AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) displays demonstrated by Samsung in Vegas recently. They’re bendable. (Thanks Reddit.)
Delmonico's kicthen in 1902: "In the restaurant, smoking would now be permitted...this change was at the insistence of women."
This classic 1902 photo of Delmonico’s, a famed New York City restaurant opened in 1827 as a cafe and pastry shop, by erstwhile sea captain Giovanni Del-Monico and his brother Pietro, an experienced candy seller. The shop became a restaurant and inched uptown to new locations as Manhattan life gradually stretched northward. In the above photo, the restaurant had been relocated to Broadway and 44th Street by a new generation of Delmonicos, as the nineteenth-century was coming to a close. An excerpt about the move–and the changes instituted at the new locale–from the Steak Perfection site:
“On April 20, 1896, Young Charles Delmonico signed a 15-year lease and surprised the entire city when he announced that ‘Del’s’ would open a new restaurant farther uptown, at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 44th Street. The city center had continued its move northward, and Delmonico continued to follow.
As the new structure was being built, everyone assumed that Delmonico’s Restaurant would continue at the Madison Square location on 26th Street. The location there was particularly convenient for shoppers, and it was nearby the crossing of Fifth Avenue, Broadway and 23rd Street, which was becoming known as the heart of the metropolis.
On November 15, 1897, the new Delmonico’s Restaurant on 44th Street opened to universal praise and some shock. In the restaurant, smoking would now be permitted (previously, smoking had been permitted only in the cafe). This change was at the insistence of women, who resented the fact that the men would ‘retire to the smoking room’ after dinner. With this change, women believed that the men would be averse to desert them after dining.
Another change and surprise was the addition of an orchestra, which would play ‘in the background.’ Previously, listeners were expected to cease movement and to concentrate when an orchestra played, so that they and all could enjoy the music. Now, music would be played while patrons ate and even talked.”
Tags: Charles Delmonico, Giovanni Del-Monico, Pietro Del-Monico
The Chernobly skies still choked in 2010. (Image by Piotr Andryszczak.)
In “Chernobyl, My Primeval, Teeming, Irradiated Eden,” Outside writer Henry Shukman tours the site of the world’s worst nuclear power plant disaster 25 years after the massive meltdown. There are some signs of life, though you couldn’t really call them green shoots. An excerpt:
“Today, around 5,000 people work in the Exclusion Zone, which over the years has grown to an area of 1,660 square miles. For one thing, you can’t just switch off a nuclear power plant. Even decommissioned, it requires maintenance, as does the new nuclear-waste storage facility on site. The workers come in for two-week shifts and receive three times normal pay. Any sign of disease at the annual medical, however, and they lose their jobs.
There are also some 300 people living in the zone: villagers who’ve been coming home to their old farming lands since not long after the disaster and teams of radio ecologists from around the world who’ve come to study the effects of radioactive fallout on plants and animals. They’ve effectively turned the zone into a giant radiation lab, a place where the animals are mostly undisturbed, living amid a preindustrial number of humans and a postapocalyptic amount of radioactive strontium and cesium. On the outside the fauna seems to be thriving: there have been huge resurgences in the numbers of large mammals, including gray wolves, brown bears, elk, roe deer, and wild boar present in quantities not recorded for more than a century. The question scientists are trying to answer is what’s happening on the inside: in their bones, and in their very DNA.
ONCE YOU ENTER THE ZONE, the quiet is a shock. It would be eerie were it not so lovely. The abandoned backstreets of Chernobyl are so overgrown, you can hardly see it’s a town. They’ve turned into dark-green tunnels buzzing with bees, filled with an orchestral score of birdsong, the lanes so narrow that the van pushes aside weeds on both sides as it creeps down them, passing house after house enshrined in forest. Red admirals, peacock butterflies, and some velvety brown lepidoptera are fluttering all over the vegetation. It looks like something out of an old Russian fairy tale.
