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Posts Tagged ‘Society’

Biographer Walter Isaacson called Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) “the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become.” Franklin indeed was a Renaissance Man.

In 1779, at age 73, Franklin wrote the letter below to French composer and musician Anna Louise Brillon de Jouy. While Franklin served as ambassador to France (from 1777 to 1785), he was a neighbor and close friend of Jacques and Anna Brillon de Jouy in Paris.

As the letter implies, Anna and Franklin were close. She affectionately called him “Poppa.”

Franklin’s letter to Anna:

———

November 10 1779.

I Received my dear Friend’s two Letters, one for Wednesday and one for Saturday. This is again Wednesday. I do not deserve one for to-day, because I have not answered the former.

But, indolent as I am, and averse to Writing, the Fear of having no more of your pleasing Epistles, if I do not contribute to the Correspondence, obliges me to take up my Pen; and as Mr. B. has kindly sent me Word, that he sets out to-morrow to see you, instead of spending this Wednesday Evening, as I have done its Namesakes, in your delightful Company, I sit down to spend it in thinking of you, in writing to you, and in reading over and over again your Letters.

I am charmed with your Description of Paradise, and with your Plan of living there; and I approve much of your Conclusion, that, in the meantime, we should draw all the Good we can from this World.

In my Opinion we might all draw more Good from it than we do, and suffer less Evil, if we would take care not to give too much for Whistles. For to me it seems that most of the unhappy People we meet with are become so by Neglect of that Caution.

You ask what I mean? You love Stories, and will excuse my telling one of my self.

When I was a Child of seven Years old, my Friends, on a Holiday, filled my little Pocket with Halfpence. I went directly to a Shop where they sold Toys for Children; and being charmed with the Sound of a Whistle, that I met by the way in the hands of another Boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my Money for one.

When I came home, whistling all over the House, much pleased with my Whistle, but disturbing all the Family, my Brothers, Sisters, and Cousins, understanding the Bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth; put me in mind what good Things I might have bought with the rest of the Money; and laughed at me so much for my Folly, that I cry’d with Vexation; and the Reflection gave me more Chagrin than the Whistle gave me Pleasure.

This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, Don’t give too much for the Whistle; and I saved my Money.

As I grew up, came into the World, and observed the Actions of Men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the Whistle. When I saw one too ambitious of Court Favor, sacrificing his Time in Attendance at Levees, his Repose, his Liberty, his Virtue, and perhaps his Friends, to attain it, I have said to my self, This Man gives too much for his Whistle.

When I saw another fond of Popularity, constantly employing himself in political Bustles, neglecting his own Affairs, and ruining them by Neglect, He pays, says I, too much for his Whistle.

If I knew a Miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable Living, all the Pleasure of doing Good to others, all the Esteem of his Fellow Citizens, and the Joys of benevolent Friendship, for the sake of Accumulating Wealth, Poor man, says I, you pay too much for your Whistle.

When I met with a Man of Pleasure, sacrificing every laudable Improvement of his Mind, or of his Fortune, to mere corporeal Sensations, and ruining his Health in their Pursuit, Mistaken man, says I, you are providing Pain for your self, instead of Pleasure; you pay too much for your Whistle.

If I see one fond of Appearance, of fine Clothes, fine Houses, fine Furniture, fine Equipages, all above his Fortune, for which he contracts Debts, and ends his Career in a Prison, Alas! says I, he has paid too much for his Whistle.

When I see a beautiful sweet-tempered Girl marry’d to an ill-tempered Brute of a husband, What a Pity, says I, that she should pay so much for a Whistle!

In short, I conceiv’d that great Part of the Miseries of Mankind are brought upon them by the false Estimates they have made of the Value of Things, and by their giving too much for the Whistle.


Yet I ought to have Charity for these unhappy People, when I consider that, with all this Wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the World so tempting; for example, the Apples of King John, which happily are not to be bought; for if they were put to sale by Auction, I might very easily be led to ruin my self in the Purchase, and find that I had once more given too much for the Whistle.

Adieu, my dearest Friend, and believe me ever yours very sincerely and with unalterable Affection.

———

Franklin used the “Apples of King John” as a metaphor for something of great value. In Franklin’s time, fruit was scarce and costly; he was gracefully admitting that he wasn’t above temptation.

History says Franklin and Anna were genuinely close, and they engaged in flirtatious exchanges often. But their relationship almost certainly was platonic, despite Franklin’s long-time reputation as a womanizer.

