early, he agreed, So Merry Christmas, Boys, Enjoy, you are now free citizens around Hazzard, & the state of Georgia (He smiled as he concluded his speech).
The Boys looked at the papers, & showed Jesse & Daisy, Luke asked this.
Luke: Is this some sort of scam, Boss?
Bo (agreeing): Yeah, What's the catch, Guys?
Coy & Vance put in their thoughts too about this.
Boss: No scam, or game, I just want to show my appreciation towards y'all. Jeb Stuart Duke was grateful for his, he called me to thank me, all the way from Placid County.
Bo let out a rebellious yell & the rest got emotional, they were waiting for this day to come, & now that it has, they are so happy. Jesse said this to his old Ridge Runner buddy.
Jesse (smiling): Thank you, J.D., thanks a lot.
Boss nodded, & he & Rosco saw that the Dukes were going to have a small dinner this year, they invited them to Boss's House, & they accepted, Lulu welcomed them with open arms along with Enos, Cooter, & Cletus, they had a big meal, the women were going to clean up, but the men stopped them, even Boss too, they did the dishes, while Daisy & Lulu relaxed, then they had Dessert & Coffee, Boss suddenly laughed, & the others were wondering what's so funny.
Boss composed himself, & told them.
Boss (smiling): We make a cute family around the table, I mean just look at us.
Everyone agreed & they all laughed again, they had laughed so hard, that they had tears coming down, they composed themselves, each of them said this agreeing to what Boss said.
Lulu (smiling): We sure do make a great family, Baby, I mean we put all of the troubles of the past to rest forever.
Boss (smiling): We sure did, Lollipop.
Jesse: I am so glad that the Hoggs & the Dukes can get along now, & I am glad it took this Holiday Season to do it.
Rosco (smiling): I got to say, Boys, you deserved to have your Probation be lifted, you are a bunch of good boys, I am proud to know you.
Vance: I am just glad that we can be together, some people aren't fortunate, & it took a tour of the NASCAR Circuit to realize that, I am so glad that we are able to be here.
Coy (clasping a hold on Vance's Shoulder): I second that motion, I am so glad that we have a huge family too, that way we don't have to be lonely.
Bo: I am so glad that we are here together, cause now with the Hoggs joining us every year, our family is bigger, & the old traditions will be carried out better.
Luke (smiling): I am so proud, cause it's the fact that two ex-buddies can be friends once again, cause it shows us a great example, & there are no two people better to show us a great example, Boss Jefferson Davis Hogg, & our uncle, Jesse Duke.
Boss & Jesse thanked Luke for the wonderful compliment, & they went on with the day.
Vance & Coy's week vacation went by so fast, they were sad to go, & so was the rest of the Dukes, they went on their way, & the three other young Dukes, & Jesse went back to their routine, that they follow every New Year's. But they knew, that Coy & Vance would come back for another visit.
End of: The Family:
Balladeer: The Dukes & Boss ended up having a successful truce & friendship, plus Rosco & Boss ran Hazzard County better, the citizens are happy without any complaints, So, things in Hazzard County can change, if you wanted it to, Friends, Just believe that it could happen, Stay Tuned for the next Duke adventure, Y'all come back now, you hear?
The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.
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What is the name of the man in the top hat that serves as the mascot of the game Monopoly? | Mr. Monopoly | American Dad Wikia | Fandom powered by Wikia
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Rich Uncle Pennybags is the rotund old man in a top hat who serves as the mascot of the game Monopoly. Rich Uncle Pennybags was rechristened Mr. Monopoly, the nickname by which he was already popularly known, in a Hasbro marketing effort in 1999. He also is known as Whiff from all the casino slot machines. He also appears in the related games Advance to Boardwalk, Free Parking, Don't Go To Jail, Monopoly City, Monopoly Junior, and Monopoly Deal.
The character first appeared on Chance and Community Chest cards in U.S. editions of Monopoly in 1936.
Mr. Monopoly appears as one of Hayley 's unionized homeless "bums" in " Threat Levels " as he walks the picket line against Stan .
As part of her foreplay in " Poltergasm ", Francine wants Stan to talk like the "Monopoly guy," but gets upset when it comes out as Thurston Howell III from Gilligan's Island.
| Rich Uncle Pennybags |
What famous brand of evaporated milk, created in 1899, got its start as the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company, in Kent, before changing its name and moving east of Seattle, founding a town in the process? | Play MONOPOLY Once Around Deluxe Video Slot Free at Videoslots.com
Vegas
MONOPOLY Once Around Deluxe
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! We at Videoslots.com is very proud to be able to present yet another wonderful video slot from WMS . This video slot is inspired by one of the worlds most played and most beloved board games, Monopoly. Monopoly has been around ever since the early 1900’s, and was created to show that an economy that rewards wealth creation is better than one in which monopolists work under few constraints, as well as promote Henry George’s economic theories and his ideas about taxation and women’s rights.
WMS is one of the world’s leading innovators in the online gaming industry. They have been one of the most respected actors in the business for a long time, and has made themselves known for consistently delivering fun, exciting, innovative and very well-made casino games to their customers.
Monopoly is a video slot that consists of 5 reels, 3 rows and up to 15 paylines. The symbols in the game consists of different things from the board game, such as the famous playing pieces, a ring, a railroad and a free parking symbol, to name a few. The Wild symbol of the game is portrayed by Rich Uncle Pennybags, or Mr. Monopoly, the old man with a moustache in a top hat who is the mascot of the game. This symbol substitutes for all symbols except the Bonus, Community Chest and Chance symbol whenever it is possible to create a winning line. The other symbol with Rich Uncle Pennybags in it, where he is holding two dices, is the Bonus symbol. If you would manage to land 3 or more of this symbol you activate the Once Around Deluxe Bonus. In this wonderful bonus game you are taken to the classic Monopoly board, where you get to choose the token of your choice. The objective of this bonus round is to get the token around the Monopoly board. The bonus game is ended if a roll would result in advancing the token past the GO square. If a roll would result in the token ending on exactly the GO square, the Twice Around feature is triggered, where you have the same objective as in the regular bonus game, to advance the token around the board. This bonus game is really something extra, and is very similar to the regular Monopoly board game.
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We at Videoslots.com would like to take this opportunity to wish you the best of luck in Monopoly – Once Around Deluxe. And as always, remember to have fun!
| i don't know |
Coming in various shades of amber, blue, brown, gray, green, hazel, and red, what portion of the eye is responsible for eye colors? | Human Eye Color Chart, With Fun Facts
Human Eye Color Chart
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Human eye color charts once were used to "predict" eye colors of children.
In the most simplified versions of these charts, brown eyes are considered dominant over both blue and green eyes. And green eyes are thought to be dominant over blue eyes .
While these concepts generally are true, the genetics of how eye colors are inherited turn out to be far more complicated than once thought.
You can't simply determine the eye colors of grandparents and parents, then calculate the odds of what color a baby's eyes will be. In fact, you can belong to a family with many generations of brown-eyed individuals and still end up with green or blue eyes.
Contrary to popular belief, it's also possible for two blue-eyed parents to have a brown-eyed child.
Eye colors depend on the amount of pigment (melanin) found in the iris and how it is distributed. Light gray-blue eyes contain much less pigment than extremely dark brown eyes. And there are many shades of eye color in between.
Some people are even born with eyes of two different colors, a condition known as heterochromia .
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Eye color percentages vary according to which population is studied. Obviously, the percentage of dark brown eyes found in Asian and African populations will be much higher than in European populations.
And some day, blue may be a rare eye color. This is because more people now select mates outside usual cultural and ethic groups. So when a brown-eyed person marries someone with blue eyes, offspring are more likely to inherit the more dominant brown eyes.
Example of a Human Eye Color Chart
You can view examples of common human eye colors in the following chart, along with some fun facts.
Home » Resources » Eye Color Chart
References & Notes >>
Don't it make my blue eyes brown: heterochromia and other abnormalities of the iris. Eye (The Scientific Journal of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists; London). January 2012.
[Page updated December 2015]
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| Iris |
What Colorado census designated place was home to Columbine High School, home to the 1999 massacre perpetrated by a couple of major asshats? | Rarest Eye Color in Humans | Owlcation
Rarest Eye Color in Humans
Rarest Eye Color in Humans
Updated on August 29, 2016
Joined: 4 years agoFollowers: 76Articles: 39
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This is one of those questions that seems like it should have an easy answer when it really doesn’t. In fact, there is some debate over what the most rare eye color actually is. This is partly because "rare” itself can be a relative term, since one eye color might be very rare in a certain part of the world and extremely common in another.
Though hard scientific evidence is hard to come by, we can say with certainty what some of the less common colors are.
What Is the Rarest Eye Color?
Eye colors from most rare to most common:
• Green
• Black (no eyes are true black, just very dark brown)
• Blue
Green eyes are uncommon in most parts of the world
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Green Eyes
Though the scientific research is lacking, it is very likely that green is one of the most rare eye colors worldwide. It's commonly quoted that only 2% of the world’s population has green eyes, though it’s difficult to determine where that number came from.
Even if the number is accurate, 2% of the world's 7.3 billion people is 146 million. This is roughly the population of Russia. That's not to say that green eyes aren't special, because they are! It just depends on where you happen to be. In most parts of the world, almost everyone has brown hair and eyes, with green being very rare or absent altogether.
Green eyes are sometimes confused with hazel eyes, which have both brown and green in them. To tell the difference, go into natural lighting (outside during the day), and look at your eyes compared with someone you know to have green, hazel, or brown eyes. The difference should be clear between them.
Where Do Green Eyes Originate From?
Green eyes are most common in Northern and Central Europe though they can also be found in Southern Europe as well as Western Asia. As was mentioned earlier, brown hair and eyes are dominant in most regions, though there are several countries where it is actually more common to have green or blue eyes than brown eyes.
For example, in Ireland and Scotland, 86% of the population has either blue or green eyes, and in Iceland, 89% of women and 87% of men have blue or green eyes. Among European Americans, green eyes are most common in people of recent Celtic or Germanic ancestry. Green eyes also tend to be more common in women.
Even though they're most common in Northern and Central Europe, people of any race can have green eyes.
Celebrities with Green Eyes
Some very blue eyes can appear to be violet.
Violet and Red Eyes
This might be disappointing for some, but true violet or red-colored eyes do not occur naturally in humans. Some eyes, however, can appear to be violet under certain lighting or makeup conditions.
Elizabeth Taylor is famous for her violet eyes, though in reality she just has very blue eyes that can look violet depending on the lighting. She does, however, have a row of double eyelashes, a rare genetic mutation.
People with albinism, a condition that causes a complete lack of or very low levels of pigment in the skin, hair, and eyes, sometimes appear to have violet or red eyes. This phenomenon is explained below.
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Amber eyes are more common in animals than in humans. | Source
Also Very Rare: Amber Eyes
True amber eyes are extremely rare—they are at least as rare as green eyes or perhaps even rarer. Most people have only seen a couple of amber-eyed people in their entire life.
Amber eyes are completely solid and have a strong yellowish, golden, or russet and coppery tint. They can also contain a small amount of gold-ish gray. Some sources say that this could be due to the increased presence of a pigment called lipochrome (also known as pheomelanin).
Amber eyes are often referred to as wolf eyes because of the strong golden and yellowish color with a copper tint similar to that seen in the eyes of wolves. Besides wolves, amber eye color can also be found in other animals, like dogs, domestic cats, owls, eagles, pigeons and fish.
The Difference Between Amber and Other Eye Colors
Amber eyes are different from hazel eyes because they do not contain hints of brown, green, or orange. While hazel eyes might change color or contain flecks of red or gold, amber eyes are always a solid gold hue.
In poor lighting, it's easy to mistake someone with amber eyes for someone with hazel eyes. In natural lighting, however, you’ll see that hazel eyes tend to have two very distinct colors within the iris. They are often brown and green, and contain speckles and mixed hues.
Celebrities with Amber Eyes Include:
Nicole Richie
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Black Eyes
Contrary to popular belief, true black eyes do not exist. Some people with a lot of melanin in their eyes might appear to have black eyes depending on the lighting conditions. This is not truly black, however, but simply a very dark brown.
Hazel eyes vary between brown and green, depending on surrounding conditions like lighting.
The Science Behind Eye Color
Eye color is more complicated than it might seem, as it's determined by a wide range of factors and can depend to some extent on circumstance, especially lighting.
Eye color is determined by:
Amount and type of melanin in the colored part of your eye called the iris
The density and composition of the stroma, a thin tissue in your iris
Lighting conditions (especially for people with light-colored eyes)
Eye Color and Genetics
Genetics determines how much pigment is present in the iris of your eye. Up to 16 different genes play a role in determining eye color though there are two main genes that have the most influence.
How Melanin Affects Eye Color
Melanin is the most common pigment, and it is found in the eyes, hair, and skin. There are several types of melanin, including pheomelanin (which looks more red and yellow) and eumelanin (which tends to look brown and black).
You might have noticed that there is no blue or green pigment mentioned, which means there is no green or blue pigment ever present in the eye. There is only one kind of pigment, melanin, and its derivatives. So how can a pigment that only produces shades of brown create eyes that look green or blue?
While the first half of eye color has to do with what's already in your eye, the other half has to do with what goes into it: Light!
How Light Affects Eye Color
Your iris has two layers, a front and a back one, and in between those is a thin layer of tissue called the stroma, which has proteins in it (namely collagen). This will become important later.
Everyone has some kind of pigment in their iris, which usually includes a layer of melanin on the back of the iris. The only exception to this is for some people with albinism, who completely lack pigment in their iris.
So, technically speaking, everyone (cases of albinism excepted) has the same eye color. The difference comes with how it's perceived, which is due to the amount and type of melanin in the front layer of the iris and how light interacts with it.
Melanin Content and Eye Color
Eye color
Biology Behind the Color: Eye by Eye
Blue Eyes
Blue-eyed people have no or little melanin on the front layer of the eye, so as light goes through the eye, it hits the back of the iris and then reflects out. As it goes through the stroma, the presence of proteins causes blue light to scatter, which makes the eye look blue.
This phenomenon (the scattering of light by particles much smaller than the wavelength of radiation) is called Rayleigh scattering, and it's the same reason the sky appears to be blue.
Gray Eyes
Unfortunately, we don’t really know why people have gray eyes. There are, however, some theories on where gray eyes come from:
Gray-eyed people could have an even smaller amount of melanin in their eyes than blue-eyed people.
They could have a different composition of the stroma that causes the light to scatter differently.
Brown Eyes
Brown-eyed people have melanin in both parts of their irises, so the effect of the light-scattering cannot be seen. The eyes appear darker because more light is absorbed, and variations in color and shade of brown come from the amount of melanin present.
Green Eyes
The front iris layer of green-eyed individuals has only a small amounts of melanin which tends to be the red or yellowish pheomelanin. Since the melanin concentration is very low, the light scattering effect gives off a blue color, which mixes with the yellowish color of the pheomelanin, making the eye look green.
Amber Eyes
Amber eyes get their color from the increased presence of lipochrome (pheomelanin) in the iris.
Red or Violet Eyes
People with albinism are often considered to have violet or red eyes. However, the truth is a little more complicated. Albinism is a condition that causes people to have a lack of pigment in their hair, skin, and eyes. Since people with albinism lack pigment in their iris, light can bounce off the back of the eye and exit the eye.
The light usually reflects back red because of the blood vessels at the back of the retina. Eyes can look violet when this red color combines with the bluish color of the iris that results from a lack of melanin, and the aforementioned light-scattering effects.
In fact, the reason the eyes look red is the same reason you might have red-eye in a photograph, which results from light reflecting off the back of the eye and passing back out through the iris. In normal eyes and lighting conditions, light cannot exit the eye like this.
Why is the Sky Blue (Same Reason Eyes Are Blue)
Why Eye Color Appears to Change
Many people with blue, green, or hazel eyes commonly notice that their eyes change color depending on:
Lighting
Makeup
Mood
This is because blue and green eyes get their color from the quality and quantity of light, not from pigment.
Thus, different lighting conditions will change the quality of the eye. Mood can change the size of the pupil, which might make the iris appear to be a different color. The quantity of melanin is not changing, but simply the way that the light is reflecting and scattering through the iris.
Can You Change Your Eye Color Naturally?
A baby's eye color can change in the first couple of years. After that, the eye color will remain the same and the only way to change the appearance of your eye color is through makeup, clothing, lighting, and color contacts.
Putting honey in your eyes will not change your eye color permanently, though it could cause you to go blind. The reason some people see their eye color change from honey is due to the inflammation of the cornea as it tries to remove it from the eye.
Can I Find Out What My Child's Eye Color Will Be?
Unfortunately, it's impossible to predict with certainty what a child's eye color will be. In fact, scientists still don't have a way to accurately guess eye color since there are up to sixteen different genes that could be responsible for helping to determine eye color.
Though scientists used to believe that it was a relatively simple case of blue eyes being a recessive gene, and brown eyes being a dominant gene, it's now been found that eye color is determined by as many as 16 different genes. In fact, almost any combinations of parent-child eye color can occur. In general, darker colors tend to dominate lighter colors.
That said, we do know that the main genes found to determine eye color are OCA2 and HERC2. There is a fun tool that you can use to try to guess your future baby's eye color based on your eyes, your siblings' eyes, and your parents eyes.
Here's the eye-color calculator if you want to give it a try!
This is a good example of heterochromia.
Other Color Variations
There are other variations that can occur in eye color aside from basic color. As you've learned, the iris is a complicated place! Its color comes from the combined effect of texture, pigmentation, fibrous tissue and blood vessels within the iris and stroma. Here are some other eye variations that can occur.
Heterochromia
This is where one eye is differently colored from another one, or one iris has different colors in it. Kate Bosworth is a good example of this. This results from uneven melanin content.
If you look closely, you'll see that many eyes have a limbal ring around the iris.
Limbal Ring
A limbal ring is a dark ring around the iris of an eye. Since they fade with age, they usually signify youth and are considered attractive.
Eye Color Is Not Black and White
If you look at your friends’ eyes, you might find it hard to figure out exactly what color they are. Many eyes look like they have different colors toward the middle versus towards the edge, or have small variations around the iris.
This is especially true for people with lighter colored eyes. You might also notice flecks of color in them. Each of this is part of what makes each eye extremely unique. Irises (like fingerprints) are highly unique. Even genetically identical people, like twins, have different iris textures.
The more you look at eyes, the more you'll notice how unique each and every one is. So just remember that your eyes are special, no matter what color they are!
Sources
Are Colors Real?
So, what is the rarest eye color in humans?
Unfortunately, there is no eye color that has been fully agreed upon as the rarest, though green-eyed and amber-eyed people are both extremely rare. In fact, the rarest eye color is different in different geographical locations. In some parts of the world, green eyes are rarer than amber eyes or vice versa.
Most people consider green to be the rarest eye color in the world, though many others consider amber to be even more unusual. Therefore, it’s safe to say that either green or amber is the rarest color in the world.
However, If you look at the eye as a whole and not only the color given off by the iris, then violet eye color with little dispute is probably even rarer than green or amber eye colors.
Eye Color Poll
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What disgraced former Cincinnati Reds baseball player is the all-time Major League leader in hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053), and outs (10,328) | Pete Rose bet on baseball as player, notebook pages show | SI.com
Pete Rose and Johnny Bench pose in the dugout during spring training in Tampa, Fla.
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
1972
Rose shows off his trademark hustle during a spring training drill. By the start of the 1972 season, Rose was entering his 10th year with the Reds. He had also established himself as one of the game's best hitters, maintaining an average above .300 for seven straight years.
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
1975
Rose poses during a SI cover shoot after leading the Reds to a World Series championship.
Lane Stewart/SI
1975
Rose was the backbone of the Big Red Machine due to his hustle (including head-first slides) and his consistency at the plate.
Heinz Kluetmeier/SI
Rose with Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan of "The Big Red Machine."
Focus on Sport/Getty Images
1976
Rose shows off his World Series ring outside the Plaza Hotel in New York. The 1976 Reds swept the Yankees 4-0 in the World Series and became the only team since the expansion of the playoffs (in 1969) to go undefeated in the postseason.
New York Daily News/Getty Images
1978
Rose is honored at Shea Stadium after breaking the National League record for most consecutive games with a hit (44).
Focus on Sport/Getty Images
Rose fans clamor for his autograph.
John Iacono/SI
1978
Rose was one of Cincinnati's most popular athletes, as evident by his bulging mailbox at Riverfront Stadium.
Focus on Sport/Getty Images
1979
In 1979, the Phillies made Rose the highest-paid athlete in team sports when they signed him to a four-year, $3.2 million contract as a free agent. In Philadelphia, Rose joined a core of Larry Bowa, Mike Schmidt and Manny Trillo. The Phillies would go on to win the World Series the following season.
Focus on Sport/Getty Images
1979
Rose tweaks the chin of six-year-old Mark McGraw as some of the Phillies and their sons got together during a spring training workout at Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater, Fla. From left are Petey Rose, Mark McGraw, Aaron Boone and Brett Boone. Pitcher Tug McGraw (left) and catcher Bob Boone stand above the group.
AP
1979
"Charlie Hustle" in action with the Phillies during a game against the Cubs at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
Heinz Kluetmeier/SI
1983
Rose and son Pete Jr. sit in the Phillies dugout. Though the Phillies reached the World Series in 1983, the season was a disappointment for Rose, who batted just .245 and lost his role as everyday starter.
Heinz Kluetmeier/SI
1984
In 1984, Rose was given his release from the Phillies after he refused to accept a reserve role. He was signed to a one-year deal by the Expos.
Heinz Kluetmeier/SI
1984
Rose tries on a Padres hat for size during a portrait session early in the 1984 season.
Focus on Sport/Getty Images
1984
Despite his advanced age (43), Rose stayed in great shape and was traded to the Reds for infielder Tom Lawless in August 1984. He batted .365 for the remainder of the season.
Heinz Kluetmeier/SI
1984
After being traded to the Reds, Rose took on the role of player-manager and led the team to a 19-22 record the remainder of the season.
Ronald C. Modra/SI
Rose takes notes before a Reds-Dodgers game at Riverfront Stadium.
Ronald C. Modra/Sports Imagery/Getty Images
1985
Rose plays around with his one-year-old son, Tyler, before a game. By 1985, Rose had divorced his first wife (Kaarolyn Englehardt) and married Carol J. Woliung. The pair had Tyler shortly after their marriage.
John Iacono/SI
Rose and Carol Woliung play with Tyler at their home in Cincinnati.
John Iacono/SI
1985
Rose lets the world know that he is No. 1 after connecting for his 4,192nd career base hit, breaking Ty Cobb's all-time record.
AP
Rose chats with Tommy Lasorda before a Reds-Dodgers game at Riverfront Stadium.
Focus on Sport/Getty Images
1989
Despite his success on the field, Rose is best known for his banishment from baseball for gambling. The ruling came after the 225-page Dowd Report, which showed that Rose bet on Reds game while serving as the team's manager. Rose steadfastly denied these charges until 2004, when he published his autobiography, <italics>My Prison Without Bars,</italics> and confirmed the charges.
AP
1999
Rose found fame in the WWE, where he made several cameos and "feuded" with Kane, wrestling's version of The Big Red Machine. In 2004, Rose was inducted into the celebrity wing of the WWE Hall of Fame.
AP
1999
Pete Rose tips his cap after being announced to the MLB All-Century team. It was Rose's first appearance at an official baseball event since he was banished from the game in 1988.
Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images
2004
Rose autographs his book Pete Rose My Prison Without Bars during an appearance at Bookends Bookstore in Ridgewood, N.J. The publication of the book marked the first time Rose admitted publicly to betting on baseball games and other sports while playing for and managing the Reds.
Stephen Chernin/Getty Images
2005
Rose's quest to gain entry into the Hall of Fame has been an ongoing plotline. In this poster, Pony (a company Rose endorses) asks the question on the minds of many Rose fans.
2005
Rose poses with Carol Woliung and daughter Chea at a concert in in Los Angeles.
2010
Rose, Verne Troyer and Michael Clarke Duncan at Steve Garvey's Celebrity Softball Game for ALS.
Michael Kovac/FilmMagic
Rose with his girlfriend, Playboy model Kiana Kim.
Vince Bucci/Getty Images
2012
Rose sits in the crowd during the boxing fights, including Andre Ward vs. Chad Dawson, at ORACLE Arena in Oakland, Calif.
Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
2013
Rose tips his cap to the crowd as he walks onto the field during ceremonies honoring the starting eight of the 1975 and '76 World Champion Cincinnati Reds following a game between the Reds and Dodgers in Cincinnati.
Al Behrman/AP
2013
Rose hugs former teammate, Hall of Fame second baseman Joe Morgan, as their team is honored in Cincinnati. PETE ROSE: An American Dilemma Book by SI's Kostya Kennedy
Al Behrman/AP
| Pete Rose |
What company, the largest manufacturer of bb guns in the world, is famous for the Red Ryder line of lever action air rifles? | Pete Rose Speaker | Contact Booking Agent For Fees & Appearances
Contact Pete Rose Booking Agent
Pete Rose Biography
Nicknamed Charlie Hustle, Pete Rose was born April 14, 1941 in Cincinnati, Ohio and is a former player and manager in Major League Baseball. Rose played from 1963 to 1986, best known for his many years with the Cincinnati Reds . Rose, a switch hitter, is the all-time Major League leader in hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053), and outs (10,328). He won three World Series rings, three batting titles, one Most Valuable Player Award, two Gold Gloves, the Rookie of the Year Award, and made 17 All-Star appearances at an unequaled five different positions (2B, LF, RF, 3B, and 1B).
Rose's nickname, "Charlie Hustle", was given to him for his unique playing style. Even when being walked, Rose would sprint to first base, instead of the traditional trot to the base. Rose was known for sliding headfirst into a base, his signature move. This method is now used almost exclusively by stealing base runners today, and has been ever since the late 70's.
In August 1989, three years after he retired as an active player, Rose agreed to permanent ineligibility from baseball amidst accusations that he gambled on baseball games while playing for and managing the Reds; some accusations claimed that he bet on the Reds. In 2004, after years of public denial, he admitted to betting on baseball and on, but not against, the Reds. After Rose's ban was instated, the Baseball Hall of Fame formally voted to ban those on the "permanently ineligible" list from induction. Previously, those who were banned (most notably, Shoeless Joe Jackson) had been excluded by informal agreement among voters. The issue of Rose's possible re-instatement and election to the Hall of Fame remains a contentious one throughout baseball.
Pete Rose Hiring and Booking Information
Popular baseball players such as a Pete Rose have made the national past time what it is today. The booking agents at AthletePromotions can assist with Pete Rose appearances or speaking engagements from current and retired legends. We have years of experience in booking the boys of summer for autograph signings as well as keynote speeches. Booking a baseball speaker like Pete Rose is not a hard process. Our agents can provide availability, fees and all costs associated in bringing out a successful baseball star to your next corporate event. Our team will find Pete Rose’s agent to make this booking happen. A Pete Rose appearance will add energy to your upcoming event and reward employees, customers and clients. Most likely, baseball fans and corporations can find Pete Rose's official website, charity involvement, Twitter account, representation, publicist and management info at www.Pete Rose.com.
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Leapin' lizards! Which comic strip, created by Harold Gray in 1924, is ending its 85 year run next month, which means dog Sandy is going to have to find another little red haired girl to hang around with? | Our (US) Heart Belongs to Daddy (Warbucks) Weekend Economists Salute the Old Man June 18-20, 2010 - Democratic Underground
Our (US) Heart Belongs to Daddy (Warbucks) Weekend Economists Salute the Old Man June 18-20, 2010
Fri Jun-18-10 04:38 PM
Original message
Our (US) Heart Belongs to Daddy (Warbucks) Weekend Economists Salute the Old Man June 18-20, 2010
The word came to me from the Onion, of all places. Little Orphan Annie will cease publication this weekend, after 85 years of blind faith in America's corporate class.
A brief history from Toonopedia:
Distributed by: Chicago Tribune Syndicate
First Appeared: 1925
Creator: Harold Gray
The strip debuted on August 5, 1925...the idea of a self-reliant kid, alone against the world...
"Gray's art style was stiff and primitive, and his characterizations unsubtle in the extreme. He has been accused, by almost everyone commenting on his work, of injecting a great deal of his very conservative political point of view into the strip. About the only thing he had going for him was an amazing ability to grab the reader's interest, drag him into the story, and make him come back the next day for another installment. But that's all a master storyteller � and Gray was a master � needs.
The story formula was simple � rags to riches and back again, with a healthy dollop of homespun philosophy made up of grit, cheer, self-reliance, and good ol' pluck. The strip opened in an orphanage right out of Dickens, but within two months, Annie met Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks, the self-made millionaire who introduced her to a life of ease and comfort. She and Daddy were soon separated, and Annie had to make her own way in the world, her only companion a large, nondescript dog named Sandy. Daddy came back into her life, but was soon gone again, in a cycle that Gray repeated over and over until his death in 1968. Whatever her station, Annie's spirit was unquenchable as she buckled down and did whatever it was that needed to be done, foiling any number of thugs, politicians, and other crooks along the way...
Annie became a radio star in 1930, and remained on the air for 13 years. In 1932, she was the subject of her first movie, from RKO; and the second, from Paramount Pictures, followed six years later. Along with Dick Tracy, Terry & the Pirates and other Tribune Syndicate stars, she appeared in Dell's Super Comics from 1938-49; and scattered issues of her own Dell comic appeared from 1937-48. She was honored by appearing on a U.S. postage stamp in 1995, as were Blondie, Bringing Up Father, Rube Goldberg's inventions, and several other "Comic Strip Classics" .
In 1977, she became the subject of a Broadway musical, titled Annie, which ran over 2,000 performances before it closed in 1983. In '82, that stage production formed the basis of her third movie. The play is still revived from time to time, most recently in a 1999 episode of the Walt Disney TV show. It even had a sequel, Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge, which opened on Broadway in 1990.
After Gray's death, several cartoonists tried to fill his shoes, but only he was capable of dishing up that peculiar mix of schmaltz and simple pragmatism without lapsing into self-parody. In 1974, the syndicate gave up, and simply started re-running old strips by Gray. Following her success on Broadway, however, the strip was revived, retooled and retitled. Under the name Annie, it was for two decades written and drawn by Leonard Starr, whose earlier strip, Mary Perkins On Stage, folded in 1979, just before he began his long run as Gray's successor. Starr drew an older Annie than Gray had (Gray's was perpetually 11 years old); and while making an attempt to capture something of Gray's style, did not do the strip as a slavish imitator of its creator. Starr retired in February, 2000. In June of that year, the new writer/artist team, Jay Maeder and Andrew Pepoy, gave Annie a complete makeover, maing her look almost like a denizen of the modern world."
But WEE is more interested in Annie's Sugar Daddy, Oliver Warbucks, the obscenely wealthy, FDR-hating industrialist, and we shall pursue his ilk below.
Response to Original message
1. first rec!
Now I guess I'll do some LOA research so I don't come across tooooo ignorant this week-end.
TG
Edited on Fri Jun-18-10 04:45 PM by Demeter
How's that software update coming, TG?
Would you believe some troll has already un-recced?
Response to Reply #3
37. I think the trolls pounce on EVERYTHING just because they can
My work is done and I have a nice extra-long week-end off, a kind of mini-vacation during which I am going to give MY projects top priority for a change.
The conversion problems are from implementation, not the software itself. The company has no one posing the "What do we do if. . . . " questions, so when the ifs arise, they're all stumped. And they arise ALL THE TIME.
But I scheduled Friday, Monday, and Tuesday off, and I'm not even going to think about that shit.
Why should I, when there's so much more important shit to think about?
Tansy Gold, who has already crossed two items off her "to do" list!
2. No Banks Down Yet
But the night is young.
I will have to step out for a 7:30 emergency co-op meeting, so feel free to post if you see one (or more) go blooey.
In fact, feel free to post anything (within reason) on economics, politics, our theme the weather, etc....Just try not to get us locked out, again. i feel a bit like the cat on the stove...once burned, twice shy.
Response to Reply #2
52. ONE BANK DOWN AT 9:45 PM
Nevada Security Bank, Reno, Nevada, was closed today by the Nevada Financial Institutions Division, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Umpqua Bank, Roseburg, Oregon, to assume all of the deposits of Nevada Security Bank.
The five branches of Nevada Security Bank will reopen on Monday as branches of Umpqua Bank...As of March 31, 2010, Nevada Security Bank had approximately $480.3 million in total assets and $479.8 million in total deposits. Umpqua Bank did not pay the FDIC a premium for the deposits of Nevada Security Bank. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Umpqua Bank agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.
The FDIC and Umpqua Bank entered into a loss-share transaction on $368.2 million of Nevada Security Bank's assets. Umpqua Bank will share in the losses on the asset pools covered under the loss-share agreement...The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $80.9 million. Compared to other alternatives, Umpqua Bank's acquisition was the "least costly" resolution for the FDIC's DIF. Nevada Security Bank is the 83rd FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the third in Nevada. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Sun West Bank, Las Vegas, on May 28, 2010.
Edited on Fri Jun-18-10 08:50 PM by DemReadingDU
Demeter was quicker!
Little Orphan Annie Bows Out, Mysteriously
Comic strips ends 85-year run 'for now'
After 85 years of adventures, Little Orphan Annie made her final appearance in the funny papers today, and she left behind a cliffhanger. The last panel of the strip consists of a yellow background with black lettering reading "And this is where we leave our Annie. For now�" She won't be forgotten, and in fact, she won't even really be gone, writes comics expert Michael Cavna of the Washington Post.
Annie was living on borrowed time even before she became a casualty of the crisis in the newspaper business; toward the end, she wasn't even in 20 outlets. But musical theater guarantees she'll live on, says a rep for syndicator Tribune Media Service. "The musical refashioned the property and gave us another 30 years of original Annie in print," he explains.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/books/15arts-LITTLEOR...
Little Orphan Annie Says Goodbye For Now
The lizards have ceased leaping. On Sunday, after an 86-year run as the pluckiest pupil-free young adventurer in the funny pages, Little Orphan Annie (above with her dog, Sandy) appeared in her last newspaper comic strip. In May, Tribune Media Services announced that it was ending the syndication of �Annie,� the comic strip chronicling that red-headed ragamuffin created by the cartoonist Harold Gray in 1924. But fans hoping for some narrative closure may have had better luck with the �Lost� finale. The last �Annie� comic concluded with its title character missing in Guatemala, and, according to a caption, Daddy Warbucks �resigning himself to Miss Annie�s being lost forever.� A final panel bore the legend, �And this is where we leave our Annie. For now � � But Steve Tippie, vice president of marketing and licensing at Tribune Media Services, said, �Annie is not dying, she�s moving into new channels,� according to an interview with BBC News (which also looks at one of Annie�s earliest comic adventures). He said the character would continue to appear in graphic novels, games and in online and mobile projects.
http://www.thesundaily.com/article.cfm?id=48140
No more tomorrows for Orphan Annie strip
....Gray had two rules for his character: Annie could never reach a �happy ending� and she could never grow up. The Annie franchise later grew to include a 1930s syndicated radio show, a 1977 Broadway musical, a 1982 movie, and a 1995 commemorative stamp.
At the height of its popularity, the strip was carried by hundreds of newspapers, but a mere 20 papers carried the cliffhanger finale in which Annie tangled with the Butcher from the Balkans in the last panel.
The strip�s shrinking distribution is a result of the ongoing shake-up in the newspaper industry: declining circulation, a preference for comics that are jokey or humorous rather than adventure-driven, and the defection of younger readers to the Web
�Newspaper comic strips are going the way of the radio drama and the soap opera, long gone art forms,� said Heidi MacDonald, editor of The Beat, The Blog of Comics Culture on the industry Website comicsbeat.com.
Steve Tippie, vice-president for TMS Licensing and New Market Development, said: �Over the years, Annie has generated an enormous amount of international awareness and affection through three generations � and now it�s time to go where this new base of Annie fans finds their entertainment.�
TMS plans to modernise and repackage the franchise for film, television, and digital media in the hopes of reaching a larger, more global, cross-over audience of children and adults in the style of the Harry Potter franchise.
AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN, TMS. HARD TO BE A KID'S CARTOON IN A PAPERLESS AGE...
39. I dunno about that. Kids are going paperless very quickly
and at younger and younger ages.
Just think of all the trees they're saving!
43. The Funnies Were the Kid's Section
they encouraged reading, parent-child interaction, etc.
It's just not the same on line. Especially for the littlest.
5. BRIC-BATS (Brazil, Russia, India, China--the Developing Nations)
Brazil to suspend action in US cotton dispute
Brazil said that it would suspend sanctions on US imports in retaliation for illegal American cotton subsidies, temporarily defusing one of the most contentious disputes in international trade
Read more >>
Response to Reply #5
19. China attempts to soothe worker unrest
Wen: �We must care for, love and respect migrant workers, especially the new generation of young migrant workers�
Read more >>
Response to Reply #19
20. Beijing pledges more investment in Greece
A senior Beijing official visiting Athens has pledged to promote further investment in Greece by Chinese companies in spite of the country�s sovereign downgrade to junk status
Read more >>
http://www.asianinvestor.net/News/215673,investor-optim...
Investors' growth expectations look to be 'double-dipping', with optimism on the Chinese economy at its lowest since January 2009 and expectations on global growth and corporate profits at their lowest since March 2009, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch's fund manager survey for June.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2010-06/...
A record number of Chinese said current prices were "too high to be acceptable", according to survey results released on Thursday by the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank.
The survey, published on the PBOC's website, indicated that 58.9 percent of the respondents, a record high in the past decade, said current prices were too high, while satisfaction with consumer prices fell to 21.7 percent in the second quarter, 4.2 percentage points lower than in the first quarter.
China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, hit a 19-month high with a 3.1 percent year-on-year rise in May, surpassing the target of 3 percent annual inflation set by the government in March.
During the first five months of 2010 China's CPI rose 2.5 percent year on year. On June 12, the National Development and Reform Commission projected a 2.6 percent growth in CPI for the first half of this year.
The survey also said 72.5 percent of the respondents held that current home prices were "too high to be acceptable". The percentage figure began to climb during the second quarter of last year and hit a record high in the second quarter of this year.
Consumers' expectations for further increases in home prices has weakened, with 29.3 percent of the respondents expecting gains in property prices, down 10 percentage points from the first quarter.
Also, the percentage of participants who were prepared to buy homes in the next three months dropped to 15.5 percent, the second consecutive quarterly decline, according to the survey.
The survey came after home prices in the country's 70 large and medium-sized cities rose 12.4 percent year on year in May after an increase of 12.8 percent in April, a record high not seen since July 2005.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2010-06/18/conten...
Analyst: Steps needed to ensure security of nation's dollar assets
BEIJING - The delisting of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest US home funding companies, on US securities exchanges may force China, the largest holder of their mortgage bonds, to adjust its holdings, but large-scale selling is unlikely, said analysts.
And China should demand more active measures from the US side to ensure the security of its dollar assets, said Lei Yanhua, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation affiliated to the Ministry of Commerce.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) on Wednesday ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taken under government control in September 2008 during the financial crisis, to delist their common and preferred stock from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and any other national securities exchange.
The decision does not reflect on either enterprises' current performance or future direction, nor other findings or on FHFA's role as a regulator, said Edward J. DeMarco, FHFA acting director.
But it could be damaging to Chinese institutions holding mortgage bonds of the two companies.
China was the largest foreign creditor of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, holding mortgage bonds worth between $300 billion to $400 billion even after the financial crisis erupted and worsened in 2008, less than 20 percent of China's official foreign exchange reserves, according to various unofficial estimates.
"Delisting would make the bonds less attractive to investors and affect their liquidity," said Dong Xian'an, chief macroeconomic analyst with Industrial Securities.
The toughest time has passed for the two companies and they are "too big to fail", said Lei Yanhua. But after the delisting, their new financing would lead to a decline in the prices of bonds held by China, he said.
Ding Zhijie, head of School of Banking and Finance at the University of International Business and Economics, also said bond value held by China is quite worrisome as market confidence may slide after the delisting and put downward pressure on the bond prices after the order was issued.
There are no indications that there will be any negative impact on the payment of interest due, given the huge quantity of such bonds China holds, but the nation would probably resort to short-term market transactions based on its judgment of the market situation, Dong said.
It is unlikely, however, that China will dump the bonds because it is still possible their prices will rise, said Huang Yiping, an economist with the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University.
"The US government would not give up on these two institutions whose housing mortgage loans account for about half of the nation's total," he said. "It would be inadvisable to sell the bonds on a large scale when the prices already hit the trough," he said.
Response to Reply #30
55. Of course, it may be that China's wages and salaries are too low.
Either prices come down or compensation goes up to keep the Chinese masses from becoming restive.
No wonder China is totally intransigent on the yuan.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/17/china-strik...
The Chinese Communist party called on employers to raise salaries and improve training for workers today, as Toyota became the latest foreign firm to be hit by a wave of high-profile strikes.
The People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling party, warned that the country's manufacturing model faced a turning point as demographic and social changes slowed the influx of low-cost labour from the countryside.
Coming a day after the premier, Wen Jiabao, made similar comments, the editorial suggests the authorities may be encouraging businesses to restructure the economy by putting less emphasis on cheap exports and more on higher-value goods and domestic consumption.
For most of the past 30 years, China's economic growth has been fuelled by low-cost migrant labour. This has helped raise national competitiveness, attract foreign investors and keep consumer prices lower across the world. But members of a new generation of migrants are less willing to endure hardship and many have successfully gone on strike to demand better conditions.
Without mentioning strikes, the People's Daily said China should adjust to a tighter labour market by improving skills, creating more service-sector jobs and giving workers more cash to spend. This echoed a speech a day earlier by Wen, who said a new generation of migrant workers should be given improved conditions .
"Your work is glorious and should be respected by society at large. Migrant workers should be cared for, protected and respected," he told workers at the construction site for the No 6 subway in the capital. "The government and the public should be treating young migrant workers like their own children."
According to labour activists, there have been numerous strikes in recent years, though few get reported in the media. Chang Kai, professor of labour relations and law at Renmin University, said the number had increased by 30% per year.
Their impact has grown as the "one-child" family planning policy starts to thin the bulge in the working-age population. This demographic change in the balance of labour supply and demand has added to improved worker organisation and greater activism at high-profile foreign firms.
Japanese firms have disproportionately been the focus of the reported strikes. The Toyoda Gosei car parts plant, in Tianjin, was shut down by a strike this week until the management promised to negotiate higher wages.
Three Honda plants in Guangdong have been affected, along with a Hyundai factory in Beijing and a Taiwanese rubber products manufacturer in Shanghai. According to Xinhua news agency, the fast food franchise KFC has conceded to a union demand for minimum monthly pay of 900 yuan (�90), up by 200 yuan.
In most cases, however, workers have organised outside the unions, which are seen as close to management and the party. This has sparked commentaries in local media urging unions to mediate more effectively between workers and employers.
Having seen how the Solidarity movement in Poland helped to overthrow a communist government that stopped representing its interests, China's leaders do not want to alienate the labour force. So far, there is no sign of any mass, nationwide protests. This week's statements of support for workers' rights suggest the politburo wants to keep on the right side of the activists.
138. I've seen similar articles in the past couple of weeks,
but this is the best one.
This is exactly what I was trying to say.
Interesting that the Japanese are being hit hardest.
Old, nasty wounds not cauterized tend to fester.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0616-foreign-capi...
China boosted its holdings of U.S. Treasury debt in April for the second straight month as total foreign holdings of U.S. government debt increased.
China's holdings of U.S. Treasury securities rose by $5 billion to $900.2 billion in April, the Treasury Department said Tuesday. Total foreign holdings rose by $72.8 billion to $3.96 trillion.
