On Nov.13 2010 unsuspecting shoppers got a big surprise while enjoying their lunch. Over 100 participants in this awesome Christmas Flash Mob. This is a must see!
The Daily Telegraph’s James Delingpole got suckered by the anti-Rachel Carson propaganda, and wrote a bitter piece complaining about how environmentalists are ruining the environment and people’s lives (double whammy: environmentalists worry about people over profits, and the environment over corporations, so Delingpole hoped to tweak ’em at both ends). Lots of discussion, too much to read and most of it nasty and off target.
It was a smaller part of Delingpole’s generally anti-science, contrary-to-fact rant about global warming.
Being pro-DDT has become as religious an exercise as being for creationism taught in public schools. There’s no good evidence to support the point, but there are a tiny handful of people who are gullible enough to spread whatever they say. That tiny handful of advocates never gets the facts on their side, nor they on the side of the facts, but they appear deluded enough that they get their panties in a wad if you point out that their claims are false. “I’m not a liar!” they’ll retort with indignation good enough to make them rivals of the Portugal soccer squad’s acting, or just crazy enough to fail to recognize their errors.
And so the falsehoods spiral on virally.
Rachel Carson’s ghost should get busier. DDT can’t stop malaria, and now rarely slows it at all. Rachel Carson was right — and had we listened in 1962, malaria might be a lot less prevalent today.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Kathryn’s aunt, Eleanor Knowles Laney, died a few weeks ago. She had been ill with a particularly ironic form of dementia for several years, but still the death of anyone close strikes home.
Ellie’s genius lay in words, and her ability to use them, and manipulate them. Early in her career she lived and worked in New York City, incubating her loves of writing, and Broadway drama and music, museums and other culture. Later she wrote for Salt Lake City’s Deseret News, and then for years edited for Deseret Books, the publishing arm of the Mormon church. Once she had a near-best seller on her hands. Eleanor got the assignment to write a biography of Howard W. Hunter, a member of the Mormon church’s highest council, the Council of the Twelve. Shortly after the book was published in 1987 or 1988, the president of the church, Marion G. Romney, died. Hunter was elevated to the presidency of the church, “prophet, seer and revelator” in LDS terms. Suddenly, Mormons all over the world wanted a copy of Ellie’s book.
With her love of words and music, Ellie’s infamy included her ability to pull from the depths a lyric from some Broadway show particularly appropriate, and funny, to whatever event unfolded at the moment. She was murder at Scrabble. Ellie’s family — siblings, nephews and nieces, husband and friends — shared at least some of this obsession with music and words.
I kid you not: At a family reunion Kathryn and Kenny and James and I attended, about 15 years ago, after an afternoon of picnicking, softball and third-degree visiting, the group retired to a room in a local Mormon wardhouse. Of course, there was a piano there. One of the cousins began plunking away, and within a few minutes a sing-along broke out, with various cousins taking turns at the keyboard. Broadway, pop, opera, hymns: It was pretty impressive. The hour grew late.
“Why don’t we close off with something grand,” Ellie said. “How about the ‘Hallelujah Chorus.'”
I laughed, but I think I was the only one who did. Singing around a piano is one thing — though, truth be told, some of Kathryn’s cousins can really belt it out (and have done on stage), and more than a couple are extremely accomplished pianists. Kathryn has at least one copy of the score; she had sung it with the Salt Lake Oratorio Society, and we have, several times, sought out the Handel sing-alongs with the Dallas Bach Society or some other organization where ringers, professional singers are brought in for the great solos, an outstanding orchestra provides the accompaniment, and enough members of good local choral groups show up that it sounds good, if not grand. But here we were in an LDS building, without scores, with a motley bunch who, I suspected, had not performed it often . . .
“Cousin X can do the piano better than I can,” said whichever cousin sitting at the piano at the moment. No one asked for a score. No one checked the hymnals to see if the lyrics could be dug up. I sensed disaster.
After a stunning impromptu piano introduction, sans director, the family was off and running, singing Handel at full throttle.
It was grand. No part of the harmony was missed. If anyone stumbled over any of the lyrics, it was masked by the many others who didn’t.
A once in a lifetime experience, I thought. Too bad no one had a video camera. No one would believe it.
You can understand how Ellie’s long slide into unintelligibility was a blow to everyone who knew her. For at least the last four years she had been in a care facility, often unable to communicate.
Her funeral in Salt Lake City, Utah, featured some nice performances by the nieces and nephews. The family is far-flung by now — some drove in from distant cities, some came out of the mountains, some flew from far away. A bit of a hometown service, but a hometown that now includes at least all of the U.S. and immigrants from several foreign countries. Officials of the Latter-day Saints added to the eulogies, extolling Ellie’s work on particularly difficult editing and writing assignments.
