Today in History: Gary Ridgway was apprehended and charged with four murders as the Green River Killer on this day in 2001. Ridgway was convicted of 49 deaths and he confessed to 71. Wikipedia has an entry for the most prolific serial killers, and the USA does not even make it in the top 10. Luis Garavito (Colombia/Ecuador/Venezuela) was number one with 138 proven deaths, but he may be responsible for as many as 300. Number 2 is Pedro Lopez (Colombia/Ecuador/Peru) who is responsible for 110 proven deaths. Javed Iqbal from Pakistan killed 100, Mikhail Popkov from Russia killed 83, Daniel Camargo Barbosa (Colombia/Ecuador/Brazil) killed 72, Pedro Rodrigues Filho from Brazil killed 71, Kampatimar Shankariya from India killed 70, Yang Xinhai from China 67 and two other Russians round out the top 10.
The most prolific American serial killer is Samuel Little, someone I've never even heard of. That however makes Gary Ridgway the most prolific white American serial killer.
Today in History: Thomas Edison demonstrated his phonograph for the first time on this day in 1877. Thomas Edison is highly regarded as an inventor, a businessman, and as an industrialist, but there has been an effort to cast him as a total dick as well.
"The phrase 'Edison was the better business man' seems to be used as a negative description of Edison. Many successful inventors realize that experimentation and research takes money. Edison's first invention was the Universal Stock Ticker in 1869. Edison used the money he earned from the stock ticker to start his 'invention factory.'
Edison's legacy was in creating his 'invention factory' where Edison used his staff to develop ideas and turn them into patents. Some point to the concept of the invention factory as the reason for his success. Critics say Edison took his invention factory too far, and Edison took credit for any individual creativity by his employees.
How many inventions and innovations made in the name of Apple or Microsoft were not the direct work of Gates or Jobs? How is Edison getting credit for the work of his staff any different that the large number of engineers, designers, and programmers working for Microsoft or Apple, but all we hear about is the success of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?
Likewise the term industrialist is used like it is mutually exclusive of being an inventor. Why is that? Steve Jobs was an industrialist, in some ways much more so than Thomas Edison, in that he was a leading figure in his industry. But the world today seems to see Steve Jobs as a hero, and Thomas Edison as a villain. In many ways I see Edison as very similar to Steve Jobs." ~Tom Peracchio
Today in History: Legendary American stock trader Jesse Livermore died on this day in 1940. He is considered a pioneer of day trading and was the basis for the main character of Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, a best-selling book by Edwin Lefèvre. At one time, he was one of the richest people in the world.
In a time when accurate financial statements were rarely published, getting current stock quotes required a large operation, and market manipulation was rampant, Livermore used what is now known as technical analysis as the basis for his trades. His principles, including the effects of emotion on trading, continue to be studied.
Some of Livermore's trades, such as taking short positions before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and just before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, are legendary and have led to his being regarded as the greatest trader who ever lived.
He learned to read and write by the time he was 3 and a half. By the time he was 5, he was reading newspapers and devouring the financial pages.
He died by suicide. He shot himself with an Automatic Colt Pistol. Interestingly, his son and grandson would go on to kill themselves as well.
Today in History: Swedish astronomer, physicist and mathematician Anders Celsius was born on this day in 1701. Anders Celsius greatest contribution to mankind was the Centigrade temperature scale which was later renamed Celsius in his honor. To this day there are only 3 countries in the world that do not this metric way of measuring temperature: Burma, Liberia and the United States.
I understand the wisdom behind metric system...but I still prefer the old imperial system. Telling me that someone is 177.8 centimeters tall means nothing to me, but 5 feet 10 inches tells me everything I need to know. I understand 190 pounds better than I would 86.1826 kilograms, and 60 miles an hour tells me I am driving one mile per minute. Metric time never caught on, so we still use a day measurement of 24 hours instead of the 10 hours a metric time system would demand.
And the Proclaimers song "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" just doesn't sound the same when converted to metric.
Today in History: This day in 2003 marks the last flight of the Concorde supersonic jet. It had a maximum speed over twice the speed of sound, at Mach 2.04 (1,354 mph or 2,180 km/h at cruise altitude), with seating for 92 to 128 passengers. "The record time for Paris-to-NY was (and still is) two hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds. On average, the Concorde traveled one mile every two and three quarter seconds. It was so fast that on westbound flights, it was possible to arrive at a local time that was earlier than when you left your original destination. And of course Concorde's publicists didn't miss that opportunity: British Airways used the slogan 'Arrive before you leave.'" Mental Floss
The Concorde would reach up to 60,000 ft, a height of over 11 miles and due to the intense heat of the airframe, and the aircraft used to stretch anywhere from 6 to 10 inches during flight. Every surface, even the windows, was warm to the touch by the end of the flight.
