Seen at Library of Congress
Colored School at Anthoston.
Census 27, enrollment 12, attendance 7. Teacher expects 19 to be enrolled after work is over. “Tobacco keeps them out and they are short of hands.” Ages of those present: 13 years = 1, 10 years = 2, 8 years = 2, 7 years = 1, 5 years = 1. Location: Henderson County, Kentucky
There appears to be no information regarding photographer or date, but it’s an intriguing photo.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
I recently came across a fascinating article entitled “The Reykjavik Confessions: The mystery of why six people admitted roles in two murders – when they couldn’t remember anything about the crimes.” One of my facebook friends described this piece thusly:
“If you like Nordic noir, it doesn’t come much more Nordic or more noir than this. But it turns out to be a story of what interrogations can do to people, and why they may end up admitting to crimes they never committed.”
This article resonated strongly with me, due to two experiences in the days of my youth. I still think of them with discomfort.
When I first moved out West from the East Coast, I stayed with my grandmother before starting university. My family knew I was interested in collecting coins; at some point a keychain which featured a Morgan dollar went missing from an aunt’s house and I was immediately accused of having taken it. The pressure from family members was so intense that I, at the tender and callow age of 19 actually began to wonder if I had committed a crime and suppressed the memory. Despite my sincere protestations, my grandmother used every possible emotional club in her arsenal, and she had heavy weaponry, to get me to confess to having taken this trinket. Naturally, I knew nothing about it. Some time later, the item in question turned up in the pocket of a nail apron used by my uncle (who by this time had passed away.) My aunt was profuse in her apologies, but my grandmother never even mentioned it again, going to her grave with the idea that I was still somehow guilty of a crime that had never been committed; nary the hint of acknowledgement or apology.
The second tale involved my work for a restaurant several years later. I was working for a concern run by a partnership of two gentlemen (term used very loosely, mind you.) Despite being in a management position I was never entrusted with any financial responsibility or authority, but at some point it was announced that some money had gone missing from a safe in the restaurant (and at no time was I ever privy to the combination thereof.) I was told that everyone on the staff was being asked to take a lie detector test at the local police station. Despite the fact that this was a blatant lie, as I found out later – I was the only one who ever had to go down – I remember the experience with such distaste that it has remained with me forever after. I was “interviewed” by a lieutenant of the local police force; I’m tempted to mention his name because he was an asshole, but he’s dead now and de mortuis nil nisi bonum and all that.
I got asked all sorts of embarrassing, probing questions, many of which had nothing to do with the event they were investigating. There is no more unsettling feeling than to sit and be told that you’re a criminal, and that they know you’re a criminal, and that they’re going to find the truth no matter what it takes… when you know for certain that you are innocent and uninvolved. At the end of the procedure, Lieutenant Douchebag told me that my results were “highly deceptive,” and I went away wondering if I was going to be thrown in the clink for something I had neither done nor even ever considered. But I got a small taste of what it must be like to be interrogated in this way; I cannot imagine the emotional distress felt by the people in the above-mentioned article. A lot of them were clearly petty criminals, but they didn’t deserve to have their lives scarred and/or ruined for something they never did.
Relevant: Do Lie Detectors Work?
The lie detector can be considered a modern variant of the old technique of trial by ordeal. A suspected witch was thrown into a raging river on the premise that if she floated she was harnessing demonic powers.
The takeaway for me is that it is far too easy to put people in a situation where they feel vulnerable and powerless, and hammer away at them until they begin to doubt things they know for certain and accept things that they know nothing about. I suspect that with training, one could inoculate oneself against such techniques to a certain extent, but really, what’s the payoff for the average person who will not find themselves in such a position? Whatever the case, it’s disturbing.
The Old Wolf has spoken. Maybe.
I’ve written about this bit of Internet stupidity before. It boggles my mind that scummy advertisers continue to use this, but it must generate revenue, or they wouldn’t do it.
Lower My Bills [1] is one of the worst offenders.
You see, I never encounter ads on my desktop machine; Ad Blocker Plus and a few other good extensions take care of that. My smartphone is not so lucky. Here’s an example; check out the ad with the little T-Rex running across it as an attention-getter below.
Now I don’t fall for such rubbish, but today I decided to jump down the rabbit hole just to see where it leads. I was taken to screen after screen requesting my personal information; the usual stuff about what cars I had, how I use them, and what kind of coverage I wanted. They also wanted my address, my phone number, my date of birth, my email address, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Naturally, as with Nigerian scammers, I provided bogus information for everything.
