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6 Economists Everyone Should Know

Sure, the next time you're laid off, salaried down, underbudgeted, or wearing hand-me-downs, you could blame the economy. But why pick on the economy when you can pick on the economist instead?

1. Adam Smith (1723 - 1790)

Ever felt a push from behind on your way to work, but when you turned around no one was there? It was probably Smith's "invisible hand," the force that leads individuals pursuing self-interest to provide useful goods and services for others. Champion of the free market, Smith [wiki] pretty much founded economics as a systematic discipline, and his ideas echo through the profession to the present day. If you don't believe in economic forecasting, read Smith's masterwork, The Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith, a native Scot, argued that Great Britain couldn't afford to hold its rebellious American colonies - an impressive conjecture considering Britain's world domination at the time.

2. David Ricardo (1772 - 1823)

Ricardo [wiki] became the poster boy for middle achievers everywhere when he came up with the idea of comparative advantage. He showed how free trade allows countries to specialize in what they do best - even if they're not very good at anything. The same principle explains why Michael Jordan doesn't fix roofs, even though he might be better at it than many roofers; it's more efficient for him to focus on basketball. Disinherited for marrying outside his family's Jewish faith, Ricardo was originally a successful banker in London, then a mamber of Parliament, before he became an economist. In his "Essay on the Influence of a Low Price of Corn on the Profits of Stock," Ricardo presented the law of diminishing returns, which explains how adding more labor and machinery to a piece of land (or other fixed asset) after a certain point is just unproductive.

3. John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946)

Before Keynes [wiki], economics was in its classical phase. After him, it was in its Keynesian phase (just as there was Newtonian physics before Albert Einstein came along). The Great Depression convinced Keynes that the government had to engage in deficit spending to combat unemployment, a major break from the economic thinking of the time. He first became well known after World War I when he quit his British Treasury job, complaining that the Treaty of Versailles would wreak economic havoc. (He was right.) He also helped set up the system of fixed exchange rates used for decades after World War II. Unlike the majority of economists, Keynes led the life of a celebrity: he married a Russian ballerina, drank Champagne with literary figures, and made a fortune in the stock market. Keynes once said, "I would rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong," which may account for continued arguments between "new Keynesian" and "new classical" economists.

4. Joseph Schumpeter (1883 - 1950)

Scumpeter [wiki], born in Austria, reportedly vowed to become the best economist, horseman, and lover in Vienna - and later regretted not meeting the horseman goal. He argued that economists' traditional idea of competition (similar companies competing on price) was much less important than "creative destruction," whereby entrepreneurs create new products and industries. He predicted that capitalism would be undermined by its own success. But unlike Karl Marx, Schumpeter didn't look forward to the system's demise. He wrote, "If a doctor predicts that his patient will die presently, this does not mean that he desires it."

5. John Kenneth Galbraith (1908 - 2006)

Galbraith [wiki] once said, "The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable." A prolific author and adept debater, Galbraith stands among the economists best known outside the economics profession. The Canadian-born Galbraith moved to the United States in the 1930s and worked as a price controller in World War II, a Harvard professor, an advisor to President John F. Kennedy, and eventually a U.S. ambassador to India. A persistent concern of his long career has been with corporate power. In such books as The Affluent Society (1958) and The New Industrial State (1967), he argued that big companies have little to fear from competitors and exercise lots of influence over consumers. Not everyone liked the thesis, of course; critics have pointed out that big companies sometimes lose market share and go out of business.

6. Milton Friedman (1912 - 2006)

Friedman [wiki] advocated free-floating exchange rates, school vouchers, the shift from the draft to a volunteer military, and for doctors to be allowed to practice medicine without a license. A proponent of free markets and limited government, Friedman challenged the Keynesian ideas that dominated economics in the decades after World War II and instead supported monetarism, an emphasis on the role of money in the economy. Born to immigrants in New York City, Friedman spent much of his career at the University of Chicago. In 1976 he won the Nobel Prize for economics for, among other things, "his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy" - meaning, why government has so much trouble keeping the economy on an even keel. His fame, however, only grew. In 1979 Friedman's book Free to Choose (coauthored by his wife and accompanied by a public-television series) reached a worldwide audience.

From mental_floss' book Condensed Knowledge: A deliciously Irreverent Guide to Feeling Smart Again, published in Neatorama with permission. Original article written by Kenneth Silber and Alexei Bayer.

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7 Great Sports Scams, Scandals, and Hoaxes

Some say the U.S. national pastime is baseball. Others say it's football. Or basketball. Or jai alai. But you can forget all those, because these seven examples prove that when it comes to sports, mankind's favorite pastime is lying, cheating, pulling pranks, and spreading hoaxes! Play ball!