The accompanying video records the noise of the Concorde breaking the sound barrier (at about the 1:00 mark) and it is quite dramatic.
Today in History: The original man of steel, Andrew Carnegie, was born on this day in 1835. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He did now, not by gouging and screwing his customers, but by making his product more easily accessible. For instance, Carnegie almost single-handedly reduced the price of steel rails from $160 per ton in 1875 to $17 per ton nearly a quarter century later.
Andrew Carnegie had an interesting philosophy when it came to wealth. "Carnegie spoke of the millionaire’s duty to live a 'modest' lifestyle, shunning extravagant living and administering his wealth for the benefit of the community. To do otherwise, he warned, would encourage an age of envy and invite socialistic legislation attacking the rich through progressive taxation and other onerous anti-business regulations. Carnegie practiced what he preached, giving away over $350 million in his lifetime. One of his first acts after U.S. Steel went public was to put $5 million into a pension and benefit plan for his workers...he spent millions building 2,811 public libraries, donating 7,689 organs to churches, and establishing Carnegie Hall in New York and the Carnegie Institution in Washington. He financed technical training at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and established a pension fund for teachers through the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching." Mark Skousen
Carnegie's dictum was (1) To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can. (2) To spend the next third making all the money one can. (3) To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
Today in History: A national speed limit was imposed on the Autobahn in Germany on this day in 1973 because of the oil crisis. The speed limit lasted only four months. The autobahn is one of the few highways where drivers get to pick their own speed limit. The highest speed ever clocked was 268.8 miles per hour, but that was under artificial conditions. (Basically, a raceway was set up for the purpose of setting records.) Under normal operating conditions, the fastest speed was set by a Porsche going 236 mph. According to a report by Car and Driver, the German Parliament voted – by an overwhelming margin – against a proposal by the Green Party to impose speed limits on the autobahn.
"The autobahn road system, situated in one of the most traveled places on earth, is extremely safe. Accident rates have fallen dramatically over the past few decades, and many of the remaining deaths can be attributed to factors other than speed. Today, the fatality rate is one of the lowest in the world." Daniel J Mitchell
You see, you don't actually need government mandating every aspect of your life.
Today in History: Today is Fibonacci Day. A Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers where a number is the sum of the two numbers before it. For example: 1, 1, 2, 3...is a Fibonacci sequence. Here, 2 is the sum of the two numbers before it (1+1). Similarly, 3 is the sum of the two numbers before it (1+2). November 23 is celebrated as Fibonacci day because when the date is written in the mm/dd format (11/23), the digits in the date form a Fibonacci sequence: 1,1,2,3. https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/fun/fibonacci-day
The Fibonacci sequence pops up in everything from nature to music to computer science to the stock market.
I came across this interesting comment on Youtube:
- I was noticing a while back that 144 is the 12th # in the sequence...
- 12 is also its root
- &if you take 144's mirror-441, it's root is 21, the mirror of 12 who's square is 144
- same thing with 13 (13x13=169 31x31=961)
(I haven't bothered to check how many more numbers might do that but I notice that not all do, so that' is kind of interesting but I don't know if its profound or significant) or if I should see it as pointing toward something else.
Also, this could be meaningless or just coincidence... but I was also recalling how I read that the Mayan's use 144,000 (144,000 days in a Baktun) and also 144,000 is used in the Christian Bible too. Maybe someone has some thoughts on this too.
Also, the divine number is neat in the way in which if you square 1.618 [Golden Ratio] it will be roughly the same as if you added 1.0 to it. Kind of weird."
Today in History: The movie "Sinister" was released on DVD on this day in 2012. According to science, Sinister is the scariest movie of all time. A study was made where each member of the test audience was fitted with a heart rate monitor to see how much (on average) their heart rates rose during a film. All data was averaged for each film, and one film came out on top as the undeniably scariest movie of the bunch, and that was Sinister. "The average resting heart rate of the participants was 65 BPM (beats per minute). But during Sinister, that average heart rate rose to 86 BPM—a 32% increase. That was the highest rise in BPM of any movie watched by the study participants." Forbes
The movie stars Ethan Hawke who plays a washed-up true crime writer who moves his family into a house where a horrific crime took place, but his family doesn't know. He begins researching the crime in hopes of writing a book about it. Oswalt examines video footage that he finds in the house to help him in his research, but he soon discovers more than he bargained for.