Ukraine officially opened Chernobyl up to tourism in January 2011, but small groups have been able to visit the zone for the past few years. There are small tour operators based in Kiev that take visitors on day trips. You don’t need Geiger counters or special suits; you just have to stay with the tour, pass through several checkpoints, and get tested for radiation on your way out. The tours will shuttle you around some of the main sites—the deserted city of Pripyat, a small park filled with old Soviet army vehicles used in the cleanup, various concrete memorials to the fire crews who lost their lives after the blast. Visitors are strictly confined to areas the author ities have scanned and declared safe.” (Thanks Longreads.)
Tags: Henry Shukman
Gay Talese recalls elbows being bent by tipsy Timesmen. (Thanks Big Think.)
Tags: Gay Talese
"Old poison/apothecary jars."
ANTIQUES WANTED BIZARRE STRANGE WEIRD UNUSUAL WILL PAY CASH (Staten Island)
Greetings, I am a buyer and collector of fine antique items ranging from Victorian era to early Modern. I am always glad to meet and purchase items for CASH if the price is right and they fit my criteria. Please feel free to respond anytime and I will get back to you promptly for a discussion by phone or email. You can always expect the utmost courtesy and professionalism. Standard Antiques and collectible items are welcome but I SPECIALIZE in bizarre and odd items such as:
- Victorian Post-Mortem Photography
- Old Poison/Apothecary Jars
- Victorian Coffins and Urns
- Old Surgical Equipment/Devices
- Mortuary Equipment/Embalming Items
- Old Keys/Locks
- Animal Skulls Bones/Other Bones Skulls
- Books on strange subject matters
- Small Taxidermy such as squirrels/bats/cats/small dogs/reptiles
- Masonic and Secret Society Lodge Items
- Old Religious/Reliquary Items
- Early Industrial Items/Gears/
- Vintage Horror Movie Items/Masks
Jesus Christ: Q rating off the charts.
Which people who are currently famous will still be famous 10,000 years from now? It won’t be Gwyneth Paltrow, that’s for sure. Her singing at the Oscars last night nearly made Quadaffi surrender. But that very difficult question is taken on by the fertile mind of economist Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution. An excerpt:
“I’ll go with the major religious leaders (Jesus, Buddha, etc.), Einstein, Turing, Watson and Crick, Hitler, the major classical music composers, Adam Smith, and Neil Armstrong. (Addendum: Oops! I forgot Darwin and Euclid.)
My thinking is this. The major religions last for a long time and leave a real mark on history. Path-dependence is critical in that area.
Otherwise, an individual, to stay famous, will have to securely symbolize an entire area, and an area ‘with legs’ at that. The theory of relativity still will be true and it may well become more important. The computer and DNA will not be irrelevant. Hitler will remain a stand-in symbol for pure evil; if he is topped we may not have a future at all. Beethoven and Mozart still will be splendid, but Shakespeare and other wordsmiths will require translation and thus will fade somewhat. The propensity to truck and barter will remain and Smith will keep his role as the symbol of economics. Keynesian economics may someday be less true, as superior biofeedback, combined with markets in self-improvement, ushers in an era of flexible wages, while market-based expected nominal gdp targetingprevents a downward deflationary spiral.”
Tags: Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler Cowen
“Fatt Matt” Alaeddine is a 400-pound Edmonton contortionist and comedian who performs at fringe festivals. circuses and on subway platforms. (Thanks Edmonton Journal.)
Tags: Matt Alaeddine
From “For the Baby’s Amusement,” in the May 29, 1900 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“One way of amusing little children is to have a hook screwed in the ceiling over the middle of the bed or cot, attach a cord to it long enough for the baby to reach, tie either a soft worsted ball or a knitted doll and the baby will play with it.”
"A man frequents the park who is in the habit of cutting them about the ankles with a whip."
Bicycling became a huge craze in America during the 1890s. It was a healthy fad that was good for hearts, lungs and mayhem–lots of mayhem. A few brief stories of bike-related turmoil from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle follow.