Finally, I got to the last page, where I was promised my free results, and – supposedly – the “ridiculously easy trick”.
Before we click, let’s look at that text disclaimer:
By clicking the button above you agree to be matched with up to 8 partners and/or providers from the LMB Partner Network and their agents and partners and for them and/or us to contact or market to you (including through automated and/or pre-recorded messages/means, e.g. automated telephone dialing systems and text messaging) about insurance information via telephone, mobile device (including MSM and MMS), and/or email, even if your telephone number or email address is on a corporate, state, or the National Do Not Call Registry, and you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You understand that your consent is not required as a condition to purchase a good or service.
Now that’s just scary. If you enter your real data, hoping to learn a “ridiculously easy trick” or even get quotes for low-cost insurance, this is the kind of marketing you will get by mail, by phone, by email, and on your cell phone:
That’s right. A virtual Niagara Falls [2] worth of spamvertising, and you’ve just given these putrescent scumballs your permission to do it.
That’s how Lower My Bills works: T’hey gather your personal information, and sell it to every single possible entity on earth that wants to spam you, who will in turn sell it to the rest of the universe. They offer no other goods or services, even if they claim to do so. This is the height of disreputable, dishonorable marketing, and their ads infest the net like a plague of locusts.
If that’s not scary enough, look at that last sentence:
You understand that your consent is not required as a condition to purchase a good or service.
This means that you have given them permission to sell you their and their partners’ excrement without your explicit agreement, thus opening the door to fraudulent charges on your credit card.
Now let’s see what all that PII got me:
Yup. Exactly nothing. They suggest a few providers, but no “ridiculously easy trick,” no promised quote, nothing. But they would have had all my information, and that information would result (usually within minutes) in a flood of calls, emails, texts, and other ongoing hqiz from people wanting to sell me everything under the sun.
Do yourself a favor. Any time you see that “one weird trick” or anything like it, realize that you’re dealing with a borderline criminal operation, and stay as far away from such drones and scumbags as you possibly can. If you see Lower My Bills, run like hell in the other direction. Oh, and spread the word, too; if you have vulnerable loved ones who are not terribly computer-savvy, make sure they understand this.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
[1] Have a look at this lovely entry at Ripoff Report; also check the Wikipedia entry on this shady outfit.
[2] Slowly I turn!
Two students. Not much spare time. But a universe of creativity at their fingertips.
Meet Dangerdust.
Despite our overwhelming workload at Columbus College of Art & Design we bring it upon ourselves to create a chalkboard every week. We have taken over the chalkboard on the third floor of Crane and every Monday a new board appears.
I happen to love the work above more than perhaps any, but that’s just a personal preference because I love Dr. Tyson. Everything they do is filled with awesome.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
No, I don’t. I don’t give a rat’s south-40 what your cookie policy says. I will block your cookies, I will block your ads, and I don’t agree to your Terms of Service. And there’s nothing that you or your scummy solicitors can do about it.
The Old Wolf has spoken about one of his pet peeves.
I have long loved and respected the work of Art Spiegelman, author of Maus and Maus II, two graphic novels which autobiographically recount the experiences of his father Vladek through World War II and the years previous.
One thing in his account puzzled me, though – the exchange recounted in the panels below, just after Vladek arrives at Auschwitz.
I had no idea why the priest said that 17 in Hebrew was “kminyan tov,” because seventeen is “shiv’a ‘asar.” The internet didn’t help, because every reference to “k’minyan tov” led back to Spiegelman’s work. I was stumped. It turns out I just didn’t know enough about Hebrew or kabbalistic customs.
After letting the matter rest for about five years, during which interval I began a study of modern Hebrew, I returned to it with a vengeance and did some more digging.
The Polish priest was learned in the ways of gematria, or the mystical assignment of numerical values to Hebrew letters, and divining meaning from how words add up; I first became aware of gematria when I read The Chosen by Chaim Potok.
I was coming at my puzzle all wrong, assuming that minyan was referring to the quorum of ten Jewish male adults required for certain religious obligations. The word itself also means “count,” with “k’minyan” meaning “like the count of.” That expression appears to be used almost exclusively in referring to values in gematria. Look at this post in a forum:
A week or two ago, a posting on the number of brakhot in shmoneh esrei suggested, IIRC, something like that the addition of birkat ha-minim in E”Y changed the 18 to 19. It appears, however that in E”Y there were originally 17 b’rakhot, gematria tov and the addition of birkat ha-minim made it 18, k’minyan chai.