Rounding out the rest of the top 10 scariest movies: Insidious was second, The Conjuring came in third, Hereditary in fourth, Paranormal Activity in fifth, and It Follows in sixth. The Conjuring 2 took home seventh place while The Babadook, The Descent, and The Visit were crowned eight, ninth, and tenth.
James Wan was behind three of these movies which makes him the king of the modern horror movie.
Today in History: American disc jockey Alan Freed, who had popularized the term "rock and roll" and music of that style, was fired from WABC-AM radio over allegations he had participated in the payola scandal on this day in 1959. Payola occurs when a disc jockey is paid by record companies or music publishers to play certain recordings, and for some reason this is considered scandalous. Payola is one of those things like insider trading, gambling and the college admissions scandal that really shouldn't be illegal. A play on radio is effectively a commercial for that music or musician. And paying for commercials is, quite obviously, fairly common. Is it really so outlandish that some in the industry want to "buy" spots? Payola actually helped a lot of new artists get airplay. Without payola, we would never have heard of Chuck Berry.
Payola also has a long history. "The first documented instances of payola date from England in the 1860s. The publishers of sheet music paid vaudeville artists to sing and popularize their songs. Payment of these fees was a normal marketing procedure for publishers and a significant source of income for performers; payola occasioned no political scandal. Prior to the payola scandals, payola had been an accepted and legal business practice used to promote new products for many decades. In the case of rhythm and blues, the independents lacked the reputations and marketing power to place their artists through name alone, and were forced to rely on payola." Tyler Cowen
Today in History: Arthur Conan Doyle first Sherlock Holmes's story "A Study in Scarlet" was accepted by a publisher (Ward and Lock) on this day in 1886. The name comes from Holmes' words: "There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it."
The story did come under attack because of its portrayal or Mormons (Latter Day Saints). According to a Salt Lake City newspaper article, when Conan Doyle was asked about his depiction of the Latter-day Saints' organisation as being steeped in kidnapping, murder and enslavement, he said: 'all I said about the Danite Band and the murders is historical so I cannot withdraw that, though it is likely that in a work of fiction it is stated more luridly than in a work of history. It's best to let the matter rest'. Conan Doyle's daughter has stated: 'You know, father would be the first to admit that his first Sherlock Holmes novel was full of errors about the Mormons.' Historians speculate that Conan Doyle, a voracious reader, would have access to books by Fannie Stenhouse, William A. Hickman, William Jarman, John Hyde and Ann Eliza Young, among others,' in explaining the author's early perspective on Mormonism.
Years after Conan Doyle's death, Levi Edgar Young, a descendant of Brigham Young and a Mormon general authority, claimed that Conan Doyle had privately apologised, saying that 'He [Conan Doyle] said he had been misled by writings of the time about the Church' and had 'written a scurrilous book about the Mormons.'
In August 2011, the Albemarle County, Virginia, School Board removed A Study in Scarlet from the district's sixth-grade required reading list following complaints from students and parents that the book was derogatory toward Mormons. It was moved to the reading lists for the tenth-graders, and remains in use in the school media centres for all grades." Wikipedia
In Arthur Conan Doyle's defense, there were many writings critical of Mormonisn at the time, including those from Mark Twain.
Today in History: The pop duo Milli Vanilli was stripped of their Grammy award on this day in 1990 because the singers Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan didn't actually sing on their debut album, "Girl You Know It's True." It is the first time a Grammy has ever been revoked. However, a few days ago media outlets came out and started wondering if we now owe Milli Vanilli an apology. You see, everyone is lip-syncing now.
"Over the last two decades, numerous pop divas have lip-synced their own performances (notably Britney Spears, as well as Mariah Carey and Ashlee Simpson) or used Auto-Tune. Many rock bands regularly use vocal or instrumental backing tracks. And, unfortunately, T-Pain exploited Auto-Tune when he didn't need to and ushered in a loathsome trend for people who likely just couldn't sing. (Cher came first, though, with “Believe” in 1998.)"~Bryan Reesman
Beyoncé, Katy Perry and Lil Nas X, Muse, Red Hot Chili Peppers, New Kids on the Block, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Madonna have also been accused of lip-syncing.
