Our ancestors were made of iron

HT: Fr. Z

Early Color Film Footage from the 1930s Including Pan Am Flying Boats

A Trip Across America (mid 1930s)

Ooops

Citigroup mistakenly credited a customer’s account with $81 trillion last year when it meant to send just $280.

The payment, which took place last April, was missed by two employees but caught 90 minutes after it was posted, the Financial Times first reported Friday. It was reversed several hours later and reported to the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as a “near miss.”

Read the rest here.

Own Goal

The proprietor of the Gedling Inn recently offered a free pint (beer) for every goal scored by local favorite Nottingham Forest soccer club during the game with Brighton. Soccer (the Brits call it football) is not typically a high scoring game. Alas, this turned into a very generous act when the match turned into an unusual 7-0 blow out for the Reds. Apparently, a very good time was had by all. The total cost to the establishment was estimated at near ₤1,500. But the owner, a Mrs. Webster, was a good sport declaring how thrilled she was that the team was doing well. 

Source

A note from the land of long ago

From here.

I'm not sure which is more disturbing, a man drinking a bottle of bed bug poison thinking it was rum, or a doctor prescribing a bath of New England rum as a cure for what ails you. 

A letter from Syracuse New York

Syracuse, Nov, 25, 1847

Friend Greeley,

This is the day designated by some twenty of the States of our Union as a day of thanksgiving to our Heavenly Father for the many blessings and privileges that we have enjoyed during the past year. It is a good and wholesome custom, and will, probably, within five years, become general in all the states. It is not only due to the Author of our being, but its tendency to stop us in our mad haste to amass wealth and gain renown, to review our conduct as accountable and Immortal beings.

Most of our churches have been open for religious services. Drs. ADAMS and GREGORY (Presbyterian and Episcopal) and Mr. MAY (Unitarian) have spoken boldly and justly of the evils of the times- the Mexican War, Slavery, Intemperance, &c. I have never heard Dr. ADAMS, who is generally considered rather conservative, speak so plainly as he did to-day on the wickedness and injustice of the present War and the abominable system of American Slavery. And yet in a congregation composed of all classes and callings, all seemed to acquiesce and in and approve what was said. Is not this provoking? The country was warned in '44 of this War, its cruelties and hardships. Why cannot people see and hear and believe, and vote to avoid such shameful results?

The joy created by the result of the recent election is giving way to the agitation and inquiry, "Who will be the Whig candidate for the Presidency next Fall?" The answer appears to be almost unanimous, "Who can it be but Henry Clay!" The resolutions and telegraphic report of the Lexington Meeting were well received here, though there is much anxiety expressed to read the Speech of the occasion, written out by its author. It is expected here by this evening's train, when it will be immediately issued from the Journal Office. 

The weather this year has been rather unseasonable. Yesterday morning it commenced raining and it poured down all day, and almost all night. This morning, the sun shown out in all its glory, and we have had a pleasant Thanksgiving. Last year the canals closed on the 25th, but now there is no telling when they will freeze up.

Our town continues to grow and prosper, and there is no stopping its advancement. Several hundred buildings have been erected this season- some very beautiful ones. A long southern wing has been added to the "Globe" Hotel- a capital temperance house- the Malcom estate have built a splendid block of stores immediately east of the Empire House, the 2nd Presbyterian Society are now finishing a beautiful house of worship on the Park (the prettiest in town)- and Mr. TOMLINSON, the owner of the Empire, is now making arrangements to put up a block of dwellings, early in the spring, on Church St. next street north of the Empire block. But enough to-day. 

F.

Source.

Why?

People sometimes ask why I'm generally so hostile to government. 

Read this.

(No "Trump will save the squirrels" commentary please. Dictatorship is not the answer to governmental overreach.)

Neighborhood Picnic 1920s

Before Computers

 
Checking train reservations at Union Station in 1942. From here. (Click the link for full sized image.)

RIP Paul Alexander

Paul Alexander has died at 78. You may be forgiven if you haven't heard of him. Neither had I until I stumbled on his obituary. On the surface, Mr. Alexander's life seems fairly ordinary. He went to college, then law school, was admitted to the bar and represented many clients, wrote a book, and in his later years became something of an internet personality. What sets him apart, was that he spent most of the last 72 years of his life living in an iron lung. He was completely paralyzed by polio at the age of six and could only move his head and speak.  Mr. Alexander, who might well have had some justification for being bitter at the cruel hand that fate had dealt him, instead decided to make the best of the life he had. He became very good at memorization, vice taking notes, dictated a great deal, and learned to write with a pen taped to his nose with which he was able to type or tap a computer keyboard. At the time of his passing, he was active on social media with more than 300,000 followers. 