Then, at the end of the service, there was an apology about a lack of time to rehearse. But the show must go on — Ellie always loved the “Hallelujah Chorus.” So, with great love, half-a -hundred family members rose and sang the entire chorus, with full piano accompaniment, with every harmony, every key part sung well, and with gusto.
What a way to go!
This video below epitomizes “internet viral.” It was a larger venue, a larger, much more professional chorus, and it featured the Wanamaker Organ — but I’ll bet it was no better than that performance in Salt Lake City earlier this year. (For heaven’s sake, turn up the volume!)
Everybody needs more Handel in their lives, don’t you think?
How wonderful is it that this sing-in was organized with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation? Great idea by the Philadelphia Opera Company. We need more grand organs in department stores, if you ask me. We need them if you don’t ask me. Ellie, are you listening?
Bas relief portrait of Thomas Jefferson, as one of the great lawgivers whose heritage of laws we draw from, portrayed in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives. Image from Architect of the Capitol, Wikimedia
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782
Excerpted here from The Quotable Jefferson, edited by John P. Kaminski, Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 226.
No, he didn’t specify, but I think he was talking about creationists who seek legislation to sneak creationism into science classes.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
How many errors can you find with this “notification” I got in e-mail?
UNITED STATES INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE: REFUND NOTIFICATION
We are glad to inform you that government of United States has ordered the treasury department of the IRS to issue out a refund of $500 to all credit card and credit union account holders on accumulated VAT made on their credit card and credit union account during transaction(s) made with their credit card or account. To proceed with this Refund request, reply this message with your Full Name, Address and Phone number(s) or send your information to notification_electronic@mail.bg. You will be contacted shortly by IRS Refund Officer after sending your details.
Please note that only candidates with credit card and credit union account are eligible for this VAT refund.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is a division of the Treasury Department, not the other way around as the missive contends
“Treasury Department” should be capitalized, but is not in the notice
Were there VAT refunds, law would require they be made on all purchases, not just credit card purchases; there is obvious phishing here to get your credit card account number
An order for a refund could come from Congress, or possibly from the President; if from Congress, the law would be cited; if from the president, the president would take credit
There is no personal information contained in the greeting; when IRS sends you money, or asks money from you, they use your name on the form
If you made a transaction in which the IRS got paid, and you are now owed a refund, the IRS would contact only those who made such a transaction, not a few million “undisclosed recipients” through e-mail
What other clues do you see that this missive is false?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
I’m back and back is beautiful, to tweak a phrase. Where have I been? Taking care of business with the helping hand of a special-special life-long friend.
For now, I’ll simply say: Life is an adventure, a gift and a grand adventure, and more than just a mite irksome at times.
These many weeks, in what little spare time I’ve had, I’ve also been writing lyrics. Everyone needs a hobby. Mine is writing lyrics.
Thus, the following song regarding our times:
WEDDING RING IN THE PAWNSHOP WINDOW By Daniel Valentine (c) 2010
The wedding ring
In the pawnshop window.
The price tag on a string,
Tied to the wedding ring,
Says it all, says ev’rything.
Life seldom ever goes as planned.
The wedding ring
In the pawnshop window.
To think the joy it must
Have brought once. Now it’s just
Sitting there collecting dust,
Pawned for a fast few bucks in hand.
That said, a future groom and bride,
Their savings on the meager side,
Stop to sneak a peak, beguiled and starry-eyed.
And what they see are tons and tons
Of rare old coins, guitars and guns,
One music box, two cuckoo clocks,
Plus a fly or three dead on the sill.
Then they see the ring and all is still.
The wedding ring
In the pawnshop window.
It glimmers and it gleams.
It’s ev’rything that dreams
Are made of, or so it seems,
And all for less than half a grand.
And so, like tens of times before,
The tiny bell above the door
Jingles as the lovers step inside the store.
And, oh, the sparkle in her eyes
When first she tries it on for size.
It fits just right and in the light,
When she holds her left hand out to show,
Like her heart, the diamond’s all aglow.
The wedding ring
In the pawnshop window.
The register ka-chings.
An angel gets its wings.
And a tweetie birdie sings.
All while a credit card is scanned.
The wedding ring
In the panwshop window.
A mom with bills to pay
In need without delay
Pawned the ring to save the day,
Such are the times in our fair land.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Sacha Goldberger's loving portrait of his grandmother, who happens to be a superhero.
