#how did university work in the late 1800s/early 1900s. am I going to have to google this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

quill-of-thoth · 1 year

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Re: medical school in your post abt Watson and Holmes' ages: "medical school" isn't a thing in the UK. You study medicine as an undergraduate (i.e. straight out of school at 18) and the course takes 5-6 years depending on the university. So Watson's age is perhaps 18 + 5/6 + some years (?) in the army, i.e. 26 at least.

Hi Nonny, thank you so much for the information! Based on my research into the late 1800's, a five to six year medical school stint is less likely (though possible): most men going to medical school (read: attending university with the intent to get a medical degree, though there were some institutions that were only for studying medicine) and graduating in the 1870's and 1880's were emerging with MD degrees at the ages of 22 or 23. There just wasn't as much medicine to be schooled in yet. So this doesn't change too much regarding Dr. John Watson's biography prior to A Study in Scarlet Here are a handful of other doctors who graduated in the 1870's through 1900, for context. Dr. Theodore Acland (graduated age 22) Christopher Addison (graduated age 23) Thomas Allinson (graduated age 21) Alfred Barrs (graduated age 22) Thomas Bond (Graduated age 24, known for his work in criminal profiling, particularly for his attempts to profile Jack the Ripper)

You'll notice that all of these last names start with A or B, and that's just an artifact of how I checked my work. Once I found a list of late 19th century english physicians, and looked up a dozen famous doctors of the approximate right era I quit looking: the ones that were in their middle or late twenties when receiving their degrees were in the minority, likely because, for reasons I mentioned in the original timeline: the Victorian doctor spent two to three years on his professional education before getting a degree and entering some sort of practice - whether he became an army doctor like Watson, worked in a hospital, or became a junior partner in another physician's practice.

Wikipedia does a large list of famous 18th century doctors, for anyone else looking to do a little recreational research today. I've been sticking to people with articles that are more than stubs, with definite years of birth and graduation, (So not William Henry Allchin, great name by the way, who received his degree at age 25 but who I just don't have the data on to know if he started medical school a couple years later than average or what,) and unfortunately to the men, to make sure I'm getting a broad enough sample of Watson's contemporaries, given that a lot of women who were doctors did not take the exact same route in their studies, either needing to spend more time traveling to institutions that would take them, being denied entry to their examinations due to gender, or a whole host of other things. There were also a number of men finishing degrees at 25, even among the people I dismissed as being born too early to be a good comparison: not everybody went directly to medical school at 18 or 19, and of course you have to consider things like travel taking forever and disease being harder to treat when determining if any individual was a year behind or so in their course of study. Specializing into newer fields also took longer: briefly looking at people who went into neurology (then a much newer field) or specialized in pediatrics, they tended to gain their degrees a little later. (Fun note: While scraping through this list I found a couple of famous fellows named Beddoes: whether we decide Watson is searching for aliases to protect the guilty or Doyle is inventing names for characters, we may know where he got the name for poor Mr. Trevor's friend in The Gloria Scott.) As always, I am being incredibly normal about this. Hope it helped! Someone at least.

#Letters from Watson #victorians in context #UNFORTUNATELY my brain is Like This #welcome to self study hell #education during victorian times

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ober-affen-geil · 4 years

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Please share all of the things about paper? I know nothing of anything you listed and now am curious and listening to someone who's passionate about something talk about it is honestly my favorite thing. What is deacidification and what consequences has it wrought? What qualities does onionskin paper possess and are you for or against it? Why are basic office supplies the devil and what, then, is your preference? WHAT IS THE GREAT PULP PAPER SWITCH?! I'm dying to know

Anon. You. You are my favorite.

Ok *cracks knuckles* important context. I am an archivist, I work with paper whose creation dates from anywhere to several hundred years ago to several decades ago. Our main goal in archives is long term preservation; basically make stuff last as long as possible as-is.

Now, all of the stuff I mentioned in my tags on the post anon is asking about sort of tie together, so let me sing you the song of the archives.

tl;dr Office supplies are the devil and so is onionskin paper, paper used to be better and then it got worse, and humans tried to fix the bad paper by throwing chemicals at it.

Let’s start at the top. Idk how many of you did or had a paper making demonstration at some point in their youth, I did but I realize my experiences are not universal. Basically, paper is made by turning a material into pulp (exactly what it sounds like) and adding water and a sizing agent to make it a slurry (a very gross looking soup consistency).

- A sizing agent is something that is used so that ink doesn’t “feather” when it touches the page. An unsized piece of paper will act like a paper towel with liquid. Not ideal for writing on. Sizing will become important later -

The slurry is then captured in a frame and the water is more or less squeezed out of it until you’re left with soggy pulp that you dry out and presto! Paper. Here’s a quick video showing the process.