Paul Alexander holds the record for the longest-lived survivor of polio who had to live in an iron lung and is believed to have been the second to last person still using one. 

Memory eternal.

Is 2022 the Year We All Finally Got Tired of Narcissists?

It’s been a good run for the narcissists.

Over the past decade or so, a mix of shameless self-aggrandizement and self-confident charm has served certain people extraordinarily well, turning them into venture-capital darlings, licensed-merchandise magnates, Forbes cover models, social media superstars, Oprah confessors, business-conference keynoters, new-money plutocrats and, in one case, president. Elon Musk, Sam Bankman-Fried, Ye (né Kanye West), Elizabeth Holmes, Meghan Markle, Donald Trump: All of them used attention as currency and ego as fuel, and were rewarded, for a time, with what they craved. We’re drawn to people who love themselves.

But somewhere between the fifth and sixth hour of “Harry and Meghan,” the new Netflix documentary series produced by the former Duke and Duchess of Sussex and filmed at their California mansion — which suggests that there is no one more in love, no one more socially conscious, no one more aggrieved — my natural sympathy for the couple started turning to irritation, and it occurred to me that ego has its limits. And it struck me that the overreach that led to the Sussexes’ critically panned mega-series is the same impulse that turned Elon Musk into a terror on Twitter, that prompted Ye to up the ante of outrageous behavior until he crossed the line into blatant antisemitism, that sent Bankman-Fried from the top of the world to a Bahamian jail.

Some of these turns of fate are more dramatic and complete than others. But once we tally up the losses, it could be that 2022 marks the year our love affair with narcissists started to falter. Many of them met this year with declines in fortunes, falls from grace or newfound public skepticism. Many seemed to overstay their welcome in the public glare. And if this is the moment when we started to crave boring public figures for a change — well, to a large degree, the egotists did it to themselves. Maybe they couldn’t help it.

Read the rest here.

World's Oldest Photographs (pt 1)

Quote of the day...

"It wasn't one of my better moves." -Matthew Tulley after super gluing his face to a public street in London as part of ongoing protests over climate change. Apparently the process of separating his face from the pavement was both protracted and painful.  

Some people collect stamps or old coins; others...

A German pensioner who kept a Second World War Nazi tank in his basement for over 30 years was given a 14-month suspended jail sentence and fined €50,000 (£43,000) on Tuesday.

The 84-year-old, named only as Klaus-Dieter F under German privacy laws, admitted breaking the country’s War Weapons Control Act in a plea bargain to avoid being sent to prison. 

He also agreed to pay a further €200,000 (£170,000) to charity under the terms of the deal.

As well as a 1943 Panther tank, he also kept an 88mm anti-aircraft gun, a torpedo, a mortar, 70 assault rifles and over 2,000 rounds of ammunition in the basement of his private villa in Heikendorf, a wealthy suburb of Kiel in northern Germany. 

Prosecutors stumbled on the remarkable trove of weapons when they searched his home looking for stolen Nazi artworks after a tip-off in 2015.

Read the rest here.

Traveling in Europe in the 1930s

A series of home movies shot while traveling in Europe. The nature and sequence of the footage suggests it was likely shot over more than one trip and visual evidence strongly points to the second half of the 1930s as the approximate time frame. (appx 1 hr with AI clean up and coloring added)

Pizza Place Helps Local Shelter Get Dogs Adopted By Putting Their Photos On Pizza Boxes

Story here.

This is just gold

HT: Kurt- Thanks for sending this to me.

A little off the top and a straight razor shave please

Meet Anthony Mancinelli, a man who enjoys his work so much that retirement does not appear to be in his plans. He is a barber who started cutting hair when Warren Harding was president. In fairness, he was a boy at the time. Mr. Manicinelli, now 107, has all of his own teeth, takes no medication and is still cutting hair full time, a job that requires him to be on his feet pretty much all day. Somewhere along the line he got his name in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest working barber. 

From here.

Many (more) years!

It's a boy! Michigan couple with 13 sons add another to the clan

Many years!
HT:The Deacons Bench