This entire sentence is far over my head in terms of understanding the context, but to have found the expression in an external source was significant. It seems then that this phrase can be read “like the count of ____”, whatever number is being referred to.
Thus the priest reads Vladek’s number (175113) and notes that the first two numbers are 17 – with “טוב” (tov, meaning “good”) being the numbers 9+ 6+ 2 (each Hebrew letter is assigned a value corresponding to its position in the alphabet). Hence “tov” has the value 17; “k’minyan tov” can be interpreted in this case as “like the count of ‘good’.) This would be seen as a good omen. Another interpretation I found indicates that 17 would indicate the 10 men necessary for a minyan, plus seven more, making it a “good minyan” or a “strong prayer group.” I can’t speak to the accuracy of this interpretation, but it’s interesting nonetheless – this was the first thing that occurred to me, and it didn’t make sense. Now it does. Sorta.
Vladek’s priest friend notices that 1+7+5+1+1+3 equal 18, and the Hebrew word for “life” (חי – chai) is composed of the numbers 10 + 8, or 18, the number referred to in the quote above, which could be read as “like the count of ‘life’.” And this was sufficient for Vladek to express the feeling that he had been given another life. Vladek escaped, and the priest was never seen again.
I don’t think I have the intellectual discipline to pursue this any farther, but my curiosity has been silenced. At least I understand the basic meaning of what Spiegelman was relating in this scene, and that will have to do.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
(For what it’s worth, “Old Wolf” in English gematria is 522, which has the same value as Truth, Birthday, Stephen, Russia, Muslim, Bill Gates, Twelve, Justice, Victor, Vincent, Rand Paul, Priest, Person, Nothing, Lotus, Hail Mary, Yahuwah, Street, Stealing, The Sun, Blessing, Elishone, Cnaan Aviv, Noahs Ark, Elohiym, Lee Vayle, Dustin, Democracy, Praises, Potato, Euro Bay, String, Taav Aaleph, Myth U, Ninety, Baptist, Crackpot, Company, Inside Job, Architect, God Of Buddha, Different, Cotton, Buddhist, The Eyes, Chin Woo, Diaper Dude, Project, Break The Ice, Manifest, Charlemagne, Helsinki, Mackenzie, Gram Of Fat, Oh My God, Gnostic, Archigonic, Samskarda, Tornado, Forecast’, Paternal, Ho Chi Minh, Natural, Black On Black, Dream Logic, Swedish, Sonnet, Mind Of God, Cortez, Paul Rand, Indeed Jobs, Shelter, My Garden, Get Hay At, Consider, King Of All, Vietnam C, All Is One, Veronica, Punish, Fulfilled, Sam Bowie, The Gilded Age, Whether, Def Leppard, Get A T Hay, Pat Crock, טרוטה Truth, Canaanites, Dependent, Lumpy, Fallout, Frighten, Happily, Sticky, Pell Mell, The Mayan, Idiocracy, Pitagora, and Got Milk. Make of that what you will.)
Notice the cars trying to squeeze through a red light…
Pretty much the same view as of 2011, courtesy Google Maps.
If you ask me, the view was a lot more interesting back then. Today’s situation seems sterile and boring by comparison.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Found this video the other day, and it made me smile.
Back in the day, the stores only had VHS tapes (and a precious few, like Video Vern’s in West Valley, had a Betamax section),
Devices like this were common:
It’s a tape rewinder – ours looks like a car, and the headlights come on while it’s rewinding. That way you could watch another movie while you were rewinding the first one.
Fortunately, with DVD and Blu-Ray formats, such things are no longer essential – but you can still buy one.
Things are so much easier now…
Then again, before the days of home video, going to the movies was a different experience.
When I was a kid, in NYC, you’d pay 50¢ for a matinee ticket. You’d go in and sit down in this massive theatre with one screen, and a big red velvet curtain hanging in front of the stage.
That’s the Byrd Theatre in Richmond, VA – lovingly restored, but that’s what a lot of them looked like.
An usher with a flashlight would help you find a seat if you needed help. The lights would go down, the curtain would go up, and the show would begin.