Now. The first material that was used for paper was literally cotton rags. They were shredded and pulped and then made into paper. It’s called cotton rag paper and it was the main paper supply until the early-mid 1800s. It has a completely different feel to it than the paper we use today, it feels more like cloth. Paper money is made from something like it because it’s a lot more durable.

- Fun fact, “parchment”, which predated cotton rag paper, is not actually “paper” as we think of it. Parchment very specifically refers to a finely cured animal skin that was written on. Vellum is the same thing except finer, usually calfskin where regular parchment is sheepskin. -

Problem was, with the advent of movable type and higher literacy rates, the need for paper was steadily increasing. And cotton rags just weren’t cutting it. So manufacturers started looking for a more plentiful source. And they found trees!

Turns out wood pulp makes an excellent paper, toss in a little bleach and it works great! So around about the 1860s, most newspapers had switched over to wood pulp paper instead of cotton rag paper. And everything was looking up!

BUT.

Here��s the thing about wood pulp. It has a naturally occurring chemical called “lignin”, which is hella acidic. Not like burn-your-fingers acidic, but like over-time-this-material-will-chemically-eat-itself acidic. Which started to be a problem a couple decades after wood pulp paper started to be mass-produced.

The good news is, what they quickly figured out was if they added a basic solution (who remembers their high school chemistry?) in the initial sizing agent it would neutralize the natural acidity in the pulp and the paper would last a lot longer.

But this did fuck all to help the paper that had already been made and was quickly becoming very fragile. Whatever can we do?!

Well, some genius (I use that term as sarcastically as possible) got the idea that maybe we could do the same thing - add a basic solution to acidic paper - to paper that had ALREADY been made! Brilliant! The process was called “deacidification” and it was very popular in the 1970s. The idea was to basically give at risk paper a “bath” and it would solve the problem. Here’s a video about it made by American higher ups that is absolutely hysterical imo.

Well, the university where I work had its own deacidification lab, which was fine. Deacidification does work, when done properly and when very specific criteria is met by the paper being treated. When that’s not what happens….it gets messy. The main problem with the deacidification process at my university is that it wasn’t being run by people who really knew what they were doing. Because what they understood about what needed to be done and the WHY behind what they were supposed to be doing were two different things.

Long story short they hella botched the deacidification process, and now not only does a large part of several of our more highly used collections have a lovely gross chemical residue all over it, they also managed to “deacidify” a good chunk of letters that were from the 1700s. AKA they were on cotton rag paper. AKA they were not actually acidic to begin with. I may be bitter.

Anyway. Speaking of types of paper, let’s talk about oinion skin. My sworn enemy. Onion skin paper was used for copying purposes when carbon copies were a thing, otherwise known as the early part of the 1900s up until when copy machines became a thing in the middle-late part. It’s still used if you’re filling out something with a “copy” attached to it, usually yellow, that you get to keep.

It’s called “onion skin” because that’s kind of what it looks and feels like; it’s thin like tissue paper but it’s sized in something that makes it much more durable. Easier to make multiple copies at once on a typewriter by stacking several sheets together. Great! Except it’s the fucking cockroach of paper.

It just fucking LIES there and is fragile enough that you can’t really do too much with it, but whoever sold their soul to make it less destructible than it should be got their money’s worth because it won’t die. It just. Doesn’t age the same way regular paper from the same time frame does and it doesn’t fucking go away.

But GOD HELP YOU if there’s a paper clip attached because you ain’t getting that sucker off without tearing the page short of an intervention by a surgical professional and the pope himself.

And do you know why? BECAUSE OFFICE SUPPLIES ARE THE LITERAL WORST.

I’m talking staples, paper clips, tape, sticky notes, glue sticks, binders, stick-on labels, et fucking cetera. It comes down to two things, metal and adhesive, and the fact that neither of those two things age very gracefully.

You know what’s fun? Clicking a stapler together. Very satisfying, punching that thing through the paper you just finished and are ready to turn in. You know what’s NOT fun? Prying rusty staples out of a stack of 50 year old papers with your fingers because they’ve rotted themselves into it and the tool you have for it won’t work. Same for fucking paper clips, because rusty metal eats into paper. Seriously, there will be a hole left when you finally pry it out. Not to mention rust stains.

And ADHESIVE oh MAN. The thing is, over time it dries out. And rots. So depending what you’re looking at, it could be a sticky, half-melted pile of goo that doesn’t want to stay where it was, it could be straight up gone with a yellow stain to mark where it was, or it could have eaten into the paper it was stuck to and left a hole. Any way you slice it, it ain’t doing it’s job any more. Which is why traditional scrapbooks are usually an utter shit show.

But anyway, that’s that on that. If you have MORE questions, I am very, very happy to rant or find pictures of horror stories. There are a lot!

#ask #personal #rant #archives #old stuff #i really do love my job i swear #a riley special

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definitely-not-an-alb · 5 years

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Magical Machines In RoL: A short Round-Up

Shortening because this is long.