The sizable gains are being driven by fears that Greece and other European governments could default on their debt. Worries over possible defaults have sparked a flight to safety and that has benefited U.S. Treasury securities. Treasurys are considered the world's safest investment � the U.S. government has never defaulted on its debt.
The April increases eased concerns that lagging foreign demand will force the U.S. government to pay higher interest rates to finance its debt with private economists forecasting strong gains in May as well because of the debt crisis.
"We will state the obvious that flight to safety will most likely continue to favor the United States in the second quarter," said Win Thin, senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York. "Given that the European crisis intensified in May, we would expert further large-scale inflows."
Gregory Daco, U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight, said that demand for U.S. debt was also being helped by the fact that the profit outlook for many U.S. companies is bright and the U.S. economy is forecast to grow at a stronger pace this year than Europe.
China is the largest foreign holder of Treasury securities. The monthly gains in March and April came after six consecutive months when China was either reducing its U.S. holdings or keeping them constant. The stretch raised concerns that China might shift money away from Treasury securities.
The 1.9% rise in total holdings of U.S. debt in April followed an even bigger 3.5% increase in March.
The Treasury reported that net purchases of long-term securities, covering U.S. government debt and the debt of U.S. companies, increased by $83 billion in April. That follows a record monthly gain of $140.5 billion in March.
The higher interest in U.S. bonds has helped push interest rates lower. It's a welcome development for the government, which faces the task of financing record federal budget deficits. The federal deficit hit an all-time high of $1.4 trillion last year. It is expected to remain above $1 trillion this year and in 2011 as well.
Japan, the No. 2 foreign holder of Treasury securities, also increased its holdings in April. It boosted them by $10.6 billion to $795.5 billion.
Other countries registering gains in their holdings in April were the United Kingdom and various oil exporting nations.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2010-06/16/conten...
China's top banking regulator on Tuesday said the country would face more bad loan pressure this year and warned against growing risks embedded in lending to the property sector and local government units.
As the country's economic restructuring intensifies, the possibility of some credit assets evolving into "substantive risks and losses" has increased in 2010, China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), the nation's top banking watchdog, said in its annual report.
After a record 9.6 trillion yuan loans flooded the market last year to shore up flagging economic growth, the regulator has repeatedly urged Chinese banks to control the pace of lending this year and is giving special attention to lending risks in the property sector.
"With increasing uncertainty in the property sector, imprudent behavior in personal housing loans is likely to rise and a chain effect may reappear in lending to real estate developers," the CBRC said in the report.
With the total outstanding loans for property sector standing at 7.33 trillion yuan as of the end of 2009, the regulator is asking commercial lenders to conduct quarterly stress tests of property loans in case of massive loan defaults following the government clampdown on the property sector.
The government has unveiled a barrage of measures to cool the country's red-hot property market since April, widely seen as a necessary move to head off asset bubbles, but these steps have caused concerns that the clampdown might add more volatility to the property sector.
China's property prices have so far shown little sign of easing, rising 12.4 year-on-year in May, down from the record expansion of 12.8 percent in April.
In the 128-page annual report for 2009, the fourth of its kind since 2006, the banking regulator also expressed concerns over "quite large latent risks" in lending to local investment vehicles, the entities set up by local governments to help finance public works projects....
MORE AT LINK
Response to Reply #19
111. China vows increased currency flexibility
China on Saturday said it would increase the flexibility of its exchange rate regime, in an apparent concession to US pressure for Beijing to let the renminbi rise.
The issue was threatening to overshadow next weekend�s meeting of the G20 heads of government in Toronto, with President Barack Obama calling on Friday for currency flexibility as an essential part of the global economic recovery.
The statement, by the People�s Bank of China, said that there was no basis for a large-scale appreciation of the currency. But it appeared to suggest that the renminbi would be allowed to resume appreciating slowly within a narrow but movable band.
Read more >>
6. DUBAI-DUBAI-DOO
Blow for Dubai World asset sale
Dubai�s sale of Inchcape Shipping Services, a flagship corporate asset, has been dealt a blow after prospective bidders learnt of an investigation they believe the US Department of Justice is conducting into the business
Read more >>
7. HOME ON THE RANGE
US companies tap cash piles for share buy-backs
US companies are signalling a desire to buy back their own shares at the highest rate in months as record levels of cash pile up on balance sheets
Read more >>
Response to Reply #7
9. MetLife chief slams US financial reforms
The head of MetLife, the largest life assurer in the US, has criticised the financial reforms being finalised by Congress, saying some measures betray a �total misunderstanding� of the insurance industry and could hit the sector hard
Read more >>
Response to Reply #7
10.
Google is likely to face a co-ordinated inquiry from multiple US states into its collection of data from unsecured wireless networks
Read more >>
Response to Reply #7
14. 'Circuit breakers' tripped for the first time
The S&P 500 circuit breakers, which began operating this week, were triggered for the first time when shares in the Washington Post Company doubled in price inside the space of one second
Read more >>
50. WaPo was not alone
snip
Kaufman pointed to a one-minute plunge in Diebold's share price that saw the stock go from $28 per share at 12:22 p.m. EDT to $18, a 35% drop that occurred three minutes before news outlets began reporting the settlement had been finalized.
By 12:40 p.m. EDT, he said, Diebold's stock had returned to $28 per share.
83. Just for Po--From Annie
Daddy Warbucks: I never thought I'd get used to a girl.
Annie: Girls are easier to get used to than boys. Look how used to Miss Farrell you are. She does all the work around here, and you don't even know her first name.
Daddy Warbucks: I do, it's Grace.
Annie: She thinks you're the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Daddy Warbucks:
Response to Reply #83
106. :smile:
It might have taken half a century, but I now walk without getting my knuckles muddy.
The bride has an old dishwasher.........me
62. It isn't any more jobs, just not fewer.
We really need more.
105. Yes, you do. The whole state and practically the whole country do, too.
Edited on Sat Jun-19-10 10:37 AM by amandabeech
Last night I saw a bit of the "Ed" show on TV.
Ed has been touring the country talking about jobs or something. His last stop was the Denver area, and one of the folks in his crowd had started a business making garden implements and other products that last more than two seasons.
Ed held up a nice-looking brass garden hose nozzle--you know the kind that makes a spray or a hard stream as you like. It was made in the Denver area and looked like you wouldn't have a buy a new one from Wally World any time soon. If I had a house, I'd buy one. Unfortunately, Ed didn't say where you could buy one or where you could call to order one.
Personally, I'd like to know where I could buy a decent toaster oven. I read an article recently about folks wanting better power tools, but not needing true professional grade.
I'm just a dumb lawyer, and I don't know a thing about engineering or manufacturing or marketing, but I wonder what it would take to find some abandoned rust belt factory, some 50-ish people who still know how to do manufacturing, make a few quality things, and sell them to upscale places. Of course, it would probably be useful to put "Made in Germany" on them so the new owners would buy them, but hey--it'd probably worth settling a few lawsuits quietly to do so.
Well, I guess that I can dream, can't I?
Well, someone should dream, because it doesn't look like the White House is doing it.
107. Quality goods do not produce a steady cash flow
for the non-working "investor" class.
Quality goods are produced by people who care to produce quality goods, and not generally by wage slaves forced to turn out more and more and more cheap crap. When the vicious cycle becomes produce more to buy more to produce more to buy more, we're trapped.
The difficulty is finding the balance between production for its own sake and production for comfort. But it's truly amazing how comfortably one can live on a smaller income if one simply learns to get off the consumption merry-go-round.
A couple of weeks ago an acquaintance announced that she was going to be downsizing her living arrangements following the recent death of her husband. She asked if anyone was interested in her antique sleigh bed which had been in her family since it was made in about 1870. She said she will not give it to any of her children or grandchildren because they will just trash it, as that is the only way they know how to treat things because that is how they justify buying new all the time. Another acquaintance spoke up in defence of "buying new all the time." "Why would you want to keep the same old stuff? I mean, I get bored looking at the same furniture all the time, so I just buy the cheap stuff and then I don't feel so bad when it falls apart in a year or so and then I get to buy new again!"
A friend who was laid off about six months or so ago put the experience to good work. Discovering that she and her husband spent approximately $300 a month taking their two teen-agers out for a movie and pizza about every other week, they scaled back their lifestyle to live within her husband's modest income. They found out they wasted way too much money on crap, and now have less junk and more time to actually do things.
I'd like one or two of those nice brass nozzles. I currently have eight garden hoses hooked up around my property and NOT ONE OF THEM HAS A DECENT NOZZLE. When I broke down and washed my car a few days ago, I gave up on the nozzles and resorted to using my thumb. It doesn't get much cheaper than that, but it makes a mess, too.
TG
112. $300/MONTH FOR PIZZA AND MOVIE?
Well teenage boys do eat a lot. They should learn how to make pizza.
I am appalled.
115. She was appalled, too
Pizza for 4, inc. 1 pitcher beer = $60
Four adult movie tickets @ $10 = $40
Popcorn, drinks, etc. = $30
Gas; ice cream on the way home (opt.) = $20
And they usually did this twice a month or so as a family evening out and had been doing it ever since their kids were very young. Fortunately, it established a good relationship with their kids and it wasn't a difficult transition to say to them hey, look, the money isn't there any more and this just isn't in the budget. They now do movie nights at home with DVDs often picked up for pennies at yard sales, and the kids are bringing home friends to watch classics like "Casablanca," "The Great Escape," and "The Big Country."
Response to Reply #115
144. Another friend appalled
He took his nieces, aged 13 (adult ticket) and 9 (child's ticket), to see the new Toy Story movie yesterday. Pizza without beer, tickets, popcorn and soft drinks (no candy) totalled just shy of $100.
TG
Response to Reply #144
149. Which reminds me...Probably about 25 years ago
It was winter in Ohio, so our family was dressed in big coats and hats. Spouse is real tall, but at that time, I was same size as the 2 kids (who have both grown much taller than me). But then, at a quick glance, it appeared that a dad was taking 3 kids to the movies. So that's what we did...bought 1 adult ticket and 3 children tickets. LOL. I can't even remember the prices, but not near as expensive nowadays.
140. You are so right about the investor class and the junk stuff.
I've heard about people who are completely infatuated with new, new, new.
At what point will people get exhausted from so much consuming?
Maybe it's my age, but I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about consuming as I was when I was in my '20s, but even then, I didn't buy stuff all the time just to have some stimulation in my life.
Stimulation by reading, doing hobbies, and, most importantly, socializing (in person is best, but the net ain't too bad here and on SMW) is just so much better.
Maybe the Ed Show would give you the name of the nozzle company. You might and others might be the impetus for them to hook up with some mail order business.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/2010/0617/Consumer-price...
The overall level of US consumer prices fell in May for the second month in a row, a sign that the economic recovery remains weak.
Normally people call this monthly bulletin the "inflation report." Now the consumer price index (CPI) shows deflation at least since January...
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/90861/7027837....
The majority of the WTO panel of experts handling the dispute ruled in favor of China, according to a report by the China News Service.
The US can appeal against the decision, according to WTO rules, but the report will be considered the panel's final verdict if the US loses the appeal.
In April 2009, China filed an appeal with the WTO to protest a key clause in a US law, which prohibits Chinese exports of poultry.
China argued that section 727 of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, which was signed into US law in March 2009, violates the rules of the world trade body.
According to the US law, no government funds should be made available for establishment or implementation of a rule allowing imports of poultry products from China - deemed a de facto ban on Chinese poultry products.
The US government has revised the law annually for several years, said Zhang.
"Actually, the 2009 law we complained about has already ceased to be in effect, and it's not clear if the ruling will have a binding effect on its successor, section 743 in Act 2010," Zhang said.
The latest WTO report will force the US to comply with free trade rules and restrict its discriminatory actions against China, which is highly significant given the growing number of trade disputes between the world's two major traders, she said.
"It's good news for China anyway; it will bolster our confidence in the multilateral trading system," said Cheng, the ministry official.Source:Xinhua
118. Send us your weak
and toxin filled poultry......Take your lead and shove it
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/business/economy/17sl...
Before the recession, people simply looked for a house to buy. Later they got squeamish just thinking about buying. Now they are on a quest for perfection at the perfect price.
Exacting buyers are upending the battered real estate market, agents and other experts say, leading to last-minute demands for multiple concessions, bruised feelings on all sides and many more collapsed deals than usual.
It is a reversal of roles from the boom, when competing buyers were sometimes reduced to writing heartfelt letters saying how much they loved the house and how they promised to eternally worship the memory of the previous owners. These days, it is the buyers who are coldly seeking the absolute best deal while the sellers are left in emotional turmoil.
�We see buyers who must have learned their moves from the World Wrestling Federation,� said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of the online broker Redfin. �They think the final smack-down occurs at the inspection, where the seller will be reluctant to refuse any demand because the alternative is putting the house back on the market as damaged goods.�
Everyone expected the housing market to suffer at least a temporary hangover after the government�s $8,000 tax credit expired, but not necessarily this much. Preliminary data from around the country indicates that the housing market began swooning last month immediately after the credit was no longer available. In some places, sales dropped more than 20 percent from May 2009, when the worst of the financial crisis had subsided.
Builders have been affected too. Construction of new homes in May dropped 17.2 percent from April, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, significantly lower than forecast. Permits for future construction dropped 10 percent, suggesting a cruel summer.
Even the lowest home mortgage rates in decades are not doing much to invite deals. The Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday that applications for loans to buy houses were down by a third compared with last year. Applications are back to the level of the mid-1990s, when the country�s housing market was smaller.
Against such a backdrop of misery, buyers are empowered � and are taking full advantage. MORE AT LINK
Response to Reply #7
56. What a productive use of the cash!
It amazes me when so much cash is sitting around with nowhere to go. Well, really, it doesn't.
So much value has gone to so few people over the past 35 years, it is amazing that so many people are still buying stuff.
That's what happens when so many people around the world cannot afford to buy what consumer goods they are making.
http://www.startribune.com/investigators/95692619.html
You committed no crime, but an officer is knocking on your door. More Minnesotans are surprised to find themselves being locked up over debts.
As a sheriff's deputy dumped the contents of Joy Uhlmeyer's purse into a sealed bag, she begged to know why she had just been arrested while driving home to Richfield after an Easter visit with her elderly mother.
No one had an answer. Uhlmeyer spent a sleepless night in a frigid Anoka County holding cell, her hands tucked under her armpits for warmth. Then, handcuffed in a squad car, she was taken to downtown Minneapolis for booking. Finally, after 16 hours in limbo, jail officials fingerprinted Uhlmeyer and explained her offense -- missing a court hearing over an unpaid debt. "They have no right to do this to me," said the 57-year-old patient care advocate, her voice as soft as a whisper. "Not for a stupid credit card."
It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found.
Not every warrant results in an arrest, but in Minnesota many debtors spend up to 48 hours in cells with criminals. Consumer attorneys say such arrests are increasing in many states, including Arkansas, Arizona and Washington, driven by a bad economy, high consumer debt and a growing industry that buys bad debts and employs every means available to collect.
Whether a debtor is locked up depends largely on where the person lives, because enforcement is inconsistent from state to state, and even county to county.
In Illinois and southwest Indiana, some judges jail debtors for missing court-ordered debt payments. In extreme cases, people stay in jail until they raise a minimum payment. In January, a judge sentenced a Kenney, Ill., man "to indefinite incarceration" until he came up with $300 toward a lumber yard debt... MORE AT LINK
THIS IS A CLEVERLY CRAFTED LIE--THE CRIME IS NOT DEBT, BUT FAILURE TO RESPOND TO THE COURT.
Unemployment Up
Nevada now has the highest unemployment rate in the nation.
The rate hit a record 14 percent statewide in May, pushing the Silver State ahead of
Michigan to lead the nation in joblessness.
The state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation reported Friday that the jump from 13.7 percent in April set a new record for Nevada.
The report says the jobless rate eased a bit in Las Vegas, dropping from 14.2 percent in April to 14.1 percent in May.
The only bright spot is the Elko area, where mining is strong and the May jobless rate was 8.3 percent.
The report says Nevada's economy has dropped dramatically since December 2007, with the state unemployment rate increasing 8.8 percentage points.
The figures put Nevada 4.3 percent above the national unemployment rate of 9.7 percent.
The numbers reflect the continued collapse of construction employment, and continued layoffs by government, small businesses and resorts.
"Our economy is very heavily dependent upon tourism," said UNLV Department of Economics' Stephen Miller. "And the current recession, the drivers for the recession, were leisure and hospitality, finance and insurance and real estate, and construction. And we know we're big players in at least two of those markets. That's why the recession has been so severe, unlike previous recessions in Nevada."
In April, more than 195,000 Washoe County residents were out of work, and the jobless rate hit 13.5 percent; up from 13.3 percent in March.
UNTIL THE CENSUS IS OVER, AT LEAST...
136. When did housing become the leading economic indicator
over manufacturing?? When did this transition occur?
Response to Reply #11
23. Thanks for the memory. We took our daughter on her 9th birthday
in '78 and after the show we were outside with programs still in hand and the girls came out of the theater for their dinner break. They were thrilled we had seen it and wanted to know how we liked the show. When we told them it was daughter's birthday they sang happy birthday to her. I still get chills when I think about it. Thank you again.
Response to Reply #23
58. Every year I would take my daughter to some event
A play, or ballet, a musical, an ice show. It was fun, and something special for mother-daughter.
Then there was the Annie year. A local theater of actors did Annie, and a regional group also came to town. My daughter always loved the dog!
12. OILCAN!
Svanberg admits deal will annoy BP investors
BP does at least have a deal with the administration that means it avoids the worst possible outcomes that had been alarming financial markets
Read more >>
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=av....
BP Plc rebounded in London trading and the cost of insuring the company against default tumbled after an agreement to phase in payments to a $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
BP scrapped dividends and pledged asset sales yesterday to meet President Barack Obama�s demand to set up the fund in response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Its shares have slumped 45 percent since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, wiping about 55 billion pounds ($81 billion) off the London-based company�s value.
�It brings some clarity, but obviously we still don�t know whether $20 billion will be enough or whether the company will need more,� said Colin Morton, who helps manage about $1.7 billion at Rensburg Fund Management in Leeds, England. �If this is the final cost, it�s more than adequately reflected in the price.� ...MORE AT LINK
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37720386/ns/disaster_in_the... /
In assuring Americans on Tuesday that BP won't control the compensation fund for Gulf oil spill recovery, President Barack Obama failed to mention that the government won't control it, either.
That means it's anyone's guess whether the government can, in fact, make BP pay all costs related to the spill.
Obama aimed high in his prime-time Oval Office address � perhaps higher than the facts support and history teaches � as he vowed to restore livelihoods and nature from the still-unfolding calamity in the Gulf of Mexico.
A look at some of his statements and how they compare with those facts:
OBAMA: "We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused and we will do whatever's necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy. ... Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness. And this fund will not be controlled by BP. In order to ensure that all legitimate claims are paid out in a fair and timely manner, the account must and will be administered by an independent, third party."
THE FACTS: An independent arbiter is no more bound to the government's wishes than an oil company's. In that sense, there is no certainty BP will be forced to make the Gulf economy whole again or that taxpayers are completely off the hook for any of the myriad costs associated with the spill or cleanup. The government can certainly press for that, using legislative and legal tools. But there are no guarantees.
It took 20 years to sort through liability after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, and in the end, punitive damages were slashed by the courts to about $500 million from $2.5 billion. Many people who had lost their livelihoods in the spill died without seeing a check.
OBAMA: "Already, I have issued a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. I know this creates difficulty for the people who work on these rigs, but for the sake of their safety and for the sake of the entire region, we need to know the facts before we allow deepwater drilling to continue."
THE FACTS: Obama issued a six-month moratorium on new permits for deepwater drilling but production continues from existing deepwater wells...
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE65G1PM20100617?rpc...
BP (BP.L) has not decided what assets to sell to meet U.S. oil spill costs, the head of its Russian operations said, following rumours its stake in Rosneft (ROSN.MM), Russia's top oil producer, was for sale.
BP has said it would suspend dividends to shareholders, reduce its investment programme and sell $10 billion of assets after agreeing with the U.S. government to set aside $20 billion to pay for the spill.
"$10 billion of assets -- nothing specific has been identified yet. (It is) too early," David Peattie said on Thursday on the sidelines of the St Petersburg Economic Forum.
Shares in state-run Rosneft, which produces over a fifth of Russia's oil, tumbled over 6 percent earlier in the day and closed down 5.5 percent on speculation BP might sell its stake of around 1.3 percent.
Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said he had not heard of any plans by BP to sell Russian assets.
Rosneft President Sergei Bogdanchikov said there would be no economic damage for Rosneft, in which the state holds 75 percent.
In Russia, BP's assets include TNK-BP (TNBPI.RTS), a 50-50 joint venture with Russia-based partners, where there were no plans to change the dividend policy, Peattie said.
"The future is very good, very bright," he said, when asked about the Russian assets.
"We have a successful business here for BP, investing $4 billion a year through our joint venture TNK-BP. We have a very successful investment in Rosneft," he said. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, Denis Pinchuk and Gleb Bryanski; Writing by Toni Vorobyova, editing by Will Waterman)
BP deploys Costner's oil machine in Gulf cleanup
By Jeffrey Jones
PORT FOURCHON, La. (Reuters) - Hollywood star Kevin Costner joined BP�s efforts to clean up the oil-fouled Gulf of Mexico on Friday as the British company began deploying his "dream" machine to separate oil from water.
Kevin Costner, founding partner, Ocean Therapy Solutions Inc. along with John Houghtaling II, Chief Executive Officer, and Patrick Smith, Chief Operating Officer of Ocean Therapy Solutions Inc. answer questions from the media in Port Fourchon, Louisiana June 18, 2010. (REUTERS/Sean Gardner)
BP acquired 32 of the centrifuges to help remove some of the oil that has been gushing into the Gulf from its blown-out well in the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
The units are being deployed after BP tested them to see if they could handle the crude leaking from an undersea well for two months at an estimated rate of up to 60,000 barrels a day (2.5 million gallons/9.5 million liters).
"At its core, my dream, this machine, was designed ... to give us a fighting chance to fight back the oil that's got us by the throat," Costner told reporters.
"When you are in a fight, anybody knows you go to confront it right where it is. You don't wait for it to come to your door," the actor said at this oil industry supply port in southern Louisiana.
Moored behind him was a barge with his machines mounted on the deck that had returned to port to be fitted with a global positioning system to allow it to detect concentrations of oil.
Costner's company, Ocean Therapy Solutions, signed a contract with BP to provide 32 of the units that are expected to be working in the next 60 days, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said. Financial details were not disclosed.
Each machine, called a V20, can separate 210,000 gallons of oily water a day.
Costner, best-known for such films as "Dances with Wolves" and "Waterworld," stressed he was no overnight oil spill sensation. He has been trying to employ the technology designed by his company for the past 17 years, and has invested more than $20 million of his own money in its development.
Costner testified in the U.S. Congress last week about the need for a 21st century solution to the risks of drilling in waters as deep as one mile (1.6 km).
His proposals had been ignored and bureaucratic red tape hindered the introduction of new technology, he said. (Reporting by Jeff Jones; Editing by Anthony Boadle)
Copyright � 2010 Reuters
Response to Reply #61
63. The video was yesterday, 6/18/10
If you look at the shirt Costner is taken in the picture in this WEE link, he is wearing the same shirt as in the video at the link in LBN.
Great find, thanks!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/0...
San Ramon's Chevron Corp. is the largest leaseholder in the Gulf of Mexico. Of its 669 leases, 423 are located in deepwater, i.e., depths greater than 1,000 feet. Its total daily energy production in the gulf and from onshore fields in the region averages 243,000 barrels per day.
If, as congressional inquisitors suggested at Tuesday's hearings in Washington, Chevron is just another "bad apple" in the rotten oil company barrel alongside BP - and its "cookie-cutter" oil-spill-response plan is as "worthless" as BP's - then we've got even more to worry about.
It was Chevron CEO John Watson's job to put those ideas to rest, primarily by distancing Chevron from BP.
The spill was "preventable," Watson said in prepared testimony, echoing what he and other Chevron executives have previously said. "The expectation we share with the American people (that) the energy that we need will be produced safely and reliably ... did not happen here."
By way of contrast, he said, Chevron's own internal review, conducted in the aftermath of the spill, "confirmed what our regular audits have told us. Chevron's drilling and control practices for deepwater wells are safe and environmentally sound."
Digging the knife deeper, Watson said Chevron immediately "reinforced our own safety practices, which include what we call 'stop work' authority - the responsibility of any employee or contractor to stop work immediately if they see anything unsafe. All our people clearly understand they have that authority." As opposed to BP, which ignored employee warnings that some things didn't look right.
Yes, keep drilling: As for lawmakers' disbelief that his company has a better handle on such matters, Watson pointed out that "Chevron has successfully drilled 375 deepwater wells around the world." Whether Chevron, which claims to have a "robust" containment plan could handle a spill of BP proportions any better is an open question.
Still, Chevron, like other energy companies and various interests in the gulf, wants the six-month moratorium, imposed by the Obama administration last month on all drilling below 500 feet, lifted ASAP. Watson's reasoning: "For the last two years - and for the first time since 1970 - U.S. crude output has increased for one reason: deepwater development in the Gulf of Mexico."
The gulf, he said, also accounts for 15 percent of the nation's natural gas, and 27 percent of its domestic oil supply, he noted. In addition to the loss of production, and concomitant royalties and taxes, tens of thousands of jobs in the gulf region are at stake.
"Any extension of the moratorium will only exacerbate the economic consequences," Watson said. Whatever its merits, the argument is gaining force and a shortening of the moratorium would not be surprising.
It's not just about oil: "We need ... a sharpened focus on alternatives and renewables, even as we continue to develop our domestic oil and gas resources." Especially natural gas, said Watson. Plus, "a 20 percent improvement in U.S. energy efficiency could result in saving the equivalent of 10 million barrels of oil and reducing 1.5 billion metric tons of CO{-2} emissions per year." Chevron has reduced its own energy use by 30 percent since 1992, Watson said.
Whether, as congressional critics said, oil company CEOs like Watson are chiefly engaged in PR, Chevron's chief executive set a high bar by which he and his company are to be judged. (Full text of the testimony at links.sfgate.com/ZJVT)
"We all know," he concluded, "that actions speak louder than words. Chevron's top priority over the coming days, weeks and months will be to demonstrate to you, your colleagues and the American public that we understand that we operate by public permission."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...
Five oil giants. Five plans for coping with an oil spill, all written by the same tiny Texas subcontractor.
The government-mandated plans all came under attack at a congressional hearing Tuesday: Three of them listed the phone number for the same University of Miami marine science expert, Peter Lutz, who died in 2005. Four talked about the need to protect walruses, which, as Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) dryly noted, "have not called the Gulf of Mexico home for 3 million years." The plans also mentioned protecting sea lions and seals, which aren't found in the gulf, either.
The five oil companies submitted these plans -- each more than 500 pages long and each relying on the same reassuring language -- as part of their applications for permits to drill deepwater wells in the gulf. The firms assured the government that they could handle oil spills much larger than the one now threatening the region's environment and economy. And each time, the Minerals Management Service approved the plan and gave the go-ahead for drilling.
Yet House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said that the "cookie-cutter" plans show that "none of the five oil companies has an adequate response plan" for a spill like the one that began April 20 with a blowout on a BP well.
"It could be said that BP is the one bad apple in the bunch," Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said at a hearing of the House Energy and Environment subcommittee. "But unfortunately they appear to have plenty of company. Exxon and the other oil companies are just as unprepared to respond to a major oil spill in the gulf as BP." (STUPID HAS EARNED HIS NICKNAME HONESTLY--MORE AT LINK)
http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175262 /
It couldn�t be worse, could it? In the Gulf, BP now claims to be retrieving 15,000 barrels of oil a day from the busted pipe 5,000 feet down. That�s three times the total amount of oil it claimed, bare weeks ago, was coming out of that pipe. A government panel of experts now suggests that the real figure could be up to 60,000 barrels or 2.5 million gallons a day, the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill every four days -- and some independent experts think the figure could actually be closer to 100,000 barrels a day.
In the meantime, we just learned from the Los Angeles Times that -- go figure -- the �primary responsibility for safety and other inspections� on the oil rig that blew in the Gulf �rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands,� and that those impoverished islands had outsourced their responsibilities to private companies. Go BP! We also learned that the relief wells sure to staunch the flow of oil by �early August� could take far longer, fail, or even make matters significantly worse; that BP cut every corner in the book to save money when drilling its well; and, oh, that evidently even the heavens are angry at the oil giant, since on Tuesday a lightning strike put its sole drill/retrieval ship in the Gulf out of action for hours, leaving all that oil pouring into the water unimpeded. However bad the bad news is, each new dawn it only seems to get worse, as does the �collateral damage,� whether to pelicans or the Gulf's beaches and wetlands.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, that war equivalent of BP�s Gulf disaster, things are similarly trending downward at a startling pace as the news from there grows ever grimmer. The model American offensive in the southern town of Marja, declared a "success" in early May, has faltered badly and has been labeled by Afghan war commander General Stanley McChrystal a �bleeding ulcer�; the �government in a box� that he claimed the U.S. would merrily roll out after U.S. and Afghan troops decisively shoved the Taliban aside, is still in absentia, and the Taliban remain all too present; Afghan President Hamid Karzai now openly indicates that he thinks the Americans can�t win in his country and he�s planning accordingly; the much ballyhooed American �offensive� in Afghanistan�s second largest city, Kandahar, has once again been delayed; corruption increases; American and NATO death tolls grow worse by the month as support for the war in the U.S. sinks; the �collateral damage� only increases; and this week, in a piece in the New York Times, we were told things are so bad that a serious drawdown of forces in 2011 is considered unlikely. Go figure (again)!
And oh, the heavens are evidently not so happy with our Afghan operations either, since Centcom commander General David Petraeus fainted while under what one commentator called �withering� questioning about drawdown schedules for U.S. troops in a Senate hearing room Tuesday.
To make matters more complicated, as Nick Turse, TomDispatch regular and author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, points out, America�s two distant disasters are not only out of control and seemingly unstaunchable, but more intimately connected than we might imagine. The American disaster in Afghanistan runs, in significant part, on BP-produced fuel, and government payments for that fuel are bolstering BP while it lives through its purgatory in the Gulf. MORE AT LINK
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100618/tot-uk-oil-spill-b...
BP Plc , battling to plug a gushing oil well under the Gulf of Mexico, is seeking loans of $1 billion (676 million pounds) from each of seven banks to raise up to $7 billion, banking sources told Thomson Reuters LPC on Friday.
BP is raising capital for a $20 billion clean-up fund, said a different senior banker in the United States, referring to the escrow account that U.S. President Barack Obama demanded the company set up to handle damage claims.
BP has asked its main lenders to put a series of coordinated 1-year standby bilateral loans in place, one source said. This type of loan is made by individual banks to a company and are not syndicated.
Banks including Barclays, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland are working on loans of $1 billion each for BP, several banking sources said.
"BP is quietly approaching banks for the facility and it's a club deal," a second banker said. A third banker said that no U.S. banks were providing loans.
Such a loan by BP move would echo a similar move by Exxon Corp in 1996. Following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989, Exxon put $6.75 billion of 1-year standby loans in place to guarantee payment of a $5 billion fine against the company.
An official for BP declined to comment on any plans for loans.
"We do not comment on rumour and speculation," a BP spokesperson said.
BP's five-year CDS hit a record wide of 610 basis points (bps) on Wednesday after a six-notch downgrade to BBB on Tuesday by Fitch, bankers said.
The private loans would bypass the wide spreads that would be demanded by the corporate bond market, which would price off the CDS and current inflated bond spreads.
BP's five-year CDS recovered to 465 bps on Friday. Its illiquid one-year CDS is priced at around 620 bps, but traded as wide as 1000 bps earlier this month, according to Markit.
Bilateral loans would be priced far lower than BP's CDS rates on the expectation that banks will earn hefty fees from BP at a later date, the senior banker said.
"All of the scenarios for BP would net huge fees. Even if the company is broken up, it has enormous assets that would result in huge sellside M&A fees," he added.
Large U.S. bond managers said that they had not been approached or declined to comment.
BP said in an investor call on June 4 that it had $5 billion of cash in addition to $5.25 billion of undrawn committed bank lines, and $5.25 billion of committed stand-by bank lines.
The group's free cash flow before dividends for 2010 is $6 billion, according to Fitch, which does not include the potential to monetise existing assets.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25751.h...
People all around the country have put so much pressure on the Obama administration that it had to �do something� to look like it was standing up to BP. The announcement today of a so-called $20 billion escrow fund from BP would never have happened without mass pressure. But does this fund truly respond to the needs of the people in the Gulf Coast states?
Too much is at stake for people to let down their guard and accept the �feel good� sound-bite version of what took place today in the meeting between President Obama and BP�s executives.
The White House and BP are creating a mythology, or "spin," on what the tentative agreement signifies.
It is noteworthy that BP's executives are very happy with the new agreement. Their necessary goal as a corporation is to maximize profits, and not to pay damages to all of those who have been harmed. As the Washington Post reported after the meetings, "Behind the scenes, the company had signaled what it expected from Wednesday's meeting�and the company appears to have gotten exactly what it wanted."
It is quite clear to us, even though much more will be revealed in the coming days and weeks, that we have to accelerate the movement for justice. This agreement is not only inadequate but attempts to shield BP from paying all the damages and compensation for lost work, ruined small businesses, and a devastated ecosystem.
At first glance, one would believe, based on the headlines that the Obama Administration compelled BP to set aside $20 billion dollars in an escrow account to meet the needs of people and communities harmed by BP's criminal negligence.
But this is actually a great deal for BP.
The facts on the "escrow" account
The "escrow account" in 2010 is not $20 billion dollars. BP will put in $3 billion dollars in the third quarter of 2010 (ending September 30) and another $2 billion in the fourth quarter (ending December 31). Thereafter, it will have to make installments of $1.25 billion each quarter for the next three years.
This means that the necessary money will not be available to pay the tens of billions in losses that are real and immediate. It also means that people and businesses will have to get in line.
The real number for the escrow account in 2010 is $5 billion�six months from now at the earliest. To put this in perspective, BP has been bringing in between $26 billion and $36 billion annually in profits on revenue of $250 billion, and pays out more than $10 billion in dividends yearly.
According to a report in Forbes, BP could absorb $35 billion in spill costs before it would have a "material impact" on its operations. But instead, it will be allowed a paltry $5 billion a year, in an installment plan over four years.
Another measure of perspective can be had by comparison of this $5 billion per year voluntary set-aside to the accumulated potential fines and penalties under the Clean Water Act. BP can be fined $4,300 per barrel of oil spilled as a consequence of gross negligence. With the recent acknowledgment that the spill volume is 60,000 barrels per day, that is a potential penalty of over $250 million per day. Put another way, every 60 days accumulates a potential $15 billion fine under the Act. The voluntary arrangement to set aside $5 billion per year is meager in comparison.
This, of course, reflects Obama�s unwillingness to exercise legal authority against BP. Department of Justice lawyers could be initiating prosecutions for the accumulated fines, but aside from the announcement of potential investigations, this has not occurred.
Obama denies that his deal with BP will function as a cap on its liability, but this remains to be determined. The deal appears to functionally provide a shield for BP. As one investment advisor told the Wall Street Journal, the agreement puts "an end to the financial bleeding," and allows investors to assess what BP's total liabilities might be. So while President Obama stresses that the plan is not a cap on liability, it certainly appears as one. The installment terms of the payments themselves limit the amounts that will be made available while people are seeking claims.
Mr. Feinberg to the rescue�again
President Obama announced that the fund will be administered by Kenneth Feinberg, a Washington lawyer who made $5.7 million in his law practice in 2008. Mr. Feinberg has played a particular role in Washington at the time of virtual uprising against the banks and bankers' bonuses. He was appointed to be the �pay czar� by Obama reviewing and approving many of the obscene bonuses doled out to AIG and other executives after they were bailed out with hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayers� money. As Reuters wrote today, "He has been hailed for soothing the egos of Wall Street executives clutching on to big paychecks, while still looking tough to a general public shocked by massive payouts to firms on a government lifeline."
There is very little other information about how claims will be processed. There will have to be determinations made as to what, in the parlance of both BP and President Obama, is a "legitimate" claim. While Obama stated that anyone can file a claim, that doesn�t mean that the claim will be accepted or paid. Nor does it appear that the decision-making process will include any of the affected Gulf coast residents or their representatives from the fishers, shrimpers, crabbers, unions, small business people and workers in the tourism and recreation industry, local elected officials, clergy, and independent scientists and environmentalists.
Details must be forthcoming about claims payments and standards. Can we expect tens of thousands of people to receive checks by the end of the month? One thing is clear: The limited level of the fund necessarily means that claims cannot be paid equivalent to the damages incurred right now.
The creation of the so-called escrow fund was the result of a nationwide mass movement. Now is the time to step up our organizing to make sure that we have the kind of escrow fund that can really meet the needs of the people and repair the vast environmental damage caused by BP.
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/worst-alread... |+The+B
Sharon Astyk at ScienceBlogs points the way to a seriously scary comment thread at The Oil Drum, a sounding board for, among others, many petroleum geologists and oil professionals. The comment in question is from a seemingly very knowledgable "dougr." Some of it follows verbatim below. I've highlighted the parts that frightened me the most and left me wondering: Is this why Obama's praying?
You can read the comment in its entirety here, complete with useful links, as well as all the comments (some of which dissent from dougr's claims) made in response. Sharon notes, to the inevitable question of why pass along an anonymous comment: "This one passes my smell test, which is usually pretty good - that doesn't mean I claim commenter Doug R is right - it means I think his information is interesting enough to be worth exposing to a wider audience for clarification or correction." As the Oil Drum staff explains to it's own readers regarding this post: "Were the US government and BP more forthcoming with information and details, the situation would not be giving rise to so much speculation about what is actually going on in the Gulf. This should be run more like Mission Control at NASA than an exclusive country club function--it is a public matter--transparency, now!" Amen. Meanwhile, judge for yourself:
"All the actions and few tid bits of information all lead to one inescapable conclusion. The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. Now you have some real data of how BP's actions are evidence of that, as well as some murky statement from "BP officials" confirming the same.
"To those of us outside the real inside loop, yet still fairly knowledgeable,
was a major confirmation of what many feared. That the system below the sea floor has serious failures of varying magnitude in the complicated chain, and it is breaking down and it will continue to.
"What does this mean?
"It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot...the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?...the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?...it doesn't leak so bad, you close the nozzle?...it leaks real bad, same dynamics. It is why they sawed the riser off...or tried to anyway...but they clipped it off, to relieve pressure on the leaks "down hole". I'm sure there was a bit of panic time after they crimp/pinched off the large riser pipe and the Diamond wire saw got stuck and failed...because that crimp diverted pressure and flow to the rupture down below.
"Contrary to what most of us would think as logical to stop the oil mess, actually opening up the gushing well and making it gush more became direction BP took after confirming that there was a leak. In fact if you note their actions, that should become clear. They have shifted from stopping or restricting the gusher to opening it up and catching it. This only makes sense if they want to relieve pressure at the leak hidden down below the seabed.....and that sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kind of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above, all they can do is relieve the pressure on it and the only way to do that right now is to open up the nozzle above and gush more oil into the gulf and hopefully catch it, which they have done, they just neglected to tell us why, gee thanks.
"A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons. There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the "system" including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil "Product" rushing through it. There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it's way out. It will slowly eat the bop away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more. Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?...no one really knows....However now?...there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation.
"This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore.
"The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself... The well's piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over...and it is now showing signs of doing just that....falling over...
"What is likely to happen now?
"Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don't, they are inviting disaster that much sooner.
"Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? ...it won't be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov't must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.
"All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn't any "cap dome" or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?....is the only real chance we have left to stop it all.
"It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo...
MUCH MORE AT LINK
13. RUE BRITTANIA!
UK tax to cost US banks $2bn
US banks will foot a total bill of about $2bn in their second-quarter results to pay for the UK tax on bankers� bonuses, with Goldman Sachs alone in line for a $600m-plus charge
Read more >>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jun/17/uk-threa...
Iceland put on fast-track to join the EU but acrimony lingers over �2.3bn owed from Icesave collapse
Iceland was put on a fast track to join the European Union today, but the Cameron government served notice that it could block the country's membership unless it settled the �2.3bn Britain says it is owed as a result of the country's financial collapse two years ago.
European government chiefs at a Brussels summit decided that "accession negotiations should be opened" with Iceland. At British and Dutch insistence, however, the summit said that Iceland would have to address "existing obligations such as those identified by the European free trade area surveillance authority", a reference to the fallout from the collapse of Icesave in 2008 that left 400,000 depositors in Britain and the Netherlands fearing for their savings.
The Icesave dispute generated acrimonious negotiations, with the terms for reimbursing the British and Dutch rejected first by Iceland's president and then by the Icelandic public in a referendum.
Earlier this week, William Hague, the foreign secretary, made it plain that Britain could veto membership unless the dispute was settled. "Iceland will have to recognise its obligations," he said. "We won't block
, but we will want it clear at the start that Iceland meets its financial and legal obligations."...
77. Deficit Terrorists Strike In The UK - USA Next? By Ellen Brown
Edited on Sat Jun-19-10 07:32 AM by Demeter
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25766.h...
Last week, England�s new government said it would abandon the previous government�s stimulus program and introduce the austerity measures required to pay down its estimated $1 trillion in debts. That means cutting public spending, laying off workers, reducing consumption, and increasing unemployment and bankruptcies. It also means shrinking the money supply, since virtually all �money� today originates as loans or debt. Reducing the outstanding debt will reduce the amount of money available to pay workers and buy goods, precipitating depression and further economic pain.
July 18, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- The financial sector has sometimes been accused of shrinking the money supply intentionally, in order to increase the demand for its own products. Bankers are in the debt business, and if governments are allowed to create enough money to keep themselves and their constituents out of debt, lenders will be out of business. The central banks charged with maintaining the banking business therefore insist on a �stable currency� at all costs, even if it means slashing services, laying off workers, and soaring debt and interest burdens. For the financial business to continue to boom, governments must not be allowed to create money themselves, either by printing it outright or by borrowing it into existence from their own government-owned banks.
Today this financial goal has largely been achieved. In most countries, 95% or more of the money supply is created by banks as loans (or �credit�). The small portion issued by the government is usually created just to replace lost or worn out bills or coins, not to fund new government programs. Early in the twentieth century, about 30% of the British currency was issued by the government as pounds sterling or coins, versus only about 3% today. In the U.S., only coins are now issued by the government. Dollar bills (Federal Reserve Notes) are issued by the Federal Reserve, which is privately owned by a consortium of banks.
Banks advance the principal but not the interest necessary to pay off their loans; and since bank loans are now virtually the only source of new money in the economy, the interest can only come from additional debt. For the banks, that means business continues to boom; while for the rest of the economy, it means cutbacks, belt-tightening and austerity. Since more must always be paid back than was advanced as credit, however, the system is inherently unstable. When the debt bubble becomes too large to be sustained, a recession or depression is precipitated, wiping out a major portion of the debt and allowing the whole process to begin again. This is called the �business cycle,� and it causes markets to vacillate wildly, allowing the monied interests that triggered the cycle to pick up real estate and other assets very cheaply on the down-swing.
The financial sector, which controls the money supply and can easily capture the media, cajoles the populace into compliance by selling its agenda as a �balanced budget,� �fiscal responsibility,� and saving future generations from a massive debt burden by suffering austerity measures now. Bill Mitchell, Professor of Economics at the University of New Castle in Australia, calls this �deficit terrorism.� Bank-created debt becomes more important than schools, medical care or infrastructure. Rather than �providing for the general welfare,� the purpose of government becomes to maintain the value of the investments of the government�s creditors.