First, a newsreel. Then, usually, a cartoon. Then another short subject. Maybe some previews. And finally the main attraction, often with an intermission. And when it was all over, you could sit there and do it all again. And again. And again, if you wanted. If you came in late, you could just wait until the beginning came around again. Nobody chased you out. And all for four bits… a great way to escape the summer heat.
Now that’s how to watch a movie.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Robert Kennedy stops for lunch while on the campaign trail for his brother, John F. Kennedy. Bluefield, West Virginia, 1960. A different world, different times.
Caption from Shorpy: “Spring 1960. “Efforts of John F. Kennedy’s campaign team, including members of his family, in West Virginia during Kennedy’s quest for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination. Includes brother Bob at a drive-in in Bluefield.” From photos by Bob Lerner for the Look magazine article “The Kennedys: A Family Political Machine.” 35mm negative.”
The Old Wolf has spoken.
I have always loved Robert Ripley. As time has gone on, the stories he has reported have been expanded upon and documented; some have proven to be misunderstandings, but very rarely if ever was anything shown to be an outright fraud. The case of Phineas Gage is well-documented; here a comparison of what Ripley reported and information available on the Internet today.
From Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Two Volumes in One, Simon and Schuster, 1934
The American Crow-Bar Case
Phineas P. Gage, aged twenty-five, a foreman on the Rutland and Burlington Railroad, was employed September 13, 1847, in charging a hole with powder preparatory to blasting. A premature explosion drove a tamping-iron, three feet seven inches long, 1 1/4 inches in diameter, weighing 13 1/4 pounds, completely through the man’s head.
Despite this terrible injury young Gage did not even lose consciousness. he made a complete recovery and lived many years afterward.
The crow-bar entered the left side of the face, immediately anterior to the inferior maxillary and passed under the zygomatic arch, fracturing portions of the sphenoid bone and the floor of the left orbit. It then passed through the the left anterior lobe of the cerebrum, and in the median line, made its exit at the junction of the coronal and saggital structures, lacerating the longitudinal sinus, fracturing the parietal and frontal bones and breaking up considerable of the brain. The patient was thrown backward and gave a few convulsive movements of the extremities. He was taken to a hotel almost a mile distant. During the transportation he seemed slightly dazed, but not at all unconscious. Upon arriving at the hotel he dismounted from the conveyance, and without assistance walked up a long flight of stairs to the hall where his wound was to be dressed.
Dr. Harlow saw him at about six o’clock in the evening, and from his condition could hardly credit the story of his injury, although his person and his bed were drenched with blood. His scalp was shaved and coagula and debris removed. Among other portions of bone was a piece of the anterior superior angle of each parietal bone and a semicircular piece of the frontal bone, leaving an opening 3 1/2 inches in diameter. At 10 P.M. on the day of the injury Gage was perfectly rational and asked about his work and after his friends. His convalescence was rapid and uneventful.
Professor Bigelow examined the patient three years later, and made a most exceelent report of the case, which had attained world-wide notoriety. Bigelow found the patient quite recovered in his faculties of body and mind, except that he had lost the sight of the injured eye.
The original crow-bar, together with a cast of the patient’s head, was placed in the Museum of the Harvard Medical School, Brookline, Mass., where it is still on exhibition. Ref.:Boston Medical and Surgical Record (1848).
This particular entry fascinated me as a child. Now, of course, we know more: instead of making a complete recovery, Gage’s personality changed; he became “erratic, irritable, and profane,” his friends called him “no longer Gage,” and he died of seizures around 12 years after the accident. Two very interesting and in-depth accounts of Gage and his injury can be read at Slate.com and Interiorpassage.com, and the Wikipedia article is detailed and impartial. While some of the reported facts about Gage and his injury have been distorted over time, the fact remains that he survived an astonishingly devastating brain injury by 12 years and his accident provided medical science with an opportunity to study the relationship between brain trauma and personality change.
As related in the article at interiorpassage, there is a monument to Gage’s accident at Cavendish, Vermont – the following images (mercilessly ripped from the original article) are revelatory:
Here is an intriguing video about Gage’s experience:
Once again, the Internet provides more information than was available almost 100 years ago; the more time passes, the more accurate such historical accounts become. Ripley did his best, but was limited by what was available in his time. There are still some amazing wonders and curiosities to be found in his books and musea around the country.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Playing in the World Game 