Billboard editor Thom Duffy commented: "The expectations of fans have changed, and that's the driving force here ... They expect a concert as perfect as what they see on MTV." Rashod D. Ollison of The Baltimore Sun observes: "Since the advent of MTV and other video music channels, pop audiences have been fed elaborate videos thick with jaw-dropping effects, awesome choreography, fabulous clothes, marvelous bodies. And the same level of perfection is expected to extend beyond the video set to the concert stage. So if Britney Spears, Janet Jackson or Madonna sounds shrill and flat without a backing track, fans won't pay up to $300 for a concert ticket."\
"Some singers habitually lip-synch during live performances, both concert and televised, over pre-recorded music and mimed backing vocals; this is known as singing over playback. Some artists switch between live singing and lip-synching during performance, particularly during songs that require them to hit particularly high or low notes. Lip-synching these notes ensures that the performer will not be out of tune and that the artist will not strain his or her voice too much during an arduous concert. Once the difficult portion of the song has passed, the artist may continue to lip-synch or may resume singing live. Some artists lip-synch choruses during songs but sing the main verses." Wikipedia
Today in History: In Jonestown, Guyana, the Reverend Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple to a mass murder–suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo Ryan was murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier.
This made me wonder what kind of "Reverend" Jim Jones was. In a 1976 phone conversation with John Maher, Jones alternately said he was an agnostic and an atheist. Marceline Jones admitted in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the U.S. by mobilizing people through religion, citing Mao as his inspiration: "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion." He had slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" In one sermon, Jones said:
"You're gonna help yourself, or you'll get no help! There's only one hope of glory; that's within you! Nobody's gonna come out of the sky! There's no heaven up there! We'll have to make heaven down here!"*
A Former Temple member quoted him as saying:
"What you need to believe in is what you can see.… If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father.… If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God."
Jones also began preached that he was the reincarnation of Gandhi, Father Divine, Jesus, Gautama Buddha, and Vladimir Lenin, and stated, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin."
Over 40 years this could be dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic. I can actually see many repeat that last statement today and fervently believe it.
*[The Serpent in the Garden of Eden said, in effect, "You don’t have to wait; you can have it now! Be your own god, and write your own rules."]
Today in History: The Burger Chef murders happened on this day at a Burger Chef restaurant in Speedway, Indiana in 1978. Four young employees went missing in what was initially thought to be a petty theft of cash from the restaurant safe. By Saturday morning it became a clear case of robbery-kidnapping, and by Sunday, when their bodies were discovered in the woods 20 miles away, it became a a case of murder. Despite thousands of hours of police investigation, as well as Burger Chef offering a reward of $25,000 to anyone who could capture the murderers or provide information about their whereabouts, the attackers were never prosecuted, and the case remains officially unsolved.
1978 was also the year we had the Blackfriars Massacre where an unsolved Irish Mob and/or Italian-American Mafia massacre occurred in the Blackfriars Pub in Downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Four criminals were killed, allegedly over the sale of cocaine.
1978 was also the year that the Clinton Avenue Five went missing. The Clinton Avenue Five are five young men who disappeared in Newark, New Jersey. The name is derived from the street where they were last seen. The case eventually went cold.
1978 was also the year of the deliberately set Holiday Inn fire. The 1978 Holiday Inn Fire broke out at the Holiday Inn-Northwest which was located at 1525 West Ridge Road in the Town of Greece, near Rochester, New York, and killed ten people. Seven of the fatalities were Canadian. The case remains unsolved as well.
1978 was also the year of the Sirloin Stockade murders. Armed with a handgun, Roger Dale Stafford and his wife and brother went to rob the restaurant and ended up killing sin employees execution style. Roger Dale Stafford was suspected of 34 murders and was executed on Death Row in 1995.
Today in History: LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) was first synthesized by Albert Hofmann from ergotamine at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel on this day in 1938. "Hofmann was experimenting with different compounds in search of a cure for migraines. While LSD didn’t provide it, it did capture his attention when some spilled on his hand. Within the hour, he felt dreamy and dizzy. A deliberate experiment with the drug a few days later had him giggling uncontrollably. He needed an assistant to escort him home—a path, he later said, that made him feel as though he were inside a Salvador Dali painting." Mental Floss
LSD does not appear to be addictive, and death as a result of LSD overdose is virtually unknown; on extremely rare occasions, however, death can be the result of accidents or reckless behavior.
As of 2017, about 10 percent of people in the United States have used LSD at some point in their lives, while 0.7 percent have used it in the last year. It was most popular in the 1960s to 1980s. The use of LSD among US adults increased 56.4% from 2015 to 2018. LSD is typically either swallowed or held under the tongue. It is most often sold on blotter paper and less commonly as tablets or in gelatin squares.
In the 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) believed that the drug might be useful for mind control, so they tested it on people, some without their knowledge, in a program called MKUltra. LSD was sold as a medication for research purposes under the trade-name Delysid in the 1950s and 1960s. It was listed as a schedule 1 controlled substance by the United Nations in 1971. It currently has no approved medical use. In 2020, it would be decriminalized in the U.S. state of Oregon.