England Dons the Hair Shirt
England�s new coalition government has just bought into this agenda, imposing on itself the sort of fiscal austerity that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has long imposed on Third World countries, and has more recently imposed on European countries, including Latvia, Iceland, Ireland and Greece. Where those countries were forced into compliance by their creditors, however, England has tightened the screws voluntarily, having succumbed to the argument that it must pay down its debts to maintain the market for its bonds.
Deficit hawks point ominously to Greece, which has been virtually squeezed out of the private bond market because nobody wants its bonds. Greece has been forced to borrow from the IMF and the European Monetary Union (EMU), which have imposed draconian austerity measures as conditions for the loans. Like a Third World country owing money in a foreign currency, Greece cannot print Euros or borrow them from its own central bank, since those alternatives are forbidden under EMU rules. In a desperate attempt to save the Euro, the European Central Bank recently bent the rules by buying Greek bonds on the secondary market rather than lending to the Greek government directly, but the ECB has said it would �sterilize� these purchases by withdrawing an equivalent amount of liquidity from the market, making the deal a wash. (More on that below.)
Greece is stuck in the debt trap, but the UK is not a member of the EMU. Although it belongs to the European Union, it still trades in its own national currency, which it has the power to issue directly or to borrow from its own central bank. Like all central banks, the Bank of England is a �lender of last resort,� which means it can create money on its books without borrowing first. The government owns the Bank of England, so loans from the bank to the government would effectively be interest-free; and as long as the Bank of England is available to buy the bonds that don�t get sold on the private market, there need be no fear of a collapse of the value of the UK�s bonds.
The �deficit terrorists,� however, will have none of this obvious solution, ostensibly because of the fear of �hyperinflation.� A June 9 guest post by �Cameroni� on Rick Ackerman�s financial website takes this position. Titled �Britain Becomes the First to Choose Deflation,� it begins:
�David Cameron�s new Government in England announced Tuesday that it will introduce austerity measures to begin paying down the estimated one trillion (U.S. value) in debts held by the British Government. . . . That being said, we have just received the signal to an end to global stimulus measures -- one that puts a nail in the coffin of the debate on whether or not Britain would �print� her way out of the debt crisis. . . . This is actually a celebratory moment although it will not feel like it for most. . . . Debts will have to be paid. . . . Standards of living will decline . . . but it is a better future than what a hyperinflation would bring us all.� MORE AT LINK
15. PIIGS IN BLANKETS
Spain to reveal bank �stress tests� results
The country�s central bank plans to publish the outcome of checks showing estimated loan losses, capital requirements and the contribution of promised balance sheet reinforcements
Read more >>
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-16/eu-imf-u-s-...
The European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury denied a report that they are putting together a credit line of as much as 250 billion euros ($307 billion) for the Spanish government.
�That story is rubbish,� European Commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj told reporters in Brussels today. There is �no truth� to speculation on an emergency credit line for Spain, IMF spokeswoman Simonetta Nardin said in an e-mailed statement. The U.S. Treasury denied that it would participate in a credit line for Spain, a spokeswoman said.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is trying to convince investors he can trim the euro region�s third-largest deficit, shore up the country�s banks and lift the economy out of a two-year slump. The country faces 16.2 billion euros of bond maturities next month and the decline in its debt in secondary markets means it will have to offer higher returns to attract investors.
Finance Minister Elena Salgado told reporters at the Spanish parliament in Madrid that the report in El Economista �has been denied by the Spanish government, by the European Commission and by the IMF.�
The extra yield investors demand to hold Spanish debt rather than German equivalents rose 13 basis points to 218.4, the highest since before the start of the euro in 1999, fueled by the speculation Spain may follow Greece in needing a bailout. The yield on the country�s benchmark 10-year bond rose 9 basis points today to 4.823 percent, the highest in almost two years.
MORE AT LINK
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65G11A20100617
Spain may use as much as 30 billion euros of its Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (FROB) to cover the financing needs of its banks, the Economy Minister Elena Salgado said on Thursday. The FROB, created to help the banking sector, can issue up to 99 billion euros to aid credit institutions.
"(The fund) will be more than sufficient for all of banks' needs," Salgado said during a television interview.
"It's going to be much less than (90 billion euros). These figures have to come from the Bank of Spain, but I would estimate, with total certainty, that it will be less than one third."
16. VIVE LA FRANCE!
France unveils reforms to tackle debt
The French will have to work two years longer before retiring and the rich will pay higher taxes in an effort to drag the country�s pensions budget out of the red
Read more >>
17. BANKSTERS
Subprime consumers hit at Goldman
Goldman Sachs is facing a wave of complaints from consumers over the business practices of its mortgage servicing unit, a subsidiary that collects payments on hundreds of thousands of loans worth tens of billions of dollars.
Read more >>
Response to Reply #17
18. Walmart extends its banking interests
Walmart has taken an equity stake in a rapidly expanding US financial company, in a move that may also give the largest US retailer an indirect link to a small commercial bank
Read more >>
Response to Reply #17
21. US could scrap NY Fed appointment plan
The US Congress could drop a plan to let the White House and Senate decide the next president of the New York Federal Reserve, which central bank officials have warned amounts to �politicisation�
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...
The U.S. government accused the former chairman of one of the nation's largest mortgage firms of a multibillion-dollar scam Wednesday, unveiling what is to date the biggest criminal case related to the crisis that nearly brought down the financial system.
The Justice Department accused Lee Bentley Farkas of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker of committing a $1.9 billion fraud against investors and the federal government that led to the demise of his firm and one of the nation's largest regional banks, Colonial Bank in Alabama.
But beyond the indictment, federal officials described an even wider scheme, and they said the collateral damage to federal agencies has only begun to be tallied.
Taylor Bean allegedly hid how sick it had become, enabling the firm to fraudulently meet government conditions and become one of the largest business partners of the Federal Housing Administration and Ginnie Mae, federal agencies that cover losses suffered by mortgage lenders and their financiers. Federal officials said the scheme caused the two agencies' largest losses ever, totaling at least $3 billion. The officials warned that the final figure could be higher.
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Taylor Bean's activities could also prove costly to Freddie Mac, which helps finance mortgage lending. Freddie Mac officials have said they could face losses on more than $1 billion in assets that are at risk because of the Taylor Bean and Colonial failures, but they have yet to clarify the ultimate cost. Meanwhile, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. paid out $4 billion from its insurance fund to cover the collapse of Colonial.
"The fraud alleged here is truly stunning in its scale and in its complexity,'' Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer said at a news conference. He said Farkas's arrest "sends a strong message to corporations and corporate executives alike that financial fraud will be found and it will be prosecuted."
Under pressure to bring more criminal cases related to the financial meltdown, the Justice Department has made such fraud a top priority.
Farkas was arrested in his car Tuesday night after working out at a gym he owns in Ocala, Fla. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in Alexandria on bank, wire and securities fraud and other charges.
An attorney for Farkas, Anthony Cochran, said his client will plead not guilty and will "vigorously defend against the charges. He looks forward to having his day in court to clear his name."
The court documents, in part, accuse Farkas of trying to destroy evidence to cover up the scheme and say he used about $20 million in Taylor Bean funds for personal expenses such as payments on a private jet and three Florida properties.
He is also charged with trying to defraud the Treasury Department of $553 million in a scheme that he and other conspirators dubbed "Project Squirrel," officials said. As Taylor Bean's losses mounted, he allegedly covered them with money from Colonial Bank and then tried to help Colonial by tapping into the emergency bailout program for the banking system, falsifying documents and shuffling hundreds of millions of dollars among firms in a bid to make the bank look healthier than it was. The scam was detected by a special inspector general at Treasury before the government paid out any money, officials said.
Taylor Bean primarily acted as a middleman between lenders and investors who provide financing by buying big bundles of home loans. Half its business was with the FHA. Last summer, the FHA and Ginnie Mae ended the relationship with Taylor Bean. Ginnie Mae took over $26.8 billion worth of the loans that Taylor Bean was servicing. The move forced Taylor Bean, once one of the nation's largest privately held mortgage companies, to file for bankruptcy protection.
MORE AT LINK
The Federal Reserve has started a program to measure the ties among the largest U.S. banks "to better identify potential channels of financial contagion," Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday.
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supervisors are working to improve their understanding of banks' largest exposures to other banks, nonbank financial institutions, and corporate borrowers," Bernanke said in a speech in New York at a conference releasing recommendations of the Squam Lake Group, 15 leading academics who have banded together to discuss ways to fix the financial system and avoid another crisis.
One of the recommendations of the academics was the creation of a single bank regulatory agency in the United States.
Bernanke pushed back on this idea, saying it might create "regulatory blind spots."
In general, Bernanke agreed with much of the report.
He described it as a "valuable contribution" to the understanding of the crisis.
Bernanke said the Fed "strongly agrees" with two core principles of the Squam Lake report.
The first is that financial regulators can not focus narrowly on the health of one institution. Instead, policy makers must consider other factors, including the stability of the financial system as a whole and the firm's interaction with the market.
The second principle is that the concept of "too big to fail" must be ended. Bernanke said the financial-reform legislation making its way through Congress contains the necessary resolution regime to end too big to fail.
In both the House and Senate versions of the legislation, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. would be given the authority to manage the resolution of banks and nonbanks.
A key challenge will be to get other countries to agree on cross-border aspects of such a resolution regime, Bernanke said.
House and Senate negotiators are meeting to smooth out differences between the two versions of the financial-reform legislation. The Obama administration is pushing for completion of the conference before the G20 leaders meet in Toronto at the end of next week.
Greg Robb is a senior reporter for MarketWatch in Washington.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ayd...
The Federal Reserve said it sold $1.15 billion in deposits in the first test of a credit- tightening tool it may use to drain a near-record amount of cash from the banking system.
The Fed offered $1 billion for 14 days through its Term Deposit Facility and received bids worth $6.14 billion, the central bank said in a statement today. The successful banks will deposit money with the Fed from June 17, 2010, to July 1, and receive interest of 0.27 percent. Banks currently receive 0.25 percent in interest on their excess reserves.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is planning to use the program, which he says is analogous to a bank certificate of deposit, to eventually help policy makers raise interest rates. With $1.05 trillion in excess reserves in the banking system, central bank officials are looking for new ways to help achieve their target rate for overnight lending among banks.
The auction �certainly drew enough interest from bidders,� said Thomas Simons, a money-market economist at Jefferies & Co. in New York, one of the 18 primary dealers that deal directly with the Fed. �I don�t see anything that indicates that there were any problems.�
The central bank aims to prevent excess reserves from stoking inflation. Fed officials pumped the cash into the banking system while expanding the central bank balance sheet to end the financial crisis.
�Prudent Planning�
The tests �are a matter of prudent planning and have no implications for the near-term conduct of monetary policy,� the Fed said last month when it announced the schedule for the auctions.
The Fed also plans to use reverse repurchase agreements to reduce excess liquidity. In a reverse repo, the Fed lends securities for a set period, draining cash from the banking system. At maturity, the securities are returned to the Fed, and the cash to the primary dealers.
�The use of reverse repos and the deposit facility would together allow the Federal Reserve to drain hundreds of billions of dollars of reserves from the banking system quite quickly, should it choose to do so,� Bernanke told Congress in March.
The small size of the test makes it difficult to evaluate how auctions for a hundredfold more in deposits would work, Simons said. �I don�t know if an auction this small can give you a great handle on how things will go when the real pace of operations gets going.�
Tying up funds in the program should be attractive to banks that have been leaving their excess reserves idle, Simons said.
�I don�t really think that they�re concerned about not having the money available to make loans -- they�re not making too many loans right now,� he said.
Unprecedented Policy
At the April 27-28 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank signaled it�s not ready to begin its exit from its unprecedented expansionary policy. The Fed pledged to keep rates low for an �extended period.� The FOMC is next scheduled to meet in Washington June 22-23.
The Fed may conduct four additional tests of the program. An auction for 28-day deposits will be held June 28, and a sale of 84-day deposits will be held July 12. Two further tests may be scheduled later in the summer, the central bank said last month.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25752.h...
Senate and House conferees are about to reconcile a financial reform bill that is virtually designed to institutionalize "too big to fail." And when they do we'll lose another battle in the ongoing war between global financial markets and democratic nation-states.
This war has been going on for decades -- but democracy hasn't always been in full retreat.
The New Deal Conquest: During the Great Depression democratic forces gained the upper hand in the war. We realized that financial markets, which are driven by the largest banks and financiers, had to be tightly controlled. We knew that global speculation on currencies only deepened the Depression and had to be strictly limited. We knew that an iron curtain was needed between commercial and investment banking to protect Main Street depositors from market madness (that was the Glass-Steagall Act). And most importantly we knew that the key to preventing economic upheaval was to limit the wealth of the super-rich and to increase the wealth of working people through progressive taxes, Social Security, wage and hour laws, and the promotion of unionization. The Bretton Woods agreements forged by the Allies during WWII set up strict rules for global finance, rules that kept financiers in check for more than a quarter century.
And it worked pretty damn well. As economist Joseph Stiglitz points out, this era saw only one financial crisis (Brazil, 1964), and working people in western democracies made huge gains. Since the era of deregulation took hold in the late 1970s, the world has suffered over a hundred financial crises and middle-class incomes have stagnated.
The Deregulatory Counter-Offensive: By the late 1970s, bankers regained the advantage through the spread of a new faith in self-regulated markets. The economic apostles of unfettered markets lobbied against progressive taxes, unions, and social welfare programs. The new orthodoxy was: Let the elites collect the money--they'll invest wisely (instead of consuming), and all boats will rise. This near-religious revolution rapidly spread through the economic and policy establishment. Regulations were dismantled right and left, and the revolving door between government and Wall Street started spinning. The American financial catechism ruled the world. And on Wall Street, the money tap was open. It did not trickle down.
Then, suddenly, in 2008, the market gods destroyed themselves as the unregulated financial casinos crashed and burned, just like they did in 1929. For a few months, it seemed like the deregulatory theology become a global heresy. It was obvious that Wall Street's reckless speculation and its bold new wave of financial engineering had caused the Great Recession. (See The Looting of America for an accessible account.). It was also clear that if government didn't come to the rescue, Wall Street would lay in ruins, along with the rest of the economy. This was the perfect moment for democracy reassert democratic control on financial markets, just as we did during the New Deal. We blew it.
The Victory at Too Big to Fail: At the moment when Wall Street was on its knees, we decided to bypass serious reform. Instead, we rebuilt Wall Street, using taxpayer money and guarantees - more than $10 trillion worth. We let bankers use our bailout money to pay themselves $150 billion in bonuses -- at a moment when over 29 million Americans were jobless or forced into part-time jobs. We allowed the top hedge fund managers to walk off with over $900,000 an hour (not a typo) in 2009. Windfall profits taxes? No. In fact we let hedge fund honchos pay an extra-low tax rate by calling their income "capital gains." We didn't restore Glass-Steagall, we didn't break up "too big to fail" financial institutions. In fact the biggest banks became even bigger, courtesy of the U.S. government.
The Invasion against Democracy: The war is escalating. Right now, financial elites aren't just fighting a defensive battle against new regulations. They're playing offense: They're whipping up deficit hysteria around the globe and calling for drastic cuts in middle class programs. Why? They want to ensure that their loans to governments aren't threatened by rising public debt. Ironically, the public debt they're so worried about was created in large part by them -- the result of huge bailouts and other expenses stemming from the crash they caused. Although the bankers want us to dismantle what remains of our worker-oriented policies, welfare for the financial elites is still fine and dandy.
This is the most dangerous counter attack in the history of finance. We had better know a great deal more about the attackers. Who makes up this shadowy force called "global markets"? Who fights their battles? Do they have a high command?
Not really. There is no executive committee of financial elites. There's no international conspiracy, no Elders of Zion. Instead these markets are pulled and pushed by about 50 very large banks and financial institutions. This is where much of the nation's $2 trillion in hedge fund money roams. This is where the top six US banks frolic. They don't have to sit around a table strategizing. They instantly sense threats to their power. They instantly smell profitable openings and they're poised to grab what they can, whenever they can. They thrive on turmoil, which gives them new "proprietary" trading opportunities to exploit. Volatility means big bucks, especially now that the largest players know that the government will back up even their wildest gambles. History has just proven that they are way too big to fail.
Of course they still have to lobby government officials--many of whom either were bankers, or will be once they leave office. But their most powerful lever on government is through the market itself: Here, by moving vast quantities of money around, they can instantly veto policies they don't like. If the EU talks seriously about financial transaction taxes, the markets go down the Euro grows weaker, and interest rates rise--making it more expensive for governments to borrow the money they need to operate. Politicians have learned to "listen" to the markets and are conditioned to placate them.
Should a nation state get out of line (Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc), the markets slap them silly. Politicians rush to the scene and start slicing social spending. If instead they demand new taxes on financial elites to reduce public debt, the markets respond with even more fury. Money flees.
All the external machinery of democracy still clanks along. We still pull the levers in the voting booth. But the decisions that affect us the most are made in a profoundly undemocratic way. Faceless financial markets exercise far more control over politicians than the voters who elected them.
So the problem isn't just the corporate campaign contributions, or corporate media control or the academic consensus supporting our financial theocracy. It's the raw power of the markets. They've been roaming free and virtually unregulated for more than a generation, and now their power is unparalleled. Just months after they brought our economy crashing down, they're right back to their old tricks, setting the stage for the next crash and the next bailout while getting filthy rich along the way.
Bill Clinton nailed it on the head when he reportedly said:
"You mean to tell me that the success of the economic program and my reelection hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of fxxxing bond traders?" (See Agenda by Bob Woodward)
No Retreat, No Surrender? There's no room for pacifists in this war. Clearly, Wall Street and its global minions are not seeking a truce. Instead, they're coming after our Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs. They want us to work longer before we retire and get less when we do. They want us to pay more for health care and get less of it. They want less public money to go to schools, teachers and public infrastructures. And they want us to get used to a jobless recovery with double digit unemployment rates. (And when millions and millions of people are unemployed, we can't maintain high labor standards, and our wages and benefits erode.) In short, they want to undermine all the policies and programs that have built and sustained middle class life.
Already government officials in the UK, Germany and here are telling us we must endure austerity for "decades to come." As Fed Chair Ben Bernanke candidly put it:
"We can see what problems can arise in a country if investors lose confidence in the fiscal position of that country, so it is very important that we address this problem."
Of course, he's not going to point out that this austerity is only for the masses, definitely not for the financial elites. Or that the underlying cause of the debt investors are so worried about is the giant economic crater caused by the very same financial elites who now might "lose confidence" in financing a middle class society.
We shouldn't kid ourselves about the pitched battles ahead. Fighting back won't be easy, and winning will be even harder. People in country after country will have to mobilize themselves in defense of real democracy, in defense of each nation's right to provide its people with a decent quality of life. In my opinion, that includes sustainable jobs with decent benefits and a solid public infrastructure that promotes equity, protects the vulnerable and enriches the environment.
Unfortunately, no one can guarantee that democracy will prevail in the war against financial theocracy -- just recall the totalitarian chaos in Europe during the Great Depression. But don't count it out, either. It's true that many of us regular folks have been diverted by the media, distracted by the Internet or lulled into a stupor by pharmaceuticals. But when we realize that we've been shoved into a corner with no way out, we'll act. A popular struggle will begin. And when it does, we'll at least have a fighting chance to recapture our democratic souls.
Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,7005...
The Catholic Church in Germany, already struggling to cope with the sex abuse scandal, has been hit by revelations of theft, opaque accounting and extravagance. While the grassroots faithful are being forced to make cutbacks, some bishops enjoy the trappings of the church's considerable hidden wealth.
Shortly before Pentecost, Pastor S. received an unexpected early morning visit, not from the Holy Ghost, but from the police.
For the authorities, the words of the Gospel of Luke came true on that morning: He who seeks finds. More than �131,000 ($158,000) were hidden in various places in the rooms of the Catholic priest, tucked in between his laundry or attached to the bottom of drawers. The reverend was arrested on the spot. After several weeks in custody, Hans S., 76, is now back at the monastery, waiting for his trial.
And lo and behold, the proliferation of cash may have been even more miraculous than initially assumed. The public prosecutor's office in the southern city of W�rzburg now estimates that S. may have embezzled up to �1.5 million from collections and other church funds. The members of his flock in a wine-growing village in the northern Bavarian region of Franconia are stunned. They had blindly trusted their shepherd, who always seemed so humble and modest.
The Catholic Church is currently being shaken by a number of financial scandals, not only in Franconia but also in Augsburg, another Bavarian city, where Bishop Walter Mixa's dip into funds from a foundation that runs children's homes recently made headlines.
More than �40 million have gone missing in the Diocese of Magdeburg in eastern Germany, �5 million have disappeared in Limburg near Frankfurt, and it was recently discovered that a senior priest in the Diocese of M�nster had 30 secret bank accounts. And while parishes throughout Germany are cutting jobs and funds for community work, many bishops are still living on the high horse. A brand-new residence? An ostentatious home for their retirement? Restoration of a Marian column to the tune of �120,000? None of these expenditures presents a problem to high-ranking church officials from Trier in the west to Passau in the southeastern corner of Bavaria, whose coffers are brimming with cash.
In many places, this blatant disparity, along with reports of mismanagement, misappropriation and pomposity have prompted the faithful to challenge church officials. They are accusing many bishops of just covering up the problem, as they did in the sex abuse scandal. They are determined not to allow anyone to see behind the curtain into their parallel world of bulging bank accounts and hidden assets, which, in some cases, have buttressed their power for centuries. The only aspect of church finances that is public is the diocesan budget, which derives its funding from the church tax -- but the church's true assets remain in the shadows...
MUCH MUCH MORE AT LINK
http://www.cnbc.com/id/37732312
More than 90 U.S. banks and thrifts missed making a May 17 payment to the U.S. government under its main bank bailout program, signaling a rising number of lenders are struggling to meet their obligations.
The SNL Financial statistics show 91 banks missed their dividend payment under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The statistics, compiled by SNL Financial from U.S. Treasury data, showed 91 banks and thrifts skipped the May dividend payment under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. It was the first missed payment for 23 of the banks; for the others, it was at least their second miss.
The number of banks missing their TARP payments rose for the third straight quarter. In February, 74 banks deferred their payments; 55 deferred last November.
SNL Financial's analysis found 20 banks have missed four or more payments since the program began in 2008, while eight banks have missed five payments.
Under the TARP program, the U.S. Treasury invested in preferred shares issued banks looking for funds. The banks were to make regular dividend payments to the Treasury, and have the right to repurchase the shares at some point in the future.
While many of the largest U.S. banks easily repaid billions in TARP aid, more than 600 smaller banks still hold $130 billion from the program, created at the height of the financial crisis.
In some cases, small banks are renegotiating the repayment terms. Midwest Banc Holdings, for example, agreed to swap $84.8 million in preferred shares issued under the TARP program in 2008 for $15.5 million in common shares. That would have meant an 80 percent loss for the government�and the U.S. taxpayer�on the initial investment. But the swap was contingent on the bank raising more private capital, which it failed to do. Regulators seized the bank in May.
The next quarterly TARP payments to the U.S. Treasury are due by August 16.
http://dailyreckoning.com/fannie-freddie-delisting-and-... /
Things aren�t going well for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. First, the Federal Housing Finance Agency told them to delist from NYSE, and now, the real price tag of fixing the agencies is coming to light.
In an interview below, Anthony Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University, who was called to testify before the House Financial Services Committee, says we should be �very concerned� about Fannie and Freddie, which have become a �huge problem� for a nation with ballooning debt.
How big? Fannie and Freddie guarantee almost $6 trillion in mortgages, and the potential cost of fixing them will be the largest US bailout ever, potentially up to $1 trillion.
Of course, back in March Tim Geithner essentially said he was �on it,� but, according to this interview, nothing�s been done.
The interview came to our attention via The Daily Bail, and here�s a link to the Bloomberg video.:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/business/20foreclose....
CASA GRANDE, Ariz. � Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home roughly every 90 seconds during the first three months of the year. They owned 163,828 houses at the end of March, a virtual city with more houses than Seattle. The mortgage finance companies, created by Congress to help Americans buy homes, have become two of the nation�s largest landlords.
Bill Bridwell, a real estate agent in the desert south of Phoenix, is among the thousands of agents hired nationwide by the companies to sell those foreclosures, recouping some of the money that borrowers failed to repay. In a good week, he sells 20 homes and Fannie sends another 20 listings his way.
�We�re all working for the government now,� said Mr. Bridwell on a recent sun-baked morning, steering a Hummer through subdivisions laid out like circuit boards on the desert floor.
For all the focus on the historic federal rescue of the banking industry, it is the government�s decision to seize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008 that is likely to cost taxpayers the most money. So far the tab stands at $145.9 billion, and it grows with every foreclosure of a three-bedroom home with a two-car garage one hour from Phoenix. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the final bill could reach $389 billion.
Fannie and Freddie increased American home ownership over the last half-century by persuading investors to provide money for mortgage loans. The sales pitch amounted to a money-back guarantee: If borrowers defaulted, the companies promised to repay the investors.
Rather than actually making loans, the two companies � Fannie older and larger, Freddie created to provide competition � bought loans from banks and other originators, providing money for more lending and helping to hold down interest rates.
�Our business is the American dream of home ownership,� Fannie Mae declared in its mission statement, and in 2001 the company set a target of helping to create six million new homeowners by 2014. Here in Arizona, during a housing boom fueled by cheap land, cheap money and population growth, Fannie Mae executives trumpeted that the company would invest $15 billion to help families buy homes.
As it turns out, Fannie and Freddie increasingly were channeling money into loans that borrowers could not afford. As defaults mounted, the companies quickly ran low on money to honor their guarantees. The federal government, fearing that investors would stop providing money for new loans, placed the companies in conservatorship and took a 79.9 percent ownership stake, adding its own guarantee that investors would be repaid.
The huge and continually rising cost of that decision has spurred national debate about federal subsidies for mortgage lending. Republicans want to sever ties with Fannie and Freddie once the crisis abates. The Obama administration and Congressional Democrats have insisted on postponing the argument until after the midterm elections.
In the meantime, Fannie and Freddie are, at public expense, removing owners who cannot afford their homes, reselling the houses at much lower prices and financing mortgage loans for the new owners.
The two companies together accounted for 17 percent of real estate sales in Arizona during the first four months of the year, almost three times their share of the market during the same period last year, according to an analysis by MDA DataQuick.
Valarie Ross, who lives in the Phoenix suburb of Avondale, has watched six of the nine homes visible from her lawn chair emptied by moving trucks during the last year. Four have been resold by the government. �One by one,� she said. �Just amazing.�
The population of Pinal County, where Mr. Bridwell lives and works, roughly doubled to 340,000 over the last decade. Developers built an entirely new city called Maricopa on land assembled from farmers. Buyers camped outside new developments, waiting to purchase homes. One builder laid out a 300-lot subdivision at the end of a three-mile dirt road and still managed to sell 30 of the homes.
Mr. Bridwell sold plenty of those houses during the boom, then cut workers as prices crashed. Now his firm, Golden Touch Realty, again employs as many people as at the height of the boom, all working exclusively for Fannie Mae. The payroll now includes a locksmith to secure foreclosed homes and two clerks devoted to federal paperwork.
Golden Touch gets more listings from Fannie Mae than any other firm in Pinal County. Mr. Bridwell said he was ready to jump because he remembered the last time the government ended up owning thousands of Arizona houses, after the late-1980s collapse of the savings and loan industry.
�The way I see it,� said Mr. Bridwell, whose glass-top desk displays membership cards from the Republican National Committee, �is that we�re getting these homes back into private hands.�
Selling a house generally costs the government about $10,000. The outsides are weeded and the insides are scrubbed. Stolen appliances are replaced, brackish pools are refilled. And until the properties are sold, they must be maintained. Fannie asks contractors to mow lawns twice a month during the summer, and pays them $80 each time. That�s a monthly grass bill of more than $10 million.
All told, the companies spent more than $1 billion on upkeep last year.
�We may be behind many loans on the same street, so we believe that it�s in everyone�s best interest to aggressively do property maintenance,� said Chris Bowden, the Freddie Mac executive in charge of foreclosure sales.
Prices have plunged. So by the time a home is resold, Fannie and Freddie on average recoup less than 60 percent of the money the borrower failed to repay, according to the companies� financial filings. In Phoenix and other areas where prices have fallen sharply, the losses often are larger.
Foreclosures punch holes in neighborhoods, so residents, community groups and public officials are eager to see properties reoccupied. But there also is concern that investors are buying many foreclosures as rental properties, making it harder for neighborhoods to recover.
Real estate agents tend to favor investors because the sales close surely and quickly and there is the prospect of repeat business. But community advocates say that Fannie and Freddie have an obligation to sell houses to homeowners.
David Adame worked for Fannie Mae�s local office during the boom, on programs to make ownership more affordable. Now with prices down sharply, Mr. Adame sees a second chance to put people into homes they can afford.
�Yes, move inventory,� said Mr. Adame, now an executive focused on housing issues at Chicanos por la Causa, a Phoenix nonprofit group, �but if we just move inventory to investors, then what are we doing?�
Executives at both Fannie and Freddie say they have an overriding obligation to limit losses, but that they are taking steps to sell more homes to families.
Fannie Mae last summer announced that it would give people seeking homes a �first look� by not accepting offers from investors in the first 15 days that a property is on the market. It also offers to help buyers with closing costs, and prohibits buyers from reselling properties at a profit for 90 days, to discourage speculation. Fannie Mae said that 68.4 percent of buyers this year had certified that they would use the house as a primary residence.
Freddie Mac has adopted fewer programs, but it said it had sold about the same share of foreclosures to owner-occupants.
The companies also have agreed to sell foreclosed homes to nonprofits using grants from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Chicanos por la Causa, which won $137 million under the program in partnership with nonprofits in eight other states, plans to buy more than 200 homes in Phoenix in the next two years. It plans to renovate them to sell to local families.
The scale of such efforts is small. The home ownership rate in Phoenix continues to fall as foreclosures pile up and renters replace owners.
But John R. Smith, chief of Housing Our Communities, another Phoenix-area group using federal money to buy foreclosures, says he tries to focus on salvaging one property at a time.
�I tell them, �O.K., you want to unload 10 houses to that guy, fine,� � he said. � �Now give me this one. And this one. And one over here.� �
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/opinion/20sun1.html?h...
In the first week of talks over a financial regulatory reform bill, Democratic lawmakers � in some cases with apparent White House backing � have been defeating or delaying reforms to protect individual investors. Instead, they are catering to corporate interests that prefer the status quo � and write big campaign checks.
At its most basic, this bill is supposed to restore stability and fairness to the markets and give Americans some confidence that their efforts to save and invest will not be undone � over and over again � by the destructive excesses of banks and corporations.
Those goals are being undermined by cynical maneuvers. Here is the damage assessment:
COOKING THE BOOKS. A majority of Senate negotiators, including two Democrats, approved a bad provision from the House version of the bill to exempt most publicly traded companies (those worth less than $75 million) from an antifraud auditing requirement in the Sarbanes-Oxley law, passed in 2002 after the Enron debacle. The argument is that the audits are too burdensome, but research shows that they reduce errors and fraud, and that refinements to the law from 2007 have made them less onerous. The upshot is that a bill that is supposed to be about strengthening regulation would instead end a safeguard against financial fraud.
KEEPING CORPORATE BOARDS SAFE FOR CRONIES. Both versions of the reform bill clarified the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission to make it easier for shareholders to nominate corporate directors. The clarification is useful, because the S.E.C. has been threatened with lawsuits from industry-supported groups if it writes new nomination rules. The reform would give shareholders a chance to shake up boards that have become rubber stamps for management decisions.
Then, last week, Senator Christopher Dodd gutted the Senate version, with the reported encouragement of the White House. He proposed that shareholders must hold an ownership stake of at least 5 percent to nominate a director, a level that would be exceedingly difficult to reach. As such, his proposal would effectively kill shareholders� ability to more efficiently influence boards.
House and Senate negotiators have not yet reached a decision. The correct approach is to allow the S.E.C. to write and enforce the rules as it sees fit.
SHORTCHANGING THE S.E.C. The Senate�s version of reform would allow the S.E.C. to finance itself through fees it already imposes on securities transactions and corporate filings, rather than having Congress decide its budget each year. The House was on board with the idea. Self funding would help ensure adequate resources.
But lawmakers who stand to lose control of the S.E.C. budget have objected, leading some of them to seek a deal that would somehow retain the power of Congressional appropriators. In the best interests of the S.E.C. and investors, supporters of self funding, including Senator Charles Schumer of New York, need to hang tough.
Among the other unresolved issues is a long overdue reform to require brokers who give investment advice to act in their clients� best interest. The House version is in favor of imposing a fiduciary duty; the Senate version lamely calls for a study and other delays.
If lawmakers are unwilling to enact fundamental investor protections, there is little hope that they will act boldly on far-reaching structural reforms, like curbing banks� risky involvement in derivatives dealmaking and establishing a strong new regulator for consumer financial protection.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-learsy/the-new-...
At this critical moment, while the House and Senate are merging the final measure of the most significant changes to financial regulation since the Great Depression, Goldman Sachs is fighting tooth and nail to water down Congress' Financial Regulatory Reform Bill before it comes to a vote in the next days. It is a moment for the 'old boy' network to go into high gear.
Goldman's objective is to protect its massive proprietary trading desks, the source of much of its profits and the focus of the new bill. The bill reportedly incorporates a tough 'Volcker Rule' prohibiting banks engaged in commercial lending -- and thereby having access to federally insured deposits, access to myriad federal programs and bountiful Federal Reserve funds at the Fed window -- to engage in naked trading (placing bets on commodities and financial instruments in which they or their clients have no business interest, i.e. taking out fire insurance on someone else's house, as a grim hypothetical).
It is what Goldman, once having been a classic investment bank helping to finance businesses and grow the economy, now does most profitably. In other realms it's known as playing casino with the house's money, and the Volcker Rule would bring it to a stop. It would cause them to move their 'proprietary' trading activities to other entities where they no longer have preferred access to the banking system and implied federal guarantees, thereby placing the entire system at risk, as was the case with much of Wall Street during the recent meltdown.
So just this week, along comes a great whitewash orchestrated by the New York Times and their star financial reporter, Andrew Ross Sorkin, author of the best seller Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System -- and Themselves.
In a column published earlier this week in the New York Times, Mr. Sorkin begins "Despite all the bad headlines-..." and then goes on to regale us with all the big names singing hosannas to Goldman. "We trust them" rings forth from Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric. "Goldman has been politicized, and its important to look beyond the demagogy..." Sorkin quotes the chief financial officer of Aetna, Joseph M. Zubretsky. Not left out is Warren Buffett "who has invested billions" in Goldman and has come to the defense of Goldman's actions in a curious application of 'caveat emptor,' as in the now infamous 'Abacus' deal. Here Buffet instructs us, in effect, that if Goldman was selling you a used car with faulty brakes under the banner of a 'Moody's Triple A' rating and the imprimatur of what once was one of the most hallowed names on Wall Street, it is the buyers fault if he/she didn't check out the brakes by examining the underside of the car before the smash up. Sadly, that is what much of Wall Street has come to.
And then Mr. Sorkin, treating us as though we were all sitting in the corner with a dunce cap on, tries to smooth over "accusations that Goldman sometimes wore multiple, seemingly conflicting hats." He cites Hyatt Hotels and its chairman Mr. Thomas J. Pritzker. It seems that when Goldman was advising Hyatt Hotels about selling a stake in its hotel chain and an investor dropped out, "Goldman's own private equity arm swooped in. Did Goldman profit? Probably. But Mr Prizker was just glad the deal got done." Sorkin thereby leaves us with the impression that Goldman's multi-tasking is just fine. This leaves the reader confused between Goldman's function as an investment banker and its proprietary trading, thereby bringing succor to those who would do away with the Volcker rule in the new financial reform legislation.
Oh yes, and by the way, Goldman Sachs advises the New York Times Company.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...
The Senate effectively rejected a slimmed-down package of jobless benefits and state aid late Thursday, rebuffing President Obama's call for urgent action to bolster the economic recovery.
Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) voted with a united Republican caucus to block the approximately $120 billion package. The measure needed 60 votes to advance, but garnered only 56.
Democratic leaders, who had predicted victory less than 24 hours earlier, vowed not to give up on the measure, but acknowledged that they have no clear path to securing the one or two Republican votes needed to push it to final passage. Though the sprawling package contains a number of must-pass provisions, Republicans have been steadfast in their opposition, insisting that the full cost of the measure be covered by cutting existing government programs...
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-en...
The wheels are turning on an issue that was all but dead before the gulf oil spill. Now the president is to meet with senators for broad, bipartisan talks about the legislative path forward.
President Obama may not yet have persuaded Congress to approve a sweeping new energy bill, but as Senate Democrats meet behind closed doors Thursday to hammer out a list of proposals, he has clearly rekindled the debate.
In a sign of the president's engagement on a goal that was all but given up for dead before oil started gushing in the gulf, Obama has summoned eight senators to the White House next week for broad, bipartisan talks about the legislative path forward.
Obama, after his morning meeting with BP executives at the White House, also sat down Wednesday with Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), who has been a swing vote on several issues this year...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25746.h...
Mark it on your calendar. It seems we�ve finally entered the Soviet era in America.
You remember the Soviet Union, now almost 20 years in its grave. But who gives it a second thought today? Even in its glory years that �evil empire� was sometimes referred to as �the second superpower.� In 1991, after seven decades, it suddenly disintegrated and disappeared, leaving the United States -- the �sole superpower,� even the �hyperpower,� on planet Earth -- surprised but triumphant.
The USSR had been heading for the exits for quite a while, not that official Washington had a clue. At the moment it happened, Soviet �experts� like Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (then director of the CIA) still expected the Cold War to go on and on. In Washington, eyes were trained on the might of the Soviet military, which the Soviet leadership had never stopped feeding, even as its sclerotic bureaucracy was rotting, its economy (which had ceased to grow in the late 1970s) was tanking, budget deficits were soaring, indebtedness to other countries was growing, and social welfare payments were eating into what funds remained. Not even a vigorous, reformist leader like Mikhail Gorbachev could staunch the rot, especially when, in the late 1980s, the price of Russian oil fell drastically.
Looking back, the most distinctive feature of the last years of the Soviet Union may have been the way it continued to pour money into its military -- and its military adventure in Afghanistan -- when it was already going bankrupt and the society it had built was beginning to collapse around it. In the end, its aging leaders made a devastating miscalculation. They mistook military power for power on this planet. Armed to the teeth and possessing a nuclear force capable of destroying the Earth many times over, the Soviets nonetheless remained the vastly poorer, weaker, and (except when it came to the arms race) far less technologically innovative of the two superpowers.
In December 1979, perhaps taking the bait of the Carter administration whose national security advisor was eager to see the Soviets bloodied by a �Vietnam� of their own, the Red Army invaded Afghanistan to support a weak communist government in Kabul. When resistance in the countryside, led by Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas and backed by the other superpower, only grew, the Soviets sent in more troops, launched major offensives, called in air power, and fought on brutally and futilely for a decade until, in 1989, long after they had been whipped, they withdrew in defeat.
Gorbachev had dubbed Afghanistan �the bleeding wound,� and when the wounded Red Army finally limped home, it was to a country that would soon cease to exist. For the Soviet Union, Afghanistan had literally proven �the graveyard of empires.� If, at the end, its military remained standing, the empire didn�t. (And if you don�t already find this description just a tad eerie, given the present moment in the U.S., you should.)
In Washington, the Bush administration -- G.H.W.�s, not G.W.�s -- declared victory and then left the much ballyhooed �peace dividend� in the nearest ditch. Caught off guard by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington�s consensus policymakers drew no meaningful lessons from it (just as they had drawn few that mattered from their Vietnam defeat 16 years earlier).
Quite the opposite, successive American administrations would blindly head down the very path that had led the Soviets to ruin. They would serially agree that, in a world without significant enemies, the key to U.S. global power still was the care and feeding of the American military and the military-industrial complex that went with it. As the years passed, that military would be sent ever more regularly into the far reaches of the planet to fight frontier wars, establish military bases, and finally impose a global Pax Americana on the planet.
This urge, delusional in retrospect, seemed to reach its ultimate expression in the second Bush administration, whose infamous �unilateralism� rested on a belief that no country or even bloc of countries should ever again be allowed to come close to matching U.S. military power. (As its National Security Strategy of 2002 put the matter -- and it couldn�t have been blunter on the subject -- the U.S. was to �build and maintain� its military power �beyond challenge.�) Bush�s military fundamentalists firmly believed that, in the face of the most technologically advanced, bulked-up, destructive force around, hostile states would be �shocked and awed� by a simple demonstration of its power and friendly ones would have little choice but to come to heel as well. After all, as the president said in front of a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in 2007, the U.S. military was �the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known.�
In this way, far more than the Soviets, the top officials of the Bush administration mistook military power for power, a gargantuan misreading of the U.S. economic position in the world and of their moment.
IT'S LONG BUT WORTH THE READ--CONTINUES AT LINK
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004...
An urgency to rein in budget deficits seems to be gaining some traction among American lawmakers. If so, it is none too soon. Perceptions of a large U.S. borrowing capacity are misleading.
Despite the surge in federal debt to the public during the past 18 months�to $8.6 trillion from $5.5 trillion�inflation and long-term interest rates, the typical symptoms of fiscal excess, have remained remarkably subdued. This is regrettable, because it is fostering a sense of complacency that can have dire consequences.
The roots of the apparent debt market calm are clear enough. The financial crisis, triggered by the unexpected default of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, created a collapse in global demand that engendered a high degree of deflationary slack in our economy. The very large contraction of private financing demand freed private saving to finance the explosion of federal debt. Although our financial institutions have recovered perceptibly and returned to a degree of solvency, banks, pending a significant increase in capital, remain reluctant to lend.
Beneath the calm, there are market signals that do not bode well for the future. For generations there had been a large buffer between the borrowing capacity of the U.S. government and the level of its debt to the public. But in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse, that gap began to narrow rapidly. Federal debt to the public rose to 59% of GDP by mid-June 2010 from 38% in September 2008. How much borrowing leeway at current interest rates remains for U.S. Treasury financing is highly uncertain.
The U.S. government can create dollars at will to meet any obligation, and it will doubtless continue to do so. U.S. Treasurys are thus free of credit risk. But they are not free of interest rate risk. If Treasury net debt issuance were to double overnight, for example, newly issued Treasury securities would continue free of credit risk, but the Treasury would have to pay much higher interest rates to market its newly issued securities.
In the wake of recent massive budget deficits, the difference between the 10-year swap rate and 10-year Treasury note yield (the swap spread) declined to an unprecedented negative 13 basis points this March from a positive 77 basis points in September 2008. This indicated that investors were requiring the U.S. Treasury to pay an interest rate higher than rates that prevailed on comparable maturity private swaps.
(A private swap rate is the fixed interest rate required of a private bank or corporation to be exchanged for a series of cash flow payments, based on floating interest rates, for a particular length of time. A dollar swap spread is the swap rate less the interest rate on U.S. Treasury debt of the same maturity.)
At the height of budget surplus euphoria in 2000, the Office of Management and Budget, the Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve foresaw an elimination of marketable federal debt securities outstanding. The 10-year swap spread in August 2000 reached a record 130 basis points. As the projected surplus disappeared and deficits mounted, the 10-year swap spread progressively declined, turning negative this March, and continued to deteriorate until the unexpected euro-zone crisis granted a reprieve to the U.S.
The 10-year swap spread quickly regained positive territory and by June 14 stood at a plus 12 basis points. The sharp decline in the euro-dollar exchange rate since March reflects a large, but temporary, swing in the intermediate demand for U.S. Treasury securities at the expense of euro issues.
The 10-year swap spread understandably has emerged as a sensitive proxy of Treasury borrowing capacity: a so-called canary in the coal mine.