Anna wrote to Franklin in 1778, “There can be no great harm that a man desires and succumbs — the woman may desire, but must not succumb.”

I suspect Franklin had the good sense to take the hint.

Poppa and Anna.

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Despair is anger with nowhere to go.

Mignon McLaughlin

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Is there a religion today that would not benefit from calling home its missionaries and setting them to work among its hypocrites?

Robert Brault

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A skeptic doubts the best authority; an enthusiast is likely to accept the poorest.

James Lendall Basford

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All the Negro asks is that the door which rewards industry, thrift, intelligence, and character be left as wide open to him as for the foreigner who constantly comes to our country. More than this he has no right to request. Less than this a republic has no right to withhold.

Booker T. Washington

McLaughlin

Washington

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Of the numerous ways we humans have botched our stewardship of the planet, it’s fair to say that the most egregious is our failure to address the global warming crisis. The Greenhouse Effect will turn the Earth into another Venus, but — oh, well.

Another of our monumental disappointments, although not at such a hair-on-fire level, is our use, overuse, and misuse of plastics.

Plastic is, literally, both a blessing and a curse. It proved to be adaptable, useful, and cheap, so we embraced it without reservation or caution. Now we are drowning in it.

Let me start with a definition. A polymer is a strong, elastic material consisting of long chains of molecules. It is common in nature; the cell walls of plants are made of cellulose, a natural polymer.

In 1869, American inventor John Wesley Hyatt created the first man-made polymer. He did so while seeking a $10,000 prize offered by a manufacturer of billiard balls. To its credit, the company wanted to find an alternative to elephant ivory.

Specifically, Hyatt treated cotton fiber (cellulose) with camphor. The result was celluloid, a partially synthetic polymer that could be molded into various shapes before it hardened. The substance was, in other words, formative. Plastic.

Hyatt’s discovery was groundbreaking. It provided an abundant new material to use in place of wood, stone, metal, etc. Although cellulose was only partly synthetic, the idea was celebrated as a way to preserve natural resources.

The first fully synthetic plastic, Bakelite, was created in 1907 by Leo Baekeland, a Belgian chemist. Bakelite contained no natural molecules. It was durable, heat-resistant, easily moldable, and ideal for mass production. The plastics revolution was underway.

Worldwide, the chemical industry invested heavily in developing more and better types of plastic. By World War II, the US military had switched from glass and silk to acrylic and nylon.

The production of plastics in the US tripled. Plastic soon replaced steel in cars, paper in packaging, and wood in everything. Plastic was a miracle — cheap, safe, and sanitary.

But soon enough, reality intervened. Plastic doesn’t conveniently biodegrade and disappear as do most natural materials. Plastic just piles up.

As early as the 1960s, an alarming amount of plastic waste was polluting waterways and accumulating in landfills.

Although we humans have acknowledged the problem, we have not dealt with it even remotely well. That’s no surprise, because plastics are crucial and profitable to business, industry, and government.

Accordingly, other than rolling out feel-good efforts at recycling, we have done little to rethink the production of plastics or to mitigate the waste problem.

Some relevant statistics…

A few years ago, a study by several universities found that, by 2015, humans had generated 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic.

For perspective, 8.3 billion metric tons is equal to the weight of 822,000 Eiffel Towers, 80 million blue whales, or one billion elephants.

Of that 8.3 billion metric tons, 6.3 billion has been discarded as waste.

Greenpeace says we have recycled roughly five percent of our plastic waste. About 79 percent is sitting in landfills.

Every year, Americans discard 35 billion plastic bags and pieces of plastic packaging.

According to the EPA, we recycle a mere 10 percent of the plastic bags we use.

Every year, an additional eight million metric tons of plastic waste finds its way into the oceans.

Since 1988, scientists have been aware of several massive and growing garbage patches in the oceans of the world. For the most part, the patches are comprised of bits of microplastics, plus pieces of larger plastic items — pens, toothbrushes, plastic bags — that are slowly fragmenting into microplastics.

The largest of the patches, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, covers about 620,000 square miles. Some of the plastic floats on the surface in island-like clumps, but a far greater volume is suspended underwater, out of sight.

Why is the plastics crisis essentially in limbo and not being addressed intelligently? For the same reason the global warming crisis isn’t being solved: too many entities, primarily corporations and governments, profit from the status quo.

What to do? How should shrewd, enterprising, forward-thinkers — people with connections and resources — approach the problem of plastics?