There’s a surprising number of magical or mysterious devices we keep encountering:

The Pin in one of the Cat-Girls temple in Moon Over Soho

The Cunning Device in A Rare Book of Cunning Device

Lesley’s Phone-Bomb in The Hanging Tree

“Mary Engine”, (Might be related to Ada Lovelace’s design, as per Peter’s observations, might be some type of early calculator?)

“Some Type of Device” Babbage (Who worked with Lovelace) was working on for the Folly, according to Nightingale

And then there’s Lady Helena’s insistence that her tradition’s Magic Salons go back to Caroline from Ansbach, who, Peter notes, also hung about with one Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz (Who was – hopefully – not a machine, though he did write like he was running out of time and was generally low-key bonkers)

First three are kind of ??? so let’s look at the last three (+) instead

Why the fuck is Leibniz relevant for us?

Now, I’m not one for Great-Man-Histroy, but even I have to admit that Leibniz was, again, kind of off-the-Weird-Genius-charts. If you, say, want a literary or historical counterweight to Isaac Newton in Allsasser-Excentric-Genuis-Bullshit, he’s the man. Literally. Anygays. There are five(ish) things that connect Leibniz to the rest of the RoL Universe;

He’s connected with Caroline from Ansbach, as stated above

He dabbled in alchemy (well, he dabbled in everything)

He got into an academic bitch fight with Isaac Newton (Because either on of them plagiarized the other or they just invented the same Important Math Thing at roughtly the same time – we will never know ~~~)

He either invented the binary code* (aka thing that makes Computers go be-bop) or greatly improved it/anticipated a bunch of logic-probelms with it, depending on who you ask

He revolutionized early calculators by inventing the Leibniz Wheel (aka, the things that made Calculators go shrrrrrrrrrr for 200 years before things got funky and analytical)

(All of this is somewhere between the late 1660s – 1716s) (* same problem of the )

Early Calculators and Leibniz Wheels

(Aka a long and rambly part that you can skip if you don’t want to learn about Fancy Early Tech)

Early Calculators where mostly stuff like fancy modefied Abaci, but in the 1640s this french dude Pascal build an Arithmetic Machine, which used interlockign wheels to do what it says on the tin crunch numbers. This machine was both very cool and very suck-tastic; it could do math for you (yay); But it was also super expensive, hard to transport, harder to build, even harder to opperate and therefore prone to human error (boo). It was also limited to addition an subtraction. It didn’t really catch on.

Along comes Leibniz and designes the Leibniz Wheel (which, unlike the A.M.’s wheels, which needed 10 rotations per single digit, only needed a single rotation for any operation involving a single-digit number and could, in conjunction with other Leibniz wheels, carry over into higher digits more easily. He used it to build the first really usable Calculator(s). This Stepped Reckoner (which is what you get when you badly translate Stufenrechner) was easier to operate and it could perform all four basic operations. You could actually use it. Or, as this book puts it:

“The demand for Leibniz’s machines was largely for it’s help in calculating tables of common mathematical functions. In the seventeenth century producing one of these tables might have been a lifes’s work.”

Just, in case you wanted to know how rad people thought this was.

Here’s a link to a video of an animated Leibniz Wheel in use.

Babbage’s Difference Engine and Analytical Engine

Babbage’s Difference Engine (1820s/30s) and Analytical Engine (1830s), genreally considered the ‘first computer’ if they’d actually build it, was basically the attempt to stack as many Leibniz Wheel-ish Wheels (they used a variation, btu it‘s afaik the same concept) as possible on top of each other and operate them all simultaneously by using the technology of Joseph Marie Jacquard’s “programmable” Loom (invented around 1800, uses Punchcards to weave different & complex patterns) to brute-force complex mathematical problems.

The Difference Engine was supposed to use this system to calculate and print mathematical tables. It was supposed to be able to calculate polynoms and use sinus and cosinus and such (!!! I know that sounds easy when we all have a graphical calculator lying around at home like a useless math brick, but this is so cool!)

The Analytical Engine was a step up from this, as it should have functioned without human intervention and was upposed to be fully programmable. It even had something like 10 kB memory space. It was a computer, is what it is.

Now, Ada Lovelace took one long look at that and went “well, clearly this isn’t cool enough yet” because she was born a Byron and Just That Extra. She was also apparently called the Enchantress of Numbers by Babbage ... just ... like ... maybe ... okay.

Anyways, Ada, while trying to explain what the fuck this thing was supposed to do to the general science public, casually invented the analytical computer program. As you do. As you fucking do.

(Still using this book as well as this book btw)

To make this clear: Babbage is that one kid who’s always finished first in Math Class because he actually knows how to make tht Unloved Math Brick Of Ugh do what he wants; Ada is that kid who wrote her own game for her Math Brick, hasn’t payed attention since Grade 6 and is currently reading a college-level informatic book under the table. In the first row, Isaac and Gottfried are throwing chalk at each other. Well, you get what I mean.