I grant that low long-term interest rates could continue for months, or even well into next year. But just as easily, long-term rate increases can emerge with unexpected suddenness. Between early October 1979 and late February 1980, for example, the yield on the 10-year note rose almost four percentage points.
In the 1950s, as I remember them, U.S. federal budget deficits were no more politically acceptable than households spending beyond their means. Regrettably, that now quaint notion gave way over the decades, such that today it is the rare politician who doesn't run on seemingly costless spending increases or tax cuts with borrowed money. A low tax burden is essential to maintain America's global competitiveness. But tax cuts need to be funded by permanent outlay reductions.
The current federal debt explosion is being driven by an inability to stem new spending initiatives. Having appropriated hundreds of billions of dollars on new programs in the last year and a half, it is very difficult for Congress to deny an additional one or two billion dollars for programs that significant constituencies perceive as urgent. The federal government is currently saddled with commitments for the next three decades that it will be unable to meet in real terms. This is not new. For at least a quarter century analysts have been aware of the pending surge in baby boomer retirees.
We cannot grow out of these fiscal pressures. The modest-sized post-baby-boom labor force, if history is any guide, will not be able to consistently increase output per hour by more than 3% annually. The product of a slowly growing labor force and limited productivity growth will not provide the real resources necessary to meet existing commitments. (We must avoid persistent borrowing from abroad. We cannot count on foreigners to finance our current account deficit indefinitely.)
Only politically toxic cuts or rationing of medical care, a marked rise in the eligible age for health and retirement benefits, or significant inflation, can close the deficit. I rule out large tax increases that would sap economic growth (and the tax base) and accordingly achieve little added revenues.
With huge deficits currently having no evident effect on either inflation or long-term interest rates, the budget constraints of the past are missing. It is little comfort that the dollar is still the least worst of the major fiat currencies. But the inexorable rise in the price of gold indicates a large number of investors are seeking a safe haven beyond fiat currencies.
The United States, and most of the rest of the developed world, is in need of a tectonic shift in fiscal policy. Incremental change will not be adequate. In the past decade the U.S. has been unable to cut any federal spending programs of significance.
I believe the fears of budget contraction inducing a renewed decline of economic activity are misplaced. The current spending momentum is so pressing that it is highly unlikely that any politically feasible fiscal constraint will unleash new deflationary forces. I do not believe that our lawmakers or others are aware of the degree of impairment of our fiscal brakes. If we contained the amount of issuance of Treasury securities, pressures on private capital markets would be eased.
Fortunately, the very severity of the pending crisis and growing analogies to Greece set the stage for a serious response. That response needs to recognize that the range of error of long-term U.S. budget forecasts (especially of Medicare) is, in historic perspective, exceptionally wide. Our economy cannot afford a major mistake in underestimating the corrosive momentum of this fiscal crisis. Our policy focus must therefore err significantly on the side of restraint.
Mr. Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, is president of Greenspan Associates LLC and author of "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World" (Penguin, 2007).
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601208&sid=aNw...
European Union leaders vowed to push for global taxes on banks and financial transactions, setting the stage for a conflict over worldwide regulation at next week�s Group of 20 meeting.
With Germany, Britain and France pledging to impose levies on their own banks and to clamp down on financial speculation, the EU called for global taxes that have run into opposition from G-20 powers such as China.
�We want a system of levies and taxes for financial institutions to ensure fair burden-sharing and rein in systemic risks,� German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after an EU summit in Brussels yesterday. �We also want a global system.�
Europe said it will put up a united front at the G-20, which has refused to endorse a bank tax under pressure from Canada, China and Brazil, three countries with banks that suffered less during the 2008 financial crisis.
Proposals for taxes on securities transactions weren�t spelled out in detail, with a statement by the bloc�s 27 leaders saying only that they should be �explored and developed� in concert with the world�s leading economies...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7806064/Eu...
The euro will have broken up before the end of this Parliamentary term, according to the bulk of economists taking part in a wide-ranging economic survey for The Sunday Telegraph.
The single currency is in its death throes and may not survive in its current membership for a week, let alone the next five years, according to a selection of responses to the survey � the first major wide-ranging litmus test of economic opinion in the City since the election. The findings underline suspicions that the new Chancellor, George Osborne, will have to firefight a full-blown crisis in Britain's biggest trading partner in his first years in office.
Of the 25 leading City economists who took part in the Telegraph survey, 12 predicted that the euro would not survive in its current form this Parliamentary term, compared with eight who suspected it would. Five declared themselves undecided. The finding is only one of a number of remarkable conclusions, including that:
� The economy will grow by well over a percentage point less next year than the Budget predicted in March.
� The Government will borrow almost �10bn less next year than the Treasury previously forecast, despite this weaker growth.
� Just as many economists think the Bank of England will not raise rates until 2012 or later as think it will lift borrowing costs this year.
But the conclusion on the euro is perhaps the most remarkable finding. A year ago or less, few within the City would have confidently predicted the currency's demise. But the travails of Greece, Spain and Portugal in recent weeks, plus German Chancellor Angela Merkel's acknowledgement that the currency is facing an "existential crisis", have radically shifted opinion.
Two of the eight experts who predicted that the currency would survive said it would do so only at the cost of seeing at least one of its members default on its sovereign debt. Andrew Lilico, chief economist at think tank Policy Exchange, said there was "nearly zero chance" of the euro surviving with its current membership, adding: "Greece will certainly default on its debts, and it is an open question whether Greece will experience some form of revolution or coup � I'd put the likelihood of that over the next five years as around one in four."
MUCH MORE WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH AT LINK
http://dailyreckoning.com/its-june-in-florida /
�You can get wood. You can get brick. You can get stucco. Boy, can you get stucco.� � Groucho Marx
In the Florida land boom of the �20s, promoter Carl G. Fisher hired a huge, lighted billboard in Times Square in New York. It advertised that �It�s June in Miami,� a claim that was fraudulent 11/12ths of the year. In June, it was just too bad.
South Florida is entering its fourth year of a property slump. Places sell for about half of what they brought three years ago. The retail building across the street is half empty. Signs are everywhere: �Office for rent.� �Ocean front lot for sale.� �Commercial space available.� Here in Delray Beach, the sun is shining. The grass is growing. Waves caress the shore. But our hotel is nearly empty. Many restaurants on Atlantic Avenue are closed. The streets are so quiet the city seems like a ghost town. Then again, it�s so hot and sweaty, even the ghosts wilt.
But the ghosts talk:
�There was nothing languorous about the atmosphere of tropical Miami during that memorable summer and autumn of 1925,� wrote Frederick Lewis Allen in 1931. � The whole city had become one frenzied real-estate exchange. There were said to be 2,000 real-estate offices and 25,000 agents marketing house-lots or acreage�the city fathers had been forced to pass an ordinance forbidding the sale of property in the street, or even the showing of a map, to prevent inordinate traffic congestion.�
The boom of the 1920s came to an end in 1926. Henry S. Villard, reported what he saw two years later:
Dead subdivisions line the highway, their pompous names half-obliterated on crumbling stucco gates. Lonely white-way lights stand guard over miles of cement side-walks, where grass and palmetto take the place of homes that were to be� Whole sections of outlying subdivisions are composed of unoccupied houses, past which one speeds on broad thoroughfares as if traversing a city in the grip of death.
For three years, Florida�s property market died, even as the rest of the nation danced the charleston. It did not recover until after WWII � 20 years later. And now, it is out of season once more in Florida. The subject of today�s note is why it may never be high season again.
There are no houses for sale here. A house is a tangible thing. Its paint peels. Its roof leaks. Its a/c needs to be replaced. But a home is an agreeable abstraction. So great is the local realtor�s distaste for tangibility, that houses have all been replaced by mansions, estates, compounds, retreats, and most importantly, by �homes.� We find, for example, a �spectacular Palm Beach Estate Home,� with a separate 2-bedroom oxymoron � a �guest home.� It must be a house for guests who refuse to go home. Or perhaps a home for people who refuse to be guests. And if we looked for a home in the country, we would probably find one with a dog home in the back yard.
�This palatial home features over 20,000 square feet of living area,� says a current listing. �Built with entertaining in mind, this home features 9 bars, 2 walk-in wine coolers, 3 outside grilling areas, a 75� pool surrounded by a 400� marble dock and patio�summer kitchen with complete with outdoor fireplace�no detail has been overlooked.�
Well, maybe one detail. Who would want to pay $11.5 million for a jumped-up mock-Tuscan relic from the bubble era? Even in the best of circumstances, a major property bust can take decades to fix. In Japan, property collapsed after the stock market bubble popped in �89. All around it, the world economy kept bubbling away. But Japanese property sank to the bottom anyway. Twenty years later, prices are still down as much as 80%.
The Hoover administration helpfully turned its back, neither causing the bubble of the �20s nor attempting to repair it. This week, Sheila Blair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, admitted that the feds now are more involved. Too bad, again. Like Florida in June, government support is not always what it pretends to be. The New York Times:
�For 25 years federal policy has been primarily focused on promoting homeownership and promoting the availability of credit to home buyers,� Ms. Bair said. She mentioned some of the many subsidies home buyers get, including the home mortgage interest deduction and the ability to deduct property taxes.
She mentioned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac too. Along with the other federal subsidies, the two agencies largely financed America�s real estate bubble. Now, with their help it could be a long time before the market recovers. Maybe forever. Fannie and Freddie stand behind $5.5 trillion worth of mortgages. More than $1 trillion of them were written during the height of the �05 ��06 bubble. Those houses, many of them in Florida, are probably underwater now � worth less than the value of their mortgages. Most will go into default�leaving Fannie and Freddie, and indirectly the taxpayers, on the hook. The foreclosed properties will cause properties to sink deeper. And by the time the inventory is finally worked off, circumstances may have changed. Buyers may look to Cuba, Nicaragua or the moon for their retirement havens�leaving Florida to the ghosts forever.
http://dailyreckoning.com/yankees-seek-tax-refuge-in-th... /
Florida seems to have been invaded by zombies.
�Injured in a workplace accident? Treated unfairly? Call 1-800-A-LAWYER.� The signs are along the highway�on the radio�and in magazines. Chasing ambulances must be good business in Florida. The advertising must pay.
We got back from Florida on Wednesday and immediately got stuck in a traffic jam. The Washington, DC beltway must be one of the worst traffic areas in the US.
Later, we went to dinner in Bethesda. The downtown area has been spiffed up � like a mall. Restaurants have been replaced with noisy, crowded eateries where you stand in line to get a table�and then wait to get an entree scarcely more refined than a McDonald�s Happy Meal.
Meanwhile, Forbes Magazine tells us that people with money are on the move � from the North to the South. Why? Taxes. Cost of living. Lifestyle.
Judging from what we�ve seen in the Maryland suburbs, it�s not surprising that people are moving out. It�s surprising that anyone is left:
Where America�s Money Is Moving
Topping the list: Collier County, Fla., which includes the city of Naples. Tax returns accounting for 15,150 people showed moves to Collier County from other parts of the country in 2008, the latest year for which IRS data is available. Their average reported income: $76,161 per person � equivalent to $304,644 for a family of four. Although slightly more taxpayers moved out of Collier County than into it, the departing residents� average income came out to just $26,128 per person.
Households that moved to Collier County principally came from other parts of Florida, with Lee, Miami Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Orange counties leading the list. Big northern cities also sent lots of migrants: Cook County, Ill. (home to Chicago); Oakland County, Mich. (near Detroit); and Suffolk County, N.Y. (on Long Island) each sent more than 100 people to Collier County during 2008.
In second place is Greene County, Ga., with a population of just 15,743 at the Census Bureau�s last estimate. The IRS data show that in 2008, 788 people moved to the county, about 75 miles east of Atlanta.
Rounding out the top five: Nassau County, Fla., near Jacksonville; Llano County, Texas, 70 miles northwest of Austin; and Walton County, Fla., 80 miles east of Pensacola.
The dominance of the list by Florida and Texas � the former has eight of the top 20 counties, the latter four � makes sense to Robert Shrum, manager of state affairs at the Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C., since neither state has an income tax. �If you�re a high-income earner, then that, from a tax perspective, is going to be a driving decider if you�re going to move to one of those two states,� Shrum says.
After accounting for property taxes, Shrum�s analysis shows that Texas has the fourth-lowest personal tax burden in the country, and Florida has the eighth lowest. Shrum also points to eight states that have targeted wealthy households with extra-high tax brackets: California, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Hawaii, Oregon, Connecticut and Wisconsin. Six of the top 10 counties the rich are fleeing are located in those states.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/florida-rolls-the...
Chasing bigger investment returns, the agency that manages Florida's $113.8 billion public pension fund wants to make far riskier investment bets.
The state wants to reduce the pension fund's holdings in publicly traded stocks and bonds and triple its allocation to hedge funds and other private investments that are less liquid and harder to value.
Earlier this month, the head of the State Board of Administration told his bosses that rearranging the state's portfolio would benefit the nearly 1 million public employees and retirees who depend on the fund, as well as the taxpayers who underwrite the system.
"We will probably have a slightly higher level of return, with a slightly lower level of risk," SBA executive director and chief investment officer Ash Williams told Gov. Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Attorney General Bill McCollum.
All three voted to approve Williams' plan after a few questions from McCollum and Sink and no comment from Crist. The Legislature still must approve the expansion of the alternative asset class.
Several financial experts said that expecting higher returns with lower risk is as realistic as promising weight loss on an all-you-can eat diet.
"It's basic Finance 101: There's no such thing as reducing risk and increasing return," said Lawrence Weinman, a financial adviser in Los Angeles who teaches endowment investing.
Edward Siedle, an attorney formerly with the Securities and Exchange Commission, said Williams' assertion that he can make the SBA's pot of money grow bigger, faster, with less risk is "the perfect political response. But it's an absurd investment scenario."
Andrew Biggs, former principal deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said it may be possible to produce higher returns in the short term. But in the long term, the risks catch up with you.
"There are lots of studies of what percent of active managers beat the market and the answer is, in any given year, it's very low. Over the long term, it's even lower," he said. "People who are doing it may just be lucky. It's like a monkey with a dartboard."
Biggs believes Florida's pension fund, which needs to earn 7.75 percent a year to meet its pension commitments, already has taken on too much risk.
(snip) more at link
.
I'll mention four key points.
First of all, the banks are ruined. They lent out every penny of deposits, and their loans are increasingly non-performing. They can't borrow any new money, because they're already underwater. And consumers are also broke, so they can't borrow more, either. Unlimited Fed credit is irrelevant. No one can afford to pay banks interest anymore.
Second, the only active creditors left are sovereign governments. And as Greece proved, governments have limits. They can't print their way out, because creditors will abandon them if they do. They need their creditors too much to choose printing.
Greece agreed to austerity. Britain is talking about austerity. The Tea Partiers are demanding austerity. At some point, members of Congress will have to stop borrowing and spending, because voters will oust them if they don't.
Third, the idea that the Fed can inflate "at will" is going to be challenged.
Is the Fed going to monetize � what's often referred to as "money-printing" � another $57 trillion worth of dollar debt, shore up trillions more of foreign debt and guarantee $600 trillion worth of derivative promises? Not likely.
Can the Fed's $2.3 trillion balance sheet � already over-inflated � keep a quadrillion dollars worth of worldwide IOUs from imploding? Not a chance.
Its own governors are already fighting about the monetization it orchestrated in 2008-2009. The Fed has been historically accommodating so far, but cracks are appearing in its resolve. Some of its own governors disagree on Bernanke's extreme policies, and that's after monetizing only 1/7 of 1% of the world's outstanding IOUs.
Fourth is the crucial importance of social psychology. Voters are getting angry about the bailouts. Congress is talking about auditing the Fed for the first time since it was created in 1913. Suddenly, Ron Paul is popular, and he wants to abolish the Fed.
These changes are not random. They come about because of the trend away from a positive social mood and toward a negative social mood.
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Prechter: I realize my forecast for deflation differs from most bears' views, and calling for a depression really differs from the bulls' views, but I'm convinced that deflation and depression are already underway and about to get much, much worse.
much more...
| Little Orphan Annie |
What ancient Egyptian artifact, discovered by the French in 1799, was instrumental in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics, before eventually giving its name to a brand of computer language training software? | 1 30 14 centre county gazette by Centre County Gazette - issuu
issuu
www.CentreCountyGazette.com
Super Sunday arrives
The Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos will clash in a battle for the Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl XLVIII. Will the Broncos capture their third title or will the Seahawks bring the 12th man their first championship?/Pages 16, 17
January 30-February 5, 2014
Ice, snow mean cold cash for area businesses By CHRIS MORELLI
[email protected]
STATE COLLEGE — On a frigid day in State College, shoppers flocked to downtown shops looking for something to keep them warm. Some shoppers needed a new pair of boots. For others, it was a heavier jacket. For some, it was something simple — wool socks or thicker gloves. At Appalachian Outdoors, Ashley Harman, of State College, was on a mission — to find a new pair of gloves. “It’s awful, it’s terribly cold,” she said. “I hate winter, absolutely hate winter. We’re not used to it being this cold. You can get all bundled up and you’re still cold. It’s miserable.”
As she pored over dozens of pairs of gloves, Harman admitted the gloves were a birthday present to herself. “I needed a new pair of gloves, so I thought I’d look for a pair for my birthday. It’s coming up,” she said with a laugh. Mindy Weidow, of State College, came along to look for gloves as well. She grew up in Bradford, in northern Pennsylvania, so she said that she’s used to brutal winters. She hasn’t seen anything quite like this, however. “I grew up in Bradford, where it’s much colder,” she said. “To have this (weather) here is a little shocking.” Since the calendar turned to 2014, Mother
PERFECT FIT: Eddy, 11, and Ruth, 7, of Boalsburg check out the glove selection at Appalachian Outdoors in State College. The children were shopping with their father.
Cash, Page 6
Homeless outreach effort sees increase in demand this year
WARM WELCOME
By MARJORIE S. MILLER [email protected]
STATE COLLEGE — With persistently brutal temperatures this winter, programs such as Out of the Cold: Centre County are more important than ever. From Oct. 28 through April 27 local churches serve as emergency shelters, where homeless people are directed when the Centre House Homeless Shelter is full. Each night, residents will
be given a cot, blanket and snack. Guests can arrive at 9 p.m. and then need to leave by 7 a.m. Meals will be provided by churches on some nights, according to Calvary Baptist Church, a host of the program. “The Out of the Cold program is designed to provide shelter for our local homeless population,” said Kendra Gettig, outreach director at Calvary Baptist Church. Cold, Page 6
Hundreds take part in softball clinic By CHRIS MORELLI
[email protected]
CHUCK FONG/Special to The Gazette
NEW PENN STATE football coach James Franklin shakes the hand of a homeless man at Starbucks in downtown State College on Tuesday. The man is known only as McLanaMAN because he’s often seen outside of Penn State staple, McLanahan’s. Franklin stopped for coffee before a whirlwind day. Later, he accompanied U.S. Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Howard, to Washington, D.C., to hear President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address.
Agencies across region offer resources to job seekers By KAREN DABNEY [email protected]
STATE COLLEGE — Finding a new job can be a challenging process. More than half of all job seekers nationwide were unemployed for 15 weeks or longer, according to a U.S. Department of Labor statistics for last month released Jan. 10. More than a third were unemployed for 27 weeks or longer. To improve the likelihood of finding employment quickly, Centre County job seekers can take advantage of the free career services and resources offered by four local organizations: PA CareerLink; Private Industry Council of the Central Corridor Inc.; the Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit; and Penn State University. Penn State Career Services is known for their student and alumni resources, which include workshops, career fairs, career counseling, and mock interviews. Two of their resources are available to the general public, the annual regional career fair and their series of online brochures and handouts. Opinion ............................. 7 Health & Wellness .......... 8, 9
The handouts on their website cover a variety of employment topics: cover letters and resumes, the job search, interviews, skills development, careers, and salaries. All job seekers are invited to attend the annual Central Pennsylvania Regional Career Fair from 2 to 5 p.m. on May 19 at the Penn Stater Conference Center. The public can also participate in the Working in PA Online Career Fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on May 20. According to the career fair website, approximately 60 local employers attend the regional career fair each year. The 2014 list of employers will be posted on careerfairs.psu.edu/CentralPA in April. The website also offers information about what to expect at the job fair and tips for success. The Private Industry Council of the Central Corridor Inc. (PICCC Inc.) is a nonprofit organization that works to enhance the economic vitality of the community it serves, according to director Cheryl Career, Page 4
Education ................... 10-12 Community ................ 13, 14
Centre Spread ............ 16, 17 Sports .......................... 18-21
UNIVERSITY PARK — Cabin fever met its match on Sunday morning — at least for 90 minutes or so. More than 200 children from across Centre County converged on Holuba Hall to take part in a free softball clinic sponsored by the Penn State softball team. As first-year coach Amanda Lehotak looked around Holuba Hall, she was amazed by the number of girls who came out on a frigid Sunday morning to get some expert instruction. “I’m shocked. I really thought we’d have 50 to 75 kids. Someone told me we had over 200,” Lehotak said. “It was phenomenal. I’m very humbled. I think it’s great.” With more than 200 girls running around, Lehotak needed her assistant coaches and players on board. They were there — some in full uniform — to make sure things ran smoothly. There were batting stations as well as pitching and catching stations. Youth softball players from Bald Eagle Area, Bellefonte, Penns Valley, Philipsburg-Osceola and State College took part in the clinic. “It’s a great day for the kids, to get them out. I know I’m getting itchy Softball, Page 5
CHRIS MORELLI/The Gazette
TRAINING DAYS: Penn State players and coaches teach young softball players how to squat behind the plate at a free clinic on Sunday at Holuba Hall.
Arts & Entertainment .23, 24 What’s Happening ..... 25, 26
Group Meetings .............. 27 Puzzles ............................. 28
Business ...................... 29, 30 Classified ......................... 31
PaGe 2
The CenTre CounTy GazeTTe
January 30-February 5, 2014
Front and Centre SCOUTING IT OUT: The Seven Mountain Boy Scout Camp in Potter Township played host to the 43rd Klondike Derby on Jan. 25. More than 600 Scouts took part in the event. Page 13
20 PROGRAMS
EXPERIENCE ALL 20 CAREER PROGRAMS AVAILABLE TO YOU EXPLORE YOUR OPTIONS TRY NEW THINGS MEET NEW PEOPLE
GOPHERS BROKE: The No. 13 Penn State women’s basketball team put on a clinic against Minnesota at the Bryce Jordan Center on Sunday, hammering the Golden Gophers, 83-53. Page 18
LEAPIN’ LIZARDS: Keri Carroll transforms into everyone’s favorite orphan in The State Theatre’s production of “Annie,� which will hit the stage on Feb. 6. Anne Walker previews the show. Page 23 ESPECIALLY FOR YOU: The popular New Jesey-based rock band The Smithereens will make an appearance in State College, playing Cafe 210 West on Feb. 8. Page 23
CORRECTION POLICY
The Centre County Gazette corrects errors as soon as they are brought to our attention. Please contact us at [email protected] to report a correction.
Kidnapping reported on campus By STEVE BAUER StateCollege.com
BALD EAGLE
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540 N. Harrison Road, Pleasant Gap, PA 16823
UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State police are investigating a reported kidnapping that occurred on campus in the early morning hours last Saturday. The victim, who is a female Penn State student, did not tell police about the incident until Tuesday afternoon. According to police, the abduction happened at 1 a.m. on Shortlidge Road near Simmons Hall. Investigators say that a dark-colored sedan stopped and a man got out. He reportedly grabbed the woman, and forced her into the rear of the vehicle. The car drove south on Shortlidge Road to College Avenue and continued to an off campus location, where the victim was forced out of the vehicle, according to police. The woman reportedly told police the occupants of the vehicle tried to indecently assault her but she was able to run away. The suspects are described as collegeaged men wearing hooded sweatshirts with scarves covering their faces.
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A statement released by police says, “It can be assumed that conditions continue to exist that may pose a threat to members and guests of the University community. It is the duty of the institution to warn of possible “dangerous conditions� on or near the campus, and at affiliate organizations off campus; an “affirmative duty� exists to warn persons associated with this University of possible peril at the hands of some third party or parties.� Anyone with information about this incident should contact Penn State University Police at (814) 863-111. You can also submit tips to Centre County Crimestoppers by email at tip@ centrecountycrimestoppers.org. Information that leads to an arrest may make you eligible for a reward of as much as $1,000. Police are asking people to always follow the following guidelines: n Use the buddy system and walk with a friend or use the Safe Walk Service at 814865-WALK (9255) n Report suspicious persons and activity immediately to 911 or (814) 863-1111 n Be aware of your surroundings and seek help if you feel endangered.
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The CenTre CounTy GazeTTe
Handling of sex assault cases by PSU gets federal scrutiny By MARC LEVY The Associated Press
HARRISBURG — The U.S. Department of Education is looking into Penn State’s handling of sexual harassment and sexual assault complaints to see if it had responded appropriately to those reports in the years surrounding the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal that engulfed the university. The federal agency informed Penn State of the investigation in a letter Jan. 23, and said in a statement Sunday that it had concerns after it reviewed Penn State’s sexual harassment policy and saw a huge spike in “forcible sex offenses” reported to the federal government by the university. The spike coincided with the Sandusky scandal that broke in 2011. “Our initial review of Penn State’s sexual harassment policy, compounded by a dramatic increase in the number of forcible sex offenses occurring on campus as reported by the university itself, raised legal concerns that compelled us to investigate,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon said in the statement. The investigation will look to determine whether complaints were improperly handled, thus keeping the numbers artificially low, before the spike, a department spokesman said. Colleges and universities are required to report campus crimes to the federal government under a 1990 law known as the Clery Act. In 2012, a report by former FBI director Louis Freeh in the wake of the Sandusky scandal found that, outside of the campus police department in State College, Penn State officials lacked “awareness and interest” in the Clery Act.
In the letter to Penn State President Rodney Erickson, Lhamon said her office had reached no conclusion as to whether Penn State had violated federal law. The department said the time frame for the investigation will start with the most current year of data and generally cover a three-year period. Depending on the evidence, the investigation could include a longer period, the department spokesman said. A Penn State spokeswoman said the school is looking forward to working with federal officials. Penn State’s crime data showed 56 forcible sex offenses on its main campus in 2012. That was more than double the number in 2011 and fourteen times the number reported in 2010. The investigation will have a particular emphasis on complaints of sexual assault, the federal agency said. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on the existence of the investigation Jan. 26. If a violation of federal law is found, the school’s agreement will be sought to change policies, procedures or training, the Office for Civil Rights said. It said it does not seek or collect monetary damages from institutions, although that would not stop someone from seeking such damages in a civil court case. In July, Penn State received a preliminary report from the U.S. Department of Education regarding whether its handling of the Sandusky scandal complied with campus crime reporting requirements. Neither the school nor the Department of Education have given details on the findings, and the department said that investigation is ongoing.
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PaGe 3
School directors OK program expansion By NATHAN PIPENBERG [email protected]
STATE COLLEGE — The State College Area School District will expand the Delta Program, designed to be a charter school alternative, next year by opening enrollment to students in fifth through eighth grade. The State College Area School Board unanimously approved the expansion with a vote at its Monday night meeting. Board members said they hope the new middlelevel program will draw students back into the school district who currently attend local charter schools. “Delta has a 30-year record of success,” said board member Anne McGlaughlin. Currently, Delta is offered to sevenththrough 12th-grade grade students, although the majority of its 200 students are in ninth through 12th grade. Most of the younger students now enrolled in Delta are gifted or accelerated students, according to Jon Downs, director of the Delta Program. The expanded middle-level program will support between 30 and 80 students. If the program fails to attract at least 30 students, it will not be implemented, said Superintendent Bob O’Donnell. Downs said he hopes to begin enrolling students in February, and to have an idea of total enrollment by early May. The expansion would be accompanied by at least one newly hired teacher and one teacher transferred to the program from elsewhere in the district. Downs also said that a specific curriculum has not been created yet, but that it would include mentoring opportunities with older Delta students, collaboration with Penn State and a focus on creating a community. That lack of specific educational goals is one source of criticism for the new program.
“Most of it is about the money. It doesn’t feel like it’s a proposal that’s actually educational,” said Jean Morrow, who spoke out at the meeting before the board voted on the proposal. Morrow, a State College resident and former teacher at the Centre Learning Community charter school, said that if a charter school were being created, it would require a more robust education model, or the proposal “wouldn’t even be on the table.” In response, Downs said that the Delta curriculum is created through a collaborative process with teachers, students and parents, and he couldn’t offer specifics until that process takes place. O’Donnell stressed that at Delta, students are expected to play a more active role in their own education. “It does provide quite a bit of responsibility for the students,” he said. “Delta does provide a step up in terms of expectations.” At the meeting, the board also received updated cost estimates for the new high school project from the project’s architects and lead construction team. John Beddia, of Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates, presented the board with a 19-page design plan and a total cost estimate of $114,877,881 — just under the board’s current cap of $115 million. In contrast, Alexander Building General Manager Chris Magnet gave the board a quote of $118 million, but said that his team’s estimate would likely come down as they received more information and design plans. Both Magnet and Beddia said that were happy that the two estimates were as close as they were — within 3 percent of each other. “We’re very comfortable and confident that the scope of work is achievable,” Beddia said.
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Page 4
The Centre County Gazette
January 30-February 5, 2014
Career, from page 1 Johnson. The organization does work in 15 counties and has office locations along the I-99 corridor in Blair, Bedford and Centre counties. Although PICCC has a strong focus on serving local businesses and administering grants, Johnson said the organization offers several programs for individuals. PICCC offers a job-matching service for prospective employees and member companies. Job openings are also listed on the PICCC website. “Anyone can register and put themselves in the jobseeking database,� Johnson said. The service is free for job seekers. PICCC is taking applications for the STEM Grant, a federal tuition assistance program that addresses the lack of skilled central Pennsylvania workers in the STEM occupations: science, technology, engineering and math. The grant offers scholarships to approximately 200 unemployed and underemployed individuals in an eightcounty region of central Pennsylvania: Centre, Clinton, Columbia, Lycoming, Mifflin, Montour, Northumberland, Snyder and Union counties. Occupation categories that may qualify include professional and advanced training in nursing, allied health, engineering, and information technology. Currently enrolled and prospective students can apply for the grant. The training must be completed by August 2015. Johnson said that, as part of the grant, PICCC offers career coaching, help with obtaining the scholarships and assistance with job placement after the STEM training. She hopes that PICCC will have the chance to administer another STEM Grant in the future, after the current grant ends. Each summer in State College, PICCC offers Blueprint for Success, a two-week career preparation program for youth, ages 13 to 17. “This is really an exciting program,� Johnson said. “We’ve had great participation.� She said Blueprint for Success is set up like a career camp. Attendees visit companies and learn about what is expected of them in the workplace. They explore workplace skills, including teamwork, communication and problem-solving. The teenagers learn about their strengths, how to work with others, how to present themselves and their ideas, and how to become better employees. The 2014 Blueprint for Success program will be held on weekdays from July 21 to Aug. 1. “I really enjoy working with them,� Johnson said. “This can really make a difference for them. I think it’s very successful.� The PA CareerLink Centre County offices were established throughout Pennsylvania in response to the federal Workforce Investment Act of 1998, which mandated a customer-focused “One-Stop� approach, permitting customers to access employment services, education resources and job training services in one location. On June 24, 2013, PA CareerLink Centre County moved from the former Benner Pike office into two new locations — 252 Match Factory Place in Bellefonte and 3081 Enterprise Drive in State College. PA CareerLink administrator Margie Eby said the change was made to provide more convenient access for Centre County residents. “The PA CareerLink Centre County locations offer core services to all members of the community, with additional program services available for in-school youth, out-of-
TIM WEIGHT/For The Gazette
PENNSYLVANIA’S CAREERLINK, located at 3081 Enterprise Drive in State College, provides plenty of resources for area job seekers. school youth, adults, dislocated workers, veterans and persons with disabilities,â€? Eby said in an email. “Referrals to outside agency services are also made as needed, based on an individual’s employment plan.â€? Eby said that staff workforce specialists help job seekers with one-on-one career planning. They address individual customer needs, such as how to transition into a new career, and can refer customers to other agencies as needed. Eby reported that 76 customers obtained employment through PA CareerLink staff efforts in December 2013. A core component of the PA CareerLink employment program is the JobGateway website, launched by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry in 2012. The website lists approximately 200,000 job openings, and offers a job matching service for employers and prospective employees. Job seekers can create rĂŠsumĂŠs, upload them into the JobGateway database, apply for jobs and receive email alerts for job openings based on their interests. Employers can post job announcements on the website and search the rĂŠsumĂŠ database for prospective employees. “The site uses spidering technology to also pull in job postings from employer online job boards, Monster, CareerBuilder, US.jobs, Craigslist and more,â€? Eby said. The JobGateway website offers a video-based interview training tool, a rĂŠsumĂŠ starter tool, and a list of high-priority occupations to assist with career planning. PA CareerLink offers free classes at both locations, and an unemployment compensation courtesy phone at the Bellefonte office. The computer skills classes include an introduction to technology, and basic training for Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Additional courses focus on job search techniques, interviews, rĂŠsumĂŠs and cover letters, job ap-
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plications, and employment goals. Individuals can also attend the open computer labs. On the JobGateway website, individuals can register for the classes, and obtain the dates for job fairs and individual employer recruitment events. PA CareerLink Centre County offers a job fair each spring and fall that attracts 30 to 40 businesses. The recruitment events occur throughout the year. “PA CareerLink has On-the-Job Training funds available to assist job seekers (youth and adult) in acquiring new skills that require hands-on learning to complement previous work experience,� Eby said. The employer is reimbursed 50 percent of the OTJ participant’s wages for a training period of up to six months. The job must be a permanent position of 30 or more hours per week, and pay at least $10 per hour for adults and $8 per hour for youth, ages 18 to 21. “The OJT Program is a win-win for both job seekers and employers in closing skill gaps,� Eby said. “Job seekers receive job opportunities for which they may have not previously qualified, and employers benefit through funding support that helps offset the cost of training.� Eby said that PA CareerLinkŽ offers limited funding for short-term post-secondary training in high priority occupations. Job seekers can obtain more information about the programs from PA CareerLinkŽ staff. The WATCH Program is a federal health professional opportunity grant administered by the Central Career, Page 5
ONLINE CAREER RESOURCES
Penn State Career Services online publications: http://studentaffairs.psu.edu/career/cic/handouts. shtml Penn State Career Fairs: http://careerfairs.psu.edu/ PICCC, Inc.: http://www.piccc.org/ JobGatewaySM: www.jobgateway.pa.gov Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit www.csiu.org Career exploration and planning: www.onetonline.org www.paworkstats.pa.gov U.S. Department of Labor news release: Unemployed persons by duration of unemployment http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm
ORGANIZATIONS THAT OFFER CAREER SERVICES IN CENTRE COUNTY: Penn State Career Services Bank of America Career Services Center Bigler and Eisenhower Roads University Park, PA 16802 (814) 865-2377
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PA CareerLink Centre County 3081 Enterprise Drive State College, PA 16801 (814) 272-5465 PA CareerLink Centre County 252 Match Factory Place Bellefonte, PA 16823 (814) 548-7928 PICCC Inc. 2595-1 Clyde Ave. State College, PA 16801 (814) 237-8998 www.piccc.org Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit 90 Lawton Lane Milton, PA 17847 (814) 777-7213 www.csiu.org
January 30-February 5, 2014 Career, from page 1 Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, based in Milton, with a local office in Pleasant Gap. The 10-county program is designed to offer support to individuals on cash assistance, on food stamps, or living below the Pennsylvania self-sufficiency level, and help them move into high priority health professions: certified nursing aide, licensed practical nurse, registered nurse, emergency medical technician, and paramedic. Katherine Vastine, the WATCH Project Manager, said that to qualify, prospective students must have a high school diploma or GED, and pass preliminary screening that includes a health assessment, a drug screening, a reference check, an academic assessment and three clearances. “Each participant is paired with a career coordinator from intake through the sixth month of employment,” Vastine said. “I really feel that the beauty of the program is the intensive case management and the
The Centre County Gazette social support services.” She said the types of assistance each student receives are based on individual need. The majority of the grant funds go to supportive services: uniforms, text books and some transportation services such as emergency minor car repairs. Nursing tutors help participants with academic success. Peer group meetings address employability skills, time management, study skills, résumés and interviews. The two biggest barriers most applicants face are child care and reliable transportation. The career counselors work closely with participants to help them overcome the barriers, to help them obtain services they need such as financial aid to fund tuition, and to find employment. Individuals can apply for the WATCH Program through an online application or by phone. Participants must graduate and become employed by September 2015 when the five-year grant ends. “Don’t rule yourself out,” Vastine said. “Apply.”
South Hills to host Career Day By MORGAN HILL
[email protected]
STATE COLLEGE — The South Hills School of Business and Technology will host Career Day from 8:30 a.m. to noon on Wednesday, Feb. 5. The career day will take place at all three campuses: State College, Altoona and Lewistown. “If you really want to get a feel for what a two-year career school is about, this is the time to do it,” said Gina Mazza, vice president and director of marketing. “There’s no commitment to the school and we think everyone will enjoy the warm, family atmosphere.” The career day provides an opportunity for anyone in the public to visit the school, sit in on classes of their interest and to interact with a student panel able to answer any question either personal or general. Attendees are provided lunch and the ability to meet with the financial aid department to discuss any financial needs they may have.
Mazza stressed that while registration is preferred, walk-ins are welcome along with any friends or family members who wish to attend. Also, age is not limited. High school students, single parents and adults wishing to return to school are all invited. “We’ve had wonderful feedback on the program,” said Mazza. “It’s a very positive day.” The school will also host a financial aid workshop from 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 19, where attendees will be taught how to complete a FAFSA application from start to finish. Once again, no commitment to the school is required. If interested, a list of documents to bring to the workshop can be found online. For more information or to register for either program, call (888) 282-7427 or visit www.southhills.edu. In the case of inclement weather, Career Day would be rescheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 11, and the Financial Aid Workshop would be rescheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 26.
Page 5
CHRIS MORELLI/The Gazette
YOUNG SOFTBALL players from Bald Eagle Area, Bellefonte, Philipsburg-Osceola, Penns Valley and State College took part in a free softball clinic held at Penn State on Sunday. Softball, from page 1 to get out, if Mother Nature ever breaks. It’s good to get everybody out and it’s good for our kids, too. They get to give back to the sport and the community because the community does so much for Penn State athletes. It’s great for them to learn how to teach the game,” Lehotak said. Normally, Holuba Hall is used for Nittany Lions football practices. On this day, however, it was transformed into a “Field of Dreams,” complete with batting cages, tees, hundreds of softballs and, most importantly, expert instruction. As she sipped coffee, Leslie Richendrfer, of Bellefonte, watched her daughter, Molly, take part in clinic. Like many parents, she was grateful for the opportunity to get her daughter some activity during the winter. “It’s really tough. But she’s out there, running around, hitting a ball … this is a great opportunity for the kids,” she said. Molly, 10, will be entering her second season of organized softball. “It’s good because she gets to see the girls from college doing the same thing. They’re good role models and something for the girls here to strive toward,” Richendrfer said. Pam Fike, of Bellefonte, brought her daughter, Samantha, to the clinic. “It’s excellent softball practice for the wintertime because there’s nowhere we
can go we can practice indoors,” she said. “It gets Samantha totally excited. She’s been itching for softball since softball was over. She was excited to wake up and come here this morning.” For some, the day was a break from the usual routine. Connie Smith, of Bellefonte, brought her daughter, Mallorie. She explained that her daughter typically plays two sports during the winter — indoor soccer and basketball. “She’s active on her own,” Smith said. “Even when it’s snowing outside, she’s outside doing something. It might not be sports, but she’s outside.” With more than 200 girls taking part, Smith said she was impressed with how smoothly things ran. “That’s one of the things that I think is amazing. … Penn State University does this for the kids and they do it for free,” Smith said. After she was done signing autographs and talking with parents, Lehotak prepared to head out into the bitter cold. The clinic was just a reminder that softball season isn’t that far away. “I’m not sleeping,” she said with a laugh. “The lack of sleep has kicked in and I’m counting down the days, just like the team is. I’m ready to see where we’re at. I want to see our kids perform under pressure.” Chances are that if Lehotak’s squad can handle 200 youth softball players, they’re ready for anything.
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Cash, from page 1
Cold, from page 1
Nature has hammered much of the state with brutal winds, snow and icy conditions. “It’s just brutal,” Weidow said. “I don’t think anyone can get used to it.” Late Friday afternoon, students bundled up before heading to class. There are several coffee shops along College Avenue and they were packed with students and residents alike. Frank Thomas and his wife, Regina, were visiting State College from Valley Forge. They planned to take in the Penn State wrestling match on Friday night and the hockey game on Saturday. They were a bit shocked by the frigid temperatures. “It seems colder here,” Frank said. “Believe me, we’ve got snow and ice near us, but I don’t think it’s nearly as cold. It seems 15-20 degrees colder in State College.” However, as they sipped on coffee at Irving’s Bagels, the Thomases said they were in it for the long haul. “We’re big Penn State fans,” Regina said. “Diehards. We can deal with the cold. We sat through the (Nebraska) game in November. We’ve been planning this weekend for a few weeks now.” The Shoe Box, 214 E. College Ave. in State College, was busy on Friday afternoon. Most people who stopped in were shopping for boots. Heavy, warm and waterproof were the keys for most shoppers. Have the recent record lows sent shoppers scurrying for new boots? “Definitely,” said Courtney Hupp, manager at The Shoe Box. “Obviously, during winter, people are buying boots … anything from fashion boots to UGGS to snow boots. Particularly, in the past few weeks, people have gone away from the more fashion styles to looking specifically for something waterproof and warm as well.” According to Hupp, keeping the feet warm is extremely important when temperatures dip into the single digits and below zero.
“The program was started three years ago as a result of a man who died of hypothermia. He was sleeping in a tent during the winter. Churches and agencies heard of this and decided to partner together to form the OOTC program.” Gettig said the program rotates from church to church, and is run through volunteers, mostly from the host church. There are three overnight volunteers each night and often additional volunteers to prepare a meal. Out of the Cold has significantly grown since it started, Gettig said, and this year so far it has served between 35 and 40 different people. “On an average night, there are between 12 and 15 guests,” she said. In addition to churches, there are a handful of agencies that are involved with OOTC, Gettig said, including Housing Transitions Inc., Community Help Centre, Interfaith Human Services, Centre County Women’s Resource Center and the Centre County Youth Services Bureau. Ron Quinn, executive director of HTI, said HTI works with OOTC to address unmet needs and establish strategies to better serve area residents. “(It’s a) great service to the community,” Quinn said about Out of the Cold. Quinn said this year the program is serving more people than in previous years, and during the height of the winter HTI works especially closely with the program to ensure nobody is left out. “We’re making all reasonable attempts (to get a) system in place,” he said. “We will continue to work with them very closely.” Though HTI and OTC’s directives are different, they share many of the same goals when it comes to their support of the community, Quinn said. “The numbers are growing. Both of us are reaching out to each other to re-establish that regular contact,” he said. Housing Transitions’ two main programs are its case management program and its transitional housing program. It also operates the Centre House shelter, which has been the focal point of HTI since its inception in 1984, Quinn said. Housing Transitions’ case management program provides services to help prevent homelessness. Case managers are linked with area residents to assist them with staying at home, he said. Last year more than 500 families were served by the program. Those who may use the case management program, Quinn explained, may be those struggling to afford rent or those with some sort of family dysfunction, illness or injury that hinders their ability to support themselves. And HTI’s transitional housing program works with county residents until they can find permanent housing. About 18 people are in transitional housing now, he said. The shelter can serve 15 people a night, and any given year it serves between 70 and 100 people. Other churches and fellowships that participate in Out of the Cold include Unity Church of Jesus Christ, St. John’s United Christ of Church, Grace Lutheran, University Mennonite Church, St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, Faith United Church of Christ, State College Assembly of God, State College Presbyterian Church and Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Overnight volunteers are needed for OOTC. Volunteers are required to arrive at the host church at 8:30 p.m. and then will be able to leave at 7 a.m. They are permitted to sleep and will be required to go through training prior to volunteering. Volunteers are also needed to prepare food. Financial donations are also needed to cover the salary of the site manager, transportation costs and supply costs. For more information or to volunteer contact Gettig at [email protected] or call the church at (814) 238-0822.
