Some Helpful savings options for you. Thanks to JR for sending me the list!
Release Date: 08/18/11
Subject: 108
Stores that offer Senior Discounts
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Release Date: 07/27/11
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Book Review by Orson Scott Card, sent by JSC:
This is the book review of 1493 that I saw that let me know
it even existed. It’s from Bro. Orson Scott Card in his weekly column for the
Rhino Times in his local weekly newspaper. If you want the internet link, it’s
here: http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/Articles-c-2011-08-24-209340.112113-Crazy-Stupid-Elements-1493.html
_______________________________
I really enjoyed Charles C. Mann's 2006 book
1491, a survey of the way the world was just before Columbus reached America. I
was pleasantly surprised to discover that the sequel, 1493, is even better.
Subtitled "Uncovering the New World Columbus Created," the book is a powerful
overview of how the Columbian exchange transformed the world – politically,
demographically and biologically. It's not just a matter of listing all the
American crops that spread throughout the world – maize (corn), potatoes, sweet
potatoes (but not yams), tomatoes, rubber – or the diseases that went the other
way and killed off half or more of the native American
population.
One of the biggest surprises to me was how deeply involved China and the rest of Asia were in the Columbian exchange almost from the very start. Did you know that most of the silver from Spain's American empire went to China? Or that far more Africans were brought to the Americas than Europeans – many of them soldiers captured in African wars, who then established Afro-Indian cities and nations in the hinterlands of an astonishing number of nominally European colonies?
Most of this information is available in other books, of course – Mann scrupulously cites his sources, and it's clear that this book is entirely based on secondary and tertiary research. Mann's contribution is to bring the information together into one place. He skillfully shapes the book around mini-biographies of truly fascinating people, but there's also plenty of root information that helps build up the big picture in a clear and vivid way.
From our perspective in an Anglo centric culture, it's easy to dismiss Latin America or China as "all one thing." From Mann, we learn that both of them were drastically changed by the rapid mixing of every aspect of these worlds-once-separate. When English North America was still a backwater, Mexico City was a globalized city, filled with Africans, Indians and Asians, governed only loosely by the nominal overlords from Spain.
The book contains the best explanation I've yet seen of the actual workings of the slave trade – helped greatly by the fact that Mann's purpose is not to demonize or assign blame. In fact, the great illumination to me was that slavery was pervasive in Africa long before the Europeans, but the masters knew their slaves, where they came from, often who their families were, and the door of slavery was not irrevocably locked. What the Europeans did was commoditize the slaves, buying them as mere hands of labor, not as people, and valuing them only for what they could be compelled to produce.
One of the biggest surprises to me was how deeply involved China and the rest of Asia were in the Columbian exchange almost from the very start. Did you know that most of the silver from Spain's American empire went to China? Or that far more Africans were brought to the Americas than Europeans – many of them soldiers captured in African wars, who then established Afro-Indian cities and nations in the hinterlands of an astonishing number of nominally European colonies?
Most of this information is available in other books, of course – Mann scrupulously cites his sources, and it's clear that this book is entirely based on secondary and tertiary research. Mann's contribution is to bring the information together into one place. He skillfully shapes the book around mini-biographies of truly fascinating people, but there's also plenty of root information that helps build up the big picture in a clear and vivid way.
From our perspective in an Anglo centric culture, it's easy to dismiss Latin America or China as "all one thing." From Mann, we learn that both of them were drastically changed by the rapid mixing of every aspect of these worlds-once-separate. When English North America was still a backwater, Mexico City was a globalized city, filled with Africans, Indians and Asians, governed only loosely by the nominal overlords from Spain.
The book contains the best explanation I've yet seen of the actual workings of the slave trade – helped greatly by the fact that Mann's purpose is not to demonize or assign blame. In fact, the great illumination to me was that slavery was pervasive in Africa long before the Europeans, but the masters knew their slaves, where they came from, often who their families were, and the door of slavery was not irrevocably locked. What the Europeans did was commoditize the slaves, buying them as mere hands of labor, not as people, and valuing them only for what they could be compelled to produce.
The shock for the Africans transported to
the new world was not slavery per se, but rather the utter cruelty and
debasement of the way slavery was practiced under supposedly Christian masters.
Many of the slaves were prisoners taken in wars between African kingdoms and
empires – POWs were the most common source of slaves for many centuries before
Europeans arrived. It's what you did with POWs. So the Europeans often had the
nasty shock, early in the slave trade, of discovering that the batch of slaves
newly arrived on the plantation were often highly trained soldiers, far more
capable of waging war than their nominal overlords. The result was runaways and
rebels whose cities and kingdoms in the American hinterland sometimes persisted
even beyond the abolition of slavery.
The mixing of African and Indian populations made it impossible to distinguish one race from the other (though the newly racist Europeans tried to clarify the most absurdly elaborate distinctions). Caribbean populations, for instance, look and are taken for "black," but in fact they are the descendants of Taino Indians as much as of Africans.