The Mary Engine

The Mary Engine is produced in the 1840s and is small enough to fit into the store room’s shelves. It’s not a Differentiation or an Analytical Engine, and probably also not a Stepped Reckoner.

But. This thing is actually incredible. The Mary Engine is TINY.

Babbage never finished either Engine. They only build on around 1900 iirr. Second off, the Engines where fuck off huge. Things the size of the Mary Engine really only came around in the early 1900 or so. ‘Enigmas’ (aka Rotor-Crypto-Machines, which are way less complex then actual calculators), while ‘invented’ shortly after WWI all over the world, only became small enough to be moved comfortably on-person during WWII. How the fuck did they get the Mary Engine that small in the 1840s?

If there’s anything I’m missing (or that I’ve gotten horribly wrong, because I’m a computer noob in the end) hit me up so that I can amend this thing. I don’t really have a Grand Fandom Theory or anything. This is just a list (+ minor explanations) of Cool Stuff. A lot of people probably already know this stuff, but I had fun writing this and it might bring people who weren’t raised in Leibniz-Central up to speed somewhat.

Now, another thing, because someone pointed it out a while ago (and I can’t! Believe! I didn’t make that connection!); Linden-Limmer. I really should have seen that one: I fucking live here. So: Hannover, Germany is kind of a bonkers town.

#Rivers of London #meta #idk if anyone actually cares #but this has been in my drafts for ages #and i can't even properly check it anymore because i've read it so often #ugh

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keywestlou · 4 years

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EARLY KEY WEST BURIALS

The Key West Cemetery is one of Key West’s most famous tourist spots. Now located in Old Town. Not always the location.

I came across 2 interesting bits about early Key West burials.

The first involves location.

In the early 1800’s, the first cemetery was located on the “western beach between the town and Whitehead’s Point.” Most of the graves were located in the space between Emma Street and the Marine Hospital Building.

The cemetery was not like today’s or anything even similar to what we have come to know as a cemetery. A body was buried and a few stones randomly placed on top of the grave. No grave stone as such.

An 1830 visitor described the stones. Few had any names etched on them. Most were “a few plain stones to tell that the possessions of the little tenant below once lived and died.”

Some stones marked the length of the body below.

The question generally asked was: “Who sleeps below?”

The use of stones was probably copied from the Indians who frequented the lower Keys. They sprinkled/set a few small stones above a grave.

For several years when my children were young, we vacationed on Block Island. An island off the coast of Rhode Island.

There was a “painted rock.” A stone about 4 x 4 feet. Kids used to go and paint the stone. My children did it several times. Everyone always painted over the previous person’s paint job.

A tradition.

I was standing watching my children one day when a Block Island local began talking to me. He asked if I had seen the Indian cemetery. I had not. It was across the street from painted rock and a way in the woods.

A small open area. Weedy. Small tones in an irregular grouping here and there. The Indians of Block Island were buried similarly as the early residents and the Indians of Key West.

Respect for the dead was common place. As it is today. Except the respect evidenced in a different manner.

From the mid 1800’s to the early 1900’s, the Key West custom re burials involved the closing of the doors of all stores while a funeral procession was passing by. All business along the line of march was suspended.

The late 1960’s and into the 1970’s, public demonstrations were frequent. By those opposed to the Vietnam War. College students and adults alike.

An anti-war demonstration had bean going on for several days on the Kent State University campus. The National Guard had been called in.

On the third day of the National Guard presence, the National Guard shot at the students. I recall the TV showing of the shootings. The students were running down a slightly slopping hill to get away from the Guardsmen. Shots were being fired. Four students were killed. One paralyzed.

Similar shootings will take place at some point in the U.S. At State capitols. The difference with Kent State is the demonstrators will be shooting at government officials.

Armed protesters make such an occurrence inevitable.

J. Crew filed for bankruptcy protection last week. A Chapter 11. Means the company will continue in business while working out a debt repayment plan that the company can handle. The Bankruptcy Court says who gets paid and when. Gives a company such as J. Crew breathing room to get going again.

It was announced that 5 northeast States have joined together to purchase ventilators and protective gear such as masks and gloves. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

The Governors of the 5 States decided they could get better prices and avoid getting into a bidding war with each other.

I am confused. Trump keeps saying we have so many ventilators now. He has them stored in a federal facility. So many, that he keeps telling us how he is providing them to other countries. Whether free or for money, I am not sure.

If Trump has so many, why do the 5 States need to go elsewhere for ventilators?

Does not make sense to me. I suspect somewhere along the line Trump is bullshitting us or perhaps charging too much.

Trump was interviewed last night by FOX in the Lincoln Memorial. Sitting directly in front of Lincoln.