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COURTNEY HUPP, manager at The Shoe Box, puts boots back in the boxes after customers tried them on Friday. Hupp said that the recent cold snap has made durable boots a popular purchase this winter.
“It’s so important. Your feet help regulate your body temperature,” she said. “For me, I know it’s incredibly valuable. If my feet are cold, then I’m not comfortable at all.” She said UGGS are very popular because of the warmth involved with the fur lining. People are also accessorizing their boots. “We’ve sold a lot of SmartWool socks,” she said. “You can put those into a regular boot and it will help keep you warm.” As far as the clientele is concerned, both men and women have come out in droves to purchase new boots and footwear. “It’s both,” Hupp said of the shoppers. “Everyone wants to be warm.”
‘Trash to Treasure’ sale coming up By MORGAN HILL
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If you would like to advertise in one of the special sections, contact the Gazette at (814) 238-5051 or email [email protected]
UNIVERSITY PARK — The Penn State Student United Way will host a “Trash to Treasure” from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m sale Saturday, Feb. 1. The sale will be held in rooms 106, 109 and 110 in Fisher Hall in the East Residence Halls. Students donated all items for sale as they cleaned out their dorms and apartments before winter break. Items include, but are not limited to: clothing, bedding, shoes, coats, home décor, fans, books, computer monitors, appliances and storage containers. The winter sale’s theme will be “Tote It Away,” which plays on the fact that shoppers will be able to fill a provided grocery bag and purchase what’s inside for a flat rate. Larger items will be sold through negotiation. Zulaikha Ismadi, treasurer and coordinator of the sale, has been working toward putting it together since the beginning of the fall semester. As the sale nears, she is hoping to spread the word and request help from fellow students. Donations are still being taken and volunteers are needed to work the sale. If interested in volunteering, visit www.volunteer.psu. edu to sign up. All proceeds of the sale go to the Centre County United Way, and any food donated will be sent to the State College Area Food Bank.
IF YOU GO
What: Trash to Treasure Sale When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Feb. 1 Where: Fisher Hall, East Halls Why: Sale benefits Centre County United Way
Women and Children needed for eating behavior study
art
To advertise in The Gazette, call (814) 238-5051 or email [email protected]
The Penn State food lab needs women and their children between the ages of 8-12 years to participate in a research study examining human eating behavior. Women who live with a child or children 4 or more days per week are also eligible to participate in the study.
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wpsu.org/fmposter Entry deadline: February 28 at 5pm
January 30-February 5, 2014
403 S. Allen St., State College, PA 16801 Phone: (814) 238-5051 Fax: (814) 238-3415 www.CentreCountyGazette.com
PUBLISHER Rob Schmidt
MANAGING EDITOR Chris Morelli STAFF WRITER Marjorie S. Miller
SALES MANAGER Don Bedell ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS Vicki Gillette Debbie Markel Kathy George Amy Ansari BUSINESS MANAGER Aimee Aiello AD COORDINATOR Bikem Oskin ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Brittany Svoboda COPY EDITOR Andrea Ebeling GRAPHIC DESIGN Beth Wood CONTACT US: To submit News: [email protected] Advertising: [email protected] The Gazette is a weekly newspaper serving Centre County and is published by Indiana Printing and Publishing Company. Reproduction of any portion of any issue is not permitted without written permission. The publisher reserves the right to edit or reject any advertisement for any reason.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Take steps now to reduce fire risk
Is your family as safe as you think they are? Do you know the greatest disaster risk to families in your neighborhood? Believe it or not, it’s home fires. Do you know the key steps to minimize your risk of this disaster? Your local American Red Cross stands ready to offer prevention, and, if necessary, assistance should a home fire occur. Sudden and often catastrophic, house fires can devastate in minutes. Home fires are the biggest disaster threat Americans face. During the winter months, there is a dramatic upswing in the number of fires that plague central Pennsylvania families. In one week this month in central Pa., the American Red Cross responded to 33 fires, far exceeding the year-round average of eight fires per week. Last year, throughout central Pennsylvania, the Red Cross responded to more than 457 fires in out communities. During the current Fire Hurts … Red Cross Helps awareness campaign, the American Red Cross is urging central Pennsylvania residents to take some simple steps to help minimize the risk for this type of devastating disaster: • Install smoke alarms on every level of your home, inside bedrooms and outside of sleeping areas; check them monthly by pressing the test button. • Create a fire escape plan, identifying two escape routes from every room of your home, and designate a meeting place a short distance from the home where family members can meet should they be separated during a fire. • Practice your escape plan at least twice a year, paying particular attention to children or older adults who may require extra time and care. For more information on how to minimize your risk of home fires, I encourage you to visit www.redcross.org/ homefires. Taking steps to preventing a home fire help to minimize their risk, but should one occur the Red Cross is ready to respond to help. But, in order for the Red Cross to maintain readiness and help those in need, we need your support. Mike Murphy Chairman of volunteers American Red Cross
Unless labeled as a Gazette editorial, all views on the Opinion page are those of the authors.
Opinion
Page 7
Federalizing campus sex assaults President Obama last week signed an executive memorandum setting up a special task force focused on sexual assault on U.S. college campuses. The president’s order followed the release of a new report from the White House Council on Women and Girls, “Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action.” According to the study, one in five college students is sexually assaulted. The new task force will have three months to recommend how colleges and universities can reduce that figure. But does the problem of sexual assault on campus really rise to the federal level? Or is the Obama administration overreaching? Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis, the Red-Blue America columnists, weigh in.
JOEL MATHIS
Be wary of conservative dismissals of campus rape. A large swath of the conservative movement is convinced that the “problem” is overblown at best, manufactured by manhating feminists to knock the purveyors of traditional morality on their heels. Conservative contempt for liberals has led them to deny that there’s any problem worth Joel Mathis, addressing. joelmmathis@ “The crisis gmail.com, doesn’t exist,” is a writer in Heather Mac Philadelphia. Donald, a leading debunker of campus sex assault, wrote in 2008. Admittedly: It’s true the 1-in-5 statistic does cover a somewhat ambiguous set of situations: It was based on a 1985 survey that asked women this question: “Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?” Men and women who are parties
JOEL MATHIS
to such incidents may not recognize them as “rape” per se — but that point of view suggests that “no means no” only until someone can induce legal compliance via drugs, alcohol or simple unwillingness to take “no” for an answer. If it is difficult for us to call such incidents “rape,” it is also difficult to suggest that true consent has been granted. Less ambiguous was a 1997 survey that questioned women in graphic language that covered the elements of a criminal rape charge. That incident found that 1.7 percent of college women had experienced a “complete” rape; an additional 1.1 percent had experienced “attempted rape.” Does the cumulative number of 2.8 percent sound small? Consider this: In 2006, Detroit (Mac Donald’s favorite reference point) experienced a violent crime rate of 2.4 percent — 2,400 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants. It’s possible women are safer in Detroit than they are at a fraternity party. So campus rape is a real problem. Who should deal with it? Everybody. The federal government certainly has an interest — it spends $100 billion on higher education every year. Culture warriors should take a deep breath, then see what recommendations Obama’s task force comes up with, and whether they make sense. Everything else is just posturing.
BEN BOYCHUK
Be wary of the claim that one in five students have been sexually assaulted or raped at some point in their college careers. In an era of declining violent crime rates, the statistic is remarkably resilient. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reports a sharp drop in total rapes and sexual assaults nationwide — down 38.7 percent between 2008 and 2009, which are the most recent years for which data are readily available. Yet the White House stubbornly repeats the one-in-five claim, a number that has circulated since at least 2000. As my Manhattan Institute colleague Heather Mac Donald noted in 2011 — the last time the White House touted the campus rape issue — there
were just 36.8 rapes per 100,000 residents of Detroit, a city with one of the worst violent crime rates in America. That’s a rate of 0.037 percent. “If 18-year-old girls were in fact walking into such a grotesque maelstrom of sexual violence when they first picked up their dormitory room key,” Mac Donald observed, “parents and students alike would have demanded a radical restructuring of college life years ago.” Obviously, that hasn’t happened. Look askance, too, at the Obama administration’s claim that school officials are somehow ignoring widespread instances of sexual assault. In fact, they’re obsessed with it. Federal law for decades has required schools to maintain detailed records of rape and assault — they number in the dozens annually, as opposed to thousands. Activists claim the crimes are simply underreported, despite the fact that governments have poured tens of millions of dollars annually into campus rape prevention and awareness campaigns, such as Take Back the Night. What’s really happening here? The latest White House report offers a hint, noting how sexual assaults are “fueled by drinking and drug use.” The supposed epidemic of sexual violence on col- Ben Boychuk, lege and univer- bboychuk@citysity campuses journal.org, is is really an epi- associate editor of demic of binge City Journal. drinking, drug abuse and pervasive hookups. Changing the “rape culture” really requires cracking down on the party culture that permeates too many colleges today. But don’t expect administrators to reimpose the old “in loco parentis” system that went out 40 years ago. Instead expect more demands for greater funding, and endless cries to “take back the night.”
BEN BOYCHUK
Variety of media voices needed
Liberty-shredding impulses reign in some news outlets, such as Salon that is forever taking great leaps leftward and recently did so in a book excerpt. It spoke of the wonderful news future you’d get if corporations as we have known them went away, socialism took over and no one had to put up any longer with the likes of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, CNN or The New York Times. Beating up on Fox and sometimes the Wall Street Journal editorial page is everyday stuff for all manner of leftists from mild to wild, but it is more than unusual for them to beat up on CNN and The New York Times. Fred Jerome, a contributor to “Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA,” shows on the website that he has it figured out, though. He says mainstream media outlets are “tightly controlled” by corpoJay Ambrose is rate owners imposing their capitalist, a columnist for Scripps-Howard advertiser-oriented egregiousness on News Service. what’s reported. I think all his arguments are silly, but let me respond by first conceding that advertisers will sometimes shove back at news outlets if content irks them As much happened in 1980 when I was editorial page editor of The Rocky Mountain News in Denver. An editorial had fiercely, adamantly opposed a $1.5 billion federal government bailout of Chrysler. I got a call from the publisher who said auto advertisers were just as adamantly canceling ads and I had cost the newspaper $500,000. While I was calculating how many years I’d have to work for free, I got a call from my editor, who happened to be overseas. He had heard from the publisher and asked for a trans-Atlantic explanation. I gave him one, and then he said something like, “Oh, don’t worry. Forget ‘em.” The advertisers in fact hurriedly came back to the paper as they learned every dollar they denied us cost them a dollar in fewer customers. What my editor understood was
JAY AMBROSE
that honesty in reporting and opinion writing fed credibility that led to big circulation that advertisers love more than flattering editorials. Editors in my experience also believe in standards for the sake of the social good, as do reporters who are catlike when it comes to herding them. Tell them to skip scruples on behalf of economic interests and they would rightly say “no,” which does not mean all are great at shedding subjectivity. That means you should not worry yourself to death about another book, this one by Gabriel Sherman and called, “The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News – And Divided a Country.” The primary subject is Ailes, a fascinating if endlessly castigated man whose direction of Fox News divided nothing. For all its faults, the network’s conservatism helps compensate for the liberalism of NBC, CBS, ABC and others as it affords news interpretations and commentator opinions that have value and should be part of the national conversation. I am for free speech, and it is fine with me if Salon wants to carry a piece saying our media should be publicly financed and run by a socialist government and such special interests as unions. But I also think it is really, truly important that there are other voices that just might remind people that free speech seldom finds a secure home in a political system too begrudging of freedom to allow it in markets.
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Page 8
January 30-February 5, 2014
Health & Wellness
Elliptical device may promote activity at work HERSHEY — People may be able to keep the weight off by using a compact elliptical device while sitting at a desk or watching TV, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. “Adults in the United States spend more than 11 hours per day sitting while doing things like watching television and working on a computer,” said Liza Rovniak, assistant professor of medicine and public health sciences. “Evidence suggests that this sedentary lifestyle has contributed to average weight gains of one to two pounds per year among U.S. adults over the last 20 years.” While moderate and vigorous physical activity are usually emphasized in exercise programs, low-intensity physical activity may also help with weight control. Combining low-intensity physical activity with things like watching television could also help eliminate the time barrier that prevents regular physical activity. The researchers looked at using a compact elliptical device to increase physical activity while sitting. They chose this device because it is lower in cost than other options like treadmill desks, is quiet and requires only a small floor area. Scientists selected 32 participants who used the elliptical device while sitting in a standard office chair. The researchers monitored their energy use, heart rate and other biometrics. They were also asked how much interest they had in using the device while watching television, using a computer, reading, in a meeting and in general.
The results suggest a majority — 86 percent — of participants could expend enough energy in one hour a day to prevent weight gain. The other 14 percent would have had the same result if they increased the pace of pedaling slightly. “Assuming participants held other components of energy balance constant, daily use of the elliptical device for one hour might result in a weight loss of 5.2 pounds per year and help prevent the one-to-two pound annual weight gain among U.S. adults,” Rovniak said. Participants also reported a high interest in using an elliptical device while watching television and using a computer, but not while in office meetings. “Since watching television and using a computer are among the most common reasons people sit, the compact elliptical device might hold potential as a way to increase people’s daily caloric expenditure,” Rovniak said. Because of its compact design, it can be placed in areas that are close to where a person sits, giving visual prompts to use the device. The researchers still need to study whether compact elliptical devices can sustain increases in the amount of energy expended over longer periods of time and whether the devices improve health. “By continuing to explore how best to use elliptical devices and other energy expenditure strategies across diverse settings, it may ultimately be possible to reach enough people to alter rates of chronic diseases associated with inactive lifestyles,” Rovniak said.
‘Pink Out’ day planned
Zeger joins GeisingerGray’s Woods
LEWISTOWN — Geisinger-Lewistown Hospital will host a “Pink Out” day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 7, in the fourth floor classroom at Geisinger-Lewistown Hospital. The third annual event will feature a silent auction, baked goods, crafts, jewelry, candles, purses, food and other cash-and-carry items. Proceeds benefit the Pennsylvania Pink Zone and its six 2014 beneficiaries, one of which is Geisinger-Lewistown Hospital. For more information, call (717) 242-7226
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PORT MATILDA — Dr. Steven Zeger recently joined the obstetrics/ gynecology department at GeisingerGray’s Woods, 132 Abigail Lane in Port Matilda. Zeger completed an OB/GYN residency at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson University Medical School in New Brunswick, where he was chief resident. Before coming to GeisingerGray’s Woods, Zeger practiced localSTEVEN ZEGER ly, both in State College and WilkesBarre. He was also an assistant clinical professor of OB/GYN at The Commonwealth Medical College (TCMC) and was a hospital cancer liaison for the American Cancer Society. Zeger joins Dr. Nicholas Chiera, Dr. Mary Kruszewski, Dr. Samuel Owusu, Dr. Canan Sahin-Kandemir, physician assistant Christina Ciambotti, nurse practitioner Heidi Loomis and nurse practitioner Jody McHail in the OB/GYN department at Geisinger-Gray’s Woods. To schedule an appointment with Zeger, call (814) 2727200.
Peterson scheduled to speak STATE COLLEGE — A lecture about medications in the environment will be held at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 12, in Dreibelbis Auditorium, Mount Nittany Medical Center, 1800 E. Park Ave. in State College. The speaker will be Dr. Andrew Peterson, dean of Mayes College of Pharmaceutical Healthcare Business and Policy, University of the Sciences. The lecture is free and open to the public. Those attending should use Entrance D to access the auditorium.
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Submitted photo
A COMPACT elliptical device, such as the one shown here, is a way for those who work at a desk to keep moving during the day. Other researchers on this project were LeAnn Denlinger, Ellen Duveneck and Dr. Christopher Sciamanna, Department of Medicine, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center; Lan Kong, Department of Public Health Sciences; Andris Freivalds, Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Penn State; and Chester A. Ray, Department of Medicine, Penn State College of Medicine.
Mount Nittany to host ‘Life with Diabetes’ program STATE COLLEGE — Mount Nittany Medical Center will host two separate sessions as part of its “Life with Diabetes” program. The program has been recognized by the American Diabetes Association for quality self-management education. The spring sessions are as follows: n Mondays, Feb. 10 and Feb. 24, from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Mount Nittany Health Diabetes Network, 120 Radnor Road in State College n Tuesdays, April 8, 15, 22 and 29, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at Mount Nittany Medical Center, 1800 E. Park Ave. in State College The program is intended for individuals with diabetes, pre-diabetes and those at risk of getting diabetes. Instructors include registered dieticians, physical therapists and diabetes educators who will discuss ways to improve eating habits, promote weight loss, make lifestyle changes, adapt an exercise program, self monitor blood glucose and prevent long term complications. The cost to attend the class series is $40, which is due on the first day of class. Cost includes all educational classes plus a three-month follow-up class, blood tests as needed, class materials and supplies and snacks. A friend or family member may accompany at no extra charge. Registration is required by contacting Heather Harpster at (814) 231-7194 or [email protected]. Class size is limited.
To advertise in The Gazette, call (814) 238-5051 or email [email protected]
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January 30-February 5, 2014
PaGe 9
Cancer Institute selects Hohl as new director
HERSHEY — Dr. Raymond J. Hohl has been appointed director of Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute. Hohl holds the Holden Family Chair and is associate chair of the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, as well as associate director for clinical and translational research, Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Iowa. At Penn State Hershey, he will hold academic appointments as professor in the departments of Medicine and Pharmacology. Hohl received his medical degree from Rush Medical College, Rush University, and a docorate in pharmacology from Rush University. After completing a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in hematology/oncology at the University of Chicago, he joined the faculty of the University of Iowa College of Medicine in 1991 as an assistant professor of internal medicine. At Iowa, Hohl has held numerous leadership and administrative roles including serving as director of the divi-
sion of hematology, oncology, and blood and marrow transplantation and director of the fellowship program in hematology and oncology. His research leadership roles have been in both the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center and the University of Iowa’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Science. His patient care experience spans the breadth of hematology and medical oncology as well as clinical pharmacology. “Dr. Hohl is a gifted cancer physician and researcher, with a demonstrated commitment to training the next generation of clinicians and scientists who will treat and help find cures for cancer,� said Dr. Harold L. Paz, CEO of Penn State Hershey Medical Center and Health System, Penn State’s senior vice president for health affairs and dean, Penn State College of Medicine. “We are pleased that he has chosen to bring his comprehensive experience to Penn State Hershey and know that he will guide our Cancer Institute to new heights of patientcentered, research-focused excellence.�
Cygan named breast health navigator for the cancer program at Mount Nittany STATE COLLEGE — Mount Nittany Health has announced the addition of Angelique Cygan as the new breast health navigator for the cancer program at Mount Nittany Medical Center, funded in part by the Pennsylvania Pink Zone. Cygan, of Pleasant Gap, brings 21 years of nursing experience to the job, having spent the last three years with Home Nursing Agency in State College, where she provided coordination of services as a liaison to Mount Nittany Medical Center. Additionally, Cygan has thrived in the acute care and home health settings as well, having worked with area entities such as Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg and SUN Home Health Services in Northumberland. In her position as breast health navigator, Cygan will be responsible for removing
any barriers to care and ensuring timely access, treatment and follow-up for patients who are dealing with breast cancer. “Essentially, I am an advocate for our patients,� said Cygan. “Patients battling breast cancer need a strong support system, especially on the clinical front because it’s usually all new territory for them. I act as an educator, consultant and liaison, helping patients navigate their breast care journey.� This position is made possible due to funding from The Pennsylvania Pink Zone, of which Mount Nittany Health is a lead beneficiary. “The amazing year-round fundraising efforts of the Pennsylvania Pink Zone have allowed us to hire Angelique,� said Aileen Galley, cancer program administrative director.
Hohl’s research focuses on discovery and development of novel anticancer therapies. His work ranges from novel chemistry and basic laboratory studies to innovative human clinical trials. His research has been well-supported by grants from the NIH, Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, Department of Defense, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, American Institute for Cancer Research and other sources; in addition, he has been a principal investigator for many investigator-initiated clinical trials. He has published more than 100 peerreviewed articles and reviews and 12 book chapters, and served as associate editor for the text “Pharmacology and Therapeutics: Principles to Practice.� A reviewer for numerous journals, Hohl currently serves as associate editor for the Nature journal Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
and is on the editorial advisory board of Lipids. Hohl is an inventor for two key patents related to his research and is cofounder of a biotechnology company that is advancing these discoveries to human therapies. He has served in prominent leadership roles in professional groups including the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (board of directors, 2003-2006; president, 20102011) and the Iowa Oncology Society (vice president, 2004-2006; president, 20062008). In addition to his research, clinical and administrative accomplishments, Hohl has extensive experience teaching graduate, medical and other health sciences students in classroom and clinical settings. Hohl succeeds Dr. Wafik El-Deiry, who has served as interim Cancer Institute director since August 2013.
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Page 10
January 30-February 5, 2014
Penn State stays prepared for emergencies UNIVERSITY PARK — Recent events around the nation have brought the topic of campus safety to the forefront. At Penn State, this topic is always on the minds of campus police and those working in emergency management. “We take extensive efforts to promote a safe and secure place for learning, living and working on all of our campuses. The safety of students, faculty, staff and visitors to our university has been, and continues to be, a top priority,� said Steve Shelow, assistant vice president for police and public safety. “However, we do like to remind members of our community, some of whom are new since fall, that Penn State has a number of measures in place to enhance security. Everyone in the community should make themselves aware of what resources are available to them, so that they can be better prepared.� In the event of an emergency situation, the university community would be alerted through PSUTXT, which sends emergency notifications via text messaging and email. Those text messages also go to a Twitter feed, which can be followed at https://twitter.com/ psutxt online. Depending on the situation, information also would be posted to the university’s news website at http://news.psu.edu/ and the main home page at www.psu. edu online. Shelow noted that Penn State police are highly trained, and
that all police officers on the University Park campus have a bachelor’s degree or equivalent. In addition, they have completed a training course required of all municipal police officers in Pennsylvania. Some officers also receive 90 to 100 hours of in-service training each year and specialize in myriad areas including crime prevention, fingerprint technology, evidence technology, hazardous device technology, emergency first aid, CPR/AED, weapons and tactics. The University Park Police and Public Safety Office also is home to the Penn State Hazmat team that serves all of Centre County, and to Wynne and Rudie, the university’s two explosives detection canines. “We also work very closely with neighboring police departments in State College Borough and the surrounding townships, as well as with the Pennsylvania State Police,� said Tyrone Parham, chief of police at University Park. Parham said that University Police participate in an Intermunicipal Mutual Aid Agreement that authorizes police officers and supervisors of the participating agencies to request assistance for incidents based upon a reasonable belief that such aid will enhance safety for both the public and the officers. They also participate in joint training exercises and collaborate on pre-planned, large-scale events. “Those things are important,
because it means we all know one another and have worked together in non-emergency situations, which will make it easier to collaborate if there is an emergency,� Parham said. Information about police resources at other campuses can be found at www.police.psu.edu/ cwc-police/index.cfm online. In addition to police preparedness, the university works to educate students, faculty and staff about how to react in an emergency. “One key component is the importance of alerting authorities of suspicious activity. If you see something, say something,� Parham said. If there is an emergency situation, people should call 911. To reach University Park police to report suspicious activity in a non-emergency situation, call (814) 863-1111. This past summer, Penn State Public Media, in conjunction with University Police and Public Safety, filmed a new training video. The video will be shown to students, faculty and staff, providing the most up-to-date tactics for surviving an incident involving an individual on campus who is armed and dangerous. “A video like this is crucial for making our campus safer,� Shelow said when the video was being filmed. “It raises awareness for our faculty, staff and students as well as presents pre-plan options in case of an active shooter.� The video, to be released in
PATRICK MANSELL/Penn State University
THIS PAST SUMMER, Penn State Public Media, in conjunction with University Police and Public Safety, filmed a new training video showing the most up-todate tactics for surviving an incident involving an individual on campus who is armed and dangerous. the coming months, promotes additional lessons learned from law enforcement in the wake of shootings that occurred since the release in 2010 of Penn State’s inaugural “active shooter� safety video. The 2010 video was one of only a handful in the nation created by universities to alert their communities to potential dangers and potential survival tactics. “While universities are some of the safest places in the nation statistically for this type of vio-
lence, we felt it was important to share our knowledge on the topic with those we are here to protect and serve,� said Shelow. “Being prepared in an emergency really is key to staying out of harm’s way.� The new message is delivered through the acronym SAFE, which identifies the steps — in order — to follow during a shooting: n Search for a safe place. n Alert the authorities. n Find a place to hide. n End the threat.
CPI recognizes Hamer for contribution From Gazette staff reports
Mike Holtzinger, CPI instructor, noted, “When Mr. Hamer walked into the heavy equipment shop, he got just PLEASANT GAP — CPI held a recognition luncheon on as excited as the 15-year-old kids do when they walk in for Jan. 9 in honor of Don Hamer, who made a generous conthe first time.� tribution to the CPI Futures in Motion campaign. Hamer believes that CPI is a great resource for our Hamer, State of the Art Inc. founder and chairman, and community, and that investments in the CPI technical a strong supporter of technical training and education, programs have a direct, positive impact in our community. said, “When I found out what was going on at CPI, I could Hank Yeagley, CPI Joint Operating Committee chairhardly think of any other gift that has a better return.� man, commented, “We at CPI are very grateful that Mr. Hamer was taken on a private tour through the new CPI Hamer recognizes the vital importance of providing qualTransportation Training Center by Todd Taylor, director of ity technical education in the Centre Region.� adult and post-secondary education and David Van BusOthers joining the celebration included the Centre kirk, business and development director, to personally see County commissioners, the superintendent of record, the difference that his significant contribution is making. members of the CPI Joint Operating Committee, CPI Foundation Inc. board of directors, faculty and the administrative team. Business and community leaders Dan Hawbaker and 5ROOLQJ5LGJH'U Tom Songer, offered their sincere thanks to Hamer for his 6WDWH&ROOHJH3$ gift to CPI, too. CPI students in the culinary, horticulture, advertising arts and early childhood programs were also involved in making the event a success.
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DR. MARIANNE HAZEL, CPI post-secondary program manager, presents Don Hamer with a birthday cake as part of the recognition celebration. Richard Makin, CPI president, presented Hamer with a framed recognition plaque. Hamer was grateful, sharing his belief in the value of technical training and education. “This donation is getting an awful lot of bang for the buck,� Hamer joked.
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January 30-February 5, 2014
PaGe 11
Book nominations sought for Penn State Reads program By HEATHER HOTTLE Special to The Gazette
UNIVERSITY PARK — Readers from across the Penn State community are invited to submit book nominations for the 2015-16 Penn State Reads program. The program, launched in 2013, runs complementary to Penn State’s New Student Orientation and supplies each first-year University Park campus student with a copy of the chosen book to facilitate a shared experience. Several other Penn State campuses also are participating in a pilot of the program using the same text. Penn State Reads aims to encourage intellectual engagement within and beyond the classroom, stimulate critical thinking and foster a deeper connection to Penn State’s mission
and core values. Concepts are introduced to incoming students at New Student Orientation during the summer, and events based upon the book’s themes, including a visit by the author, are planned throughout the school year. All students, faculty and staff are encouraged to read the book and participate in the events. Book nominations for the 2015-16 school year can be sent to [email protected] and are due by Friday, Feb. 14. Anyone is welcome to make a submission. “We’re looking for a book that can engage the student body and help instill some of the core values of Penn State,” said Jacqueline Edmondson, associate vice president and associate dean for Undergraduate Education, who is co-chair with Barry Bram of Penn State Reads. “We were really
pleased with the nominations last year. They came from all across the university.” After nominations are received, the Penn State Reads steering committee will narrow the submissions to a short list then send out a call for volunteer readers to narrow the list to a final book. Anyone who would like to be a reader can volunteer by emailing [email protected] or by including a note when submitting book nominations. The Penn State Reads program is currently in its inaugural year with “Beautiful Souls: The Courage and Conscience of Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times,” by Eyal Press, serving as the common text. The book already has been integrated into many first-year seminars and other courses.
INTRODUCTION TO ART
Submitted photo
CENTRE COUNTY commissioner Michael Pipe gets a haircut from CPI cosmetology student Madison Strump, a senior from Penns Valley.
Bellefonte Intervalley Chamber of Commerce lunch held at CPI From Gazette staff reports PLEASANT GAP — CPI recently hosted a luncheon for the Bellefonte Intervalley Chamber of Commerce. With more than 40 community members in attendance, the event included lunch prepared by the CPI culinary program, as well as an overview of the CPI high school, CPI adult and post-secondary education, and the Centre County Public Safety Training Center programs. Rob Balsamo, Centre County Public Safety and Training Center coordinator said, “CPI has developed exceptional relationships with many of our local industries that have helped us advance our technical and educational training offerings.” CPI is grateful for the community support as it continues to grow to meet the needs of Central Pennsylvania businesses and industries. Participants chose from guided tours, CDL Simulator demonstrations in the Transportation Training Center, blood pressure screenings, and mini-manicures and minipedicures, as various CPI programs were highlighted. Gary Hoover, Bellefonte Intervalley Area Chamber of Commerce executive director said, “The Bellefonte Intervalley Area Chamber supports CPI as a vital community asset. We are proud of its achievements and wanted to give our members an opportunity to visit and be wowed — and they certainly were.”
Submitted photo
AS PART OF Grace Lutheran Preschool and Kindergarten’s afternoon Intro to the Arts class, church member Joan Denny, center, shared some of the church’s banners, many of which she crafted. Afterward, students touched scraps of fabric used for banner making, identifying letters and shapes. Each child was given a small handmade banner saying “Jesus Loves Me” to display at home.
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Page 12
The Centre County Gazette
January 30-February 5, 2014
Nursing faculty member receives funding for heart failure study By BEVERLY MOLNAR Special to The Gazette
UNIVERSITY PARK — Lisa Kitko, assistant professor of nursing at Penn State, has received a Beginning Grant-in-Aid from the American Heart Association Great Rivers Affiliate for her research on “Transitioning to the Terminal Phase of Heart Failure with an LVAD-DT in Place.� The $120,000 grant will fund Kitko’s research during 2014 and 2015. The purpose of the project is to identify the needs of patients with left ventricular assist devices (LVAD) at end of life and their family caregivers. “An LVAD has been shown to improve survival for those patients with Stage D heart failure and is now permanently im-
planted as a life-prolonging end-of-life treatment or destination therapy (DT),� Kitko said. “There is a growing body of evidence that these patients have improved length and quality of life. However, since this is an end-of-life treatLISA KITKO ment, the patient will die with the device in place. There is a shortage of research on the end-of-life experiences and needs of these patients and their caregivers, such as whether they would be amenable to pal-
liative care services or the experience of actively dying with an LVAD in place.� Kitko’s aims are to describe the experiences of these patient-caregiver pairs as they transition to the terminal phase of heart failure, identify their palliative care needs and identify specific events or needs that would trigger a palliative care referral or intervention. “This project has a high potential to make a significant impact on practice by providing a better understanding of these experiences and needs,� Kitko said. “We will be able to identify specific time periods when end-of-life services such as palliative care should be offered to best meet the needs of these patient-caregiver pairs. This new knowledge will guide palliative
care interventions designed to improve not only the life experience but the death experience as well.� Judith Hupcey, associate dean for graduate education and professor of nursing at Penn State, will serve as co-investigator. John Boehmer, assistant professor of medicine and surgery in the College of Medicine and director of heart failure services at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center’s Heart and Vascular Institute, will serve as a consultant. The objective of the American Heart Association’s Beginning Grant-in-Aid program is to promote the independent status of promising beginning scientists with a focus on research related to cardiovascular function and disease, stroke or related problems.
Christopher named Carey Memorial Early Career Professor in the Arts UNIVERSITY PARK — The first recipient of the College of Arts and Architecture’s Agnes Scollins Carey Memorial Early Career Professorship in the Arts plans to embark on an international opera venture with unique ties to Pennsylvania. Ted Christopher, assistant professor of music and artistic director of Penn State Opera Theatre, was selected for the three-year position based on his proposal for a collaborative production of a new opera based on the life and times of Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s librettist, who lived for a time in Sunbury, Pa. The goal of the endowed professorship, established by the children of Agnes Scollins Carey, is to help the College of Arts and Architecture compete for, support and
retain outstanding scholars and practitioners in the arts in the early stages of their careers. Recipients receive as much as $20,000 per year for three years to support innovative, groundbreaking research and creative activity. According to Andrew Schulz, associate dean for research in the College of Arts and Architecture, selecting one recipient from the many worthy nominations proved difficult. “Professor Christopher’s plans to commission and perform in a new opera is the kind of transformative endeavor that simply is not possible without the scale of support provided by the Carey Professorship,� he said. “The project will have a significant impact on Christopher’s professional profile, and on the opera program at
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Penn State. I can’t imagine a better way to launch the professorship.â€? The idea for the opera on Da Ponte’s life originated with Italian composer Roberto Andreoni, who visited Penn State in the fall and met with faculty members from the schools of music and theater, including Christopher. Andreoni proposed an opera/ performance art piece that would include digital, graphic and virtual elements, both in the design as well as the composition. “I was intrigued and inspired as a director/producer — one who collaborates closely on creative endeavors — and as a performer — Da Ponte is a figure I feel close to, having participated in multiple productions of all three of his Mozart operas: ‘Le Nozze di Figaro,’ ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘CosĂ fan tutte’,â€? Christopher wrote in his proposal. â€œâ€Ś The possibility of immersing myself in them, from this highly original angle, was too good to pass up.â€? When Christopher, who has been on the Penn State faculty since 2008, learned he was going to be nominated for the Carey Professorship, he asked Andreoni if he could turn his idea into a proposal for the purposes of his nomination packet. Christopher now has a creative team in place,
with a goal of a performance tour and symposiums related to the opera in the spring 2017 semester. The creative team includes Andreoni, who will compose the piece; Susan Russell, a playwright and associate professor of theater at Penn State, who will write the libretto; and Gerardo Edelstein, director of orchestral studies at Penn State, who will serve as music director. Christopher will serve as artistic director and perform the title role. The work will be scored for a small chamber ensemble and small cast of singers, to be selected from Penn State students. Da Ponte’s life journey had five locations: Venice, Vienna, London, New York City and Sunbury, where he managed a grocery store. Ultimately, Christopher hopes to perform the opera at Penn State University Park; Columbia University, where Da Ponte taught Italian; La Fenice in Venice; and Vienna, the city of Da Ponte’s greatest artistic triumphs. Composition of the work will take place through spring 2015, with workshop rehearsals and revisions during the 2015-16 academic year, final revisions during the fall 2016 semester, and performances and symposiums in spring 2017.
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PaGe 13
Boy Scouts compete in Klondike Derby By SAM STITZER [email protected]
SPRING MILLS — The 43rd annual Klondike Derby was held at the Seven Mountains Boy Scout Camp in Potter Township on Jan. 25. More than 600 scouts from many locations in Pennsylvania and Maryland brought 92 teams to compete in this year’s derby. The event is a competition between Boy Scout patrols pulling dog sleds to several stations located around the campground. Each station presents a task for the boys to complete while being judged on their skills, efficiency and teamwork. The adult judges are former Scouts and volunteers from the community. The sleds are manned by patrols of three to five boys in either the Scouts (Iditarod) class or the Webelos (Malamute) class. The sleds are started in groups of four Scout teams and four Webelos teams at a time. The boys spend several hours towing their equipment-laden sleds over the snow-covered camp grounds from station to station, completing their assigned tasks. The tasks include cooking breakfast, archery, skeet and rifle target shooting, first aid, portage (where the scouts have to carry their sleds through an obstacle course), and several others. The boys learn lessons in teamwork, leadership and working in cold weather. The derby is sponsored by the Juniata Boy Scouts Council, which includes Mifflin, Juniata, Huntingdon and Centre counties. Organizing this year’s Klondike Derby was Paul T. Fagley. Fagley’s father, the late Paul J. Fagley, was chairman of the event for 36 years. This was Paul T. Fagley’s 33rd year serving either as chairman or co-chairman of this popular event. He also was a participant in the third Klondike Derby as a Boy Scout in 1974. The Klondike Derby is the largest annual event held in the Seven Mountains Camp. Each year, the Klondike Derby has a theme. This year’s theme was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps, oper-
ated in the 1930s and early 1940s all across America. A CCC camp was built in nearby Poe Valley in 1933, and some of the Seven Mountains Boy Scout Camp’s buildings and access roads were built by the CCC enrollees. Guest speaker for the living history presentations held in the camp dining hall was John Eastlake, a retired Lycoming County forester. Since his retirement, Eastlake has extensively researched the CCC camps once located in Pennsylvania, collecting many vintage documents, photos and information. In his presentation, Eastlake noted the CCC program’s beginning in 1933, established at the urging of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to the enormous unemployment among young men during the Great Depression. The camps were established in all 48 states and U.S. territories to employ America’s young men in conservation-oriented projects as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal program. They were run by the U.S. Army in a military style, with men living in barracks and having their work and activities structured by officers of the CCC program. The enrollees’ pay was $30 per month, with $25 of the money being sent home to their dependents and families each month. “Gen. MacArthur didn’t like them when they started,” said Eastlake. “But when the war broke out, he loved them. Men coming out of those camps were physically conditioned and well prepared for military life during the war.” Eastlake noted the work performed by the CCC, which included building dams, fire towers, roads and many other forestryoriented projects. He said that many of the young men joined the CCC because they were hungry. “The saying was ‘three hots and a cot’,” said Eastlake, referring to the daily meals and comfortable place to sleep that were provided to enrollees. Eastlake showed slides of photos taken at the camps, showing the men’s daily activities and work projects. He noted that some buildings
SAM STITZER/For The Gazette
MEMBERS OF Webelos Pack 88 of Millheim wait their turn to start the Klondike Derby. from the camps are still standing in good condition today. Following the CCC camp theme, some of the scouts’ activity stations featured forestry-oriented tasks. One station required scouts to identify various species of trees, and another station had scouts working two-man saws to cut through logs. Scouts worked in pairs to try to cut their logs in less than five minutes. Shouts of “pull, pull” by Scout leaders pierced the frosty air, followed by cheers and applause when the slices of lumber finally dropped from the logs. At the cooking station, the air was thick with the smells of wood smoke and burned sausage, as the boys cooked up hearty breakfasts over hot coals from a large bonfire, which also helped to take the chill off
Safe Place program an important resource for young people By VANESSA BARONNER Special to The Gazette
Safe Place is a nationally recognized youth outreach program that educates thousands of young people every year about the dangers of running away or trying to resolve difficult, threatening situations on their own. The Safe Place mission is “to provide access to immediate help and supportive resources for all young people in crisis through a network of sites sustained by qualified agencies, trained volunteers and businesses.” This is done by creating a network within communities that provides safe places for youth in crisis. Safe Place locations consist of businesses, libraries, YMCAs, fire stations, public transit and any other public buildings in the community. Youth experience all kinds of difficult situations and need a safe place to work through their problems. Within our community, we have the Youth Service Bureau’s emergency teen shelter, the Burrowes Street Youth Haven. The Centre County area now has more than 20 Safe Place sites that directly connect young people to the
teen shelter. This shelter is a safe alternative for youth who may be in a dangerous situation or who have been asked to leave their homes. Youth who need immediate assistance can go to any location that has the yellow and black Safe Place signs. They can also use the “text for help” program. By texting the word “Safe” and a current location to 69866, youth will receive the closest Safe Place location. The Safe Place location then connects with the local Safe Place agency, in this case, the Youth Service Bureau. Agency staff help youth and their families receive the help and referrals they may need. This system provides immediate assistance to youth who may not have the support they need. Safe Place help is free and confidential and information is provided to youth through educational presentations, peers and social media. Safe Place provides an opportunity for businesses to take an active role in helping the youth in our community. Youth are more likely to seek out help from familiar places that they
the 12-degree winter air. Cooking judge Dan Durachko explained that the boys received a zero to 100 point score based on several factors, including having a prepared menu, tending fires properly, bagging all garbage and full patrol participation. At the skeet shooting station, all Scouts were carefully supervised by adult leaders as they fired single-shot 20-gauge shotguns at clay pigeons. The Scout teams received scores based on the number of hits they scored. Fagley said that even though the boys’ activities are judged, that doesn’t mean it’s highly competitive. “The derby is not primarily a competition,” he said. “Kids love to be challenged. They come here knowing they’ll be challenged. That’s why it’s so successful.”
Puddle Jumpers scheduled STATE COLLEGE — Puddle Jumpers, a nature play program for preschoolers, will take place from 9 a.m. to noon beginning Tuesday, Feb. 4, at Millbrook Marsh Nature Center in State College. The twice-a-week program, held on Tuesdays and Thursdays, offers three-hour sessions of nature play for kids ages 3 to 5, including unstructured, imaginative play and structured, nature-based, hands-on learning. Kids should bring a snack each day and dress for the weather. The sessions are: Tuesday, Feb. 4, through Thursday, Feb. 27; Tuesday, March 4, through Thursday, March 27, omitting March 11; and Tuesday, April 1, through Thursday, April 24. For more information or to register, call (814) 231-3071.
Tyrone Elks to host dinner recognize or go to on a regular basis. Becoming a Safe Place is easy. All training and supplies are supplied by the Youth Service Bureau. Visit the website, www.ccysb.com, for the list of all the current Safe Place locations. Safe Place Week is Sunday, March 16, through Saturday, March 22. Look for the YSB Bee BUZZ at various Safe Place locations within the area. Vanessa Baronner is the director of the Burrowes Street Youth Haven, which is a part of the Centre County Youth Service Bureau.
TYRONE — The Tyrone Elks Lodge will host its second annual spaghetti dinner and dance to benefit Footsteps for Heather and The National MS Society from 5 to 11 p.m. on Saturday, March 22, at 5496 E. Pleasant Valley Blvd. There will be all-you-can-eat spaghetti with meatballs, salad, rolls and dessert, as well as Chinese auction prizes donated by local merchants. DJ Brad Foust will provide music. Tickets in advance are $8 for adults and $4 for children. Tickets at the door are $9 for adults and $5 for children. Children under 3 eat for free. Takeout is available. For advance tickets, call (814) 6927511 or (814) 933-7534.