1. A Black Pox on the Black Sox


The 1919 Chicago White Sox Team Photo (Image Credit: Wikipedia)

This is pretty much the mac-daddy of all sports scandals. The 1919 Chicago White Sox was one of the greatest baseball teams ever to take the field, including superstar left fielder "Shoeless" Joe Jackson.

But two gamblers, "Sleepy Bill" Burns and Billy Maharg, backed up by gangster Arnold Rothstein, changed that by bribing eight players with $100,000 to throw the World Series [wiki]. The fix was a success, the Sox lost, and nobody really suspected a thing until late in the next season, when the eight players were indicted.  Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis suspended them all from baseball for life, and they all had it coming.

Except one. "Shoeless" Joe did all he could to avoid being involved: he told Sox owner Charles Comiskey about the scam, but was ignored; he asked to be benched for the Series, but was refused; he even batted .375 for the Series and had 12 base hits (a Series record at the time) and the only home run. Due to the scandal, Jackson is still not in the Hall of Fame, though many players have supported his induction.

2. Stella "the Fella" Walsh

In 1980, a 69-year-old member of the National Track & Field Hall of Fame was shot and killed outside a Cleveland shopping mall. Police immediately ascertained that the victim was Stella Walsh, the greatest female track-and-field athlete of her day. Stella, born Stanislawa Walasiewiczowna in Poland, won a gold medal for Poland at the 1932 Olympics and a silver in 1936, and set 20 world records. But when the police took the body to be autopsied, they found something very unusual on the 69-year-old woman: male genitals?! Further studies showed that she ... er, he ... had both male and female chromosomes, a condition called mosaicism. When the shocking news got out, it took approximately 2.7 seconds for the great runner to get a new nickname: Stella the Fella.

3. Mighty Sports Illustrated Fans Strike Out

The greatest baseball pitcher of all time was actually a figment of George Plimpton's imagination. His article for the April 1, 1985, issue of Sports Illustrated was entitled "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch."

It told the story of an English orphan, raised by an archaeologist, educated at Harvard, and trained by a yogi in Tibet, who showed up at the Mets training camp in Florida. He could throw a fastball at 168 mph (the record at the time was a comparatively sluggish 103) and preferred to pitch with one foot bare and the other in a large hiking boot. As of the magazine's publishing date, Finch hadn't yet decided if he was going to play for the Mets.

The response was massive. Sports Illustrated received over 2,000 letters immediately following the story, many expressing their hopes that Sidd would play. Two weeks later, the magazine fessed up to their hoax. Of course, the clever Plimpton had included a subtle clue in the article's subhead: "He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent lifestyle, Sidd's deciding about yoga ..." Confused? Just take the first letter of each word: "happyaprilfoolsday."

4. Rosie the (Underhanded) Runner

On April 21, 1980, a young woman crossed the finish line to win the 84th Boston Marathon in the record time of 02:31:56. For someone who had just ran over 26 miles, Rosie Ruiz [wiki] looked notably sweatless and un-rubbery in the legs. Race officials checked photos and video from various spots in the race, and Ruiz appeared in none of them.

So how did she do it? Here's the prevailing theory: She started the race with the others, then left the course, hopped a subway, then reentered the course about a half mile from the finish line. She was disqualified and stripped of her title. So, how'd she fine tune her con? By cheating in another marathon, of course. Rosie had sneaked her way past New York Marathon officials, and her time qualified her for the Boston race.

5. Simonya Popova: aka How the Women's Tennis Association Got Served

With the advent of computer-generated imagery, the art of the hoax really came into its own. Take the case of Simonya Popova, a female teenage tennis sensation from Uzbekistan who made Anna Kournikova look like Billy Jean King. In the fall of 2002, a Jon Wertheim article in Sports Illustrated profiled Popova, proclaiming her the next great phenom on the tennis circuit. It covered five pages and even had a picture.

But Popova was a complete fiction; her image was computer generated. Even the name Simonya was chosen as reference to SimOne, a movie about a computer-generated actress who becomes a star. The story was done as a fictional what-if, intended to be a comment on tennis's need for a hot new superstar to give the sport some mojo. But the Women's Tennis Association wasn't exactly amused. A spokeswoman for the organization lambasted the magazine, claiming they should've used the five pages to cover real tennis players. And, for the record, they said, "We have tons of mojo."

6. The Great Potato Caper

The date: August 28, 1987. The scene: Bowman Field in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The AA Reading Phillies were in town to play the hometown Williamsport Bills, when Bills catcher Dave Bresnahan decided to pull a stunt he'd been thinking about for weeks.