••••••••••
“Recent Events” (September 29, 1894): “Chicago women who ride bicycles in bloomers in Washington park have complained to the police that a man frequents the park who is in the habit of cutting them about the ankles with a whip when they pass him.”
••••••••••
“Don’t Ride in Long Island City” (August 25, 1892): “The hardships a bicycle rider is likely to encounter in Long Island City beside bad roads was fully ventillated in the police court of that city yesterday. George A. Phail is superintendent of the Danier dynamo works, at Steinway. He lives at Winfield and, until two weeks ago, enjoyed great pleasure and exercise in riding across the country roads, a distance of about three miles, to and from his work. On August 8, Phail on his way home through Newtown avenue on his bicycle, encountered Cerl Springer and Gustav Zeigler on the roadway. Springer didn’t fancy the style Phail was putting on and Zeigler does not like bicycles anyway. Zeigler refused to get out of the way to let Phail pass and the latter, in attempting to turn out of Zeigler’s way, was precipitated down an embankment, bicycle and all. Phail gathered himself up the best he could under such circumstances and the irate Germans both told him it served him right, as he had no business riding there. Smarting under his injuries Phail talked back to the Germans and in an instant Springer and Phail were clinching. Zeigler went to his companion’s assistance and soon the prostrate form of the bicycle rider lay in the roadway and was being made a foot ball by the German.
••••••••••
“A Bicycler’s Arrest” (June 8, 1896): “Some of the new New York policemen are as over busy as their predecessors were neglectful. One of them notified a young woman on a bicycle that her lamp was out. The young woman dismounted and lit her lamp. Then the policeman arrested her. She was carried away in a patrol wagon, locked up in a cell, in the company of riff-raff gathered from the streets on Saturday nights, who insulted and jeered at her, and the sergeant in charge was as officious and ill mannered as his underling. Her relatives finally learned of the arrest and secured her release on bail. At the court Magistrate Simms roundly lectured the policeman and gave an honorable discharge to the young woman, as he considered that by lighting her lamp, when warned to do so, she had complied with the law.”
••••••••••
“Max Miller’s Wedding Postponed” (September 11, 1893): “Max Miller, a bicycle machinist and expert bicycle rider, employed near the park entrance, was to have been married Saturday evening. Instead of a happy bridegroom he was escorted to a cell in the Flabush station house, charged by his employer with stealing some $200 worth of bicycle goods. His intended bride was allowed to visit him in his cell yesterday afternoon.”
••••••••••
“Broadsword Fight Awheel” (May 10, 1897): “An unusual sight greeted many cyclists at the Lynwood track yesterday, where ‘Colonel’ Nicholas Hartmann, the broadsword fighter, was practicing his profession, mounted on the front seat of a tandem bicycle. The swordsman was incased in his fighting armor and withstanding the assaults of his trainer in clever style.”
••••••••••
Bicycle trick riding, 1899:
Tags: 'Colonel' Nicholas Hartmann, Cerl Springer, George A. Phail, Gustav Zeigler, Magistrate Simms, Max Miller
I posted earlier about the Robot Marathon taking place in Osaka, Japan. Here is the result. (Thanks IEEE Spectrum.)
Hunter S. Thompson: great writer, tiresome fuck. (Image by MDC Archives.)
Hunter S. Thompson screwing around with a good ol’ boy at Churchill Downs as part of his 1970 Scanlan’s Monthly article, “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved“:
“I shook my head and said nothing; just stared at him for a moment, trying to look grim. ‘There’s going to be trouble,’ I said. ‘My assignment is to take pictures of the riot.’
‘What riot?’
I hesitated, twirling the ice in my drink. ‘At the track. On Derby Day. The Black Panthers.’ I stared at him again. ‘Don’t you read the newspapers?’
The grin on his face had collapsed. ‘What the hell are you talkin’ about?’