For starters, they should take advantage of plastic’s pesky longevity. Find ways to use it to construct things that we want to last — highways, runways, sidewalks. Homes, schools, office buildings.

In addition, they should look for solutions that (a) make more sense than using plastics and (b) yield better profits.

In that regard, the British startup Pulpex may be onto something promising.

Recently, the UK alcoholic beverage company Diageo (Guinness, Johnnie Walter, Smirnoff) founded Pulpex, a “sustainable packaging” company that has developed a container made of wood pulp.

The Pulpex container is a bottle made of paper. As such, it is biodegradable and easily recyclable after use. Assuming the manufacturing costs are suitably low, that makes it a potential replacement for plastic and glass.

Pulpex pressure-forms wood pulp into bottles of the desired size and shape, then seals the interior with a food-grade coating. Reportedly, Pulpex bottles are made of renewably-sourced wood and can be any shape, size, or color.

Among the first commercial products to be rolled out in Pulpex containers are Diageo’s own Johnnie Walker Black Label, Heinz Ketchup, and Castrol Motor Oil.

The Pulpex model is a simple and smart idea — a positive step.

On the other hand, it doesn’t address the 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste our species already has discarded.

Which, for perspective, is equal to the weight of 661,500 Eiffel Towers, 60 million blue whales, or 750 million elephants.

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The 1991 song “Wind of Change” by The Scorpions is a beautiful ballad, which is unusual for a heavy metal band. It celebrates the collapse of the Soviet Union and new hope for a peaceful future.

The depressing fact that Glasnost and perestroika fizzled out, that very little changed, makes the song ironic and sad, but no less compelling.

The Scorpions, a German band from Hanover that formed in 1965, is still active today. They have sold an amazing 100 million albums worldwide.

Lead singer Klaus Meine (who also provides the song’s excellent whistling) was inspired to write “Wind of Change” after the band performed at the 1989 Moscow Music Peace Festival, to the cheers of 300,000 Russian fans. Hopeful times, indeed.

Recently, due to Putin’s war on Ukraine, the band changed the song’s opening lyrics. The original was “I follow the Moskva [Moscow River] down to Gorky Park, listening to the wind of change.” The opening today is “Now listen to my heart. It says ‘Ukraine,’ waiting for the wind to change.”

Wind of Change

By The Scorpions, 1991
Written by Klaus Meine

I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park,
Listening to the wind of change.
An August summer night,
Soldiers passing by,
Listening to the wind of change.

The world is closing in,
And did you ever think
That we could be so close,
Like brothers?
The future’s in the air.
I can feel it everywhere.
I’m blowing with the wind of change.

Take me
To the magic of the moment
On a glory night,
Where the children of tomorrow
Dream away
In the wind of change.

Walking down the street,
And distant memories
Are buried in the past, forever.
I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park,
Listening to the wind of change.

Take me
To the magic of the moment
On a glory night,
Where the children of tomorrow
Share their dreams
With you and me.

Take me
To the magic of the moment
On a glory night,
Where the children of tomorrow
Dream away
In the wind of change.

The wind of change blows straight
Into that face of time,
Like a storm wind that will ring
The freedom bell for peace of mind.
Let your balalaika sing
What my guitar wants to say.

Take me
To the magic of the moment
On a glory night,
Where the children of tomorrow
Share their dreams
With you and me.

Take me
To the magic of the moment
On a glory night,
Where the children of tomorrow
Dream away
In the wind of change.

https://rockysmith.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/wind-of-change.mp3

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Well, this is a fine mess.

Over the last year, several of my preferred toiletry items have disappeared from the market. These were products I used regularly and counted on, and now they aren’t available anymore. Which leaves me with the unwelcome hassle of finding replacements.

Yes, I’m aware that products get axed all the time. The suits up at Corporate do it for “business reasons.” Maybe sales are down. Maybe the suits want to shake up the market with something new.

Whatever the reason, I am displeased, and I want to vent.

1 — my aftershave

A while back, Burt’s Bees® Natural Skin Care for Men Aftershave, which I had used for years, was replaced on store shelves by Burt’s Bees® Soothing Moisturizer+ Aftershave.

The thing is, I LIKED the old Burt’s Bees® aftershave. I found it pleasing to the nose, gentle to the skin. And, wouldn’t you know it, the replacement is bloody awful. The fragrance isn’t just different, it’s unpleasant. I used it one time and threw the tube in the trash.

2 — my shave cream

Also gone is Burt’s Bees® Natural Skin Care for Men Shave Cream. It was replaced by Burt’s Bees® Cooling Shave Cream with Aloe & Hemp Seed Oil.