I consider it an insult that Trump featured himself in such place. An Abraham Lincoln he is not.

A top Italian medical authority revealed that 75 percent of the people who died in Italy from coronavirus had high blood pressure.

I’m doing good. I’m 84 and have a bad heart. Also have high blood pressure. Since I was 30 years old.

Involves the heart, I know. However I view it as another malady. Mine is controlled by pills each day. Keeps my blood pressure low. Exceptionally low.

God bless the pills!

An observation. Coronavirus is nowhere under control. I believe the reopenings are foolish and too soon. People who are on the side of what I consider early reopenings are gambling with their lives.

Why don’t they understand?

The U.S. Senate is returning to Washington today. Washington is infested with coronavirus. Trump insists there are enough tests for the law makers.

He tweeted, “There is tremendous caronavirus testing capacity in Washington.” Despite multiple reports of the Senate’s shortage of tests.

At 10 this morning, the stock market was down 300 points.

Enjoy your day!

EARLY KEY WEST BURIALS was originally published on Key West Lou

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english240groupa · 6 years

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Columbus? How about... No!

https://u.osu.edu/ccbusincbus/

By X. Trujillo

For the sake of expediency and so as not to, like the old adage says, beat a dead horse lets begin with the well-established (and well-earned) premise: Christopher Columbus was a terrible person. I do not say this lightly nor without cause, in fact I could use 100 adjectives that are much worse and still be supported by research. Columbus was despicable. Let’s start with that as an accepted fact. I will not go down that particular rabbit hole today. He was. Period. And even the tiniest bit of research will prove that if you still have not quite let go of your 6th grade history lesson of the “brave and conquering discoverer of America”. I am trying not to let this blog go into “rant” territory so I will not use all the description that he so justly deserves. It is true and well-researched and if you do not solely want to take my word for it, you can take the word of historians, Howard Zinn, James W Loewen, or a contemporary of Columbus, Bartolome de las Casas.

Or if you want a fast and dirty reminder watch this short video by Adam Ruins Everything which pretty much sums it up:

youtube

So, as previously established: Columbus was no hero and lacked many characteristics to even be considered a good person. It is also well established that he did not set off to prove that the earth was round; this was already a well-accepted fact in 1492. This is strike two.

The fact that there were literally thousands of thriving and established communities, with over 20 million native inhabitants, throughout the Americas when Columbus chose to set sail also negates any “discovering” which has been attributed to him. You cannot discover an inhabited land, and this is not even mentioning everyone else (Vikings, Africans, etc) whom might have actually set foot in America (which Columbus NEVER did) long before. In the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, historian James W. Loewen numbers FOURTEEN possible encounters before Columbus. 14! Strike 3. He’s out.

None of this is new information. It is all widely accessible and credible. Which is why many cities and states are replacing Columbus day as a holiday with Indigenous People’s Day. This seems a natural progression of a society which is slowly beginning to question its own cultural assumptions and history: it’s a result of reckoning with its imperialistic and racist past. This seemed like a long-overdue step in the right direction. Finally…Which was why it was even more surprising when I came across an article in the New York Times last Sunday written by Christina Caron titled, “Why Some Italian-Americans Still Fiercely Defend Columbus Day”. It was an… interesting read. And it made me pause for a second. And for a second I thought, “ok, I can see their point…” but that literally lasted a second because even as I thought that my brain was adding a “but…”.

Caron cites the racism that Italian immigrants encountered in the late 1800’s and the early 1900s as a driving force behind the push to celebrate Columbus Day. This was done as a way to seek acceptance into the dominate culture by Italian Americans; “Columbus was Italian (a fact we will revisit later on) and he discovered America so… Italians belong!” I get that. Minorities have always had to fight to be seen and had to carve out a space for themselves amongst a resisting and, often times, violent xenophobic society. Truly there is nothing more American than racism and apple pie. It is ingrained in our DNA and all new waves of immigrant populations, especially those with darker skin and identifiable physical differences, are targeted and tried to be excluded by those who “pass”. This has been true throughout American history and should not be denied nor ignored. It is important to meet this head on and to understand how damaging it is to not only the new immigrants but also the ideals of this nation. This issue, of the racism Italian Americans had to fight in order to be accepted into the dominate society, is an important one and one which they tried to fix with the bandage solution of mythicizing Columbus. But perhaps now, almost a century later it is time to rip off that bandage and not seek admittance via the hero-making of a genuine villain. Now that Italian Americans hold a fairly prominent role within American culture and are safe from that past exclusion, we should all look back and recognize their struggle and make sure that we do not do the same to any other ethnic groups. This however should not be done by lifting a vile and violent man on a pedestal; if you seek admittance by the virtue of one man should not that man be truly virtuous? There are many other Italian Americans who deserve to be acknowledged and didn’t spark a genocide nor the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Here is a short list from the Zinn Education Project of Italian Americans who made valuable contributions to American society.