To advertise in The Gazette, call (814) 238-5051 or email [email protected]
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The CenTre CounTy GazeTTe
January 30-February 5, 2014
Common ground sought at farming conference From Gazette staff reports MILLHEIM — Farmers, doctors and other members of the sustainable agriculture community are set to explore the relationship between healthy people and healthy farms at the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture’s (PASA) 23rd annual Farming for the Future Conference, scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 5, through Saturday, Feb. 8, at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel in State College. The main conference opening session, scheduled for 10:15 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 7, and sponsored by Lady Moon Farms, features a keynote address from Dr. Daphne Miller, family physician, associate professor in the department of family medicine at the University of California San Francisco, and author of “Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us About Health and Healing.” “Agriculture has everything to do with medicine,” Miller said in a recent interview with The Guardian. “In fact, I’ve come to see the divisions between the two disciplines as mostly artificial and arbitrary, and am now convinced that a farm internship should be a required part of medical training, and vice versa.” Miller’s keynote will elaborate on the conclusions she presents in “Farmacology,” a book that collects the ideas she developed after traveling to seven family farms around the country, conversing with researchers and treating patients in her own medical practice. “My time spent learning from farmers and researchers has made me think beyond food as medicine to farm
as medicine,” she said. “I’ve learned how healthy soil can produce a healthy immune system, how microbes on the farm can communicate with our resident microbes — our microbiome — how certain grazing practices can produce food that stress-proofs our nervous system, how the terroir in which an herb is grown can influence its medicinal value, or how inner-city farming delivers unexpected health benefits to the surrounding community.” After Miller’s keynote address, the conversation will continue during a full slate of workshops organized around the topic of health, including “The Mighty Microbiome” with Jerry Brunetti of Agri-Dynamics, “Homeopathy & Natural Healthcare: Tools for the Farm & Family” with PASA’s Susan Beal, “Current Research: Residential Proximity to High-density Livestock Production and MRSA Infection” with Joan Casey of Johns Hopkins University, a Q&A session with Miller, and many others. “We have always known that sustainable farming is important not only for environmental health, but the health of our people as well,” says Brian Snyder, PASA’s executive director. “It will be exciting to explore this relationship even further at this conference.” Now in its third decade, Farming for the Future has grown into one of the largest and most respected gatherings on sustainable agriculture in the country. It is a multiday affair comprising intensive pre-conference tracks, two plenary sessions and more than 100 main conference workshops. Registration is open to the public. To register and to view a full schedule of conference programming, visit www.pasafarming.org/conference.
Farmland Preservation art will be on display
CHRIS MORELLI/Gazette file photo
THE CENTRE COUNTY YMCA will play host to several dances to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
YMCA to host Valentine’s day dances STATE COLLEGE — A variety of Valentine’s Day dances hosted by area YMCAs will be held around the area. The events will feature dancing, crafts and sweet treats. Registration is recommended for all dances. Dates and locations are as follows: n From 3 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 8, at the Bellefonte YMCA. This event is a family dance. n From 4 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 8, at the Philipsburg Elks Country Club, hosted by the Moshannon Valley YMCA. This event is a daddy/daughter dance. n From 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 9, at the Ramada Inn in State College, hosted by the State College YMCA. This event is a daddy/daughter dance. For more information, visit www.ymcaofcentrecounty. org.
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STATE COLLEGE — “Preserving the Past for the Future,” featuring the work of the Farmland Preservation Artists of Central Pennsylvania (FPA), will be on display through Monday, March 31, at the Village at Penn State, 260 Lion Hill Road, State College. A public reception will take place at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 6, at the Village. FPA members Susan Nicholas Gephart and Kim Gates Flick will also give a talk, “The History of the Farmland Preservation Artists,” that day. The FPA is a group of 17 artists dedicated in promoting the appreciation and preservation of the farmland in our area through the visual arts. The artists use in a variety of media, including acrylic, oil, watercolor, soft pastel and photography. The FPA was formed in 2005 in partnership with the Art Alliance of Central Pennsylvania and the Centre County Farmland Trust. Several shows are mounted throughout the year and a percentage of the art sales go to the Farmland Trust, the Art Alliance and the host venue. Current active and associate artist members are R. Thomas Berner, Sean Bodley, Kim Gates Flick, Holly Fritchman, Jill Foster, Marianne Fyda, Susan Nicholas Gephart, Betty Gobeille, Anne Kenyon, Cinda Kostyak, Karl Leitzel, Jeff Mathison, Pat McDannel, Barb Pennypacker, Jennifer Shuey, Milt Trask and Denise Wagner. Elizabeth Kirchner is the founder of the organization. For more information, visit www.farmlandpreservationartists.org.
Youth Fair set for Feb. 1 STATE COLLEGE — The Summer Youth Fair, sponsored by State College Area School District Community Education, will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 1, at Mount Nittany Middle School. The snow date is from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 2. A variety of area youth program representatives will be on hand. For more information, visit www.scasd.org.
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DR. DAPHNE MILLER will be the keynote speaker at the 23rd annual Farming for the Future Conference.
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DURING THE holiday season, Bellefonte Elks Lodge No. 1094 volunteers, under the direction of lodge officer John Rockey, assembled 105 Christmas food boxes to deliver to community families who needed assistance. These families were identified through the Bellefonte Faith Centre. The food boxes included items needed for a full Christmas dinner, including turkey, stuffing, potatoes, vegetables, rolls and fresh fruit.
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Page 16
MORELLI: THE BRONCOS WILL WIN
ROTHDEUTSCH: THE SEAHAWKS WILL WIN
A
s a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, it’s been a rough couple of years. Since Super Bowl XLIII, Steeler Nation hasn’t had much to cheer about. Sure, the Steelers made it to Super Bowl XLV, but lost to the Packers. As a fan, nothing is more painful than losing a Super Bowl. You get excited for football season in July, when training camp begins. You suffer through four painful preseason games. Once the regular season arrives, you cheer on your team week in and week out, hoping it is able to punch its ticket to the postseason. In the postseason, you sit on the edge of your seat as your team tries to earn a berth in the greatest spectacle in all of sports — the Chris Morelli is the Super Bowl. managing editor of One game. A The Centre County Gazette. Email him chance for immortalat editor@centre ity. Millions watching. countygazette.com. And then … your team loses. The winners get the glory, a trophy, rings and a parade. And what do the losers get? Nothing. No one remembers the losers. There’s an old saying that second place is the first loser. Heck, I’d rather have my team not go. Go there and lose? No thanks. It’s too painful. Denver Broncos fans know what it’s like. The first four times they went to the Super Bowl, the Broncos came back empty-handed. It was only in the late 1990s that they were able to capture the Lombardi Trophy. Back-to-back titles over the Green Bay Packers and Atlanta Falcons earned John Elway’s squad a pair of rings and a guaranteed spot for No. 7 in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Now, the Broncos are back. Under the guidance of Peyton Manning, they steamrolled their way through the regular season, earning the top seed in the AFC. A close call against the San Diego Chargers (24-17) and a win over Manning’s rival Tom Brady and New England in the AFC Championship game (26-16) sent the Broncos to New York for Super Bowl XLVIII, which will likely be the coldest Super Bowl ever. The Broncos enter the game as a 2½ -point favorite. Makes sense to me. The Broncos should be favored. They are, after all, the better team. Look, I’m an AFC guy. Unless it’s New England or Baltimore, I’m cheering for the AFC in this game. The Broncos will win this game — and here’s why: n Peyton Manning. Let’s face it — Manning has underachieved in the postseason. Coming into this season, he was just 9-11
CHRIS MORELLI
Centre
in the postseason. He’s now 11-11 — .500. He’s also 1-1 in the Super Bowl. Had the Colts not played the Bears in Super Bowl XLI, he might be 0-2. He needs this ring to cement his legacy as one of the all-time greats. He knows it. The Broncos know it. The nation knows it. No way he is coming home empty-handed. n Orange Crush. In the 1970s, Denver’s fierce defense was known as the Orange Crush, also the name of a popular soda. Those Broncos would manhandle teams. However, the Bronco offense was pathetic and they made just one Super Bowl, losing to Dallas in Super Bowl XII, 27-10. This Denver defense is a different animal, for sure. However, there are plenty of playmakers. Cornerback Champ Bailey is hungry for his first ring. The Denver defense shut down Philip Rivers and Tom Brady in back-to-back games. It should have no problem doing the same to Russell Wilson. n The weather. It’s been said that Manning is not a cold weather quarterback, that all those years playing under a dome in Indianapolis made him soft. It says here that couldn’t be further from the truth. He played in some poor weather conditions during the past two seasons. He’s ready for this. The wild card might be the wind, but the Broncos running backs — Knowshon Moreno and Montee Ball — aren’t a couple of stiffs. Sleet, snow or wind, Manning will deal with it. n The mission. As a Steelers fan, I’ve suffered through some brutal playoff losses. There are too many to list here. But as I watched last year’s divisional game between Denver and Baltimore, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Baltimore had no business winning that game. I’m certain this will anger Ravens fans, but face it — your win in Denver last season was a fluke. Should not have happened. But it did. This year, the Broncos were on a mission to make certain they would not squander home field like they did last year. Denver, without a doubt, wants this game bad. n The opponent. Look, Seattle is the best team in the NFC, but it’s hardly a powerhouse. I believe that if you take the Seahawks away from their home field and the 12th man, they are a very average team. With that in mind, they will come up empty, just like they did against the Steelers in Super Bowl XL. Super Bowl XLVIII won’t be quite as enjoyable as that one — at least not for me — but at least the Seahawks will keep it closer this time around. Morelli’s prediction: Broncos 28, Seahawks 24.
ED ANDRIESKI/AP Photo
THERE’S QUITE a bit at stake for Peyton Manning in Super Bowl XLVIII. He’s trying to right the wrongs of last season and earn his second championship ring.
T
he general perception is that most Super Bowls are, if not outright disappointing, at least much less exciting than expected. The fact is, though, that only two of the last 10 Super Bowl games were settled by more than six points, and the last three games — Packers over the Steelers, Giants over the Patriots, and Ravens over the 49ers — were all very exciting and competitive until the very last minutes. This year’s matchup in Super Bowl XLVIII has the potential to be as exciting as all of those or more. The Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks were in the Super Bowl discussions all season, and both weathered difficult conference championship games to make it to the big dance. Now the question is, who’s going to take the Lombardi Trophy home? Denver has Peyton Manning, weapons galore, the No. 1 offense in the NFL in almost every category, and has been installed as a close favorite. But I still think it will be Seattle, probably with its defense and probably in the final seconds, that will survive with the win. Here’s why: n Seattle’s defense. The Seahawk defense has been the best in the NFL this season and it is the primary reason that Seattle is in this game. The Seahawks are extremely aggressive, and they have what it takes to harass Manning in the pocket and not let him get too comfortable. If Manning can stand around and look for second and third receivers to come open, look out. Seattle’s secondary and tight coverages will not let that happen, however, and Manning will have much tighter windows in which to throw. In addition, the Seahawks had 44 sacks this season, 18 fumble recoveries and 28 interceptions. In all, 10 different players had interceptions for Seattle in 2013, led by Richard Sherman with eight. As a team, Seattle had a +20 turnover ratio this season. n Seattle’s running game. Yes, Denver had the No. 1 defense in the league this
postseason, and it was eighth overall during the regular season, giving up an average of less than 100 yards per game. And Seattle is primarily a running team with Marshawn Lynch running for 1,267 yards and 12 touchdowns this season. This looks like a clear advantage for Denver, and it would be if it wasn’t for Russell Wilson. Wilson was Seattle’s second highest rusher this season with 539 yards on 96 attempts and he creates another dimension for the Seattle offense. Denver relentlessly rushed Tom Brady two weeks ago, giving him little time to throw, Pat Rothdeutsch is but the Broncos will a sports writer for The Centre County have to be much more Gazette. E-mail careful with Wilson him at sports@ or they’ll find him centrecounty running for big gains gazette.com rather than passing for them. If Lynch gets close to 100 yards and if Seattle can control the ball at all and keep Manning, et al., on the bench, it will be a big advantage for the Hawks. n Turnovers. As mentioned before, the Seahawks were +20 in turnover ratio this season, but the Broncos were even. They gave it up as much as they took it away. In the playoffs, turnovers are critical, and statistically at least, Seattle is more likely to win that battle. Even a +1 in a game like this could be critical, and a +2 could be decisive. Advantage Seattle. n They played before. Yes, in the preseason. I know that preseason games do not mean much, but that game was a blowout, 40-10. And Manning did play. He was 11-16 for 163 yards, but Denver could not stop Seattle and Manning left the game in the second quarter with the Seahawks ahead, 27-7. n The weather. It’s going to be cold, and it might be very cold. Manning has not been known to be an exceptional badweather player, and if it’s cold, or windy, or snowy, or all of the above, it could be more of a problem for Denver than Seattle. I don’t see Denver being able to fall back onto its running game if it can’t pass. Rothdeutsch’s prediction: Seattle builds a modest lead and then holds on in the final minute to preserve the win. Seahawks 26, Broncos 23.
PAT ROTHDEUTSCH
ELAINE THOMPSON/AP Photo
WILL SECOND-YEAR quarterback Russell Wilson be able to lead the Seattle Seahawks to their first Super Bowl title?
Spread
The Centre County Gazette
Page 17
With Super Sunday right around the corner, The Gazette asked readers to submit their favorite recipes for the big game. Here are a few of the highlights:
Super Pasta Salad Submitted by Laura Miller Ingredients: One bag of “Wacky Mac” pasta One large tomato One cucumber One small bottle zesty Italian dressing (any brand) McCormick’s Salad Supreme seasoning
RECIPES
Directions: Boil the pasta. Slice cucumbers and tomatoes into small pieces. Combine pasta, cucumbers and tomatoes in a large bowl. Toss with salad dressing. Season with McCormick’s salad supreme to taste. Enjoy!
Frontier Venison Jerky
Spinach-Artichoke Dip
Submitted by Carrie Sotak Important note: Using 1 pound of venison will result in 1/4 pound of venison jerky when using this recipe.
Submitted by Robbin Zirkle This is a lightened up version of classic spinach-artichoke dip, but you wouldn’t know it based on the taste! It’s warm and decadent, and is excellent with vegetables, bread, crackers or over a baked potato.
Ingredients: 1 lb. of venison 1 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper 1 tsp. garlic powder 2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce 2 tbsp. liquid smoke Directions: Cut venison into strips about 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch thick and about 8 inches long. Combine all of the ingredients except the venison in a small bowl; mix well. Next, layer the venison strips in a casserole dish, while spooning on the marinade mixture, covering the venison well. Place plastic wrap tightly over the casserole dish and let it stand in the refrigerator for six to 12 hours or overnight, mixing the venison with a spoon a couple of times in the marinade. Place wooden toothpicks through each strip of venison and dry by hanging the venison strips on upper oven rack. Lay foil on the bottom of the oven to catch any drips from the marinade. Set oven to cook on its absolute lowest setting and place an oven mitt or a kitchen towel in between the door and the over, so that the oven door stays slightly ajar. (This is important to dry the meat properly.) Do not leave the oven unattended as you cook your jerky, and periodically check the jerky to prevent over drying. (Cutting all of the venison in strips of similar thickness will help ensure that the strips dry evenly, but some strips may still dry quicker than others and may need to be removed earlier than others. This is a perfect time for sampling them.) Let the strips cool down as they are taken out of the oven. Put strips in a jar or seal them in a plastic bag. Be warned, they may all be eaten immediately, as this will be the best jerky that you have ever tried!
Ingredients: 16 oz. package frozen chopped spinach 1 can quartered artichoke hearts 8 oz. package neufchatel cheese 1 cup part-skim mozzarella 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese 6 oz. container plain nonfat Greek yogurt Garlic powder, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning to taste Directions: Allow spinach to thaw completely in a colander. Drain artichoke hearts and chop into smaller pieces. Melt neufchatel in microwave for 45 seconds. Stir and allow to cool. Mix everything together, including spices, with either a sturdy spoon or a hand mixer. Bake 20 to 30 minutes at 350 degrees until warmed through, but not dried out.
Rotel Cups Submitted via Facebook Makes 45 cups
Ingredients: 1 can Rotel, drained 1 bag bacon pieces 1 cup shredded Swiss cheese 1 cup mayonnaise 3 packages of phyllo pastry cups, thawed Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the first four ingredients and scoop evenly into the cups. Place on baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes.
Sports
Defense does the job
Penns Valley stifles rival Bellefonte in Mountain League clash By PAT ROTHDEUTSCH [email protected]
BELLEFONTE — Penns Valley’s offense may not have been at top efficiency at Bellefonte on Friday night, but its defense sure was. The Rams’ quick, double-teaming manto-man held Bellefonte to 2 points in the first quarter and 10 points at the half as Penns Valley then steadily pulled away for a 50-32 victory. The win was Penns Valley’s 13th against one loss (to Tyrone) this season, and it left the Rams in sole possession of first place in the Mountain League with a record of 8-1. Sophomore, 6-6 center Zach Engle scored 10 points in the first half to lead PV out to a 25-10 lead, and then athletic senior Luke Weaver took over and scored eight of his 12 points the second half as the Rams closed out the Red Raiders. Bellefonte did make a run in the third quarter that closed the lead to 10 points, 29-19, but then Logan Johnson, Ben Alexander, Weaver, and Engle led a 10-0 PV run that ended the quarter with the Rams comfortably ahead 39-19. “That’s how we set the tone early on with our defense,” Penns Valley coach Terry Glunt said, “and made it extremely difficult for them to run their sets. But they’ve (Bellefonte) been running really well lately, so I was pleased with that aspect. “I thought that we had some uncharacteristic turnovers in the second quarter that we had to shore up. The second half we just came out and tried to hold serve and get through here with the win, which we did.” At first, the game looked like it might
TIM WEIGHT/For The Gazette
PENNS VALLEY’S Luke Weaver takes a shot while Bellefonte’s Evan Wian (5) defends on the play during Friday night’s game at Bellefonte Area High School. The Rams won the game, 50-32. turn into a blowout. Penns Valley scored the first 11 points in the opening quarter, and the Raiders did not get on the board until Andy Stover hit a jump shot with just 39 seconds left.
PV’s dominance continued into the second quarter, and when Engle nailed a short jump shot at the four-minute mark, the Rams had a commanding 17-2 lead. Bellefonte started having some success
in the latter stages of the quarter as Nick Leiter, Mitch Grasser, and Evan Wian all scored in the last three minutes. Penns Valley, however, still led by 15 going into the locker rooms. “It’s always hard to play here (at Bellefonte),” Weaver said. “The gym, atmosphere, it’s a big game. We had to come out with a punch and we did. “The defense clamped down, and we had a lot of opportunities to get out and run, so that was pretty good.” Bellefonte carried some of the momentum it built in the latter stages of the second quarter into the second half. Wian and Mitch Grasser led a 9-4 run that brought the Red Raiders to within 10 at 29-19. But that was as close as the Raiders would get. Penns Valley responded with a basket by Logan Johnson and two scores by Weaver that made it 35-19, and then by the end of the quarter, it was 39-19 and PV was cruising. “They were definitely putting a lot more pressure on us in the second half than they did in the first,” Engle said, “but we worked through it. It was definitely a fight out there. “We’re doing well as a team right now, both offensively and defensively.” Engle ended the night with 13 points, and Weaver added 12. Alexander chipped in with eight for the Rams while Jackson and Alexander each had five. For Bellefonte, Wian led the way with nine points, followed by Grasser with seven and Stover and Leiter both with four. Next up for Penns Valley is a trip to Central followed by home games against Huntingdon, Cambria Heights and BEA. Bellefonte stays home to play Moshannon Valley and Philipsburg-Osceola.
Lady Lions throttle Golden Gophers By PAT ROTHDEUTSCH [email protected]
UNIVERSITY PARK — The No. 13 Penn State women’s basketball team made it four in a row with Sunday afternoon’s 83-53 trampling of Minnesota at the BJC. That’s four wins in a row, yes, but just as important, Minnesota was the fourth straight Lady Lion opponent that failed to score more than 54 points against the Lions’ improving defense. Since their 84-74 loss to Purdue on Jan. 12, the Lions have taken out Ohio State, 6642, Michigan State, 66-54, Indiana, 65-52, and now, Minnesota. Minnesota actually came into the game as the Big Ten’s best 3-point shooting team, one of the conference’s best shooting teams overall, and with the leading scorer in the conference in guard Rachael Banham. Banham did get her points (she had 25), but no one else for the Lady Golden Gophers did. Beside Banham, only one other Minnesota player scored in the first half, and the Gophers did not hit their first 3-pointer until midway through the second half. Meanwhile, the Penn State trio of Maggie Lucas (25 points), Dara Taylor (15 points, 10 assists), and Ariel Edwards (16) led the Lady Lions out to a 22-point, 44-22 lead at the half, a margin they largely held onto for the rest of the game. “Our focus coming into this game was that we needed to guard them (Minnesota),” Penn State coach Coquese Washington said. “They are a great 3-point shoot-
ing team, and you can’t give great shooters easy, open looks. So our focus was to be there when they caught the ball and not give them good looks. “I thought we did a good job of forcing them off the 3-point line and just not giving them good looks.” As Minnesota’s offense, especially in the first half, was centered on Banham, Penn State was far more balanced. Banham scored 14 of her points before the break, and the only other Gopher to score in the half was Kayla Hirt, who had eight. Six different players scored for Penn State in the first half, led by Lucas with 15, Taylor with 10, and Edwards with nine. In the second half, with 6-5 center Amanda Zahui, who scored all 16 of her points in after the break, beginning to assert herself in the paint, Minnesota was able to close to within 17 points, 59-42, at the 12:30 mark, but that was as close as the Gophers would come. “I think to start off,” Lucas said, “we got some great stops that let us get out into transition early, and as the game went on they started to send people back. “I thought we had great ball movement, and everyone got involved. And we cut down on turnovers, which I thought was huge for us.” After Minnesota’s run, baskets by 6-5 junior Tori Waldner, Lucas, and 6-3 freshman Alex Harris boosted Penn State’s margin back up to 23 points and then up to 28 points by the 6:00 minute mark after another layup by Harris. From there, substituting freely, Penn State was able to run out the clock for its
TIM WEIGHT/For The Gazette
PENN STATE’S Ariel Edwards (23) defends while Minnesota’s Rachel Banhan (1) sets up the Golden Gopher offense during Sunday’s game at the Bryce Jordan Center. 15th victory of the season and 6th in the Big Ten. “It opens up the floor for everybody, especially Maggie (Lucas),” Washington said, “when we have other people scoring. It gives everyone on the team more confidence. “We have a lot of confidence in each other, but, like I said, we are a work in progress. We are learning what our team is,
how we need to execute, how we’re developing as the season goes along. “I think when we get contributions from everybody, and everyone starts to feel confident in their role, it’s a really good place for us to be.” Next up for Penn State is Purdue, the team that stirred up the Lady Lions, in a big conference matchup tonight in West Lafayette.
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January 30-February 5, 2014
The Centre County Gazette
Page 19
Megaludis avenges NCAA finals loss in a big way UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State 125-pounder Nico Megaludis sat slumped at a table in the front of the Rec Hall media room Friday night, hands folded in front of him, a frown creasing his face. For those who hadn’t just witnessed the No. 1 Nittany Lions’ 31-3 demolition of No. 11 Illinois, they might have thought Megaludis’ demeanor meant he was responsible for Penn State’s only loss. He wasn’t; far from it. Second-ranked Megaludis gave the Nittany Lions their biggest win of the night, a 5-4 decision Andy Elder of fourth-ranked decovers Penn State fending NCAA chamwrestling for The pion Jesse Delgado in Centre County a rematch of the pair’s Gazette. Email 2013 NCAA finals him at sports@ bout. centrecounty While the win will gazette.com. be important for seeding at the Big Ten, and possibly, NCAA tournaments, it didn’t accomplish Megaludis’ ultimate goal. “I want to do it when it matters,’’ Megaludis said. “He took what I wanted and there’s not a day that passes I don’t think about that. I’ve been waiting for 10 months for it, but bigger things are yet to come. I’ll enjoy it more in March. Let’s put it that way.” The first period was a mirror image of the NCAA title tilt. Megaludis was on the offensive and Delgado used his superior athleticism to defend. The period ended with no score. Megaludis chose bottom to start the second and wasted little time in scoring a reversal, sitting out and coming around behind Delgado for two. Delgado quickly escaped and then the match got interesting. Megaludis got in on a single and a scramble ensued. With the Nittany Lion in nearly a full split, Delgado countered by trying to lock up a cradle, just as he had in a decisive five-point move in the national final. “When I felt it, I’m not going to lie, I almost did have a flashback and I remembered what he did and where I was,” Megaludis said. This time he slipped his head free and eventually reached across for Delgado’s other leg and was awarded a takedown. The Illinois coaches protested and requested a video review. Referees J.R. Johnson and Jim Rivello reviewed the sequence and awarded Delgado an escape. The period ended with Megaludis ahead, 4-2. Delgado chose bottom to start the third period and scored a reversal to tie the match. With 55 seconds left, Megaludis spun free to go ahead 5-4. Neither wrestler could score the rest of the way and the match ended with Megaludis the winner. The sellout crowd of 6,480 roared its approval as Megaludis had his hand raised and sprinted off the mat and past coach Cael Sanderson. “I was just trying to get out of his way,’’ Sanderson said, “and I failed. He just about knocked me over. I try not to get in his way after a match. He’s a passionate, focused individual.’’ Megaludis’ win sparked the crowd and
ANDY ELDER
the rest of the Nittany Lions. Penn State won nine of 10 bouts and amassed a 20-2 edge in takedowns. No. 2 Zain Retherford (141), No. 1 David Taylor (165) and No. 2 Ed Ruth (184) all racked up major decisions. Zack Beitz (149), No. 4 Dylan Alton (157), No. 7 Morgan McIntosh and Jon Gingrich (285) all posted decisions. Penn State missed out on marquee matchups at 141 and 197 when two of Illinois’ highest ranked wrestlers were out of the lineup. “Nico got things rolling there, but they had some good kids fill in. It’s not something we can worry about and complain about. It’s a tough sport. I think all of their guys are taped up. That’s no fun. I’m sure they’re not too happy about that but we still have a lot of time before the Big Tens for everyone to get healthy.” “I think we wrestled OK. We wrestled well in some matches. I think we need a little more urgency. That’s a tough team. They’re very tricky. They’re masters of rolling under and catching those ankles. It seemed like every one of their guys did that. It’s obviously something we need to spend some time working on, but you have seven minutes. We want to use every second and put on a show. Every match is a piece of art. I don’t feel like we used every second of all our matches tonight.” No. 15 133-pounder Jimmy Gulibon used seven minutes, and then some. His match with No. 11 Zane Richards was tied 1-1 at the end of regulation. Richards, though, scored a takedown with 27 seconds left in the sudden victory period for a 3-1 overtime win. That continued a streak of bouts where Gulibon has seemingly failed to live up to his immense potential. “He’s so good. It’s all in there. It’s just a matter of just letting it go,” Sanderson said. “I’m pretty optimistic after tonight. His reaction after the match was good. That’s a huge step back for him, for him going out there and competing like he’s capable of. I think we’ll see a little more out of Jimmy the next little while.” Retherford couldn’t have wrestled much better in his 15-3 major decision over Illini backup John Fahy. He was subbing in for No. 8 Steven Rodriguez. Retherford improved his record to 21-0. At 149, Zack Beitz got the nod again in favor of last year’s starter, Andrew Alton, and James English. Beitz executed a late reversal to pull off a 4-2 upset of No. 19 Caleb Ervin. “I’m very happy with the way he’s competing and I’m very comfortable with the way he’s competing. I think he’s leading the charge without any question right now,” Sanderson said of Beitz. “We have a little tricky situation at that weight class with James English, who is very good, just trying to get healthy, and then also I’m seeing Andrew Alton with his potential. He’s also trying to get back to 100 percent.” At 157, Dylan Alton used two takedowns and an escape for a solid 5-2 win over No. 12 Zac Brunson. Next up was Taylor, who despite rallying late for a major decision, uncharacteristically gave up an escape and a takedown and was then ridden for 1:34. He rallied to score a reversal and two sets of 2-point nearfall points for an 11-3 major of No. 12 Jackson Morse. “I don’t know what David was doing. I was trying to figure that out, too. I think he maybe got frustrated or something, just hanging out there. I know he’s not happy
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TIM WEIGHT/For The Gazette
NICO MEGALUDIS, shown here in action against Northwestern’s Garrison White, avenged his NCAA loss with a 5-4 win over Illinois’ Jesse Delgado on Friday night. with performance, and he shouldn’t be,” Sanderson said. “You don’t just sit there with your head down. That’s not him. A little uncharacteristic, I think. I don’t think you’ll see that again. I don’t think he’s happy with that and we aren’t either, but he still finds a way to get a major at the end of the match. I don’t know how he pulled that off.” Brown made it two majors in a row with a controlled, dominating 12-2 win over the always dangerous Tony Dallago at 174. Ruth made it three in a row, turning a 4-2 lead after two periods into a 14-3 major decision. McIntosh pushed the pace early on and kept it up throughout, coaxing three stall calls and two points in a 10-3 win over Jeff Koepke. And, at heavyweight, with Jimmy Lawson nursing a knee injury, Jon Gingrich filled in and got the job done in a 6-1 decision of Chris Lopez. “I almost forgot since last year what it was like to wrestle in front of Rec Hall (fans). It’s a good reminder. Tonight they were really energized. That’s always fun,” Gingrich said.
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No. 1 Penn State 31 No. 11 Illinois 3 (Friday at University Park) 125: No. 2 Nico Megaludis, PSU, dec. No. 4 Jesse Delgado, 5-4. 133: No. 11 Zane Richards, ILL, dec. No. 15 Jimmy Gulibon, 3-1SV. 141: No. 2 Zain Retherford, PSU, maj. dec. John Fahy, 15-3. 149: Zack Beitz, PSU, dec. No. 19 Caleb Ervin, 4-2. 157: No. 4 Dylan Alton, PSU, dec. No. 12 Zac Brunson, 5-2. 165: No. 1 David Taylor, PSU, maj. dec. No. 12 Jackson Morse, 11-3. 174: No. 3 Matt Brown, PSU, maj. dec. Tony Dallago, 12-2. 184: No. 2 Ed Ruth, PSU, maj. dec. Nikko Reyes, 14-3. 197: No. 7 Morgan McIntosh, PSU, dec. Jeff Koepke, 10-3. 285: Jon Gingrich, PSU, dec. Chris Lopez, 6-1. Ridge Riley Award winner: Nico Megaludis, 125 pounds. Referee: J.R. Johnson. Mat judge: Jim Rivello. Takedowns: Illinois 2; Penn State 20. Records: Illinois 6-5, 0-4 Big Ten; Penn State 11-0, 5-0. Next match: Penn State at Michigan State, 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31.
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January 30-February 5, 2014
The future of local wrestling is up to the kids By JOHN DIXON [email protected]
(Editor’s note: This is the final part of a series relating to the sport of wrestling in Centre County from discussions with grappling legends Dick Rhoades and Tom Elling at the wrestling breakfast held at the Best Way Truck Stop in Milesburg.) MILESBURG — Times have changed. When I was in junior high school, teachers Bud O’Brien (basketball) and Chuck Goldthorpe (wrestling), started the first elementary programs for fourth through sixth grades at Philipsburg-Osceola in the mid-1960s. Those were good programs that got elementary kids started in those sports but what I don’t understand is when you see youth wrestling results for 5 years of age and under. Youngsters who aren’t even in school probably shouldn’t be wrestling at that age. “Unfortunately, a lot of the times it’s the parents more than anything,” Dick Rhoades said. “I think kids should not be involved until they are 9 or 10 years old. Now if someone is … they’re helping to coach maybe a kid seven or so could learn the basics. But I think even 9 years old is too early. Kids are just starting to develop and could sustain a major injury and that will scare them and then they give up the sport. I just don’t think you have to start the kids that early. Someone that is good is going to be good whether he starts at 5 or 10.” Added Tom Elling: “The other thing is there are so many other sports now than when we were in school. So you know if a coach wants to get a kid or if a parent wants to get their child involved, they begin to do it earlier now. “I’m with Dick, I think a 5 year old is way too early,” Elling continued. “Geez, many of them can’t even spell their names so let alone allow them to go out on a mat at that age. “It’s also hard to coach the kids at that young age because their attention span is so low and very seldom do a lot of them really pay attention to what you are saying or what their surroundings are.” Do parents and coaches worry when youngsters begin to suffer from “burn out” from athletes concentrating on one sport? “If you want to talk ‘burn out,’ that’s what really burns out in a young athlete because a young kid, or anyone for that matter, can only stay with something so long and be intense at that particular function,” stated Elling. “So you can’t expect a kid to be intense for long periods of time for a 5 year old or even a 21-year-old college athlete.” “That’s another thing that Lloyd (Rhoades) was good at, that if a parent was putting too much pressure on his child, Lloyd would sit down with the parent and remind him that that was the wrong way to go,” added Rhoades, regarding his brother,
a coach. “It’s all about letting the kid have fun and let him learn. What he does when he gets to high school, as Tom says, all those big trophies you win in elementary wrestling don’t mean anything when you get to that level. A little plaque for being a district runner-up or finishing third is more important to those kids than those fourfoot high trophies they get in elementary.” Why should a young wrestler want to put the time in if he doesn’t get a chance to perform on the mat? “It’s so much easier to play video games than hang around with the guys and the gals down at the pizza shop or whatever,” said Elling. “We had those when we were kids, the pizza shop in Chester Hill and we used to go down there and hang out. But the thing is you have to put yourself out if you want to participate in sports. Wrestling is an individual sport and it’s now easy for someone to go out there (on the mat) and get humiliated a number times. “When you first start (wrestling) very few people are undefeated in their careers,” added Elling. “They are going to take some beatings.” “It really is a hard sport,” stated Rhoades. “I know through the 1990s a lot of times we (BEA) graduated a lot of kids and we had kids that were in the wrestling room that wrestled junior varsity until then were seniors. “Then a lot of them went on to become district champions because they were willing to make the sacrifice and stick with the sport,” continued Rhoades. “I always tried to let them be leaders in the wrestling room and stuff like that, just so they could keep their attention and let them know that we appreciated the sacrifice and effort that they were willing to put in for the betterment of the program. “And, I’ll tell ya what, I have more respect for those kids that put in the time and effort,” added Rhoades. “And, I’ll tell you our practice sessions weren’t easy. But the ones that went through those sessions every night knowing they weren’t going to step on the mat and wrestle varsity I have the utmost respect for them because any program has to have depth and character and those kids certainly exhibited a lot of character.” Added Elling: “Probably the greatest compliment I’ve ever had was my coaching a 13 year old who came back and said, ‘Ya know, Coach, I want to thank you because you did not overlook us and you made us do things the same way the firstteam guy did. You yelled at us the same as every starter if we didn’t do something right.’ I thought that any success I had was due to those kids that were willing to do that and be willing to take the yelling at them every once in a while. They were willing to make the sacrifice and stick with it like Dick says.” “I’ve seen programs where the coach just focuses on the good kids and the rest of them fall by the way side,” interjected Rhoades. “You can’t do that and have a
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THE FUTURE OF scholastic wrestling is in the hands of younger wrestlers, like Bellefonte sophomore Timmy Benford. successful program if you want to win year in, year out. Everybody has to know that as coach you are tickled to death to have all of them in the wrestling room and that you are there to help them any way you can.” Added Elling: “It’s like life itself. Those kids that you have now, and it happened to me, may one day be your bosses. I had that happen to me when I had some kids that were second-third team and they ended up on the school board and were my boss for a while. So, fortunately, I treated them right when they were in the wrestling program. “But you know that happens a lot because you never know and in life some things take strange twists and turns,” continued Elling. “I’m not saying you should be nice to kids for that reason but I think you have to respect everybody. “That brings us full circle to why we are here. That’s what this is all about, getting wrestling people together to talk about the sport of where it is and were it’s headed. Seeing old friends, showing respect that we still have for wrestling. “It’s just a great thing to come to these breakfasts and see all the legends of the sport and talk wrestling with people that are totally involved. To this day they still want to give back to the sport they love even though some of them are getting close to 90 years old.” What’s the state of high school wrestling today? “My take is, the good kids are good and they are always going to be good,” stated Rhoades. “I think 20-25 years ago kids that were state champions would not be state champions today doing what they did then. I just think the sport has grown so much more and it is that much harder, but they were willing to pay the price then and I think they would be willing to do that today. “They don’t just waltz in there (wrestling room), they have paid the price somewhere along the line to get to the top of the podium and that part of it, the character, is where that shows up. My only fear of the sport is the depth.” “Yes, as successful as Bald Eagle Area has been and, Central Mountain in recent years, Central Mountain is now having trouble getting kids to fill a junior varsity
team and most schools do,” added Elling. “I think the good ones will pay the price, because they know they are good and they have a chance to do something, but the also-rans are the ones that might hang on for three years, like Dick said, and do well their senior year. Most are not willing to hang around that long any more.” Added Rhoades: “There are too many other activities going on, plus kids today want to get a car and when they do that, they have to have a job to pay for their insurance and their gas and all that stuff. So, instead of going out for sports, they are working part-time where they are making $7-8 an hour.” Continued Elling: “I try to tell the kids that this is the only time in their life that they are going to be able to do this. They can hunt and fish forever, it’s a lifetime event, but this is the only time you will ever be able to wrestle competitively, so take advantage of that.” The old sports adage about the difference between basketball and wrestling, as most coaches will tell you, is that the ones that can’t make the wrestling team go out for basketball. Coincidentally enough, both Elling and Rhoades went the other direction and went from basketball to the wrestling room. “I know it will be hard for anyone to believe, but when I was in ninth grade I played basketball,” laughed Elling. “But that January, we (Moshannon Valley) went up to Reedsville, which is now St. Marys’ school, and we played a basketball game. When we came home the basketball bus wouldn’t drop us off by my home so we had to walk up over the hill around four miles in the snow, freezing, and past a cemetery, so me and Bob Bubb decided then and there that we were going to go out for wrestling and in those days you could still change sports. You didn’t have all these rules and regulations so we quit basketball and went out for wrestling. “Two weeks later I was in the varsity lineup because the varsity starter, John Stanley was injured,” explained Elling. “I knew enough to be dangerous. I knew what a switch was and a double leg and I Wrestling, Page 21
January 30-February 5, 2014
HOOP SHOOT WINNERS
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CHAIRMAN VAN ARVIN and his crew of volunteers hosted the 2013-2014 Lodge Year State College Elks Local Hoop Shoot Contest, which pits local boys and girls ages 8 through 13 against one another for the opportunity to advance to the Elks District Hoop Shoot. Pictured, front row, from left, are runners-up Miles Baggett (8-9), Trey Oyler (10-11), Jamie Bachman (12-13) and Rachel Fatula (1011). Not pictured: Tyler Nordbloom (12-13). Back row, from left, are winners Zack Lambert (8-9), Brady Bendik (10-11), Arvin, Hannah Montminy (12-13), Lauren Ott (10-11) and Ruriko Okita (8-9). Not pictured: Logan Snyder (12-13). First place finishers will advance to districts at Bellefonte Area High School on Saturday, Feb. 15.
Golf tournament set for June 21
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THE STATE COLLEGE Area High School boys’ and girls’ basketball teams recently played host to the State College Kiwanis Holiday Basketball Classic. On the boys’ side, Loyalsock, Upper Darby, Bethlehem Freedom and State College took part. On the girls’ side, it was North Schuykill, Kennett, Burrell and State College participating. The Lady Little Lions finished third. Wrestling, from page 20 think I lasted about 1:30 or some thing like that. It was the longest night of my life. I swear it was six hours on that mat. He turned me every which way but loose. I knew nothing.” Rhoades’ odyssey from basketball to wrestling took a path similar to Elling’s. “I went to BEA and, again, in ninth grade, I went out for basketball and I got cut,” said Rhoades. “So, 10th grade I went out for wrestling and by the end of my sophomore year I was on the varsity (team). I was a so-so wrestler and had no idea what I was going to do after high school and my parents were on my case to go to Thaddeus Stevens Trade School, (now College of Technology) and take a test so I went down. “I had no desire to go to Stevens, so midway through the summer I was accepted to Stevens, where Johnny Johnson was coach and he was awesome as a coach. I wanted to quit because I was so bad and it was hard.
It wasn’t like high school where you grabbed a duck and roll around. You had someone tough every night in practice and the room had a low ceiling and it got so ungodly hot in the room, but the only reason I didn’t quit is because I didn’t have the courage to go tell Johnny (Coach Johnson) that I was quitting. So, I stuck it out and I started liking the program and I then ended up at Lock Haven where Tom and I were teammates and we had a blast. Of course, in Tom and my minds, we had the fans flocking in to Thomas Field House to watch us wrestle.” Rhoades retired at Bald Eagle Area following the 2002 season after 31 years at BEA, compiling a record of 386-97-10 at the Wingate school. He took a BEA program that was just beginning to blossom under Joe Humphreys and drove it to unimagined heights, ultimately gaining national respect in 1999 when the Eagles were voted the No. 1 team in the country in three different polls after winning the PIAA team and individual tourna-
WINGATE — While the weather outside is frightful, it’s never too early to start thinking of hitting the golf course. On Saturday, June 21, the Bald Eagle Area Varsity Club will be hosting the 25th annual Gary Confer/B.E.A. Varsity Club Scramble Tournament at Belles Springs Golf Tournament outside of Mill Hall. The money raised from this event is used for two $250 annual senior awards in memory of Gary Confer, as well as wants and needs for the athletic program.
ment titles. Elling coached at Lock Haven High School (now Central Mountain) for four years and the junior high for four years prior to becoming head coach. Elling produced the only undefeated team in LHHS history. Elling then went off the mat to be involved in high school sports via websites and involvement with the PIAA. He produced the first ever website for high school wrestling in the U.S. Also, he is the webmaster for the National Football Foundation; Pennsylvania and Ohio representative for MaxPreps Inc.; contributor to the PA Football News; editor of PA Wrestling website and PA Football News; contributing writer for Wrestling USA magazine; contributor to Wrestling USA magazine; supervisor of wrestling officials; editor of Pennsylvania Wrestling News and PA Wrestling. Elling is also a board member of the National Football Foundation and an executive board member of the PA Wrestling Coaches’ Association.
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STATE COLLEGE — Finding the perfect Valentine’s Day gift to show your sweetheart how much you care about him or her isn’t always easy. Your valentine deserves only the best, sometimes making it difficult to find a gift that measures up. To make hearts flutter this Feb. 14, think unique, classic, heartfelt and local. n If you and your dear have a passion for music or share a special song, have the Nittany Knights Barbershop Chorus sweep your valentine off his or her feet with a special serenade. Serving primarily the State College and Bellefonte area, the Nittany Knights can deliver Singing Valentines to work or home on Thursday, Feb. 13, or Friday, Feb. 14. For $30, the chorus will sing three love songs to your sweetie. A Deluxe Singing Valentine, complete with three love songs, a small sampler of chocolates and an instant photo to capture the musical memory, is also available for $45. To order a Nittany Knights Singing Valentine, call Bill at (814) 355-3559 or email [email protected]. n For valentines who love to celebrate with wine, look to local wineries for the perfect gift. Mt. Nittany Vineyard & Winery offers various dry, semi-sweet and sweet wines including Nittany Mountain Blush, Lion Country Blush, Montmorency Cherry and Mountain Rose. Seven Mountains Wine Cellars features numerous wines including Redtail, a blend of Marechal Foch and Chancellor with hints of cherry and strawberry, and Tickled Pink, a wine with a grape taste on the front end and a cotton candy finish.
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Saturday, February 15th 12:00 - 5:00
and
gift for their valentines in the form of jewelry, pottery, paintings, weavings, scarves, clothing, woodwork and quilting. n Flowers, especially roses and carnations, are a classy way to say “I love you” on Valentine’s Day. Surprise your loved one with a beautiful bouquet from Avant Garden or Woodrings in State College. Prices vary depending on size and flower types. Long-stemmed red roses remain the most traditional among bouquets given for the love holiday, but don’t be afraid to branch out. Get a bouquet of your valentine’s favorite flowers, or even flowers in his or her favorite color. Also, think about purchasing a live plant that your valentine can keep for years to come, reminding him or her of your eternally blossoming love. n To pamper your valentine and remind him or her how cherished he or she is, send your love to one of the area’s spas for the day. Whether for just a massage, a day trip, or the total weekend experience, a trip to a spa or salon such as ESSpa Kozmetika at Carnegie Inn & Spa, Designer’s Denn or Dragonfly Therapeutic Massage and Day Spa will have your valentine thanking you profusely. For information about Valentine’s Day dates, such as dinners, dances, local shows, winery tours and couples spa days, look to next week’s Gazette.