Is the new shave cream, like the new aftershave, bloody awful? I don’t intend to find out.

Burt’s Bees® really whiffed the ball on this one. And it isn’t just me. The online chatter has been brutal in bad-mouthing the new versions and asking Burt’s Bees® to bring back the Natural product line.

For that to happen, the suits at Burt’s Bees® would have to admit they screwed up. Not very likely.

Meanwhile, tubes of the now-defunct, now-scarce Natural versions (which retailed for about $7.99) are selling online for $25 to $45 each.

I can only hope that heads will roll at Burt’s Bees®.

3 — my toothpaste

In addition to my beef with Burt’s Bees®, I have a bone to pick with Crest® Toothpaste. For years, my toothpaste was Crest® Complete Multi-Benefit Herbal Mint Fluoride Toothpaste. I found the herbal mint flavor to be pleasant and refreshing. Nice and minty.

But Crest® chose to cease production of the herbal mint variety. When I realized it wasn’t being restocked, I grabbed what few remaining boxes I could find. Now, alas, I am down to one unopened tube.

That means I’ll either have to start sampling the god-knows-how-many other Crest® varieties…

… or tell Crest® to go scratch and look elsewhere.

4 – my underarm deodorant

My final gripe re the sudden unavailability of my toiletries is about my deodorant. This was especially distressing, because one’s body becomes accustomed to the chemistry of one’s deodorant. Changing to a new type can be a problem.

But then I discovered that the suits had pulled a bait-and-switch, and my product was, in fact, still available. Let me explain.

My preference for a long time has been Mennen® Speed Stick® Fresh Deodorant. (A deodorant, not an antiperspirant; I don’t do antiperspirants.)

This is my preferred Mennen® Speed Stick® Fresh Deodorant:

Exhibit A, Speed Stick® Fresh

Sometime last year, I made a routine purchase of the product below, having been tricked by the similar label design and color:

Exhibit B, Speed Stick® Regular

To my alarm, the product I purchased (Exhibit B), although very close in appearance to my preferred product (Exhibit A), was a different product with a different fragrance.

Apparently, the sticker “New Look — Same Great Deodorant” refers to another Mennen® Speed Stick® deodorant that they neglect to identify.

It took a bit of sleuthing, but I finally figured out what Mennen® had done. The original Speed Stick® Fresh Deodorant (Exhibit A) is still on the market, but it was given deceptive new labeling. This labeling:

Exhibit C, the new Speed Stick® Fresh

The new Kelly green version of Speed Stick® Fresh (Exhibit C) is, to my relief, identical to the previous blueish-greenish-teal version (Exhibit A) on which I have depended for so long. My deodorant was concealed, not discontinued, so all is well.

But if the suits do away with the current green version of Speed Stick® Fresh (Exhibit C), I can’t be responsible for my actions.

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Useless Facts

More “Useless Facts for Inquiring Minds.”

● 94 percent of the organisms on Earth live underwater.

● Lincoln was the tallest president at 6’4”. Lyndon Johnson was 6’3”. Jefferson was 6’2½”, as is Clinton.

● The first televised athletic event in the US was a baseball game between Columbia and Princeton on May 17, 1939.

● The Basset Hound was bred in France in the 1500s as a hunting dog that could be followed on foot. This was a boon to the common folk, inasmuch as hunting from horseback was a pastime of the rich. Typically, Bassets hunted small game such as rabbits, foxes, and badgers. In French, the word basset means low or short.

● The concept of infinity has been understood since ancient times, but not until the 17th century did someone — English mathematician John Wallis — come up with the infinity symbol, ∞.

● Botanically, all varieties of the pepper plant — bell, pimiento, jalapeño, habanero, chipotle, cayenne, etc. — are fruits.

● Among the animals that mate for life are gibbons, wolves, coyotes, beavers, swans, bald eagles, ospreys, black vultures, barn owls, and pigeons.

● The invoice price of a Model T Ford when it was introduced in 1909 was $825.00.

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The Questions…

1. How many humans have walked on the Moon?

2. Most US colleges and universities recognize top academic achievement with three levels of honors: cum laude (top 20-30 percent of graduates), magna cum laude (top 5-15 percent), and summa cum laude (top 1-5 percent). What do the three Latin terms mean in English?