‘Well…maybe I shouldn’t be telling you…’ I shrugged. ‘But hell, everybody else seems to know. The cops and the National Guard have been getting ready for six weeks. They have 20,000 troops on alert at Fort Knox. They’ve warned us — all the press and photographers — to wear helmets and special vests like flak jackets. We were told to expect shooting…’
‘No!’ he shouted; his hands flew up and hovered momentarily between us, as if to ward off the words he was hearing. Then he whacked his fist on the bar. ‘Those sons of bitches! God Almighty! The Kentucky Derby!’ He kept shaking his head. ‘No! Jesus! That’s almost too bad to believe!’ Now he seemed to be sagging on the stool, and when he looked up his eyes were misty. “Why? Why here? Don’t they respect anything?’
I shrugged again. ‘It’s not just the Panthers. The FBI says busloads of white crazies are coming in from all over the country — to mix with the crowd and attack all at once, from every direction. They’ll be dressed like everybody else. You know — coats and ties and all that. But when the trouble starts…well, that’s why the cops are so worried.’
He sat for a moment, looking hurt and confused and not quite able to digest all this terrible news. Then he cried out: ‘Oh…Jesus! What in the name of God is happening in this country? Where can you get away from it?’
‘Not here,” I said, picking up my bag. ‘Thanks for the drink…and good luck.'”
••••••••••
And they’re off!:
Tags: Hunter S. Thompson
"Cheetah is designed to be a four-legged robot with a flexible spine and articulated head."
Most of you live in cheetah-free neighborhoods, but it doesn’t always have to be that way. Boston Dynamics has won contract to produce a cheetah bot. An excerpt from a Wired story:
“Boston Dynamics, maker of the Army’s BigDog robotic mule, announced today that Darpa has awarded it a contract to build a much faster and more fearsome animal-like robot, Cheetah.
As the name implies, Cheetah is designed to be a four-legged robot with a flexible spine and articulated head (and potentially a tail) that runs faster than the fastest human. In addition to raw speed, Cheetah’s makers promise that it will have the agility to make tight turns so that it can ‘zigzag to chase and evade’ and be able to stop on a dime.”
Boston Dynamics’ BigDog bot:
Ken Maynard and Evalyn Knapp appear "In Old Santa Fe" in 1934.
I got my coarse yet practiced hands on a crumbling copy of a 1935 songbook of 25 ditties used in the Westerns of old-time oater star Ken Maynard. The magazine-style periodical notes on the cover that “each song has melody, ukulele chords, words, piano accompaniment and guitar chords.” The songs have titles like “Christine Le Roy,” “The Dreary Black Hills” and “Curly Joe.” The introduction has a biography of Maynard, written by someone named Nancy Smith. A few excerpts follow.
••••••••••
Ken Maynard was born July 21 in Mission, Texas. The first few years of his life were spent on a ranch near this town.
His father is William H. Maynard, who now lives in Columbus, Indiana. He was a building contractor and his work caused him to continually move from place to place. Ken’s mother owned extensive Texas lands which they had bought with the proceeds of Kentucky farm lands. Ken says when he was a boy, no one would have the Texas land as a gift, but now that they have sold it all, it is becoming fabulously rich in oil production.
••••••••••
When he was eight years of age, he could imitate the tricks done by the average cow puncher. Incidentally, Maynard says that the fancy trick riding is a product of the circus and not of the range. The cow men’s trick in those days consisted chiefly of swinging toward the ground for a hat or some other simple stunt. The boy learned all of this quickly and began to develop his own style of riding.
••••••••••
At the age of twelve Ken tired of the range and ran away with a cheap wagon show that came to their village. Wagon shows were plentiful in those days. Ken remained with the show for three weeks before his father came and took him home. The boy said it felt like three years and he promised to stay home.
••••••••••
In 1914 Ken joined the Kit Carson show. In 1915 he went with the Hagenbeck and Wallace outfit. In 1918 he went with them a second time having appeared with Pawnee Bill in the meanwhile. Then he left show business to enlist in the army and was assigned to Camp Knox in Kentucky.
••••••••••
Maynard’s first role was that of Paul Revere in the Marion Davies’ film Janice Meredith. He won the part by superior riding ability.