Not only are these figures vastly less problematic, but they were actually Italian Americans where Cristopher Columbus was not. In his article, “The Five Myths of Cristopher Columbus”, Kris Lane points out that Columbus was born in an area that is now Italy, but when Columbus lived, there was no such thing as an Italian; Italy did not exist until 1861… In Columbus’s lifetime, Genoa was a fiercely independent republic with its own language, currency and overseas colonies… Most historians believe that Columbus was Genoese, but they hesitate to call him “Italian,” partly for the reasons stated above, and partly because Columbus left home early and moved around a lot.”

Sooooo not good and not even really Italian? What does this guy even have going for him? Not much it would seem yet his defenders still hold fierce and true: ‘“The ‘tearing down of history’ does not change that history,” John M. Viola, then the president and chief operating officer of the National Italian American Foundation, wrote in a New York Times editorial last year. “In the wake of the cultural conflict that has ripped us apart over these months, I wonder if we as a country can’t find better ways to utilize our history to eradicate racism instead of inciting it.”’ This statement is quoted in the Times article and it makes me both uneasy and laugh a little. This “tearing down of history” phrase has become a sort of dog-whistle of the far-right. I, of course have no insight on whether Mr. Viola meant it as such but it has become the rallying cry of people who try to defend waving the confederate flag and maintaining confederate monuments. No, thanks. I don’t buy what you’re selling. Those symbols are inherently racist and having them in a place of prominence is meant to instill fear not teach history. If history was what you wanted to maintain, lets put those in a museum and explain how most where built long after the civil war as a tool of white supremacy. Let’s teach history and let’s also teach values. Let’s teach that we will not blindly worship anyone and overlook their flaws simply in the name of history. This is not “tearing down history”, we simply will not stand for the incomplete version any longer.

It is also rather disingenuous, at the very least, for Mr. Viola to say that racism is being incited against Italian Americans because Christopher Columbus is finally beginning to lose the legend that has hidden his true nature. Italian Americans have “made it”, so to speak, and are favorably looked upon by dominate society. They hold a secure place of significance in American culture and will not lose that because of the unmasking of one false legend. To suggest so is untruthful and a bit of a scare-tactic.

Works Cited

Casas, Bartolomé de las, and Lewis. Hanke. Historia De Las Indias. Fondo De Cultura EconóMica, 1951.

Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New Press : Distributed by Norton, 1995.

Lane, Kris. Five myths about Christopher Columbus October 8, 2015. Washington Post.

Stannard, David E. American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World. Oxford University Press, 1992.

Stone, Edward T. "Columbus And Genocide". American Heritage. Vol. 26 no. 6. American Heritage Publishing Company. 1975

Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present. 20th anniversary ed., HarperCollins, 1999

#abolishcolumbusday #indegenouspeoplesday #whitewashedhistory #liesmyteachertoldme

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davidsilvercloud · 6 years

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The Daily Grind, 28 Nov. 2017

Terry David “Butch/Butch Naked” Silvercloud

"Step aside! I shall perform the necessary heroics" Comic Book Guy/The Simpsons

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - T. S. Eliot

....... The DAILY GRIND..... what's up today.

11.5 Million photo views, to date at http://ButchNaked.com. Thank you. At this time I'm getting about 100,000 photo views a week. Again... thanks for the visits. Tell everyone.

My homepage is http://ButchBoard.com

Now keep reading.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced an official apology, in the House of Commons, to the LGBTQ community and all those who were affected by a secret government campaign to seek out and kick out homosexuals from the government services from the 1950's to the 1990's.

I left the Navy, in 1968, because I couldn't reveal that I was gay. I was a trained submariner and a Lieutenant in the Canadian Forces. I had signed on for seven years but was offered a discharge when they found out I wasn't taking the permanent commission they had offered to me several times. They paid me the agreed upon separation payment of seven months pay and allowances and an honourable discharge, after having Military Police track me and try to frame me for being seen in areas unbecoming an officer. I told them I would see them in court. They backed off and got real nice.

I've done video of Justin Trudeau...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsCR3hutjuk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVL6g2lpUbc

Tuesday, 28 Nov., 2017. I wuz up about 7:30am. Cool, grey and wet out there and starting to get bright. I had a T3 and watched the news and wrote a bit. Went back to bed around 10:30am and slept for another couple of hours. Now it's 1:30pm.

Had a regular kind of day... painting, coffee, smoking pot, watching TV, exercise, selfies. I fucked my sex toy around 6pm and had a shower after I blew my load. Headed downtown about 6:30pm to get online.

Sorry for any typos or spelling errors. My ASUS Transformer doesn't have spell check and my near eyesight is the shits, and I'm a terrible speller. Turns out geeks can be good with numbers and ideas, but terrible spellers. I moved a lot when young... different schools, so my spelling skills suck. I've been working hard to improve them the past 30 years. My grammar is excellent... just can't spell well.