The Beatles have denied that their song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is a reference to LSD. However, the songs "She Said She Said" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" from the Beatles' Revolver album explicitly reference LSD trips, and many lines of "Tomorrow Never Knows" were borrowed from Timothy Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience. Around the same time, bands such as Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, and The Grateful Dead helped give birth to a genre known as "psychedelic rock" or acid rock. In 1965, The Pretty Things released an album called Get the Picture? which included a track titled "L.S.D."
Today in History: Eric Clapton's "Patek Philippe" platinum perpetual calendar chronograph wristwatch was sold at auction on this day in 2012. I love watches, but my idea of a luxury watch is a Casio G-Shock...and I don't even own one of those. I was watching the movie "Parker" with Jason Statham on Tubi and they kept showing his watch...which was a "Richard Mille RM 011 Felipe Massa." There is a Chrono24 app that let's you look up luxury watches. This particular watch from the movie is worth more than $400,000. I had no idea watches were this costly, and $400,000 is not even the most expensive.
Eric Clapton's watch sold for $3,635,808, which is impressive, but still not the most expensive. Paul Newman’s Cosmograph Daytona Rolex sold for $17,752,500 at auction...and it is still not the most expensive watch ever. That claim goes to the Breguet Marie Antoinette, which is worth 30 million dollars.
Today in History: Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville, was published on this day in 1851. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous. Its reputation as a "Great American Novel" was established only in the 20th century, after the centennial of its author's birth. In fact, the book almost fell into obscurity. Only 3715 copies were purchased during Melville's lifetime. By comparison, his first novel, Typee-sold three times as many. In the states, Melville's total earnings from Moby-Dick amounted to the small sum of $556.37. After Melville passed away Moby-Dick was reprinted and, this time around, critics started to take it more seriously.
Many books in the past have almost disappeared as well, including "Animal Farm" by George Orwell, "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig, “A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle, “Carrie” by Stephen King, "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" by John le Carré, "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding and "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell.
Did you know Starbucks got its name from Moby Dick?
Today in History: Today is Sadie Hawkins Day. Sadie Hawkins Day is an American folk event and pseudo-holiday originated by Al Capp's classic hillbilly comic strip Li'l Abner (1934-1978). This inspired real-world Sadie Hawkins events, the premise of which is that women ask men for a date or dancing. In the comic, Hekzebiah Hawkins, worried that his homely daughter Sadie might never find a boyfriend, organized a race in which his daughter would chase all the unmarried men in town to the finish line. If she caught one, he was legally obligated to wed her.
However, November has no shortage of obscure holidays, such as Clean out your Fridge Day (15), International Tongue-Twister Day (8), Saxophone Day (6), Guy Fawkes Days (remember remember the fifth of November), King Tut Day (4) Cliche Day (3), Plan your Epitaph Day (2), World Toilet Day (19) and Name Your PC Day (20)
Today in History: Scottish pop singer Les McKeown was born on this day in 1955. McKeown was the lead singer of the original boy band, the Bay City Rollers. The Bay City Rollers was a Scottish band named after Bay City Michigan. They got the name by randomly sticking a pin on a map of the USA. Largely forgotten now, the were a big deal in the mid to late 70's, even reaching #1 on the billboard charts. It is guessed that they may have sold between 60 million and 300 million records, though the band members saw very little of that money. When the band sputtered out in the 80's, one member moved on to becoming a nurse.
To describe their sound you could say they were Slade crossed with Herman’s Hermits, and they even went on to influence the Ramones. The 'Hey! Ho! Let's Go' chant in "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones was, according to Tommy Ramone, inspired by "Saturday Night".