Laughter
Valentine’s Day Dinner & Comedy Show
Reservations Required
Featuring Chocolate From Boalsburg Chocolate Company Visit our website for upcoming events!
Tues.-Fri. 1:30-5, Sat. 10-5, Sun. 12:30-4 300 Houser Rd., Centre Hall 16828 ( 7 miles east of Penn State )
www.mtnittanywinery.com (814) 466-6373
Call Today for Reservations! 814-238-0824
February 14th Doors Open at 7:00 pm $55 per person, includes: Couples Appetizer, 8:00 pm Dinner Buffet with Carving Station, Dessert Buffet, Complimentary Glass of Champagne
• Full Bar Service •
Show Begins 9:00 pm Featuring John Knight & Julia Scotti
2280 Commercial Blvd. State College • Full Menu Available at www.hoagscatering.com
January 30-February 5, 2014
arTs & enTerTainMenT
Cafe 210 West to be blown to Smithereens By DON BEDELL [email protected]
STATE COLLEGE — The Smithereens will bring their blue-collar, Jersey-bred brand of rock and roll to downtown State College on Saturday, Feb. 8, for a concert at Café 210 West. The band hails from central New Jersey and had a string of hits in the late 80s and early 90s, the biggest being 1989’s “A Girl Like You,” which cracked the U.S. Top 40. The band formed in 1980 with Pat DiNizio (lead vocals/guitar) of Scotch Plains, NJ, and three friends from nearby Carteret: Jim Babjak (lead guitar), Dennis Diken (drums) and Mike Mesaros (bass). Amazingly, the band has only experienced one personnel change during its tenure when Mesaros decided to retire after 25 years with the band in late 2005 and was replaced by Severo “The Thrilla” Jornacion.
IF YOU GO Who: The Smithereens Where: Cafe 210 West, State College When: 9:30 p.m., Feb. 8 Tickets: Still available It obviously takes a special bond to play music together with the same people for that long. “They are part of my extended family,” said DiNizio. “Dennis and Jimmy are the brothers that I never had. We’ve never disagreed on anything musical and that’s the key to our ability to have been able to maintain this musical coalition for nearly 34 years.” But it wasn’t just the music that brought them and kept them together, DiNinzio explained. “It was our love of pop culture. We grew up reading the same comic books and Mad magazine. We watched the same TV shows.
We liked the same movies. We shared the same sense of humor and the same dream, which was to be in a rock-n-roll band and to make records,” he said. Even with more than three decades of making music under their belts, DiNizio said that the band doesn’t take anything for granted. “Back in June and July, we were touring with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and it was like it was our first gig. You know, it felt like that,” DiNizio explained. “In other words, we still have the same enthusiasm and excitement. The thrill was still there for all of us.” DiNizio credits college radio and shows like MTV’s “120 Minutes” for the initial success of the band. “They helped make us a success. We were one of the few bands that were lucky enough to have simultaneously hit on college radio, rock radio and Top 40 without losing our career or alienating our audience,” said DiNizio. “For example, ‘A Girl Like You’ was number one on college radio, number one on rock radio and in the Top 40. That’s a very rare achievement.” The latest release from the band is a one-off limited release CD. With 2014 marking the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first U.S. concert in Washington, D.C., the Smithereens have recreated that concert note-for-note, song-by-song, and will have the CDs available for sale at Café 210. The Beatles had a huge impact on the members of the band and DiNizio said that they had to do something to commemorate this event. “It’s something to celebrate for sure,” DiNizio explained. “We had to make some sort of statement about it and we wanted to do something that no one else would attempt. So, we’ve recreated or reimagined the Beatles first concert. Done, of course, with our own guitar tones and our own style, but pretty much playing the notes as written.” But, the band still holds true to its mis-
Submitted photo
NEW JERSEY-BASED band The Smithereens will take the stage at Café 210 West on Feb. 8. Pictured, from left, are Jim Babjak, Severo “The Thrilla” Jornacion, Dennis Diken and Pat DiNizio. sion of making original music and DiNizio says new material is in the works. They plan to return to the studio this year and release a new album produced once again by legendary producer Don Dixon. “As soon as I finish the songs, we’ll get together and rehearse them and we’ll record them with Don,” said DiNizio. “That’s the primary objective — to put out new original albums.” Working with Dixon is much more than just a band-producer relationship, he said. “Dennis Diken has referred to Don Dixon as our ‘George Martin’ or the fifth Smithereen.” Some Beatles songs and some newer material may be in store for fans at the
Café 210 show, but DiNizio also knows what the audience wants. “There’s so many songs now and everybody’s got their favorite so you can’t not do the hits and we love doing the hits and we play them exactly the way we recorded them, but there’s a lot of material now and you’ve got to do a great cross-section of it,” DiNizio explained. “And that’s part of the philosophy. People have to go out of their way to see you. We’re tremendously grateful to people who come out to see us, so we’ve got to give everything we’ve got, you know?” DiNizio and crew will take the stage at Café 210 on Saturday, Feb. 8. The show starts at 9:30 p.m.
‘Annie’ set to take the stage at The State Theatre By ANNE WALKER [email protected]
STATE COLLEGE — Everyone’s favorite red-haired orphan will visit The State Theatre Thursday, Feb. 6, through Sunday, Feb. 9, when FUSE Productions presents the Charles Strouse musical “Annie.” Under the direction of Richard Biever and featuring choreography by Jill Brighton, the show will introduce local audiences to New York professional Todd Thurston. The Equity actor will play the role of Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks. “It’s a role I’ve wanted for a long time,” Thurston said, “and since the character is in his late 30s, I’m glad I can get away with it before I age out of it.” A cast of talented locals join Thurston,
IF YOU GO What: “Annie” Where: State Theatre, State College When: Feb. 6-9, various times Tickets: www.thestatetheatre.org
including 11-year-old Keri Carroll in the title role. We last saw Carroll as a street urchin in “Scrooge: The Musical.” Her enthusiasm for performing comes through in the Annie role. She says she loves the feeling of having a lead role. “Annie’s always optimistic and she never gives up,” Carroll said. “She’s very brave.” The show draws inspiration from the Harold Gray comic strip “Little Orphan Annie” that debuted in the 1920s. And the comic drew inspiration from an 1885 poem, “Little Orphant Allie,” by the “Hoosier Poet,” James Whitcomb Riley. A typesetting error renamed the piece. Writing in 19th-century Midwest vernacular, Riley based the character on a real person, a distant relative named Mary Alice. The orphaned teenager stayed with young Riley’s family, doing household chores and entertaining the children with stories of “The gobble-uns ‘at gits you ef you don’t watch out!” The musical, set during the Great Depression, introduces the Annie character
Bellefonte Art Museum to host classes
BELLEFONTE — The Bellefonte Art Museum, 133 N. Allegheny St., will host the following art classes beginning in February: n “Computer Painting on Touch Screens” with Mary Vollero, 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Feb. 1. Registration fee is $25. n “Printmaking and Etching, Relief and Monoprinting” with Mary Vollero, 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 1. Registration fee is $30 and materials cost fee is $20.
at her home in an orphanage. A series of adventures — and misadventure — leads to Annie spending the Christmas holiday at the mansion home of billionaire Warbucks. She and Warbucks begin a mission to locate Annie’s parents, which involves a radio show, reward money, a couple of fraudulent gold-diggers and, eventually, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Veteran State College actor Frank Wilson plays Roosevelt. Wilson, one of the area’s finest character actors, brings an authenticity to the role that rounds out a fine performance by an exceptionally gifted cast. Although painstaking in musical details, Biever gives vocalists opportunities to explore the phrases they sing. The results sound natural when the solos, duets and choruses alter to fit the mood of each song. “Richard is a wonderful director,” Thurston observed, “and I’m impressed with the performers’ qualities, too.” The score includes the hit song “Tomorrow,” and the timeless phrase, “Leapin’ lizards!” And, adding the final necessary
n “Exploration of Illustration” with Sean Bodley, 6 to 8:30 p.m., Wednesdays, Feb. 5 through March 12. Registration fee is $95 and material cost fee is $45. n “The Wonderful World of Watercolor” with Brienne M. Brown, 9 a.m. to noon, Fridays, Feb. 14 through March 14. CHRIS MORELLI/Gazette file photo The registration fee is $125. THE BELLEFONTE ART MUSEUM For registration forms and a full list of 2014 art classes, visit www.bellefonte will be offering art classes starting in February. artmuseum.org/classes.html.
Submitted photo
KERI CARROLL will take on the title role in “Annie,” which will be performed Feb. 6-9 at The State Theatre. touch to the production, a yellow canine named Dylan plays homeless dog Sandy.
Green Drake to host show MILLHEIM — The Green Drake Gallery and Arts Center will host a special show featuring work by State College artist Ruth Talman Kazez beginning Friday, Feb. 7, at 101 W. Main St. in Millheim. An opening reception will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 7, at the center. The show will feature large mixed media drawings by Kazez, who over the years has had work featured at universities, museums and galleries throughout the northeast and across the country. In this show, Kazez’s minimalist approach is applied to the subject of farm animals. For more information, visit www.greendrakeart.com.
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PaGe 24
Live
t n e m in a t r e Ent Schedule
Thursday, Jan. 30, through Wednesday, Feb. 5 ALLEN STREET GRILL, 100 W. COLLEGE AVE., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 231-4745 Thursday, Jan. 30 Bill Filer, 10:30 p.m.–1 a.m. Friday, Jan. 31 Bill Filer, 10:30 p.m.–1 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 1 Bill Filer, 10:30 p.m.–1 a.m. AMERICAN ALE HOUSE, 821 CRICKLEWOOD DRIVE, STATE COLLEGE, (814) 237-9701 Thursday, Jan. 30 Domenick Swentosky, 8–11 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31 Tommy Wareham, 6–8 p.m. and 9 p.m.–midnight Sunday, Feb. 2 Ted and Molly, 8–10 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5 Scott Mangene, 8–10:30 p.m. THE ARENA BAR & GRILL, 1521 MARTIN ST., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 237-8833 Friday, Jan. 31 Bad Seed, 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1 Hired Guns, 10:30 p.m. THE AUTOPORT, 1405 S. ATHERTON ST., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 237-7666 Thursday, Jan. 30 Kate and Natalie, 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31 Bodacious B, 9 p.m. BAR BLEU, 112 S. GARNER ST., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 237-0374 Thursday, Jan. 30 Big Feast, 10:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31 Lowjack, 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1 Ted McCloskey & The Hi Fis, 10:30 p.m. BILL PICKLE’S TAP ROOM, 106 S. ALLEN ST., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 272-1172 Friday, Jan. 31 Bill Filer, 5–7 p.m. THE BREWERY, 233 E. BEAVER AVE., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 237-2892 Wednesday, Feb. 5 Karaoke, 9:30 p.m. CAFE 210 WEST, 210 W. COLLEGE AVE., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 237-3449 Saturday, Feb. 1 TBA CHUMLEY’S, 108 W. COLLEGE AVE., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 238-4446 Thursday, Jan. 31 Kelly Countermine, 8–11 p.m. EDGES PUB AT TUSSEY MOUNTAIN, 301 BEAR MEADOW ROAD, BOALSBURG, (814) 466-6266 Saturday, Feb. 1 Jmac and Junior, 5–8 p.m. ELK CREEK CAFÉ AND ALEWORKS, 100 W. MAIN ST., MILLHEIM, (814) 349-8850 Thursday, Jan. 30 Van the Man, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1 Red Dog Run, 8 p.m. THE GAMBLE MILL, 160 DUNLAP ST., BELLEFONTE, (814) 355-7764 Friday, Jan. 31 Nick Andrew Straver, 6–8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1 The Strayers, Miss Melanie and the Valley Rats, 7–9 p.m. GOVERNORS PUB, 211 W. HIGH ST., BELLEFONTE, (814) 353-1008 Thursday, Jan. 30 JT Blues, 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5 Biscuit Jam, 6:30 p.m. HOME DELIVERY PIZZA PUB/ROBIN HOOD BREWING CO., 1820 S. ATHERSTON ST., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 237-7777 Friday, Jan. 31 Chris Good, 7:30–10:30 p.m.
January 30-February 5, 2014
Work of local artist to be displayed at Schlow STATE COLLEGE — Schlow Centre Region Library’s Betsy Rodgers Allen Gallery will display “Landscapes Near and Far” by Sean Bodley through Monday, March 31, at 211 S. Allen St. “I go out into nature and paint in plain air to study color, landscape and motion,” Bodley said. “From the figure, I learn about form, anatomy and the human spirit. I pull inspiration from meditation, video games and all the wonderful artists I encounter.” Alive to so many currents, Bodley, a local artist, expresses himself in many ways, including painting, game design, illustration and graphic design Born and raised in Madison, Wis., Bodley earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in drawing and painting from the Peck School of the Arts, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. In 2011, he relocated to Lemont, where he founded the Mount Nittany Studio and continues to enthusiastically paint, chop wood and make video games. Participation in the art community is also important to Bodley, and he regularly
Submitted photo
“DEPLETED RIDGE” is just one of the works by central Pennsylvania artist Sean Bodley on display at Schlow Library. teaches drawing, participates in art events and exhibits his work throughout the area. Schlow Library is open Mondays through Wednesdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Thursdays, noon to 9 p.m.; Fridays, 9 a.m. to 9 a.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sundays, 1:30 to 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.seanbodley.com/blog.
Middle school to present ‘James and the Giant Peach’ WINGATE — The Bald Eagle Middle School Drama Club will present its winter production, “James and the Giant Peach,” at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 31, and Saturday, Feb. 1, in the auditorium at Bald Eagle Middle School, 751 E. Eagle Valley Road. In this play, the adventures of James Henry Trotter will fulfill the fantasy of
anyone who has ever dreamed of escape. Roald Dahl’s story comes to life in this dramatization that reveals the wickedness of some, the goodness of others and the indecision encountered by many when they are faced with crises. Tickets will be available at the door. Doors open at 7 p.m.
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ART
INDIGO, 112 W. COLLEGE AVE., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 234-1031 Thursday, Jan. 30 DJ Ca$hous, 9 p.m.–2 a.m. Friday, Jan. 31 DJ Keigo and Nammo, 9 p.m.–2 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 1 DJ Kid A.V., 9 p.m.–2 a.m. INFERNO BRICK OVEN & BAR, 340 E. COLLEGE AVE., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 237-5718 Thursday, Jan. 30 DJ Kid A.V., 10 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31 DJ Fuego, 10 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1 DJ Ca$hous, 10 p.m. OTTO’S PUB & BREWERY, 2286 N. ATHERTON ST., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 867-OTTO Friday, Jan. 31 Miss Melanie and The Valley Rats, 9–11 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1 Chris Good, 9–11 p.m. THE PHYRST, 111 E. BEAVER AVE., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 238-1406 Thursday, Jan. 30 Lowjack, 8 p.m., Maxwell Strait, 10:30 p.m.–2 a.m. Friday, Jan. 31 Dominic & Noah, 8–10 p.m. Ted and the Hi-Fi’s, 10:30 pm–2 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 1 Lowjack, 10:30 p.m.–2 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5 Go Go Gadget, 10:30 p.m.
INTERPRETING POETRY Woodblock prints by Haku Maki 1924 - 2000, Japan
THE RATHSKELLER, 108 S. PUGH ST., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 237-3858 Friday, Jan. 31 Mr. Hand, 10:30 p.m. THE SALOON, 101 HEISTER ST., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 234-0845 Thursday, Jan. 30 My Hero Zero, 10 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31 Velveeta, 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1 Mr. Hand, 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 4 Shake Shake Shake, 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5 His Boy Elroy, 10 p.m. ZENO’S PUB, 100 W. COLLEGE AVE., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 237-4350 Saturday, Feb. 1 Sylvia, 8 p.m., Pure Cane Sugar, 10:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 3 DopplerPoppins, 11 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 4 Natalie Race, 10 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5 Haystack Lightnin’, 8 p.m., The Cave Tones, 11 p.m. ZOLA NEW WORLD BISTRO, 324 W. COLLEGE AVE., STATE COLLEGE, (814) 237-8474 Friday, Jan. 31 TBA — Compiled by Marjorie S. Miller Schedules subject to change. Call the venue for details. The Centre County Gazette is committed to providing readers with a complete list of upcoming live entertainment in Centre County. If your establishment provides live entertainment and would like to have it listed free in The Gazette, simply email listings to [email protected].
February 2nd through March 30, 2014 Opening Reception & Free Children's Art Class Sunday, February 2, 2014, 1:00-4:00pm Guest Educator - Nancy Toepfer Landscape Drawings by Michael A. Vollero 133 North Allegheny Street, Bellefonte, PA Friday, Saturday & Sunday; 1:00 - 4:30 PM
www.bellefontemuseum.org
The Centre County Gazette
Page 25
WHAT’S HAPPENING To be included in What’s Happening, submit your events by Wednesday one week prior to publication to community@ centrecountygazette.com or mail information to The Centre County Gazette, Attn: What’s Happening, 403 S. Allen St., State College, PA 16801.
ONGOING
Bookmobile — Centre County Library Bookmobile is a fully accessible library on wheels. Look for it in your community and join Miss Laura for story times, songs and fun. Visit the website at www.centrecounty library.org for days and times. Exhibit — First-year M.F.A. candidate work will be displayed at the Zoller Gallery, University Park, through Friday, Feb. 7. Gallery hours are Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. For more information, visit www.sova.psu.edu/facility/ edwin-w-zoller-gallery. Craft Activity — Make your own Valentine’s Day card, 11:30 a.m.–4 p.m., through Saturday, Feb. 15, at Christian Science Reading Room and Bookstore, 219 S. Allen St., State College. The Reading Room will provide cards, markers, inspirational statements and scrap booking materials. Exhibit — Prints from workshops will be on display through Friday, Feb. 28, in the Tea Room Gallery at the Bellefonte Art Museum for Centre County, 133 N. Allegheny St., Bellefonte. Gallery hours are 1–4:30 p.m., Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Call (814) 355-4280 or visit www.bellefonte museum.org. Exhibit — The work of local artist Adrienne Waterson will be displayed at The State Theatre, 130 W. College Ave., State College. Waterson’s influences range from biology, history and architecture to physics, politics and garbage. Her current work is a reflection of her unconscious mind while on the phone, the gastronomic experience of Little League games, drive-thru banks, flowers, fruit and dirty dishes. For more information, visit www.thestatetheatre.org. Exhibit — “On the Wild Side,” a joint exhibition of artwork by Jim Mikkelsen and Sylvia Apple, will be on display through Sunday, March 2, in the HUB Gallery, University Park. Mikkelsen, a sculptor, creates figurative pieces out of wood. Apple allows prehistoric and folk art to inspire her as she constructs her quilts. A reception will take place 4–6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 11. For more information, visit www.student affairs.psu.edu/hub/artgalleries. Exhibit — Japanese Prints will be on display through Sunday, March 30, in the Windows of the World Gallery at the Bellefonte Art Museum for Centre County, 133 N. Allegheny St., Bellefonte. Gallery hours are 1–4:30 p.m., Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Call (814) 355-4280 or visit www. bellefontemuseum.org. Exhibit — Work by Mary Vollero will be on display through Sunday, March 30, in the Community Gallery at the Bellefonte Art Museum for Centre County, 133 N. Allegheny St., Bellefonte. Gallery hours are 1–4:30 p.m., Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Call (814) 355-4280 or visit www. bellefontemuseum.org. Exhibit — Work by Jeff Mathison will be on display through Sunday, March 30, in the Sieg Gallery at the Bellefonte Art Museum for Centre County, 133 N. Allegheny St., Bellefonte. Gallery hours are 1–4:30 p.m., Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Call (814) 355-4280 or visit www.bellefonte museum.org. Exhibit — British watercolors from the Permanent Collection will be featured at the Palmer Museum of Art through Sunday, May 4. Museum hours are 10 a.m.– 4:30 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays, and noon–4 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, visit www.palmermuseum. psu.edu. Exhibit — The Palmer Museum of Art will feature “Forging Alliances” through Sunday, May 11. This exhibition draws on the Palmer Museum’s collection of postWWII mingei ceramics. Museum hours are 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays, and noon–4 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, visit www.palmer museum.psu.edu. Exhibit — The Palmer Museum of Art will feature the exhibition “Surveying Judy Chicago: Five Decades” through Sunday, May 11. The exhibit charts Chicago’s remarkable and ongoing career. Museum hours are 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays, and noon–4 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, visit www.judychicago.arted.psu.edu or www. palmermuseum.psu.edu.
History/Genealogy — Learn about local history and genealogy with expert researchers at the Historical Museum and PA Room, 203 N. Allegheny St., Bellefonte. Hours are Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., and Tuesdays and Thursdays, noon–5 p.m. Call (814) 3551516 or visit www.centrecountylibrary.org.
THURSDAY, JAN. 30
Blood Drive — The HUB-Robeson Center will host a blood drive, 10 a.m.–4 p.m., in Heritage Hall, Pollock Road, University Park. A $4 donation to THON will be made for each person who donates. Story Time — Preschoolers can enjoy stories and songs at the Thursday story time, 10:30–10:50 a.m. at Discovery Space, 112 W. Foster Ave., Suite 1, State College. Story times are free with paid admission. Call (814) 234-0200 or email info@my discoveryspace.org. Children’s Science Program — Preschoolers ages 3-5 can work on sciencethemed activities with “Science Adventures,” 11–11:30 a.m. at Discovery Space, 112 W. Foster Ave., Suite 1, State College. Today’s theme is “Testing Ideas.” Activities are free with paid admission. Call (814) 234-0200 or email info@mydiscovery space.org or visit www.mydiscoveryspace. org. Blood Drive — There will be a blood drive, 11 a.m.–5 p.m., in the Lewis Katz Building, Bigler Road, University Park. A $4 donation to THON will be made for each person who donates. Recital — Penn State School of Music student Eric Williamson will give a lecture recital, “African-American Composers of the 20th Century and Beyond,” during the African-American Music Festival, 12:10 p.m. at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center’s Eisenhower Chapel, University Park. The festival is coordinated by School of Music faculty member Anthony Leach. For more information on specific concerts and performances, visit www.music.psu.edu. Craft Class — The Centre County Library and Historical Museum will host “Hooks & Needles,” an adult craft class, 1–2:30 p.m., at 200 Allegheny St., Bellefonte. Call (814) 355-1516 or visit www. centrecountylibrary.org. Blood Drive — The Halfmoon Christian Fellowship Church will host a blood drive, 1–7 p.m., in Social Hall, 1766 Halfmoon Valley Road, Port Matilda. Story Time — Holt Memorial Library will have preschool story time, 2–3 p.m., at 17 N. Front St., Philipsburg. Today’s theme is “Snow Day.” Call (814) 342-1987 or visit www.centrecountylibrary.org. Festival — Penn State School of Music students will perform during the AfricanAmerican Music Festival at 2:30 p.m. at Esber Recital Hall, University Park. The festival is coordinated by School of Music faculty member Anthony Leach. For more information on specific concerts and performances, visit www.music.psu.edu. Family Program — Holt Memorial Library will host “It’s Elementary,” a series of activities and presentations for elementary school students and their families, 6–7 p.m., at 17 N. Front St., Philipsburg. Tonight’s theme is “Family Movie Night: ‘Up’.” Call (814) 342-1987 or visit www. centrecountylibrary.org. Film — National Theatre Live presents “Coriolanus” by William Shakespeare, starring Tom Hiddleston, at 7 p.m. at the State Theatre, 130 W. College Ave., State College. In the film, Rome is threatened and calls upon its hero and defender. Tickets can be purchased by calling (814) 2720606 or visiting www.thestatetheatre.org. Dance Concert — The Penn State School of Theatre presents a dance concert at 7:30 p.m. at the Playhouse Theatre, University Park. For ticket information, email [email protected] or call (814) 865-7586.
FRIDAY, JAN. 31
Exhibit — “Paper Views Exhibition: The Wood Engravings and Graphic Novels of Lynd Ward” will be shown, 10 a.m.–4 p.m., in the Print Study Room at the Palmer Museum of Art, Curtin Road, University Park. Sandra Stelts of Penn State’s Special Collections Library, curator of the exhibit who regularly works with rare books and manuscripts, will be on hand for conversation at 1 p.m. For more information, visit www. palmermuseum.psu.edu. Blood Drive — The HUB-Robeson Center will host a blood drive, 10 a.m.–4 p.m., in Heritage Hall, Pollock Road, University Park. A $4 donation to THON will be made for each person who donates.
Blood Drive — There will be a bloodmobile, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., at Mateer Building, Fischer Road, University Park. A $4 donation to THON will be made for each person who donates. Line Dancing — Centre Region Parks and Recreation presents line dancing at 10:50 a.m. at the Centre Region Senior Center, 131 S. Fraser St., No.1, State College. No experience necessary or partners needed. Call (814) 231-3076. Farmers’ Market — The Downtown State College Farmers’ Market will take place at 11:30 a.m. in the State College Municipal Building, 243 S. Allen St., State College. For more information, visit www. centralpafarmers.com. Festival — Guest singers Elisabeth Stevens and Diane L. White-Clayton will present a voice master class with a performance by Penn State vocal students during the African-American Music Festival at 3:30 p.m. in 110 Music Bldg. I, University Park. The festival is coordinated by School of Music faculty member Anthony Leach. For more information on specific concerts and performances, visit www.music.psu. edu. Event — Circle of Hope/Special Abilities Connection will take place, 6–8 p.m., at Halfmoon Christian Fellowship Church, 1776 Halfmoon Valley Road, Port Matilda. The group will address concerns about raising a child with special needs including treatments, education, advocacy and legal issues, and behavior. For more information, contact Angie LaVanish at (814) 3861826 or [email protected] Festival — The Cheyney University Concert Choir and the Lincoln University Choir will perform during the AfricanAmerican Music Festival at 6 p.m. at Esber Recital Hall, University Park. The festival is coordinated by School of Music faculty member Anthony Leach. For more information on specific concerts and performances, visit www.music.psu.edu. Concert — Live Nation presents Jay-Z in concert at 8 p.m. at the Bryce Jordan Center, University Park. Tickets can be purchased at www.livenation.com, www. bjc.psu.edu, www.ticketmaster.com, Bryce Jordan Center Ticket Office, Eisenhower Auditorium, Penn State Downtown Theatre, Altoona Campus Ticket Office, or by calling (800) 745-3000. Dance Concert — The Penn State School of Theatre presents a dance concert at 7:30 p.m. at the Playhouse Theatre, University Park. For ticket information, email [email protected] or call (814) 865-7586. Performance — Chris Good will perform at Home D Pizzeria/Robin Hood Brewing Co., 7:30-10:30 p.m., at 1820 S. Atherton St., State College. For more information, call (814) 237-7777. Performance — “Guitar Passions,” featuring Sharon Isbin, Stanley Jordan and Romero Lubambo, will take place at 7:30 p.m. at Eisenhower Auditorium, University Park. For more information, visit www. cpa.psu.edu. Play — The Bald Eagle Middle School Drama Club will present its winter production of “James and the Giant Peach” at 7:30 p.m.. in the auditorium at Bald Eagle Middle School, 751 E. Eagle Valley Road, Wingate. In the play, the adventure of James Henry Trotter will fulfill the fantasy of anyone who has ever dreamed of escape. Roald Dahl’s story comes to life in this dramatization that reveals the wickedness of some, the goodness of others and the indecision encountered by many when they are faced with crises.
SATURDAY, FEB. 1
Open House — Grace Lutheran Preschool and Kindergarten will have an open house, 9-11 a.m., at 205 S. Garner St., State College. For more information, visit www. glcpa.org or call (814) 238-8110. Farmers’ Market — The Millheim Farmers’ Market will take place at 10 a.m. in the at the Old Gregg School, 106 School St., Spring Mills. For more information, visit www.centralpafarmers.com. Class — Mary Vollero will teach “Computer Painting on Touch Screens,” 10 a.m.–noon, at the Bellefonte Art Museum, 133 N. Allegheny St., Bellefonte. For registration forms and a full list of 2014 art classes, visit www.bellefonteartmuseum. org/classes.html. Children’s Program — “World Stories Alive: Tales in Many Tongues,” for children ages 3 to 8 and their families to learn about different languages and cultures, will take place, 11 a.m.–noon, at Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College.
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GRAMMY WINNER Jay-Z will bring his Magna Carta World Tour to the Bryce Jordan Center. The concert begins at 8 p.m. on Jan. 31. This week’s language will be Russian. For more information, visit www.schlow.org. Children’s Program — Holt Memorial Library will host “Sensory Story Time,” a program for children ages 3 to 10, 11:30 a.m.–noon, at 17 N. Front St., Philipsburg. Through books, songs, movement and therapeutic activities, this program will help children with sensory integration challenges learn better. Call (814) 342-1987 or visit www.centrecountylibrary.org. Teen Program — Holt Memorial Library will host a teen art program for ages 12 and up, 11:30 a.m.–1 p.m., at 17 N. Front St., Philipsburg. Call (814) 342-1987 or visit www.centrecountylibrary.org. Family Program — Holt Memorial Library will host a family art program, 11:30 a.m.–1 p.m., at 17 N. Front St., Philipsburg. Call (814) 342-1987 or visit www.centre countylibrary.org. Festival — Penn State’s Essence of Joy choir, along with Cheyney University Choir, Lincoln University Choir, Elisabeth Stevens and Diane L. White-Clayton, will perform during the African-American Music Festival at 1 p.m. at Pasquerilla Spiritual Center’s Worship Hall, University Park. For more information on specific concerts and performances, visit www. music.psu.edu. Class — Mary Vollero will teach “Printmaking and Etching, Relief and Monoprinting,” 1–3 p.m., at the Bellefonte Art Museum, 133 N. Allegheny St., Bellefonte. For registration forms and a full list of 2014 art classes, visit www.bellefonteart museum.org/classes.html. Games — Hone your strategy for the ancient game of “Go,” 1:30–5 p.m. in the Sun Room, Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College. Call (814) 237-6236. Dance — The Turbotville Community Hall Corporation will host a public dance with food available, 7–10 p.m., at 41 Church St., Turbotville. Funds raised will help restore the building. Call (570) 412-8087. Performance — “Mark Twain: Life Stories and Other Lies,” starring Frank Wilson, will be performed at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in The Attic at The State Theatre, 130 W. College Ave., State College. Tickets can be purchased by calling (814) 272-0606 or visiting www.thestatetheatre.org. Games — Snow Shoe EMS will host bingo at 7 p.m. at 492 W. Sycamore St., Snow Shoe. Doors open at 5 p.m. Film — “The Big Lebowski” will play at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. at The State Theatre, 130 W. College Ave., State College. Tickets can be purchased by calling (814) 272-0606 or visiting www.thestatetheatre.org. Dance Concert — The Penn State School of Theatre presents a dance concert at 7:30 p.m. at the Playhouse Theatre, University Park. For ticket information, email [email protected] or call (814) 865-7586. Play — The Bald Eagle Middle School Drama Club will present its winter production of “James and the Giant Peach” at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium at Bald Eagle Middle School, 751 E. Eagle Valley Road, Wingate. What’s Happening, Page 26
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What’s Happening, from page 25
SUNDAY, FEB. 2
Concert — The State College Area High School Thespians present “State High Voice Students in Recital” at 2 p.m. at University Baptist and Brethren Church, 411 S. Burrowes St., State College. Soloists and State High Chamber singers will perform musical theatre and classical musical selections to raise funds for a trip to the “Fringe Festival” in Edinburgh, Scotland. For more information, contact Dr. Norman Spivey at (814) 863-4404. Children’s Activity — Join the NSSLHA organization and participate in Valentine’s activities during “For the Love of Reading,” 2–4 p.m., at Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College. For more information, contact the Children’s Department at (814) 235-7817. Concert — Pianist Steve Smith will perform at 4 p.m. at Esber Recital Hall, University Park. For more information, visit www.music.psu.edu.
MONDAY, FEB. 3
Summer Camp Registration — Centre Region Parks and Recreation summer camp registration opens. For more information and to register, call (814) 231-3071 or visit www.crpr.org. Volunteering — Bellefonte Area Mission Central HUB will be open, 9–11 a.m., at the Trinity United Methodist Church, 128 W. Howard St., Bellefonte. Call (814) 355-9425. Story Time — Baby & Me Story Time, with sweet stories, songs and action rhymes, will take place at 9:30 a.m. in the Children’s Activity Room at Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College. For more information, contact the Children’s Department at (814) 235-7817. Story Time — The Centre Hall Branch Library will have preschool story time, 10:30–11 a.m., at 109 W. Beryl St., Centre Hall. Today’s theme is “Brush Your Teeth.” Call (814) 364-2580 or visit www.centre countylibrary.org. Story Time — The Centre County Library and Historical Museum will have toddler story time, 10:30–11:30 a.m., at 200 Allegheny St., Bellefonte. Today’s theme is “Opposites.” Call (814) 355-1516 or visit
ART CLASSES 2014
www.centrecountylibrary.org. Story Time — Tales for Twos story time for parents and their toddlers will take place at 10:30 a.m. in the Children’s Activity Room at Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College. For more information, contact the Children’s Department at (814) 235-7817. Support Group — Cancer Survivors’ Association Inc. will sponsor a caregivers support group, 10:30 a.m.–noon, in Conference Room 6 at Mount Nittany Medical Center, 1800 E. Park Ave., State College. For more information, visit www.cancer survive.org or call (814) 237-2120. Line Dancing — Centre Region Parks and Recreation presents line dancing at 10:50 a.m. at the Centre Region Senior Center, 131 S. Fraser St., No.1, State College. No experience necessary or partners needed. Call (814) 231-3076. Adult Program — Holt Memorial Library will host “Knit Wits,” for beginner, experienced or intermediate knitters, 6–7 p.m., at 17 N. Front St., Philipsburg. Call (814) 342-1987 or visit www.centrecounty library.org. Knitting Club — A knitting club will meet, 6:30-8:30 p.m., in the Sun Room, Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College. All skill levels are welcome. Call (814) 237-6236. Bingo — The State College Knights of Columbus will host bingo, 7 p.m. at 850 Stratford Drive, State College. Meeting — Bellefonte Area School District Board of School Directors will meet at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria of Bellefonte Area Middle School, 100 N. School St., Bellefonte. The public is welcome to attend. Practice/Performance — The Nittany Knights will perform a capella barbershop songs, 7:15 p.m. at the South Hills School of Business and Technology, 480 Waupelani Drive, State College. For more information, call (814) 777-7455, visit www. nittanyknights.org or email jimkerhin@ yahoo.com.
TUESDAY, FEB. 4
Coffee Time — Bring a friend and savor that second cup of coffee and conversation, 9:30–11 a.m., in the Fellowship Hall, Howard United Methodist Church, West Main St., Howard.
Exploration of Illustration with Sean Bodley Painting with Nancy Brassington The Wonderful World of Watercolor with Brienne M. Brown Drawing from Nature with Veronique Foti
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Digital Photography with Dana Morrison Computer Painting and Printmaking with Mary Vollero Bookbinding for Beginners with Kristin Ziegler See more information online: http://bellefontemuseum.org > Museum Classes
www.bellefontemuseum.org
Story Time — Baby & Me Story time with sweet stories, songs and action rhymes will take place at 9:30 a.m. in the Children’s Activity Room at Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College. For more information, contact the Children’s Department at (814) 235-7817. Story Time — Tales for Twos story time for parents and their toddlers will take place at 10:30 a.m. in the Children’s Activity Room at Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College. For more information, contact the Children’s Department at (814) 235-7817. Story Time — Holt Memorial Library will have a toddler story time, 10:30–11:30 a.m., at 17 N. Front St., Philipsburg. Call (814) 342-1987 or visit www.centrecounty library.org. Story Time — The Centre County Library and Historical Museum will have preschool story time, 1:30–2 p.m., at 200 Allegheny St., Bellefonte. Today’s theme is “Opposites.” Call (814) 355-1516 or visit www.centrecountylibrary.org. Children’s Program — The Centre Hall Branch Library will host a program for home-schooled students in grades 6 through 12, 1:30–3 p.m., at 109 W. Beryl St., Centre Hall. The group will learn about the basics of economics while reading “Whatever Happened to Penny Candy” by Richard Maybury. Call (814) 364-2580 or visit www.centrecountylibrary.org. Farmer’s Market — The Boalsburg Farmer’s Market will take place, 2–6 p.m., in St. John’s United Church of Christ, 218 N. Church St., Boalsburg. Vendor products include fall greens and root vegetables, meats, dairy items, breads and apples. Yoga Class — A gentle yoga class will take place, 5–6 p.m., at the Howard United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, 144 W. Main St., Howard. The class is designed to have all flows on the floor. Gain flexibility and strength and leave feeling calm, open and rejuvenated. Call Kathie at (814) 6252852 or email [email protected]. Lecture — Dr. Susan Vogel, an independent scholar, will give the Dickenson lecture, “Anatsui’s Journey from Nsukka to the Pinnacle of the Art World,” at 6 p.m. in 112 Borland Building, University Park. For more information, visit www.arthistory.psu.edu. Yoga Class — A basics level yoga class will take place, 6:30–8 p.m., at the Howard United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, 144 W. Main St., Howard. The class is intended for those who may have had some prior yoga experience. Gain flexibility and strength and leave feeling calm, open and rejuvenated. Call Kathie at (814) 625-2852 or email [email protected]. Line Dancing — Centre Region Parks and Recreation presents line dancing at 7 p.m. at the Mt. Nittany Residence, 301 Rolling Ridge Drive, State College. No experience necessary or partners needed. Call (814) 231-3076. Model Railroad Club — Nittany Valley Model Railroad Club meets at 7 p.m. at Old Gregg School Community and Recreation Center, Room No. 1A,106 School St., Spring Mills. Call Fred at (814) 422-7667. Performance — Compagnie Käfig, a French dance company led by Mourad Merzouki and influenced by contemporary Brazil, will perform “Correria” and “Agwa” at 7:30 p.m. in Eisenhower Auditorium, University Park. For more information, visit www.cpa.psu.edu.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 5
Open House — South Hills School of Business & Technology will have a career day and open house, 8:30 a.m.–noon, at each of their three locations: 480 Waupelani Drive, State College; 541 58th St., Altoona; and 124 E. Market St., Lewistown. Explore various associate degree options at South Hills by sitting in on classes, speaking with instructors and students, and pricing financial aid. Register online for the event at www.southhills.edu or call (888) 282-7427. Children’s Activity — “Toddler Learning Centre” where children ages 18 months to 3 years can play with the opportunity for parents to talk, will take place at 9:15a.m. and 10:30 a.m. in the Downsbrough Community Room, Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College. Registration is required. For more information, contact the Children’s Department at (814) 235-7817. Story Time — The Centre County Library and Historical Museum will have baby book time, 9:30–10:30 a.m., at 200 Allegheny St., Bellefonte. Book themes will vary throughout February. Call (814) 3551516 or visit www.centrecountylibrary.org. Story Time — Story time for children
January 30-February 5, 2014 ages 3 to 5 will take place at 9:30 a.m. in the Children’s Activity Room at Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College. For more information, contact the Children’s Department at (814) 2357817. Story Time — Holt Memorial Library will have preschool story time, 10:30–11:30 a.m., at 17 N. Front St., Philipsburg. Today’s theme is “For the Love of Birds!” Call (814) 342-1987 or visit www.centrecounty library.org. Children’s Program — Children ages 6 months to 2 years can explore science through books and movement during “Baby Explorers,” 10:30–11 a.m., at Discovery Space, 112 W. Foster Ave., Suite 1, State College. Activities are free with paid admission. Call (814) 234-0200, email info@ mydiscoveryspace.org or visit www.my discoveryspace.org. Story Time — Story time for children ages 2 to 7 will take place at 10:30 a.m. in the Children’s Activity Room at Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College. There will be interactive stories, fingerplays and music. For more information, contact the Children’s Department at (814) 235-7817. Story Time — The Centre County Library and Historical Museum will have preschool story time, 10:30–11:30 a.m., at 200 Allegheny St., Bellefonte. Today’s theme is “Opposites.” Call (814) 355-1516 or visit www.centrecountylibrary.org. Line Dancing — Centre Region Parks and Recreation presents line dancing at 10:50 a.m. at the Centre Region Senior Center, 131 S. Fraser St., No.1, State College. No experience necessary or partners needed. Call (814) 231-3076. Event — Penn State Harrisburg creative writing and composition professor Jen Hirt will present “Monster Magnificent: Writing the Odd Encounter” at 12:10 p.m. at the Palmer Museum of Art, University Park. For more information, visit www.palmer museum.psu.edu. Volunteering — Bellefonte Area Mission Central HUB will be open, 1–3 p.m., at the Trinity United Methodist Church, 128 W. Howard St., Bellefonte. Call (814) 355-9425. Parent’s Program — Connie Schulz, SCASD family outreach specialist, will talk to parents about how to manage and prevent tantrums and meltdowns during “Tuning Into Kids,” noon to 1:30 p.m., at Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College. Registration at least one week in advance is required and can be done by visiting www.scasd.org/communityed or calling (814) 231-1070. Childcare will also be available, but must be reserved by calling the Children’s Department at (814) 235-7817 at least one week prior to the program. Children’s Program — The Centre Hall Branch Library will host an afterschool science club, 3–3:30 p.m. and 3:45–4:15 p.m., at 109 W. Beryl St., Centre Hall. Today’s theme is “The Heart.” Call (814) 364-2580 or visit www.centrecountylibrary.org. Lecture — University of North Carolina at Charlotte professor of architecture and urbanism, Zhongjie Lin, will speak at 6 p.m. in the Stuckerman Family Building Jury Space, University Park. For more information, visit www.stuckerman.psu.edu. Zumba — New Hope United Methodist Church will sponsor a free Zumba class at 6 p.m. at the church, 1089 E. College Ave., Bellefonte. Call Amanda at (814) 321-4528. Class — Sean Bodley will teach “Exploration of Illustration,” 6–8:30 p.m., at the Bellefonte Art Museum, 133 N. Allegheny St., Bellefonte. For registration forms and a full list of 2014 art classes, visit www. bellefonteartmuseum.org/classes.html. Group Meeting — Celebrate Recovery will meet, 6:30–8 p.m., at Christ Community Church, 200 Ellis Place, State College. The group uses the “Eight Recovery Principles” with a 12-step approach to help members cope with life’s troubles. For more information, visit www.cccsc.org or call (814) 234-0711. Lecture — Friends’ Richard Koonts Memorial Lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. at the Pennsylvania Military Museum, 51 Boal Ave., Boalsburg. For more information, visit www.pamilmuseum.org.