A few years ago, French photographer Sacha Goldberger found his 91-year-old Hungarian grandmother Frederika feeling lonely and depressed. To cheer her up, he suggested that they shoot a series of outrageous photographs in unusual costumes, poses, and locations. Grandma reluctantly agreed, but once they got rolling, she couldn’t stop smiling.
Frederika was born in Budapest 20 years before World War II. During the war, at the peril of her own life, she courageously saved the lives of ten people. When asked how, Goldberger told us “she hid the Jewish people she knew, moving them around to different places everyday.” As a survivor of Nazism and Communism, she then immigrated away from Hungary to France, forced by the Communist regime to leave her homeland illegally or face death.
Aside from great strength, Frederika has an incredible sense of humor, one that defies time and misfortune. She is funny and cynical, always mocking the people that she loves.
With the unexpected success of this series, titled “Mamika,” Goldberger created a MySpace page for his grandmother. She now has over 2,200 friends and receives messages like: “You’re the grandmother that I have dreamed of, would you adopt me?” and ” You made my day, I hope to be like you at your age.”
Initially, she did not understand why all these people wrote to congratulate her. Then, little by little, she realized that her story conveyed a message of hope and joy. In all those pictures, she posed with the utmost enthusiasm. Now, after the set, Goldberger shares that his grandmother has never shown even a hint of depression. Perhaps it’s because her story serves some sort of purpose. That through the warm words of newfound friends, she’s reminded of just how lucky she is to be alive.
A mostly encore post about today’s anniversary of Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg.
Prior to 2007, this was the only known photo of Lincoln at Gettysburg, on the day of his address – Library of Congress
147 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln redefined the Declaration of Independence and the goals of the American Civil War, in a less-than-two-minute speech dedicating part of the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as a cemetery and final resting place for soldiers who died in the fierce battle fought there the previous July 1 through 3.
Interesting news for 2007: More photos from the Library of Congress collection may contain images of Lincoln. The photo above, detail from a much larger photo, had been thought for years to be the only image of Lincoln from that day. The lore is that photographers, taking a break from former Massachusetts Sen. Edward Everett’ s more than two-hour oration, had expected Lincoln to go on for at least an hour. His short speech caught them totally off-guard, focusing their cameras or taking a break. Lincoln finished before any photographer got a lens open to capture images.
The plate lay unidentified in the Archives for some fifty-five years until in 1952, Josephine Cobb, Chief of the Still Pictures Branch, recognized Lincoln in the center of the detail, head bared and probably seated. To the immediate left (Lincoln’s right) is Lincoln’s bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, and to the far right (beyond the limits of the detail) is Governor Andrew G. Curtin of Pennsylvania. Cobb estimated that the photograph was taken about noontime, just after Lincoln arrived at the site and before Edward Everett’s arrival, and some three hours before Lincoln gave his now famous address.
To the complaints of students, I have required my junior U.S. history students to memorize the Gettysburg Address. In Irving I found a couple of students who had memorized it for an elementary teacher years earlier, and who still could recite it. Others protested, until they learned the speech. This little act of memorization appears to me to instill confidence in the students that they can master history, once they get it done.
Edward Everett, the former Massachusetts senator and secretary of state, was regarded as the greatest orator of the time. A man of infinite grace, and a historian with some sense of events and what the nation was going through, Everett wrote to Lincoln the next day after their speeches:
“I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”
Walk with Lincoln in Gettysburg, an interestingly complete stroll through the history of the battle and the creation of the cemetery, and Lincoln’s address
Think you could pass a U.S. Citizenship exam? From easy questions like, “Who is the president of the United States?” to harder questions that might stump the average American, we take a look at the exam to become an official U.S. citizen.
As it turns out, “The Presidential Ham” is both real and utterly hilarious. Since 2006, Oregon artist bijijoo (real name: M.T. Horne) has painted pictures of each president holding a giant, pink piece of pork. Some, like Abraham Lincoln, are fiercely protective of their meat; others, like Richard Nixon, look proud and dismissive. But each image has a very clear and important message: I am a president, and I am holding this ham.
Some people may be suspected of having too much time on their hands. Or too much ham.
No, Millard Fillmore was not the first president to put ham into the White House.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Dr. Bumsted.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama took on the cause of veterans as a special cause of this administration. In this public service announcement from the History Channel, Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, urge honor to 24.9 million veterans.
November 11 is Veterans Day, a U.S. federal holiday dedicated to honoring veterans who served honorably in war or peacetime.
Economics and environmental science teachers will want to view this and use it — it may be useful for world geography and world history, too:
Annie Leonard’s group tackles a huge, nasty problem, in an entertaining and informative style. At her website, The Story of Stuff, there is a lot more information, a more detailed presentation (you could stream it if you have a decent internet connection in your classroom), and ideas for classes.