The mixing of African and Indian populations made it impossible to distinguish one race from the other (though the newly racist Europeans tried to clarify the most absurdly elaborate distinctions). Caribbean populations, for instance, look and are taken for "black," but in fact they are the descendants of Taino Indians as much as of Africans.
Indian and African resistance, then, was
constant and often very successful, and the real history, long left out of the
books (which were, after all, written by Europeans), is a complicated interplay
among all the immigrant and native races.
If you don't know the information in 1493, you don't know the history of the world since Columbus. Period. That came as a rude shock to me, I can tell you, because I was quite vain about the depth and breadth of my knowledge of history. This was a humbling read – but an exciting one. It was as if I had been living in an attic lighted only by a few rays that crept in through cracks, and then, suddenly, a light came on and I could see all the stuff that had been hidden from me. Finally I had a clear idea of where I lived and what all the interesting bits of this and that came from and what they meant. Not everybody loves history as much as I do. But most people only think they don't like history because they haven't read enough of it, or haven't read enough well-written history.
If you don't know the information in 1493, you don't know the history of the world since Columbus. Period. That came as a rude shock to me, I can tell you, because I was quite vain about the depth and breadth of my knowledge of history. This was a humbling read – but an exciting one. It was as if I had been living in an attic lighted only by a few rays that crept in through cracks, and then, suddenly, a light came on and I could see all the stuff that had been hidden from me. Finally I had a clear idea of where I lived and what all the interesting bits of this and that came from and what they meant. Not everybody loves history as much as I do. But most people only think they don't like history because they haven't read enough of it, or haven't read enough well-written history.
Don't read 1491 first – good as that book
is, 1493 is far more relevant and interesting to the modern reader. This is the
story of how we got to the world that was so radically transformed even before
our country was even thought of. It's as if all of US history took place in
parentheses, and 1491 lets us see the earliest phases of the big story. Even the
long section about the Jamestown colony gives the story from a perspective that
clearly shows the robustness of the civilization that was already here before
the Europeans arrived and, quite literally, wrecked everything – growing tobacco
in ways that drove out the Indians' far more sustainable, land-friendly
farming.
It's not that our forebears "won" a competition with the Indians. It's more that by farming in European ways, we made it impossible for the native civilization to continue – even though it was very advanced, and had sustained vast populations. It's worth remembering that many of the crops that now feed the world were not discovered but rather developed by plant-breeding Indians in Mexico (maize) and Peru (potatoes and sweet potatoes). And the slaves brought from Africa came, not as "ignorant savages," but as iron-working, war-fighting, nation-building citizens of civilizations that were just as "high" as the Europeans who carried them across the sea. Add in the Asians who brought Chinese techniques and knowledge to the Americas, and adopted American crops and techniques to an astonishing degree, and you begin to get the real picture of history: Not the relentless march of "superior" Europeans, but rather the continuous interplay of ideas and crops and products and skills from every part of the world to every other.
The "new world" in the title does not refer to the Americas. It refers to the globalized world of today, which replaced the separated, isolated, divided world that existed before Columbus, by sheer force of will and a lot of lying, induced Europe to stop tripping over America and set up shop here for the long haul.
It's not that our forebears "won" a competition with the Indians. It's more that by farming in European ways, we made it impossible for the native civilization to continue – even though it was very advanced, and had sustained vast populations. It's worth remembering that many of the crops that now feed the world were not discovered but rather developed by plant-breeding Indians in Mexico (maize) and Peru (potatoes and sweet potatoes). And the slaves brought from Africa came, not as "ignorant savages," but as iron-working, war-fighting, nation-building citizens of civilizations that were just as "high" as the Europeans who carried them across the sea. Add in the Asians who brought Chinese techniques and knowledge to the Americas, and adopted American crops and techniques to an astonishing degree, and you begin to get the real picture of history: Not the relentless march of "superior" Europeans, but rather the continuous interplay of ideas and crops and products and skills from every part of the world to every other.
The "new world" in the title does not refer to the Americas. It refers to the globalized world of today, which replaced the separated, isolated, divided world that existed before Columbus, by sheer force of will and a lot of lying, induced Europe to stop tripping over America and set up shop here for the long haul.
Release Date: 09/30/11
==============================================
Interesting Points of view sent by JR:
It’s with great displeasure that I
announce..... it's that time again....The Darwin Awards are out! These Annual
Honors (or horrors) are given to the persons who did the
human gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most
extraordinarily stupid way.
You may recall that last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out.
This year's winner was a genuine Rocket Scientist...no jive! Read on...and remember that each and every one of these is a true story. The nominees were:
Semifinalist #1
A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk cheaply because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited into the fireplace in his house. The resulting explosion and fire burned his house down, killing both he and his sister.
Semifinalist #2
Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low altitude when another plane approached. It appears that they decided to moon the occupants of the other plane, but lost control of their own aircraft and crashed. They were all found dead in the wreckage with their pants around their ankles.