••••••••••
Maynard has his own airplane and a government’s pilot license. He recently bought a 42-foot yawl and spends many week-ends cruising. He is a home owner, having purchased a large residence in Los Angeles.
••••••••••
He is regarded as the outstanding Western star in pictures today. Incidentally, all his pictures are based on historical facts of the west, the actor contending that boys and girls may be educated in history through the proper presentation of events on the screen.
••••••••••
Tags: Ken Maynard, Kit Carson, Marion Davies, Nancy Smith, William H. Maynard
Marlon Brando refused his Best Actor Oscar for The Godfather at the 1973 awards show, via Sacheen Littlefeather, as some sort of protest in the name of Native Americans. The Academy Awards meant nothing back then, too, but the show was much more fun when there was stuff like this and Cher rocking otherworldly Bob Mackie get-ups.
mmmm
Video: marlon brando oscar award the god father Tags: oscars
"Somebody famous such as Paul Walker, Johnny Depp, or even Mike Tyson himself smoked and threw away." (Image by Anna Altheide.)
The Best Collectible Item. – $500 (Midtown)
Okay, after walking out of Sargies on 3rd avenue and eating every thing my wife could hold in her pregnant stomach left me for broke. I do not have a dollar to my name, I mean literally, I don’t even have enough gas in my car to take me to work because I left it below E when I parked it only who know’s where because I was drunk looking for parking. (probably over $300 in parking tickets, that’s new york for ya) But I’ve realized something that should’ve hit me LONG ago. I probably could’ve had more money to feed my pregnant wife, or buy the baby diapers and milk in which it’s due in the next month I don’t have a dollar for that either..
So while walking out of my crappy 4th floor apartment with no elavators or some guy to open the door for me on my way out or open the door for me on my way in like you see on those movies.
THERE IT IS!!!!!!!!! I SPOT IT. A CIGARETTE BUTT. ONLY FROM WHO? IN WHICH REMAINED THE MYSTERY!
SO this is what I have to offer for sale.
BOOM! I know you’re asking, “Why is this collectible, is this guy out of his mind? What the hell is this guys problem?” Well let me fix it for you.
You see, this cigarette butt, could be somebody’s famous cigarette butt, Somebody famous such as Paul Walker, Johnny Depp, or even Mike Tyson himself smoked and threw away. The fact that makes it unknown makes it even more interesting! Infact, somebody NOT famous at the time could’ve smoked it and then BAM, now he’s famous and look what I collected off him. I am assuming it’s a HE because girls who smoke kill their cigarettes at the smokers outpost in corner of 34th and 7th avenue.
Anyway, if you’re interested in buying this cigarette butt, I have a few more in different colors.
I’m also into trades for automobiles with this. $500 obo.
Brooklyn-born Burt Fisch was a child prodigy with the viola who collaborated with everyone from Duke Ellington to John Cage during his amazing musical career. An excerpt from his obituary in the North County Times of California:
“Burt Fisch died on Sunday, February 13, 2011. He was able to celebrate his 90th birthday on February 8 with family and friends. Burt was a professional viola musician since the age of six. At 11, he entered the Juilliard School of Music, where he received his degree in 1940. After a brief stint in the Minneapolis Symphony, he was drafted into the Army in 1942 and was a member of the Army Band where he played piano, tuba, trumpet, and bugle, and conducted the dance band. After the war, he won a coveted spot in the CBS Orchestra in New York, and performed countless times on radio, television, and film. He played with practically every major pop and jazz musician of the time, including Paul Anka, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr., Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Lena Horne, Burl Ives, Johnny Mathis, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra. Another notable gig was with John Cage in 1958. Even more significant was Burt’s role in the history of one of the great works in the viola repertoire: Bla Brtok’s Viola Concerto. When the Hungarian composer Bartk died in 1945, one of his unfinished compositions was a substantial concerto for viola. Burt was chosen to perform and record the work, which was the first recording of the music. Today, Brtok’s Viola Concerto is universally considered one of the greatest compositions for the instrument. In 1968, Burt moved to Fallbrook, California, and managed an avocado grove. He also formed chamber groups with other retired musicians, attended summer festivals and workshops, and performed extensively throughout Southern California. He was a founding member of the Striano Piano Quartet and arranged all of the music they played. He was also a musician for the San Luis Rey Chorale. He was known for his humor, charm, wit, intelligence, generous nature, and organizational skills.”