I hate being old...never did like getting older. I'm one of those people who always looked about 10-15 years younger than they are, and I tended to associate with people in their late teens or early 20's most of my life. The reality is I didn't socialize a lot... I had a boyfriend and I'm not a party and play kind of person, nor do I enjoy drinking, so bars and clubs were never something I cared for. Most people I knew were very casual acquaintances, not close friends. I was surrounded by drinkers and smokers and I don't do either. I smoke a ton of pot... about 1 1/2 oz a month.

My boyfriend died in 1994 and it's been pretty lonely since then. I've not found any way around that. I still find most adults extremely ignorant and immature, or just plain stupid... dumb as a fucking rock. So I keep to myself. I no longer have any quite young friends... they grew up and moved on, or died from sickness or accident. I've found that, since I began looking more my age... that age discrimination is rampant and I don't much fit in anywhere, now. So, here I am, in my 74th year trying to keep busy and useful and amusing. I tire more easily but expect you won't be able to keep up with me and I don't wait up. I like being in charge and the boss... get used to it, you'll be much happier when you do.

Not sure how much longer I'll keep doing the selfie thing and blogging. I take things one day at a time now.

Personal possessions are important. Owning some nice 'stuff' makes one feel more secure and provides some personal pleasures. What is important is to live within one's means and to realize that possessions will not bring happiness by themselves. That said, possessions help. I have a few things that mean a lot to me... I really enjoy looking at them and having them and would feel very empty and betrayed if I lost them. We work hard to gain what we have and should not take it for granted and we should dismiss the boneheads who say possessions don't matter as brain dead idiots.

Humans have advanced because of trade and barter. We can't make or produce everything, and we can't trade for everything, so the invention of debt and money came into being. Money and debt are related... the note is a promise to pay/receive an agreed upon value... but you never do. You just trade the piece of paper to somebody else who ads it to their promises to pay. It's a very useful and progressive idea. Like all ideas, it's prone to abuse and smart people who take advantage.

Money may not buy happiness, but it definitely makes life better. Poor totally sucks.

Money came into being a long time ago as coins. Paper money was more dependent upon the invention of the Indian number system... from India, the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc. that we know today. They were introduced to the west by the Knights Templar who discovered that number system and used it in their secret notes after the 12th century. One could deposit one's cash at a Templar temple in exchange for a note written with secret numbers (the ones we know today) then go on Crusade to Jerusalem and exchange the note for cash there... avoiding robbery on the way to the Crusade.

Trade is changing rapidly, again. Online shopping is outpacing mortar and brick stores. I mention this because shopping took a big turn in style about 100 years ago... in the late 1800's and the early 1900's. The store that made the largest impact was the department store, in London, called Selfridges. When it opened it was a TOTAL revolution in retailing. Even today there are reminders of how department stores can be successful. Selfridges catered to women's shopping... something new in those days. Women, suddenly, had in store washrooms, and the main floor and entrance to the store were totally devoted to perfumes and make-up. Walk into any large department store, today, and you will see that the formula is still being followed. Also, the idea of store displays was invented by Selfridges.... the customer could, actually, touch the merchandise. Selfridges was the first department store to pay a high enough wage that the poorer employees didn't have to room and board IN THE STORE. Yup.. employees actually slept and ate at the stores, before Selfridges.

Meanwhile, don't fret about acquiring possessions. Life is very, very short and you should attempt to enjoy it. Just remember that you don't need everything. Possessions will not take away loneliness. Old man Selfridge, after becoming immensely wealthy, lost it all to twins... the Dolly Sisters. They bled him dry with their gambling debts when he was in his 70's and lonely. He lost the store, his fortune, and died a poor man. The Selfridge Department store is still doing well and in the hands of the Weston Family of Canada.

He had it all... and lost it. When you arrive you don't get to stay. Possessions have to be protected and cared for. Life is hard.

THIS IS THE END OF THE DAILY GRIND.

IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN HERE, BEFORE, HERE IS MORE STUFF TO READ...

I'm a bit OCD and ADHD and go on like a dripping tap. Think Sheldon Cooper, if that rings some kind of bell. I quite simply assume everyone around me is a complete idiot.

http://DavidSilvercloud.com (Blog) (http://David_Silvercloud.Tumblr.com)

http://ButchNews.com (Video) (http://YouTube.com/ButchNews)

http://ButchNaked.com (Photo Stream) (http://Flickr.com/David_Silvercloud)

http://SeriousThunder.com (Art)

http://ElectronSpeed.Tumblr.com (Physics... The Speed of Light, Grand Unified Theory, Gravity, Dark Matter, Dark Energy... how the physical size of the Electron is the clock that sets the speed of light. Gravity is motion and a product of the fact that nothing ever sits still, combined with the magnetic properties of Dark Matter/Energy. Nothing can ever move in an absolute circle and rest is a relativity illusion.