Today in History: The Mayflower Compact was signed in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod on this day in 1620. The words in this contract that stand out to me the most was "the general Good of the Colony." As William D. Guthrie wrote in 1918:
The history of the Plymouth colony from 1620 until its absorption by the colony of Massachusetts in 1691 teaches us many lessons in political philosophy. There [is one] which I desire to recall to you: One as to the right to private property...The Pilgrims began government under the Mayflower Compact with a system of communism or common property. The experiment almost wrecked the colony. As early as 1623, they had to discard it and restore the old law of individual property with its inducement and incentive to personal effort. All who now urge communism in one form or another, often in disguise, might profitably study the experience of Plymouth, which followed a similarly unfortunate and disastrous experiment in Virginia. History often teaches men in vain. Governor Bradford's account of this early experiment in communism in his annals of “Plimoth Plantation” is extremely interesting. The book is rich in political principles, as true to-day as they were three hundred years ago. After showing that the communal system was a complete failure, and that as soon as it was abandoned and a parcel of land was assigned to each family, those who had previously refused to work became “very industrious,” even the women going “willingly into ye feild,” taking “their litle ons with them to set corne, which before would aledg weaknes, and inabilitie,” Bradford proceeds as follows: “The experience that was had in this comone course and condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanitie of that conceite of Platos & other ancients, applauded by some of later times, —that ye taking away of propertie, and bringing in comunitie into a comone wealth, would make them happy and florishing; as if they were wiser then God. For this comunitie (so farr as it was) was found to breed much confusion & discontent, and retard much imploymet that would have been to their benefite and comforte. For ye yong-men that were most able and fitte for labour & service did repine that they should spend their time & strength to worke for other men's wives and children, without any recompence. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in devission of victails & cloaths then he that was weake and not able to doe a quarter ye other could; this was thought injuestice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalised in labours, and victails, cloaths, &c., with ye meaner & yonger sorte, thought it some indignite & disrespect unto them. Let none objecte, this is men's corruption, and nothing to ye course it selfe. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in his wisdome saw another course fiter for them.”
Today in History: English abolitionist Granville Sharp was born on this day in 1735. However, Granville Sharp is better known in Biblical, Theological and Christological circles for a peculiar rule he discovered in the Greek text of the Bible that he believes can prove the deity of Christ. He wrote: "When the copulative kai connects two nouns of the same case, if the article ho, or any of its cases, precedes the first of the said nouns or participles, and is not repeated before the second noun or participle, the latter always relates to the same person that is expressed or described by the first noun or participle."
So, where Titus 2:13 may read in the King James Bible: "the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" Granville Sharp's Rule suggests it should read "the great God and Saviour Jesus Christ."
Criticisms appeared early on, even within his ranks. Early critic Calvin Winstanley concluded that "his biggest criticisms of Sharp's rule rest in the fact that 1) the early church fathers do not follow it and 2) the early church father's never invoked this rule to prove the divinity of Christ (though it would have been an obvious tool against such heresy)."
200 years later Granville Sharp's Rule is still debated:
"In 1798, the amateur theologian Granville Sharp published a book in which he argued that when there are two nouns of the same form ('case') joined by 'and' (kai), only the first of which has the article, the nouns are identified as the same thing. Close examination of this much used 'rule' shows it to be a fiction concocted by a man who had a theological agenda in creating it, namely, to prove that the verses we are examining in this chapter called Jesus 'God.'"
I came across this interesting comment on B-Greek: "I've followed...in wonderment at the level of interest in formulating rules with respect to theologically sensitive verses. I submit that one needs to be cautious with respect to any proposed 'rule,' especially when it is a theologically sensitive verse, including Sharp's 'rule' and Colwell's 'rule'. For example, we've seen Colwell's 'definite rule' rise to great heights of popularity in its application to John 1:1 only to wane in recent decades in favor of 'qualitativeness,' which is debatable itself.
Today in History: Émile Gaboriau was born on this day in 1832. Gaboriau was a pioneer in detective fiction with his famous sleuth, Monsieur Lecoq. In fact, France seems to be the birthplace of the Detective genre. Voltaire, the great French philosopher had a work of philosophical fiction called Zadig, and Zadig, an ancient philosopher, had powers of marvelous deduction. Edgar Allan Poe based his three detective stories in France with his detective Auguste Dupin, and it is said that he may have been inspired by Zadig. These french detectives laid the groundwork for Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes." In fact, Holmes liked to lash out at his predecessors. He once called Poe's Detective Dupin "a very inferior fellow." Holmes also criticized Emile Gaboriau's detective Lecoq. Dr. Watson describes Holmes's reaction:
"Have you read Gaboriau's works?" I asked. "Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?" Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. "Lecoq was a miserable bungler," he said, in an angry voice; "he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for detectives to teach them what to avoid."~A Study in Scarlet
Today in History: American director and producer Morgan Spurlock was born on this day in 1970. He is best known for his anti-fast food documentary Super Size Me where he eats nothing but McDonald's food, three times a day for 30 days. That worked out to 5000 calories a day when you also add in the "super-size" and one gallon of soft drinks. As a result, the then-32-year-old Spurlock gained 24 lbs, had a 13% body mass increase and increased his cholesterol and experienced mood swings etc.