Tags: Burt Fisch
Well, good aim, anyhow.
A few search engine keyphrases bringing traffic to Afflictor this week:
Afflictor: Sorely disappointing that woman who kind of looks like Rosie O'Donnell since 2009.
- Classic DVD: The King of Comedy (1982).
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Little Murders (1971).
- Old Print Articles: Must find adopted baby to get wealth (1900) + Wife of miserly Newark man seeks divorce (1896) + Failed fire extinguisher embarrasses P.T. Barnum (1851).
- Videos: Old French dudes with lightsabers + Marauding band of killer geese + Shoehorn on a stick + Muhammad Ali and William F. Buckley talk in 1968 + Interactive storefront window at Starbucks + Errol Morris profiles stripper-nude model-waiter-genius + Inexplicable wedding video + Grossest pool table ever + Frank Zappa makes bicycle music in 1963 + Chinese man owns more than 600 phones + North Korea’s cinema Industry + Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood + Jacques Lacan receives an unannounced guest + Woman jumps, goat jumps + Levitating above water with a jet pack + Bertrand Russell addresses people of the future in 1959 + Silicone ear created by 3D bio-printer + Dog feel happy + Robot model on Tokyo catwalk + Hummingbird robot takes flight + Homemade robots.
- Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: Need fake pregnant belly + Desperately seeking Girl Scout Thin Mints + Sheitl prices are too damn high + Trading 50 adult videos for iPod + Please buy my motherfuckin’ jeans + Bartering my racist grandma.
- Classic photos: Life on Norfolk and Hester Streets (1898) + Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage (1915).
- Alan Kay designed a computer tablet in 1968.
- Great Philip K. Dick article from 1993.
- Nutbag Muammar el-Qaddafi is constantly on the computer.
- Time magazine article takes down Scientology in 1991.
- T.G.I. Friday’s was America’s first singles bar in 1965.
- Ron Popeil invented the Pocket Fisherman and many other fine products.
- Heaven’s Gate and other famously failed doomsday predictions.
- Pickpocketing is a lost art in America.
- Dr. Henry J. Heimlich has his detractors.
- America’s underground telephone hacking community is examined in 1971.
- Another gross thing Abraham Lincoln did.
- Description of the football quater-back from 1891.
- Teodoro Nguema Obiang is a free-spending future dictator.
- Flying cars go on sale next year.
- Crowdsourcing and its limitations.
- Fox discovered at top of 945-foot tower in London.
- If only 100 people lived on Earth.
- Advertisement for telephone service in 1899.
- Daydreaming is a key component of creativity.
- This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.
Crowds: very useful, but very creative?
I’m all in favor of the great utility of crowdsourcing and, for example, use Wikipedia, which is powered by a collaborative effort, on a daily basis. But those who laud Wikipedia as a creation of crowdsourcing are only half right: Wiki has been made possible by a collective, true, but it was created by two inventors: Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. The crowd can marshal great force to complete a task, but invention still doesn’t seem to me a domain of the many. Not that the people who toiled for no money to make Wikipedia such an amazing tool are less important than its creators, but the crowd needs an idea to rally around. It seems unlikely that the many can dream with the same sharp precision–let alone genius–as a Tesla, Tucker or Jobs. Joel West wondered about the same thing last month on the Open Innovation Blog:
“At the #BAexec event last week, one of the interesting questions from the floor was ‘could the iPhone have been produced via crowdsourcing?’
My immediate reaction was ‘no.’ What’s made Apple so special for the past 13 years has been the solitary, laser-focused vision of product design brought by its CEO. Of course, that’s just the supposition of a 35-year Apple-watcher.