Absolute rest is not possible... ever. The universe can not end. Time is change and is an illusion. It is always now, everywhere, all at once, all of the time. Proof of that is that ANY object MUST be HERE and THERE at the SAME time, no matter how large... even a Galaxy. It is always NOW on both sides... here and there, in space, of the Galaxy... all galaxies, everywhere. Waves can be either physical or electronic. The duality of the universe keeps it ongoing. DNA is the battery of life. When the chains can no longer co-operate, life ceases in the body. Life, itself, is a duality. Time measurement is a relativity convenience.) Time travel is impossible because time is not a place and nothing stays where it was. One year form now the Solar System will have moved about seven BILLION kilometres through space and will NEVER return to where it was... ever.

Earth travels through space like a long wave... it has NEVER, ever made an actual circle, nor ellipse, in space. The circle/ellipse is an illusion of relativity. Nothing can ever travel in an actual circle in space... NOTHING. Nothing can ever go backward. Backwards motion is an illusion of relativity. Time is a repercussion of change and has no fixed rate... things explode or move like a glacier. At best we can only compare rates of change. Our rate of change is called the second/minute/hour/day/month/year system.

WATCH VIDEO FOR EXPLANATION OF THE PATH OF EARTH THROUGH SPACE. Earth moves about 7 billion kilometers through space, each year... in a long wave. Earth NEVER returns to where it was before. Earth is NOT an island in space... one of the reasons why time travel is impossible. If you take a trip through space, outside the Solar System, Earth will NOT be there when you return... it will be far, far away. You will have to return to where it will BE when you arrive... remember, it's moving very, very, very fast through space in a long wave... never a circle, or ellipse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPjohZCMwmI

http://The-Shape-Of-God.Tumbler.com Manuscript of my book... The Shape of God.

Butch, himself. Visual Artist, Photographer, Physicist (Particle, Sub/Atomic Physics/Relativity)

Inhibitions are just so inhibiting, I avoid them.

I'm a friendly, but pretty blunt, kind of guy. No time for beating around the bush. I like to say what I mean and mean what I say. I'm 73 years old. Time is not on my side. You don't have to like me. I'm a social recluse, anyway. I share my life, in photos, video, and words, to let you into my life and hope to inspire you to be a productive and useful human. I have old age issues but will continue to post, here, while I'm well and able. I talk a lot... I'm told it's part of my OCD and ADHD. Come direct at http://ButchNaked.com Sign in if you wish to see me naked.

If you don't know me, the following might help you get to know what kind of person I am. I don't expect you to understand me. I can be a bit OCD and ADHD.

"They've already got more blowjobs than we'll ever get" Steve Smith (American Dad), talking about college jocks.

"Now let us touch testicles and mate for life" Alien on The Simpsons

"It never hurts to have a second set of prints on a gun" Nelson Muntz, The Simpsons.

I'm here to teach you things. While I appreciate other people's opinions, I really don't much give a crap what anyone thinks. Until you prove your worth, I will be nice but you have to earn my respect. The moment you say a word, I'll be figuring you out really, really fast. You should assume that I don't trust anyone. I've not met a single trustworthy person in my entire life. I've met lots of nice people who aren't too bright... well-intentioned folk who know little about anything, people who are nice, most of the time until you say something that offends them. Honourable people agree to disagree.

Look up the phrase "CRITICAL THINKING" then learn to practice it. Most people leap before they look and judge before they listen to the facts. Most don't have enough knowledge, nor experience, to be experts in much of anything. You don't know what you don't know. I like to remind you of that, often.

The only other REALLY IMPORTANT thing to know about me is that I, totally, despise all religions, the teaching of religion, and religious institutions... I despise them as the evilest things on the planet. If you follow a religion, you CAN NOT BE MY FRIEND. THAT'S THAT. You are an ignorant idiot who is an ever-present danger to yourself and everyone and everything around you. Nothing, absolutely NOTHING, is eviler than religion. I don't stand for, nor sing, our National Anthem because it praises a fictitious and superstitious being called 'God'. Only a brain dead moron bonehead ignorant idiot would believe such a thing.

If you have a religion, I will not associate with you... period. You are a danger to be around. Yes, I insult religions... they are extraordinarily evil. I said it, I mean it. You have a right to be an idiot, but not around me. I have a right to defend myself against the horrors of religion and I will. Religion is evil. I can't say it enough times.

http://The-Shape-Of-God.Tumblr.com

I keep a homepage at http://ButchBoard.com

You may come directly to my photostream at http://ButchNaked.com

You must sign in to see me naked. You may download and share nude photos of me... go nuts.

GOOGLE my name (Terry David Silvercloud or David Silvercloud) for more information.

#David Silvercloud #Butch Naked #Visual Artist #Photographer #Physicist

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