Even while watching Super Size Me I had problems with the film. How many people actually eat like this? Sure, maybe a few, but most don't. I might eat at McDonald's 4 times a year. Critics of the film, including McDonald's, argued that the author intentionally consumed an average of 5,000 calories per day and did not exercise, and that the results would have been the same regardless of the source of overeating.
When you factor in that an Egg McMuffin, orange juice, and coffee for breakfast; a grilled chicken bacon ranch salad and iced tea for lunch; and a double cheeseburger, medium fries, and diet Coke for dinner total fewer than 1,800 calories, comes well under the 2,500 Spurlock's doctor says he needed to maintain his starting weight of 185 pounds. By contrast, Spurlock says he consumed some 5,000 calories a day, while deliberately avoiding physical activity.
After eating exclusively at McDonald's for one month, Soso Whaley said, "The first time I did the diet in April 2004, I lost 10 pounds (going from 175 to 165) and lowered my cholesterol from 237 to 197, a drop of 40 points." Of particular note was that she exercised regularly and did not insist on consuming more food than she otherwise would. Despite eating at only McDonald's every day, she maintained her caloric intake at around 2,000 per day.
After John Cisna, a high school science teacher, lost 60 pounds while eating exclusively at McDonald's for 180 days, he said, "I'm not pushing McDonald's. I'm not pushing fast food. I'm pushing taking accountability and making the right choice for you individually... As a science teacher, I would never show Super Size Me because when I watched that, I never saw the educational value in that... I mean, a guy eats uncontrollable amounts of food, stops exercising, and the whole world is surprised he puts on weight? What I'm not proud about is probably 70 to 80 percent of my colleagues across the United States still show Super Size Me in their health class or their biology class. I don't get it."
Today in History: The "Toy Box Killer" David Parker Ray was born on this day in 1939. He was called the “Toy Box Killer” because to his soundproofed truck trailer that he converted into a torture chamber and referred to as his “toy box.” Once in his truck, Ray subjected his female victims to horrific torture. It is believed that he may have killed 60 people this way.
This has led some to ask, why are so many serial killers born in November? In a study, seventeen serial killers were born in November, compared with an average of nine for other months, out of a total of more than 100. Derrick Bird, the Cumbria Killer was born on November, as was Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, Belle Gunness, Dennie Nilsen (the British Jeffrey Dahmer), Kristen Gilbert (the Angel of Death), Charles Starkweather, Carl Eugene Watts and Rosemary West.
Today in History: Woodrow Wilson was elected President of the United States on this day in 1912. Wilson is by any metric, the worst president on US history. He dragged America into World War I despite promising not to. He gave us the much-hated income tax. He gave us the Federal Reserve. Alcohol prohibition happened under his watch.
"Woodrow Wilson has been elevated as one of the better presidents but I think if you go back and look at it, the war was avoidable...and of course Woodrow Wilson helped bring Hitler to power by insisting on the abdication of the Kaiser after World War I - which was totally unnecessary." Ivan Eland
Today in History: Genesis Motors was launched on this day in 2015. Genesis is a luxury vehicle division of the South Korean vehicle manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Genesis ambitiously aims to battle the likes of BMW, Lexus, and Mercedes-Benz. In 2020, J.D. Power named Genesis the most dependable automotive brand in North America. In fact, three Korean car makers (Kia, Hyundai and Genesis) dominate the top 10 lists for vehicle reliability. The Genesis G90 carries a price tag of $72,950, though there are less expensive models.
Today in History: Today is National Sandwich Day. A Boston court in 2006 ruled that a sandwich includes at least two slices of bread and "under this definition, this court finds that the term 'sandwich' is not commonly understood to include burritos, tacos, and quesadillas, which are typically made with a single tortilla and stuffed with a choice filling of meat, rice, and beans."
The sandwich is named after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, an eighteenth-century English aristocrat. It is said that he ordered his valet to bring him meat tucked between two pieces of bread. It is commonly said that Lord Sandwich was fond of this form of food because it allowed him to continue playing cards, particularly cribbage, while eating, without using a fork, and without getting his cards greasy from eating meat with his bare hands.