What I think was more interesting was: what are the limits of crowdsourcing? Those who study crowdsourcing consider its advantages for accessing heterogeneous knowledge bases or sheer scale of ideas. But integrating that hodgepodge of ideas — no matter how good — can be daunting if not labor intensive.”
Tags: Jimmy Wales, Joel West, Larry Sanger
From Aaron Saenz on the Singularity Hub: “The robots are coming, the robots are coming! This spring, the San Mateo Fairgrounds will host RoboGames, the annual international event that sees robots face off in a variety of exciting competitions. Robots battle to the death in the famous RoboGames arena, shoot to win in soccer matches, fight fires in miniature mazes, and much much more.”
Tags: Aaron Saenz
"I need to find a fake pregnant belly."
Fake Pregnant Belly (East Harlem)
Hello.
I am shooting a film for my senior thesis in April on a very small budget, and I need to find a fake pregnant belly (preferably something latex). We can pay a little bit, but would love to have one donated, and we can return it unscathed once the film is done.
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated, even if it’s just a recommendation for where to look!
Thanks!
Longform pointed me to “The Choke Artist,” an interesting 2007 New Republic article by Jason Zengerle about Dr. Henry J. Heimlich, the creator of the anti-choking thrust, who’s searched, somewhat dubiously, for a second life-saving act in his career while being criticized for his methods. An excerpt:
“‘A serious matter has been brought to my attention,’ the letter began. Addressed to an official in the Office for the Protection of Research Subjects at the University of California at Los Angeles, it accused two UCLA medical researchers of participating in illegal human experiments on HIV patients in China. “These experiments consist of giving malaria to people already suffering from HIV and full-blown AIDS,” the letter alleged, before going on to make an even more startling claim: ‘[T]hese experiments have been conducted under the direction of Dr. Henry J. Heimlich, known for the Heimlich maneuver.’
The letter, which was sent via e-mail in October 2002 and was from a ‘Dr. Bob Smith,’ was merely the first in a series of epistolary attacks against Heimlich. A few months later, editors at more than 40 publications—ranging from The New York Times to the medical journal Chest—received missives from someone calling himself ‘David Ionescu’ that accused Heimlich of improperly taking credit for inventing a type of esophageal surgery. And then, in September 2003, the website heimlichinstitute.com went online. Its URL was almost identical to the official website of Henry Heimlich’s Heimlich Institute, heimlichinstitute.org, but, rather than being dedicated to burnishing the doctor’s legend, it was devoted to tearing it down. The site featured a long, angry indictment of Heimlich and accused him of all sorts of medical misconduct. The site’s proprietor was listed as ‘Holly Martins’—the protagonist in the 1949 film noir The Third Man.
The octogenarian Heimlich seemed an unlikely target of so many people’s ire. He had entered into the pantheon of medical history not for inventing a disease-eradicating vaccine or for isolating the DNA of a killer virus but, rather, for developing an anti-choking maneuver that even a child could perform. And, yet, it is the very simplicity of Heimlich’s lifesaving technique that makes it so ingenious; because anyone can perform the maneuver, anyone can save a life. Since its invention in 1974, it has become a standard First Aid procedure around the world; and, while it may have been hyperbole for Norman Vincent Peale to once declare that Heimlich ‘has saved the lives of more human beings than any other person living today,’ it was fair to say that, by the measure of name recognition at least, the maneuver had made Heimlich America’s most famous doctor.”
You thought you were safe? No, you’re not safe. (Thanks Reddit.)
A picture from earlier this month of the Shard under construction. (Image by George Rex Photography.)
The Digital Journal has an article about Romeo, a fox that made its way to the top of the Shard, an under-construction building which will be London’s tallest tower when completed. An excerpt:
“A young fox who was discovered living at the top of the 288 metre (945 foot) Shard building in London was captured and released.
The animal is believed to have gone up the stairwell at the Shard building, which is still under construction, and lived there for two weeks, surviving on food builders left for him.
The fox was called Romeo by council staff because he was captured shortly after Valentine’s Day.”