3. How long ago is “four score and seven years” ago?

4. What are the singular forms of the words spaghetti, ravioli, and confetti?

5. Why is the Golden Gate Bridge so named?

The Answers…

1. 12 American astronauts have walked on the Moon. Namely, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Ed Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Gene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt.

2. Cum laude means “with praise.” Magna cum laude means “with great praise.” Summa cum laude means “with highest praise.”

3. 87 years, a score being 20 years. Lincoln began his Gettysburg Address with that phrase in 1863, referring to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

4. Spaghetto, raviolo, and confetto, of course.

5. The bridge is so named because it spans the Golden Gate Strait, where San Francisco Bay meets the Pacific Ocean.

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NAPLES, FLORIDA — Biologists have captured an 18-foot Burmese python in the Florida Everglades that weighed 218 pounds, the heaviest on record.

Burmese pythons are an invasive species from Southeast Asia first found in the Everglades in the 1990s. The snakes have no natural enemies and threaten a range of native mammals, birds, and reptiles.

The captured snake was a female carrying 122 developing eggs, which were destroyed along with the mother. A postmortem showed that the snake’s last meal was a whitetail deer.

Importing the pythons was banned by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2012, but the snakes thrive in the South Florida wetlands. Their current population is about one million.

Over 1,000 Burmese pythons have been eliminated in Florida since 2013. Typically, biologists implant radio transmitters in male snakes, which always seek out the largest females, and follow the signals. Eliminating females is considered the best way to interrupt the breeding cycle.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — A South Korean software engineer marked the demise of Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s much-maligned browser, by erecting a tombstone with the epitaph, “He was a good tool to download other browsers.”

The engineer said Explorer was “a pain in the ass,” but he was forced to use it because Explorer was the default browser for so many government and business offices.

Explorer was launched in 1995. It came pre-installed on billions of computers equipped with the Windows operating system and quickly became the world’s leading browser. But many considered Explorer to be sluggish and flawed, and by the late 2000s, Google Chrome took over as the top browser.

In June, Microsoft retired Internet Explorer to focus on the Microsoft Edge browser, which was released in 2015.

“I won’t miss it,” the software engineer said of Explorer’s passing. “Its retirement, to me, is a good death.”

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND — The government of New Zealand and the country’s agriculture industry have jointly agreed to a tax on methane emissions by sheep and cattle, to be paid by farmers and the farming industry.

Currently, agricultural emissions are exempt from such taxation, and pressure has increased for industry and the government to take action.

New Zealand, population five million, is home to 26 million sheep and 10 million cows, which are the source of about half of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. The plan hopes to reduce methane emissions at manure treatment facilities as well as from the belching of farm animals.

Under the plan, farmers and agricultural businesses can reduce their methane taxes via such methods as using feed additives that minimize belching and placing covers on manure ponds.

Worldwide, agriculture is the largest source of methane emissions caused by human activity. In the U.S., agriculture causes about one-third of total methane emissions, and the oil and gas industry causes another third.

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Bigotry

Pity the lowly bigot, who is not only a terrible human being, but also an embarrassment. Hating on an entire group — gays, blacks, immigrants — is mean, nasty, juvenile, and unjustifiable. I call that embarrassing.

Bigotry reveals a lot about the bigot. It says the hater is either dumb and suggestible or has mental and/or emotional issues.

Which is why it pains me to question whether I have a bigotry problem myself.

I like to think I’m a sensible and realistic person. But it’s a fact that I am deeply offended by — appalled, angered, outraged by — political conservatives. ALL of them. Anyone who identifies as Republican, right-wing, or MAGA.

Actually, I believe the correct acronym now is MAGAGA — Make American Great and Glorious Again. That’s the knee-slapper the Orange Gasbag used when he announced for president again.

But to stay on point, since my stated position re the GOP amounts to enmity toward the entire group, that seems uncomfortably close to bigotry. Hmm.

Let’s consider the facts. Conservatives are wrong on essentially every issue. Their beliefs are selfish and heinous to a cartoonish degree.

These people hate, resent, or are suspicious of anyone who isn’t white and Christian. They cling to their guns and religion. They’ve learned they can embrace, without consequence, outrageous falsehoods and the patently absurd. They rail about stolen elections, immigrant caravans, crisis actors, and imaginary pedophile rings.

And when you hear about Jewish space lasers or drinking the blood of infants in satanic rituals, you can be sure the source is MAGAGA-land.

Then there’s the fact that, if some conservatives don’t deserve scorn, why do they still call themselves conservatives? Have they repented, cut the ties, and walked away? They have not.

I will ponder this matter further.

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