For AP courses, be sure to look for point-of-view issues; for history, look to the drawbacks of technology; for economics and world history, note the heavy emphasis on global markets and world trade.
It’s almost a rant — but dead right, I think. We’re all culpable. Spread the word, will you?
Press release on the film:
FILM RELEASE:
New Story of Stuff Project movie demands a ‘Green Moore’s Law’ in the Electronics Industry
The Story of Electronics: Why “Designed for the Dump” is Toxic for People and the Planet
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – At midnight Pacific on November 9th The Story of Stuff Project will release The Story of Electronics, an 8-minute animated movie, at http://www.storyofelectronics.org. Hosted by Annie Leonard, the creator of the hit viral video The Story of Stuff, the film takes on the electronics industry’s “design for the dump” mentality and champions product takeback to spur companies to make less toxic, more easily recyclable and longer lasting products.
Co-produced with the Electronics TakeBack Coalition (ETBC)—a national coalition of over 30 environmental and public health organizations—and Free Range Studios, The Story of Electronics employs the trademark Story of Stuff-style to explain ‘planned obsolescence’—products designed to be replaced as quickly as possible—and its often hidden consequences for tech workers, the environment and us.
“Anyone who’s had a cell phone fritz out after six months already knows all about planned obsolescence,” said Ted Smith, Chair of ETBC. “Most of our electronics are laden with problematic substances like lead, mercury, PVC, and brominated flame retardants so when they break it‘s not just a bummer, it’s a global toxic issue. Instead of shipping our toxic trash across the world, product takeback ensures that electronics companies—not individual consumers, our governments, or worse, some poor guy in China—take responsibility for the stuff they put on the shelves.”
The film is being released in advance of the holiday season to get consumers thinking about the costs associated with that latest gadget and to show electronics companies that consumers want products that don’t trash people and the planet. The film concludes with an opportunity for viewers to send a message to electronics companies demanding that they “make ‘em safe, make ‘em last, and take ‘em back.”
“If we can figure out how to make an iPhone remember where you parked your car,” said Annie Leonard, the Director of The Story of Stuff Project, “then we can figure out how to make electronics that aren’t filled with toxic chemicals and en route to the trash can just months after we buy them. Let’s apply some of that creativity and innovation to making products that are safe and long lasting!”
The Story of Electronics companion website, http://www.storyofelectronics.org, will serve as an interactive launch pad for information and action steps for viewers. The site provides opportunities to learn more about the issue, find safer products and responsible recyclers, and get involved with the Electronics TakeBack Coalition. The site also houses downloadable resources and information about the film, including an annotated script.
The Story of Electronics is the fourth in a series of new movies that The Story of Stuff Project is releasing this year with Free Range Studios (www.freerangestudios.com) and more than a dozen of the world’s leading sustainability organizations. Our previous short films—The Story of Cap & Trade (December 2009), The Story of Bottled Water (March 2010) and The Story of Cosmetics (July 2010)—have collectively been viewed more than 2.2 million times since their releases.
To schedule an interview with the following experts, contact:
Allison Cook, Story of Stuff Project, at (213) 507-4713 or allison@storyofstuff.org
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Delingpole: Wrong and bitter on DDT
November 21, 2010The Daily Telegraph’s James Delingpole got suckered by the anti-Rachel Carson propaganda, and wrote a bitter piece complaining about how environmentalists are ruining the environment and people’s lives (double whammy: environmentalists worry about people over profits, and the environment over corporations, so Delingpole hoped to tweak ’em at both ends). Lots of discussion, too much to read and most of it nasty and off target.
It was a smaller part of Delingpole’s generally anti-science, contrary-to-fact rant about global warming.
Chris Goodall fixed all of Delingpole’s errors on DDT at Carbon Commentary.
Being pro-DDT has become as religious an exercise as being for creationism taught in public schools. There’s no good evidence to support the point, but there are a tiny handful of people who are gullible enough to spread whatever they say. That tiny handful of advocates never gets the facts on their side, nor they on the side of the facts, but they appear deluded enough that they get their panties in a wad if you point out that their claims are false. “I’m not a liar!” they’ll retort with indignation good enough to make them rivals of the Portugal soccer squad’s acting, or just crazy enough to fail to recognize their errors.
And so the falsehoods spiral on virally.
Rachel Carson’s ghost should get busier. DDT can’t stop malaria, and now rarely slows it at all. Rachel Carson was right — and had we listened in 1962, malaria might be a lot less prevalent today.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.