Semifinalist #3
A 22-year-old Reston, VA man was found dead after he tried to use octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot rail road trestle. Fairfax County police said Eric Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped an end around one foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park, jumped and hit the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found nearby. "The length of the cord that he had assembled was greater than the distance between the trestle and the concrete," Carmichael said. Police say the apparent cause of death was "Major trauma."
Semifinalist #4
A man in Alabama died from numerous rattlesnake bites. It seems that he and a friend were playing a game of catch, using the rattlesnake as a ball. The friend - no doubt a future Darwin Awards candidate - was hospitalized, but lived.
Semifinalist #5
Employees in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas noticed the smell of a gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the building, extinguishing all potential sources of ignition; lights, power, etc. After the building had been evacuated, two technicians from the gas company were dispatched. Upon entering the building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the sight of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a cigarette lighter. Upon operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The technician suspected of causing the blast had never been thought of as ''especially bright'' by his peers.
And now the winner of this year's Darwin Award; as always, awarded posthumously;
THE 2011 WINNER!
Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene.
Police investigators finally pieced together the mystery. An amateur rocket scientist had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off...actually a solid-fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra 'push' for taking off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to the car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO!
The facts as best could be determined are that the operator of the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established by the scorched and melted asphalt at that location.
The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20 -25 seconds.
The driver, and soon-to-be pilot, would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, causing him to become irrelevant for the remainder of the event. However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, leaving a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable.
Epilogue: It has been calculated that this moron attained a ground speed of approximately 420-mph, though much of his voyage was not actually on the ground.
Really.....we couldn't make this stuff up and remember these people are all around us and not only do they have kids but they also vote!
You may recall that last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out.
This year's winner was a genuine Rocket Scientist...no jive! Read on...and remember that each and every one of these is a true story. The nominees were:
Semifinalist #1
A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk cheaply because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited into the fireplace in his house. The resulting explosion and fire burned his house down, killing both he and his sister.
Semifinalist #2
Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low altitude when another plane approached. It appears that they decided to moon the occupants of the other plane, but lost control of their own aircraft and crashed. They were all found dead in the wreckage with their pants around their ankles.
Semifinalist #3
A 22-year-old Reston, VA man was found dead after he tried to use octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot rail road trestle. Fairfax County police said Eric Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped an end around one foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park, jumped and hit the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found nearby. "The length of the cord that he had assembled was greater than the distance between the trestle and the concrete," Carmichael said. Police say the apparent cause of death was "Major trauma."
Semifinalist #4
A man in Alabama died from numerous rattlesnake bites. It seems that he and a friend were playing a game of catch, using the rattlesnake as a ball. The friend - no doubt a future Darwin Awards candidate - was hospitalized, but lived.
Semifinalist #5
Employees in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas noticed the smell of a gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the building, extinguishing all potential sources of ignition; lights, power, etc. After the building had been evacuated, two technicians from the gas company were dispatched. Upon entering the building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the sight of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a cigarette lighter. Upon operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The technician suspected of causing the blast had never been thought of as ''especially bright'' by his peers.
And now the winner of this year's Darwin Award; as always, awarded posthumously;
THE 2011 WINNER!
Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene.
Police investigators finally pieced together the mystery. An amateur rocket scientist had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off...actually a solid-fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra 'push' for taking off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to the car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO!
The facts as best could be determined are that the operator of the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established by the scorched and melted asphalt at that location.
The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20 -25 seconds.
The driver, and soon-to-be pilot, would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, causing him to become irrelevant for the remainder of the event. However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, leaving a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable.
Epilogue: It has been calculated that this moron attained a ground speed of approximately 420-mph, though much of his voyage was not actually on the ground.
Really.....we couldn't make this stuff up and remember these people are all around us and not only do they have kids but they also vote!
Release Date: 10/30/11
=================================================
From BR:
A toothpaste factory had a problem:
they sometimes shipped empty boxes, without the tube inside. This was due to the
way the production line was set up, and people with experience in designing
production lines will tell you how difficult it is to have everything happen
with timings so precise that every single unit coming out of it is perfect 100%
of the time. Small variations in the environment (which cant be controlled in a
cost-effective fashion) mean you must have quality assurance checks smartly
distributed across the line so that customers all the way down the supermarket
don t get ....("angry")...and buy someone else's product
instead.
Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem, as their engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort.
The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using some high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box weighing less than it should came down the line. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button to restart the line when done.
A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. "That's some money well spent!" he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.
It turns out, the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should be picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren't picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.
Puzzled, the CEO traveled down to the factory, and walked up to the part of the line where the precision scales we re installed. A few feet before it, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin. "Oh, one of the guys put it there cause he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang," said one of the workers.
Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem, as their engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort.
The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using some high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box weighing less than it should came down the line. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button to restart the line when done.
A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. "That's some money well spent!" he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.
It turns out, the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should be picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren't picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.
Puzzled, the CEO traveled down to the factory, and walked up to the part of the line where the precision scales we re installed. A few feet before it, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin. "Oh, one of the guys put it there cause he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang," said one of the workers.
Release Date: 08/18/11
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