This Day in History: The infamous Zerox Murders occurred on this day in 1999 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Service technician Byran Koji Uyesugi shot at eight people; wounding seven fatally (six co-workers and his supervisor). This was the worst mass murder in the history of Hawaii. "Uyegusi surrendered in the mountains around Honolulu five hours later, and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity – claiming that he felt like an outcast at work, and that he was scared that his co-workers were conspiring to have him fired. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, and is now held at a facility in Mississippi, due to inadequate accommodations for a prisoner in isolation at Halawa Correctional Facility. The Xerox building was abandoned after the shooting, and was not used until 2004, when producers of the television series Lost built a sound stage there to film indoor scenes."~Megan Shute
The worst killing in my state, North Carolina, occurred on Christmas Day in 1929. "On Christmas in 1929, tobacco farmer Charlie Lawson murdered his wife and six of his seven children. The only survivor was his eldest son, 16-year-old Arthur, whom he had sent on an errand just before committing the crime. Lawson then went into the woods and shot himself. Not long after the family was annihilated, Lawson's brother Marion turned the murder house into a tourist attraction. A raisin cake Lawson's wife Marie had baked for Christmas dinner was displayed on the tour and visitors would take raisins as souvenirs until the cake was eventually protected with glass. No explanation ever surfaced for the sudden familicide. Sole survivor Arthur died in a car accident 16 years later at age 32."~Amber Garrett
This Day in History: French judge, and writer Étienne de La Boétie was born on this day in 1530. In his very short life La Boétie has given the world one of the earliest critiques of governmental power: Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (Discours de la Servitude Volontaire).
In this writing he wonders, "how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him. Surely a striking situation!"
200 years later David Hume wondered the same: "Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers."
James Mackinnon wrote about Étienne de La Boétie in A History of Modern Liberty, Volume 2 (1906) where he summarized Étienne de La Boétie's thoughts.
"How a million of men can submit to the absolute régime of a king, especially a bad king, is what La Boëtie, like most reasonable beings, cannot understand. That men out of gratitude for some benefit should place one of themselves in a position in which he might do them untold harm, shows a lamentable want of foresight. To remain in subjection and suffer every species of wrong is worse than cowardice. If a man were to announce this voluntary servitude as hearsay, and not as a fact patent to all, nobody would believe him. The people is the author of its own slavery, for to recover its liberty it has merely to will its freedom. Liberty, it would seem, is not a blessing desired by man, for, though he has but to desire in order to attain it, he prefers to remain in an effeminate slavery. Be resolute to serve no longer, and you will be free. If this seems paradoxical, it is because, cries La Boëtie, the love of liberty, the most natural of sentiments, has been so long stifled by bondage that it has ceased to seem natural. Nevertheless, man is born in subjection only to his parents and to reason. Nature has given the same form to all, in order that all may realise their brotherhood. If there is any advantage in individual ability, it ought only the more to foster fraternal affection between man and man by enabling the strong to minister to the necessities of the weak. Nature has ordained society, companionship, for man, not the oppression of the weak by the strong. Liberty is therefore natural. Long live liberty! The kingship in any form—whether obtained by election, succession, or conquest-appears to La Boëtie, who has in his view the absolute sway of a Henry II., equally hostile to liberty. The king who has been elected strives to affirm his power at the expense of liberty; the king by succession regards the people as his natural slaves; the conqueror as his prey.
A man born unaccustomed to modern subjection would certainly instinctively prefer to obey his reason rather than any other man. Men become slaves only by constraint and deception, never by natural impulse. At first they usually deceive themselves in this matter, to discover speedily that they have been and are being duped. So apt are they to mistake for nature what they owe only to their birth, to mistake custom, which teaches servitude, for nature, which teaches freedom. Nature, unfortunately, loses her power the less she is cultivated. As a plant may be transformed by engrafting some foreign twig on its stem, so human nature may be entirely distorted by custom. Custom, then, is the first cause of this voluntary servitude, in which men seem to live so naturally. Happily, there are exceptions even to the power of custom.
Such exceptions are the men 'who, possessed of strong intelligence and insight, are not content, like the great mass, to regard what is before their eyes, but look beyond and behind them, studying the past in order to measure the present and gauge the future.' To such, slavery is not natural and its taste never sweet, however artfully it may be gilded. Education and freedom of thought are the enemies of tyrants. It is the interest of the tyrant to enervate the people rather than enlighten them, and it is the tendency of the subjects of a tyrant to lose all the masculine virtues of natural freedom. Long live the king, cry the people, in return for the spectacles, free dinners, and largesses of the tyrant. They bless Tiberius and Nero for their liberality, and forget that they are being bribed with their own substance, and will be called on to-morrow to surrender their property in order to satisfy the avarice, their children to gratify the passions, of these magnanimous emperors. Credulity grows with effeminacy, and the tyranny of kings is invested with the miraculous by the ignorance of the mass. The people themselves help to give currency to the lies they believe, for the profit of the monarch. Moreover, the tyrant finds ready adjuncts in the passions, the avarice, the egotism of many of his subjects, who find their advantage in his service and their own slavery."