THURSDAY, FEB. 6
Story Time — Preschoolers can enjoy stories and songs at the Thursday story time, 10:30–10:50 a.m., at Discovery Space, 112 W. Foster Ave., Suite 1, State College. Story times are free with paid admission. Call (814) 234-0200 or email info@my discoveryspace.org. — Compiled by Gazette staff
January 30-February 5, 2014
The Centre County Gazette
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GROUP MEETINGS The Gazette will publish the regular meeting dates and times for all Centre County social and service groups, organizations, clubs, etc. that have membership open to the public. To be included in the weekly listing send information by Wednesday one week prior to publication to community@centrecountygazette. com or mail to: The Centre County Gazette, Attn: Group Meetings, 403 S. Allen St., State College, PA 16801. Adult Bible Study and Kids Program, offering practical help from the Bible and a fun and productive time for kids, will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesdays at Nittany Baptist Church, 430 Mountain Back Road, Spring Mills. Call (814) 360–1601 or visit www.nittany baptist.org. Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse — Men’s Support Group sponsored by The Centre County Women’s Resource Center, meets from 5:30–7 p.m. Tuesdays. Call (814) 237–5220 ext. 247, email [email protected] or visit www.ccwrc.org. Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse — Women’s Support Group sponsored by The Centre County Women’s Resource Center, meets from 5:30–7 p.m. Wednesdays. Call (814) 237–5220 ext. 247, email [email protected] or visit ccwrc.org. ALIVE Teen Club meets at 6 p.m. Sundays at First Baptist Church, 539 Jacksonville Road, Bellefonte. Call (814) 355–5678 or visit www.fbcbellefonte.org. Alzheimer’s/Dementia Support Groups meet the first Friday at 1 p.m. and second Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. of every month in the Mount Nittany Dining Room at The Inn at Brookline, 1930 Cliffside Drive, State College. Contact Anne at (814) 234–3141 or [email protected] or Janie at (814) 235–2000 or [email protected] for information. AWANA Club meets at 6 p.m. every Sunday at the First Baptist Church, 539 Jacksonville Road, Bellefonte. Activities and Bible lessons will be held for children ages 3 through sixth grade. Materials provided. Call (814) 355–5678 or visit www.fbc bellefonte.org. Bald Eagle Grange No. 151 meets at 7 p.m. the first Tuesday of every month at the Grange Hall in Runville. Bald Eagle Watershed Association meets at 9:30 a.m. the third Monday at the Milesburg Borough Building, 416 Front St., Milesburg. Visit www.baldeaglewatershed.com. The Bald Eagle Area Class of 1959 meets at 6 p.m. the first Wednesday of each month for dinner. Location changes each month. Call Joyce at (814) 383–4337 or email ljt2342@embarqmail. com. Bald Eagle Area Class of 1960 meets for lunch at 11:30 a.m. the third Thursday of every month at The Bestway Restaurant, 1023 N. Eagle Valley Road, Howard. Call Barb (814) 466–6027. Bald Eagle Area Class of 1962 meets for breakfast at 9 a.m. the first Saturday of each month at Bestway Truckstop Restaurant, Route 150, Milesburg. Call Sandy at (814) 387–4218. Bald Eagle Area Class of 1964 meets for breakfast at 9 a.m. the fourth Saturday of the month at the Bestway Restaurant, Route 150, I–80 exit 158, Milesburg. Dinner will be at 5:30 p.m. on the third Friday of the month at the Bellefonte Moose, 125 N. Spring St., Bellefonte. Call Sue (814) 625–2132 or bea.1964@ yahoo.com. Bald Eagle Area Class of 1965 meets for dinner at 5:30 p.m. the last Friday of each month at Bellefonte Elks, 120 W. High St., Bellefonte. Call Bob (814) 383–2151. Bellefonte High School Class of 1956 meets for dinner at 5:30 p.m. the second Friday of each month at Bellefonte Elks, 120 W. High St., Bellefonte. Call Kay at (814) 359–2738. Bellefonte High School Class 1967 meets for breakfast at 8:30 a.m. the first Saturday of each month at Sunset West, 521 E. College Ave., Pleasant Gap. The location is subject to change. Call Vic at (814) 360–1948. Bellefonte Elks Lodge meets at 7 p.m. the second and fourth Mondays of each month at Bellefonte Elks, 120 W. High St., Bellefonte. Bellefonte Encampment No. 72 and Ridgeley Canton No. 8 meets at 7 p.m. the second Wednesday of each month, Windmere Hall, 454 Rolling Ridge Drive, State College. Bellefonte Garden Club meets at 6:30 p.m. the third Tuesday of the month at the First Presbyterian Church, 203 N. Spring St., Bellefonte. Visit www.facebook.com/bellefontegardenclub or call (814) 355–4427. Bellefonte Historical Railroad Society meets at 7 p.m. the first Monday of each month at the Train Station, Talleyrand Park, Bellefonte. Call (814) 355–1053 or www.bellefontetrain.org. Bellefonte Kiwanis Club meets at noon Tuesdays at the Moose Club, 125 N. Spring St., Bellefonte. Call Jeff Steiner at (814) 3593233 or email [email protected].. Bellefonte Sunrise Rotary Club meets at 7:30 a.m. Fridays at Diamond Deli, 103 N. Allegheny St., Bellefonte. Call Mary Jane Fisher at (814) 355–5905. Bellefonte Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1600 meets at 8 p.m. the second Thursday of every month at Post Home, Spring Street, Bellefonte. Bellefonte Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1600 Ladies Auxiliary meets at 7 p.m. the second Wednesday of every month at Post Home, Spring Street, Bellefonte. Better Breathers Support Group meets at 2 p.m. the third Thursday every month at HealthSouth Nittany Valley Rehabilitation Hospital, 550 E. College Ave., Pleasant Gap. Call James Williamson, respiratory manager, at (814) 359–3421. Better Breathers is affiliated with the American Lung Association. Business Networking International meets at 7 a.m. Thursdays at Celebration Hall, 2280 Commercial Blvd., State College. Members share ideas, contacts and business referrals. Fee is $10 for room and breakfast. Call Kelly Swisher at (814) 280–1656. Boy Scouts of America BSA Troop 66 meets from 7–8 p.m. every Tuesday at Pleasant Gap United Methodist Church, 179 S. Main St., Pleasant Gap. Email Scoutmaster Bill Weaver at [email protected]. Brain Injury Support Group meets at 7 p.m. the second Tuesday of every month at HealthSouth Nittany Valley Rehabilitation Hospital, 550 E. College Ave., Pleasant Gap. Call Sharon Poorman, nurse manager, at (814) 359–3421. There will be no meetings in January and February. Breast Cancer Support Group meets from 5:30–7 p.m. the first Monday of every month in the ground floor conference rooms, Mount Nittany Medical Center, 1800 E. Park Ave., State College. If the first Monday of the month is a holiday, the meeting will be held on the second Monday of the month. Call Cheri at (814) 231–7005. The Caregivers Support Group of the Cancer Survivors’ Association meets at 10:30 a.m. the first Monday of the month in Conference Room 6, Mount Nittany Medical Center, 1800 E. Park Ave., State College. Catholic Daughters of the Americas social begins at 6:30 p.m. and meets at 7 p.m. the first Thursday of every month at St. John’s Catholic School auditorium, 134 E. Bishop St., Bellefonte. Call
(814) 355–7730 or email [email protected]. Central Pennsylvania Holistic Wellness Group will meet to share and learn about many methods and techniques to support a holistic, homeopathic and spiritual lifestyle from 6:30–8 p.m. the second Wednesday of each month at the Inspired Holistic Wellness, 107 S. Spring St., Bellefonte. Call (814) 883–0957 or visit www.meetup.com/central–pa–holistic–wellnessgroup. The Centre County Down Syndrome Society meets from 7–9 p.m. on the second Thursday of the month in the offices at 111 Sowers St., Suite 504, in State College. Email ccdssociety@gmail. com or visit www.centrecountydownsyndrome.org. The Centre County Green Party meets at 7:15 p.m. on the second Thursday of every month at Webster’s Bookstore Café, 133 E. Beaver Ave., State College. Centre County Real Estate Investment Club meets from 7–9 p.m. the third Thursday of every month at RE/MAX Centre Realty, 1375 Martin St., State College. Call (814) 280–5839 or email len@ decarmine.com. Visit www.centrecountyreiclub.org. Centre Hall Lions Club meets at 6:30 p.m. the second Tuesday of the month and at 7 p.m. the fourth Tuesday of the month at Centre Hall Lions Club Building, 153 E. Church St., Centre Hall. Centre Line Riders — ABATE of Pennsylvania, Chapter 18 meets at noon the third Saturday of each month at the Centre Hall American Legion, 2928 Penns Valley Pike, Centre Hall. Centre Pieces Quilt Guild meets from 7–9 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month (March through December) at the Mount Nittany Middle School Cafeteria, 656 Brandywine Drive, State College. Visit www.centrepiecesguild.org or call (814) 237–6009. Centre Region Model Investment Club meets at 6:30 p.m. on the second Monday of the month at the Mazza Room, South Hills Business School, 480 Waupelani Drive, State College. Call (814) 234–8775 or email [email protected]. The Centre Region Wargaming and Miniatures Group will meet each week. Meeting times and place changes each week. Join the website to become active: www.meetup.com/centre–region– wargaming–and–miniatures–group. The Compassionate Friends Group meets from 7–8:30 p.m. the second Monday of each month at New Hope, 1089 E. College Ave., Bellefonte. TCF is a national nonprofit support organization offering understanding, friendship and hope to families following the death of a child of any age, from any cause. Contact Peg Herbstritt at (814) 574–5997 or email [email protected]. FHA Center for Weight Management and Nutrition hosts a bariatric surgery support group from 6–7 p.m. the third Thursday of each month in Classroom 4, Lewistown Hospital, 400 Highland Ave., Lewistown. Sessions are moderated by Virginia M. Wray. Call (717) 242–7099 or visit www.myfamilyhealthassociates.com. Girls of Bald Eagle Area High School Class of 1961 meets at 11:30 a.m. the second Tuesday of each month at the Mt. Valley Diner, 850 S. Eagle Valley Road, Wingate. Call (814) 355–3686. Halfmoon Garden Club meets at 1 p.m. the first Thursday of the month. Membership is open to Halfmoon Township residents. Contact Barbara Fleischer by phone at (814) 693–0188 or by email at [email protected]; or contact Lori Clayton by phone at (814) 692–8077 or by email at [email protected]. Halfmoon Grange No. 290 meets at 7:30 p.m. the first Monday of every month at the Grange Hall in Centennia. Call Diane at (814) 692–4580. Hearing Loss Association of America meets at 7 p.m. the second Monday of each month at Foxdale, 500 E. Marylyn Ave., State College. Learn the latest technology available for hearing loss. Heart Failure Support Group will meet at 4 p.m. the fourth Monday of every month at HealthSouth Nittany Valley Rehabilitation Hospital, 550 E. College Ave., Pleasant Gap. Call Traci Curtorillo, nurse manager, at (814) 359–3421. Heritage Museum Board meets at 7 p.m. the second Thursday of the month at the Boalsburg Municipal Building, Main Street, Boalsburg. Call Dr. Pete Ferretti at (814) 574–0939 or email par2@ psu.edu. I.O.O.F. Centre Lodge #153 meets at 7:30 p.m. the first and third Thursday of each month at I.O.O.F. Lodge Hall, 756 N. Main St., Pleasant Gap. Junior Rockhounds meets at 5 p.m. the third Wednesday of each month in Room 121, Earth and Engineering Sciences Building, University Park. Call (814) 867–6263 or visit www.nittany mineral.org. Keystone Guild of the Watchmakers Association of Pa. meets at 1 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month at Bull Pen Restaurant, Washington Avenue at First Street, Tyrone. Call George at (814) 238–1668. Ladies Grief Support Group meets at 2 p.m. every second and fourth Tuesday at Living Faith Church, 113 Sunset Acres, Milesburg. Call Hazel at (814) 387–4952. Marion Grange 223 meets at 7 p.m. the second Thursday of every month at the Jacksonville Grange Hall. For more information, call Brenda at (814) 383–2796. The Milesburg Lions Club meets at 7 p.m. the first and third Tuesday of every month at Milesburg Center across from Uni– Mart. MOPS, Mothers of Preschoolers, sponsored by New Hope Church, is designed to nurture every mother with children from pregnancy through kindergarten and meets the first and third Thursday of each month at The State College Evangelical Free Church, 1243 Blue Course Drive, State College. Child care is provided for each monthly meeting. Visit www.statecollegemops. com. Mount Nittany Health’s Diabetes Network diabetes support group meets from 10:15–11:15 a.m. the second Wednesday of every month at the Centre Region Senior Center, 131 S. Fraser St., No. 1, State College. Call Carol Clitherow at (814) 231–3076 or visit www.mountnittany.org/diabetes. Multiple Sclerosis Support Group meets at 6 p.m. every third Tuesday at HealthSouth Nittany Valley Rehabilitation Hospital, Outpatient Entrance, 550 E. College Ave., Pleasant Gap. The support group is affiliated with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Harrisburg office. Call Steve Uberti at (814) 359–3421. National Alliance on Mental Illness meets at 7 p.m. every second Tuesday at South Hills School, State College. June is the last meeting of the summer. Meetings resume in September. Call Dave (814) 238–1983. The Neuropathy Support Group of Central Pennsylvania will meet at 2 p.m. the fourth Sunday at the Mount Nittany Medical Center, Conference Room 3, 1800 E. Park Ave., State College. Call David Brown at (814) 531–1024. Nittany Knights Barbershop Chorus meets at 7:15 p.m. every Monday at South Hills School, State College. Men who like to sing are welcome. Visit www.nittanyknights.org or call Bill (814) 355–3557. Nittany Leatherneck Detachment meets from 7:30–9 p.m. at the Bellefonte Elks Club on the second Tuesday of every month, January through October. All Marines and F.M.F. corpsmen are welcome.
Nittany Valley Model Railroad Club meets at 7 p.m. Tuesdays at Old Gregg School, Room 1A, 106 School St., Spring Mills. Call Fred at (814) 422–7667. Nittany Mineral Society will hold a social at 6:30 p.m. and meet at 7:30 p.m. the third Wednesday of each month in Room 116, Auditorium of the Earth and Engineering Sciences Building, University Park. Call (814) 867–6263 or visit www.nittanymineral. org. Nittany Valley Woodturners meet from 7–9 p.m. every first Thursday in the woodworking shop of State College Area High School, South Building, 650 Westerly Parkway, State College. Email [email protected] or visit www.visitnittany valleywoodturners.org. The Nittany Valley Writers Network meets for an early–risers breakfast at 7 a.m. every third Wednesday at The Waffle Shop, 1610 W. College Ave., State College. The Nittany Valley Writers Network meets from 7–8:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month at Schlow Centre Region Library, 211 S. Allen St., State College. Old Gregg School Community and Recreation Center meets at 7 p.m. the first Thursday of every month in Room 106, 106 School St., Spring Mills. Call (814) 422–8582, email ogsrobin@ gmail.com or visit www.oldgreggschool.org. Parent Support Group for Children with Eating Disorders meets from 7–8 p.m. the second Tuesday of every month in Conference Room 3, Mount Nittany Medical Center, 1800 E. Park Ave., State College. Call Kristie Kaufman at (814) 466–7921. Penns Valley Grange No. 158 meets at 7:30 p.m. the second Thursday of every month in Grange Hall, Railroad Street, Spring Mills. Pleasant Gap Rotary Club meets at 6 p.m. every Thursday at The Oaks, 220 Rachel Drive, Pleasant Gap. Reiki Group will meet from 6:30–8:30 p.m. the first Thursday of the month at Inspired Holistic Wellness, 107 S. Spring St., Bellefonte. Call (814) 883–0957, email beth@inspiredholisticwellness. com, or visit www.inspiredholisticwellness.com. RSVP is appreciated. The Romans 12:2 Group meets from 7–8:30 p.m. Mondays at 204 W. High St., Bellefonte. The group is an addictions breakaway program sponsored by Lifegate Baptist Church, and is open to all who are suffering from any form of addiction as well as to family members that may be affected by the addict’s behavior. Call (814) 353–1942. Sacred Harp Singing meets from 7–8:30 a.m. the second and fourth Monday at the University Mennonite Church, 1606 Norma St., State College. Visit www.statecollegesacredharp. com. The Snow Shoe Lions Club meets at 6:30 p.m. the first and fourth Wednesday of every month at the Moshannon Community Center, Route 144, Snow Shoe. Soroptimist International of Centre County meet at 6 p.m. the first Monday of the month at the Atherton Hotel, 125 S. Atherton St., State College. Call (814) 234–0658 or email hjlaw11@aol. com. State College Area High School Class of ’65 meets for brunch at 10:30 a.m. the second Wednesday of each month at Way’s Fruit Market, 2355 Halfmoon Valley Road, Port Matilda. State College Downtown Rotary Club meets at noon on Thursdays at Damon’s, 1031 E. College Ave., State College. State College Elks Lodge meets at 7:30 p.m. the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at Mountain View Country Club, 100 Elks Club Road, Boalsburg. State College Lions Club meets at 6:15 p.m. the first and third Thursday of the month at Damon’s, 1031 E. College Ave., State College. State College Rotary Club meets at 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays at Nittany Lion Inn, Faculty Staff Lounge, 200 W. Park Ave., University Park. State College Sunrise Rotary Club meets at 7:15 a.m. Wednesdays at Hotel State College, 106 S. Allen St., State College, above The Corner Room. State College Weavers Guild meets from 7:30–9 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month, September through May. Meetings are held in members’ homes. Refreshments are served at 7 p.m. For meeting location, visit www.state collegeweaversguild.weebly.com or call (814) 234–7344. Support Group for Family & Friends of Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors, sponsored by The Centre County Women’s Resource Center, meets from 5:30–7 p.m. Mondays. Call (814) 237– 5220 ext. 247, email [email protected] or visit www.ccwrc.org. Stroke Support Group meets at 4 p.m. the last Tuesday of every month at HealthSouth Nittany Valley Rehabilitation Hospital, 550 E. College Ave., Pleasant Gap. There will be no meeting in August and December. Call Caroline Salva–Romero, speech therapy manager, or Linda Meyer, speech–language pathologist, at (814) 359–3421. The Survivors’ Support Group of the Cancer Survivors’ Association meets at 11:30 a.m. the third Monday of the month in Conference Room 3, Mount Nittany Medical Center, 1800 E. Park Ave., State College. TOPS, Take Off Pounds Sensibly, will meet at 6:20 p.m. every Tuesday at the American Legion, 2928 Penns Valley Pike, Centre Hall. Weigh–in will be held from 5:30–6:20 p.m. Call Aurelia Confer at (814) 574–1747. TOPS, Take Off Pounds Sensibly, PA 473 support group meets at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the conference room of Windsong Apartments at Brookline, 1950 Cliffside Drive, State College. Call Jane Wettstone at (814) 404–1689. TRIAD, a public safety group for senior citizens, meets each second Thursday in various locations. Call Dick Kustin at (814) 238-2524 or Don Hohner at (908) 902-3122. Trout Unlimited, a nonprofit conservation organization, meets at 7:30 p.m. every first Thursday at Comfort Suites Hotel, 132 Village Drive, State College. Walker Grange #2007 meets the second Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. at the Walker Township Building, 816 Nittany Valley Drive, Bellefonte. Weight Loss Challenge meets at 6 p.m. Tuesdays at the Park Forest Baptist Church, 3030 Carnegie Drive, State College. Membership fee is $35. Contact Darlene Foster at (814) 238–8739 or rdf55@ verizon.net. WiNGs, the Women’s Network Group for women entrepreneurs, has a social from 8–8:30 a.m. and meets from 8:30–10:30 a.m., the third Wednesday of every month at the Patton Township conference room, 100 Patton Plaza, State College. Email member [email protected] or call (814) 360–1063. Women’s Welcome Club of State College meets at 7 p.m. the second Wednesday of every month at Oakwood Presbyterian Church, 1865 Waddle Road, State College. Visit www.womenswelcomeclub.org or email wwcmembership@ gmail.com. — Compiled by Gazette staff
Page 28
The Centre County Gazette
January 30-February 5, 2014
PUZZLES CLUES ACROSS 1. Boring routine 4. Back talk 8. Emerald Isle 10. Snow leopard 11. 1/20 of an ancient shekel 13. Language of Apia 14. Relating to NH2 15. British Air Aces 16. Woman (French) 17. Cheese skins 18. Deafening noise 19. Cheeky talk 20. Early photograph 24. Basics 25. 007’s Flemming Fun By The Numbers Sudoku puzzles are formatted as a 9x9 grid, broken down into nine 3x3 boxes. To solve a sudoku, the numbers 1 through 9 must fill each row, column and box. Each number can appear only once in each row, column and box. You can figure out the order in which the numbers will appear by using the numeric clues already provided in the boxes. The more numbers you name, the easier it gets to solve the puzzle!
Sudoku #1
Sudoku #2
26. Photograph (slang) 27. Male sheep 28. Norse sea goddess 29. Small cask 30. Ch. Osgood hosts 37. Confederate soldier 38. Radioactivity unit 39. Chocolate tree 40. Express surprise 41. Express delight 42. Mary mourning Jesus 43. 18th century indoor cap 45. Thanjavur University 46. Skilled 47. Hindu mother goddess 48. Follow by one’s foot
49. Born of CLUES DOWN 1. Respect 2. Azotemia 3. Exhausting 4. Accumulation 5. Lack of moral standards in a society 6. A rascal 7. X100 = 1 tala 9. River of Haikou, China 10. Lout 12. Stockings 13. Capital of Chile 15. Spanish for river 18. 12th month (abbr.) 19. Skilled nurse 21. Unit of precipitation 22. Corpuscle count (abbr.)
23. Sweet potato 26. God of fields & woods 27. Dream sleep 28. Polish or stroke 29. Kilo yard (abbr.) 30. Member of U.S. Navy 31. Express pleasure 32. Written acknowledgment (abbr.) 33. Neptune’s closest satellite 34. O’Neill play “The ____ Cometh” 35. Homegrown 36. Goalkeeper 37. __ Island, U.S. State 40. Far East nursemaid 41. Food grain 44. 2 stripe rank (abbr.) PUZZLE #1 SOLUTION PUZZLE #2 SOLUTION
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CENTRE COUNTY GAZETTE • 403 S. ALLEN ST. • STATE COLLEGE, PA 16801 www.centrecountygazette.com
Business
January 30-February 5, 2014
Page 29
Study abroad experiences broaden perspective UNIVERSITY PARK — In December, the Penn State Smeal College of Business International Programs Office sponsored a photo contest, providing students an opportunity to share photos of their experiences abroad. Markea Dickinson, senior supply chain and information systems major, won the contest with her photo from Machu Picchu in Peru. Dickinson traveled to Peru during her semester abroad in Argentina with the Latin American Societies and Cultures program. She said she knew she wanted to study abroad before she ever came to Penn State. One of her main goals in choosing a nontraditional, Spanish-speaking location was to immerse herself in the language. Though she traveled to Argentina with limited Spanish skills, after a full semester in the country, she now feels fluent in the language. “The knowledge you gain in the classroom isn’t the same as speaking with native speakers,” she said. “I would go to the café every Sunday and just talk to locals to enhance my language skills.” The classes Dickinson took in Argentina were
mostly related to culture and language, but she says the lessons she learned will be vital to her career in the supply chain industry. “Supply chain is a very global industry,” she said, adding that her experience working with people from different cultures and adapting in unfamiliar environments will benefit her future career. Dickinson’s photo from Machu Picchu was symbolic of what her study abroad experience meant to her. “Through living as a resident in Argentina and embracing the cultural differences, I was able to embark on one of the most risky, yet rewarding experiences of my life,” she said. “This photo captures the most important lesson I learned while abroad — the essential nature of taking risks and losing sight of the shore in order to make my dreams a reality.” Runners up in the International Photo Programs photo contest were Emily Grier, a student in the master of accounting program, who spent her fall 2012 semester in London, and Kristopher Johnson, a marketing major who spent fall 2013 in Buenos Aires.
Submitted photo
MARKEA DICKINSON looks out over Peru from a spot in Machu Picchu.
Business owners can learn from Sherman’s rants The story you’ve probably heard goes like this. Richard Sherman, defensive back for the Seattle Seahawks, tips a pass from San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick into a teammate’s hands to clinch the NFC championship and a trip to the Super Bowl. Sherman then makes the choke signal towards Kaepernick and taunts 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree, resulting in an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. David M. Following the Mastovich is president of game, Sherman was MASSolutions Inc. interviewed by Fox For more sideline reporter Erin information, Andrews. Rather than visit www.mas blurt the standard clisolutions.biz. ches during his interview, Sherman lashed out at Crabtree. The interview turned into a story all its own when sports reporters, news media, social media sites and even psychologists weighed in on Sherman’s rant. It’s fair to say Sherman behaved badly
DAVID M. MASTOVICH
and even he admits his rant was “immature” and that he “shouldn’t have attacked another person.” The old cliche “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” is actually often not the case. Ask New Jersey governor Chris Christie if he thinks his recent media publicity is good or bad. However, the cliche probably does ring true for Sherman in this instance. Sherman gained significantly more national exposure from his rant than his defensive play. People are talking about him in and outside of sports. He might have been, as he claimed in the interview, “the best cornerback in the world,” but not many people knew him a week ago. His behavior isn’t going to cost him endorsements and actually might lead to some. How can we learn from Richard Sherman and apply it to our messaging? n Build your message around what you believe in. Passionate speakers are more interesting to their target audience. n Keep it simple and succinct. Think in terms of what others want to know. n Be prepared. You might stumble upon a messaging opportunity in front of a group, the media or in an elevator. n Make it timely. Leverage social media’s speed and ease of use. And, whether you think it worked out for Richard Sherman or not, don’t act like a jerk.
ELAINE THOMPSON/AP Photo
SEATTLE’S RICHARD SHERMAN speaks at a news conference following the Seahawks’ 23-17 win in the NFC championship. Sherman made headlines for his postgame interview with FOX’s Erin Andrews.
Keenan named managing director, PSU MBA program UNIVERSITY PARK — The Penn State Smeal College of Business Executive MBA program in Philadelphia has named Kara Keenan as its new managing director. Keenan previously served as associate director of both the Chief Learning Officer program and the Medical Education program at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She has held leadership roles at INSEAD and the Columbia Business School. “For more than a decade, the Smeal Executive MBA program has represented the strength of the Penn State name in Philadelphia, and I’m looking forward to growing the program’s potential even further in the coming years,”
said Keenan. As managing director of the Smeal Executive MBA, Keenan will lead recruitment and admission efforts, work with students, faculty and staff to ensure excellence in program delivery, and continue to build and strengthen the network of EMBA alumni with each other and to the wider Penn State alumni network. “We’re very excited to welcome Kara to the Smeal College of Business community,” said Charles H. Whiteman, John and Becky Surma Dean of Smeal. “She has a deep appreciation for the unique dimensions of the executive MBA format and how it can serve high-potential students and their organizations. Kara will play a critical leadership role
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Executive VP of PPG Industries to speak at Smeal
UNIVERSITY PARK — Michael H. McGarry, executive vice president of PPG Industries, will share his perspectives on business and leadership on Friday, Jan. 31, as part of the Penn State Smeal College of Business’s Executive Insights series. As part of his visit, McGarry will take part in a moderated discussion with Charles H. Whiteman, the John and Becky Surma Dean of Smeal, from 11:15 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. in the Struthers Auditorium, Room 110 of the business building. The event is free and open to the public, but online registration is required at www.smeal.psu.edu/ insights. McGarry joined PPG in 1981 as an engineer at the com-
pany’s Lake Charles, La., chemicals complex. He assumed his current role in February 2013. As executive vice president, he is a member of the company’s executive and operating committees and oversees its architectural coatings and flat glass businesses; the Europe, Middle East and Africa region; and its corporate environment, health and safety, information technology and quality functions. Additionally, McGarry serves as a director on the board of Axiall Corporation, an integrated chemicals and building products company, and on the board of Pittsburgh Glass Works LLC, in which PPG holds a minority interest. He holds a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Texas and completed the Advanced Manage-
ment Program at Harvard Business School. PPG Industries is a global supplier of paints, coatings, optical products, specialty materials, chemicals, glass and fiberglass. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, the company operates in more than 70 countries around the world. Executive Insights is designed to complement the Smeal educational experience by bringing high-profile business leaders to the college to connect with students, faculty, staff and administrators. Past guests include more than 25 leaders from organizations such as Boeing, Dell, Deloitte, Johnson & Johnson, Kohl’s, KPMG, Procter & Gamble, Samsung, Siemens, Verizon and Tumi Holdings Inc.
Art seminar scheduled Smeal community encouraged to nominate students for Stand Up Award UNIVERSITY PARK — The Penn State Smeal College of Business encourages students, faculty and staff to nominate undergraduate students for the Rock Ethics Institute 2014 Stand Up Award. The Stand Up Award honors Penn State undergraduates who have demonstrated ethical leadership in taking a stand for a person, cause or belief. The nomination deadline is Friday, Jan. 31. “The Smeal College is committed to fostering a community of honor and integrity,” said Jennifer Eury, director of honor and integrity at Smeal. “The Stand Up Award pro-
vides a meaningful forum to recognize students for their ethical leadership — students who demonstrate their values and take a stand for the betterment of our community.” In 2009, a Smeal College of Business student — now an alumnus — was the recipient of the Stand Up Award. Shane George tackled several ethical issues while he was a student at Penn State. First, he took a stand against cheating by working with college faculty to bring the honor code to undergraduates. He also made presentations to business classes to garner
support and participation in the reporting of cheating. In addition, George promoted a safe environment for students on the residential hall floor where he served as a resident assistant. When a group of students discriminated against an openly gay dorm resident, George brought his residents together to stress an environment of respect for all lifestyles. The Rock Ethics Institute aims to promote ethical awareness and inquiry across the university and beyond through teaching, research and outreach.
STATE COLLEGE — “The Business of Art” is a free workshop for artists from all fields to gain ideas and information that can help their art businesses become more successful. The event will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 13, at the Keystone Centre, 1224 N. Atherton St. in State College. The workshop will be led by Will Snyder of CityStateArts.com. To register online, visit www.scorecpa.org.
To advertise in The Gazette, call (814) 238-5051 or email sales@ centrecountygazette.com
DEED TRANSFERS The following property transactions were compiled from information provided by the Centre County Recorder of Deeds, Joseph Davidson. The Gazette is not responsible for typographical errors. The published information is believed to be accurate; however, the Gazette neither warrants nor accepts any liability or responsibility for inaccurate information.
RECORDED JAN. 6-10, 2013 BELLEFONTE
Kerry A. Benninghoff and Michele L. Benninghoff to Kerry A. Benninghoff, 704 W. Lamb St., Bellefonte, $1. Janel R. Lyons, Janel R. Spotts and Jeremy Spotts to Tami L. Barnes, 1034 Woodland Drive, Bellefonte, $172,900.
BENNER TOWNSHIP
Paul A. Hartle and Ellen M. Hartle to Randall S. Moyer and Gina M. Moyer, Jagger Lane, Bellefonte, $25,000. Randall S. Moyer and Gina M. Moyer to James K. Plourde and Carrie A. Plourde, 1401 Seibert Road, Bellefonte, $299,000.
CENTRE HALL
Paul S. Spock Jr. and Lisa M. Spick to Mark C. Biga-
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tel and Paula M. Bigatel, 120 W. Church St., Centre Hall, $120,000.
COLLEGE TOWNSHIP
Patrick J. Drohan and Joy R. Drohan to Ronald K. Lamicela and Christine H. Lamicela, 310 Bottorf Drive, State College, $215,000. Jean L. Kistler estate, Thomas King Kistler co-executor and John P. Kistler co-executor to David H. Rosenberg and Susan B. Rosenburg, 124 Colonial Court, State College, $312,500.
FERGUSON TOWNSHIP
Ferguson Township to Pletcher’s Distributor. Francine T. Jones to Francine T. Jones and Christopher B. Jones, 3087 Westover Drive, State College, $1. Reliance Savings Bank to Sarah P. Schipp, 211 Anaconda Drive, Pennsylvania Furnace, $260,000. Michael L. Smith and Rebecca J. Smith to Matthew N. Caracappa and Sara E. Caracappa, 2368 Quail Run Road, State College, $212,000. Cyril L. Velkoff Revocable Trust and Cheryl Velkoff trustee to Patrick J. Drohan and Joy R. Drohan, $307,000.
HAINES TOWNSHIP
Troy A. Catherman and Gay L. Catherman to Poorman’s Welding and Fabrication Inc., 5634 Penns Valley Road, Aaronsburg, $200,000. Rhelda Jane Weaver by attorney and Rhelda J. Weaver by attorney to Kent Alan Weaver and Amanda Ann Weaver, 503 N. Rachels Way, Aaronsburg, $1. Rhelda Jane Weaver by attorney and Rhelda J. Weaver by attorney to Ruth O. Weaver, 509 N. Rachels Way, Aaronsburg, $1.
HARRIS TOWNSHIP
Auger-Nobori Properties to B. Tracy Nixon, 213 Timberwood Trail, Centre Hall, $195,000. Kurt M. Kanaskie and Joyce L. Kanaskie to Douglas S. Johnson and Annmarie Johnson, 102 Aspen Drive, Boalsburg, $485,000. TOA PA IV LP to Peter C. Gerken and Irene A. Gerken, 202 Beacon Circle, Boalsburg, $326,694. TOA PA IV LP to George M. Vraneza and Pauline Erickson Vraneza, 148 Pilgrim Drive, Boalsburg, $370,927.28. TOA PA IV LP to Robert L. Whitlinger, 261 Plymouth Circle, Boalsburg, $344,298.69.
MARION TOWNSHIP
Diane E. Heckman, Kenneth E. Truckenmiller, Terrance E. Truckenmiller and Stanley E. Truckenmiller to Willard S. Truckenmiller and Joann Truckenmiller, 124 School House Drive, Howard, $1.
MILES TOWNSHIP
Lee W. Ripka by sheriff to JP Morgan Chase Bank, 110 E. Main St., Rebersburg, $5,071.65.
PATTON TOWNSHIP
Justin Reed Meinnert and Jacinda Renee Sauter to Kenneth J. Schirling and Anna M. Schirling, 264 Ghaner Drive, State College, $179,500. Gray’s Woods and S&A Homes Inc. to Michael L. Smith and Rebecca J. Smith, 232 Glenndale Drive, Port Matilda, $338,567.
Allan C. Thurman and Janet C. Irons to William J. Sundstrom and Dawn M. Sundstrom, 236 Oakley Drive, State College, $209,000. Neil Wallace and Constance J. McGeorge to Neil Wallace, 1336 Deerbrook Drive, Port Matilda, $1.
PHILIPSBURG BOROUGH
Norman A. Stiver and Margaret T. Stiver to Stephen L. Kohute and Irene E. Kohute, 307 Douglas St., Philipsburg, $185,500.
POTTER TOWNSHIP
Tanya L. Evans to James J. Evans and Tanya L. Evans, Tusseyville Road, Centre Hall, $1.
RUSH TOWNSHIP
Roberta T. Belko and Barbara J. Belko to Jean E. Harris and Kelly J. Foreman, 113 Loch Lomond Road, Philipsburg, $1. Mildred B. Kovach estate and Barry P. Kovach executor to Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, 1924 Daisy St. Extension, Clearfield, $1. Mark R. Miscavish estate, Mark Randall Miscavish estate, Traci A. Miscavish estate, Traci Ann Miscavish estate and Nadine Y. Miscavish administer and heir to Nadine Y. Miscavish, 2662 Black Moshannon Road, Philipsburg, $120,000.
SNOW SHOE BOROUGH
Carole R. Nastase and Carol R. Nastase to Jennifer C. Nastase and Joshua Nastase, 105 W. Olive St., Snow Shoe, $1.
SPRING TOWNSHIP
Carlton C. Emel and Freda S. Emel to Jeremy E. Dutrow and Amanda S. Dutrow, 504 Valentine Hill Road, Bellefonte, $168,000. Jacqueline Y. Ficarro and Donald A. Flory to Jonathan J. Sunner and Lauren A. Sunner, 204 Danielle Drive, Pleasant Gap, $149,400.
STATE COLLEGE BOROUGH
Daphne D. Hoffman and Jason T. Hoffman, 242 Nimitz Ave., State College, $1.
TAYLOR TOWNSHIP
Edwin R. Eckberg to Edwin R. Eckberg, 166 Buffalo Drive, Tyrone, $1. James E. Friday Jr. and Carrie L. Friday to Edwin R. Eckberg, 166 Buffalo Drive, Tyrone, $10,000. James E. Friday Jr. and Carrie L. Friday to James E. Friday Jr. and Carrie L. Friday, 140 Buffalo Drive, Tyrone, $1. James E. Friday Jr. and Carrie L. Friday to Samuel C. Friday, Bald Eagle Pike, Port Matilda, $1.
WALKER TOWNSHIP
James A. Biederman by sheriff and Karrie J. Irwin by sheriff to Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., 345 Zion Back Road, Bellefonte, $7,803.49.
WORTH TOWNSHIP
RJ Housel Rentals LLC to Vu Thien Chau, 8280 S. Eagle Valley Road, Port Matilda, $126,950. — Compiled by Gazette staff
The Centre County Gazette
FREE
REAL ESTATE PACKAGE
Real Estate, Rentals, Auctions, Financial, Services/Repairs. Garage Sales, Pets, Bulk (firewood, hay, etc.) not eligible. No other discounts or coupons apply.
MILLHEIM: 3 bdr, 2 bath, water & sewer provided. Call (215) 586‑0505
FOR RENT
APPLY NOW LIMEROCK COURT 2/3 Bedroom Apartments available Jan. Rents starting at $682. Located next to Giant on E. College Ave.
Income Restrictions Apply
814-954-1667 www.prm-mgt.com DON’T miss out on the latest news and local happenings. Read The Centre County Gazette every week.
PROFITABLE PENNSYLVANIA BUSINESSES for sale by owners. Many types, sizes, locations, terms. $25K to $15M. Other states available. www.BizSale.com Call 1‑800‑617‑4204
TEMPORARY CUSTODIAN Bald Eagle Area School District is accepting ap‑ plications for a Tempo‑ rary Custodian. Work schedule is Monday ‑ Fri‑ day, 2nd shift (3:30 PM ‑ Midnight). See district website www.beasd.org for more information. EOE
MEDICAL OFFICE TRAINEES NEEDED! Train to become a Medical Office Assistant. NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED! Online training at SC gets you job ready! HS Diploma/GED & PC/Internet needed! 1‑888‑778‑0463
LOOKING FOR A NEW CAREER IN THE NEW YEAR? … BECOME A CAREGIVER! A job that makes you feel good – taking care of the elderly in their own homes.
• Work close to home • Training is provided • $100 sign-on bonus*
One local call. One low cost.
OVER 37 MILLION JOB SEEKERS!
PARKING CLOSE TO CAMPUS SPRING SEMESTER Parking on church lot, 600 block of East Prospect Ave. $260 for Spring Semester. First Church of Christ, Scientist. Call Mike 814‑237‑8711 or email M7H@psu. edu
MUSICIANS FOR HIRE Central Pennsylvania Musician’s Association has the area’s best professional musicians for hire. Experienced and ethical. Jazz, classical, folk, and rock styles are all available. www.afm660.org or Call 814‑355‑9444.
WILL CLEAN FOR YOU AT REASONABLE RATE! Feeling stressed and overworked? I am ready to clean for you at your home or business. Give me a call, reasonable rates! (814) 933‑9087 PRIVATE Piano Lessons: Graduate Cincinnati Con‑ servatory of Music. Call (814) 234‑5645 SCOOTER SALES & RENTALS CAMPUS SKOOTERS Save your money by buying or renting a scooter from Campus Skooters. Don’t pay a fortune to park a car and keep it filled with gas. Scooters can easily be parked just about anywhere! Check us out at www. CampusSkooters.com for more information or Call (814) 238‑2602 2135 S. Atherton Street State College, PA 16801
only
Go to www.MyJobConneXion.com or call 814-238-5051.
TRUE HANDYMAN SERVICES
WALKS FIREWOOD & LAWN CARE
Snow Blowing, Painting, Electrical/Lighting, Carpentry, Plumbing, Flooring, Trim, Remodels, Tile, Landscape, Mulch, Hauling
Seasoned, Barkless, Oak Firewood. Cut to your length, split, & delivered. We sell our firewood year round. Dont hesitate to call.
No job too small! facebook.com/BillysLittleFixes
814-360-6860 PA104644
CALL NOW Matthew R. Walk (814)937‑3206
FIREWOOD FOR SALE $150/CORD Firewood for sale in the State College area for $150 a cord. FREE DELIVERY Please call 814‑280‑1783 if interested. Thank you!
FIREWOOD Barkless Oak For Sale $150.00 Cut To 17.5” FREE DELIVERY . within 15 miles of Centre Hall CALL 814‑364‑2007
Exciting Opportunities await you at Hearthside RNC!! CNA
HOUSES FOR SALE
COUNTRY 5 min. from town. This 3 bdrn home sits on 1/2 acre with open living room, dining room, and kitchen. Three car garage. Bellefonte area. Asking $250,000 firm. Ph. 814.222.3331.
DESK CHAIR: gray up‑ holstered, swivels, full arm desk chair w/ up & down lever, excellent condition. $35 Call (814) 355‑4132 Entertainment Center: 57 1/4”L, 56”H, 20”W, 2 drawers & 2 shelves on left. 27 1/2” W x 29 1/4” H TV opening. Call (814) 486‑3262 SHOWTIME Rotisserie and BBQ machine. Will do 4 chickens at one time. New in box $125 Call (814) 486‑3262 SONY 34” HD TV: CRT perfect condition. FREE Call (814) 571‑5000
Full-time caregiver positions available Our compassionate Caregivers provide light housekeeping, meal preparation, and personal care services to local elderly who need extra assistance to live independently in their homes.
GIRL’S w/ 16” wheels. $20 Call (814) 486‑3262
BAMBOO fishing rods: (2) 3 pcs. unknown make $50 each Call (814) 486‑3262
Comfort Keepers is seeking full-time caregivers in the Centre County area. Benefits include major medical, dental and vision, 401(k), and paid time off. To begin your career of caring,
EOE.
Over 650 Independently Owned & Operated Offices.
PT/SLP/OT PTA/COTA
PRN positions All Shifts available PA Lic/Cert & LTC Exp. Required!
H Competitive Pay Rates H Email resumes to: [email protected] Or apply in person: 450 Waupaleni Drive, State College, PA 16801
SAWMILLS
from only $4897 MAKE & SAVE MONEY with your own bandmill Cut lumber any dimension. In stock ready to ship. FREE info & DVD: www.NorwoodSawmills. com CALL 1‑800‑578‑1363 ext 300N FILE CABINET: beige, 2 drawer. 25”h x 24”d. ex‑ cellent condition. $25 Call (814) 355‑4132 FREE HORSE MANURE: for fertilizing lawns, gar‑ dens & farm fields. Call (814) 422‑0534
FT positions All Shifts available
Contact Michelle at 814-861-1628 or apply online www.comfortkeepers.com/office-551.
238-8829 www.homeinstead.com/centralpa
4 Weeks 8 Lines + Photo
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ACTION ADS
Total value of all items for sale must be under $2,000 • Must have price of item for sale in ad • Run up to 6 lines for 3 weeks • PRIVATE PARTY ONLY
Call by Noon Monday to run Thursday. All ads must be pre-paid.
GAZETTE
THE CENTRE COUNTY
January 30-February 5, 2014
MADISON HANDBAGS are stylish, unique, classic bags that are designed by YOU, the customer. Host a party to enjoy a night with the ladies and create a bag that screams YOU! Over 80 fabric options to choose from! www.madison handbags.net/scrater
CLASSIFIED helpline: When your ad is published, specify the hours you can be reached. Some people never call back if they cannot reach you the first time
NIKON Camera coolax s4, 10x zoom, 40x digital, like new, in box $75 (814) 359‑2596 RECOIL reducer bench: rest & vise for rifle $100 Call (814) 486‑3262 RED oak boards. rough cut clear. 3 pieces 1 x 17 x 75. 3 pieces 1 x 15 x 45 12 smaller pieces. $90 for all. Call (814) 359‑2596 SNOW FENCING: roll of 50ft $20, 70ft K‑type steel gutter w/ downspout. $40 7x9x8 1/2ft timber $10 Emporium. 814‑486‑3262 WINDOWS: (2) 28x26 $10, (4) aluminum 28x50 $20, (2) storm windows, 51 1/4 x 55 1/2 $10/ea. Call (814) 486‑3262 WINDOWS: steel frame windows (3) 31x21” (1) 33 3/4 x23” $5/ea. Empo‑ rium. Call (814) 486‑3262
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