With a runner on third, Bresnahan threw the ball over to the head of the third baseman and into the outfield. The runner jogged home, thinking he had an easy run. But unbeknownst to him and the 3,500 fans at the game, Bresnahan still had the ball. The object he had thrown was a potato, meticulously peeled and shaped to look like a baseball.

Everyone got a chuckle out of the hoax. Everyone, that is, except Williamsport manager Orlando Gomez, who promptly ejected Bresnahan and fined him a whopping $50. Bresnahan had the last laugh, though: Instead of the money, he gave Gomez 50 potatoes.

7. A Rose Bowl Is a Rose Bowl Is a Rose Bowl (Except When CalTech's Involved)

It seems fitting that what is widely regarded as the greatest college prank of all time was pulled off by the college where pranking is practically a major: CalTech. (Students once changed the well-known "Hollywood" sign to read "CalTech," despite the massive security around the joint.)

Since the Rose Bowl game is played in CalTech's backyard of Pasadena, the students and their head pranksters, the Fiendish 14, were miffed at the lack of publicity the event generated for their school. So they finally decided to take it out on the game's participants in 1961 (neither of which happened to be CalTech - the game was between the University of Washington and the University of Minnesota).

The students learned of an elaborate halftime spectacle planned by the Washington cheerleaders that involved 2,232 flip cards. One CalTech student, disguised as a high school newspaper reporter, interviewed Washington's head cheerleader to learn their plan. The CalTech students then stole on of the instruction sheets, made 2,232 copies of it, altered each one by hand [wiki], then swapped them with real cards while the cheerleaders were visiting Disneyland.

The next day, live on national television, thousands of Huskies fans held up cards to make a picture of a Husky. Instead, viewers saw a Beaver, CalTech's mascot. One of the next card formations read "Seiksuh" (read it backward and you'll get it). And finally, the pièce de résistance: The cards read, in giant letters, "CalTech."

From mental_floss' book Forbidden Knowledge: A Wickedly Smart Guide to History's Naughtiest Bits, published in Neatorama with permission.

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10 Sports They Don't Teach You in Gym

1. Quoits


The West Saltoun Quoiting team on the Quoit Green, c. 1890
(Image Credit: David Scott, Bolton and Saltoun Parishes)

When the pilgrims sailed away from England’s shores, they left behind religious tyranny – and quoits [wiki]. The sport, which involved throwing metal rings at a stake (called a hob), quickly became the overshadowed sibling of horseshoes.

The game was invented in Britain during the first millennium C.E.; either in the early Middle Ages or even further back, when the Isles were part of the Roman Empire. Either way, it’s definitely a British game. The shape of the throwing device is the only major difference between quoits and horseshoes, meaning that close now counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, slow dancing, and quoits.

2. Skittles


A game of skittles in Knockaloe Camp, an internment camp for over 20,000 German civilians interned during World War I (Image Credit: Knockaloe)

Even though you know it only as a type of candy, skittles [wiki] is a sport that’s been popular in Britain for centuries. It’s similar to modern-day bowling, in that a ball or disk is thrown at pins, but skittles employs nine pins instead of 10. Also, scoring is based on how many throws it takes to knock over all of the pins, rather than the American two-hurl limit.

Another difference between skittles and bowling is that, with bowling alleys, the beer came to the game. In Britain, the game came to the beer – skittles competitions originated in pubs and inns.

3. Sepak Takraw


Highlights from the sepak takraw match in 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]

Once upon a time, volleyball and soccer were in love, but their parents disapproved and kept them apart. Now, the only remnant of their brief union is a lovechild called sepak takraw [wiki]. The sport inherited its mother’s net and, sadly, its father’s aversion to using arms. Consequently, the game challenges a player to pass the ball over the net using the feet, legs, body, and head.

Commonly played on a badminton court, takraw (as the pros call it) was first introduced in Southeast Asia. Today, it’s the national sport of Malaysia and an official event at the Asian Games.

4. Land Sailing


Land sailing in Quend, France (Image credit: Jean-noël Lafargue, Wikipedia)

In land sailing [wiki], as the name entails, water’s not included. Instead, a competitor must sit onboard his vessel and use his hands and feet to push the boat along the ground (usually a dried-up river bed). Normally, that would be next to impossible, but land sailing involves the correspondingly bizarre land yacht, equipped with three wheels. This quirky pastime might sound like something invented by the morons on MTV’s “Jackass,” but – truth is – the sport is more than a century old. That said, it does have its sillier modern-day incarnations. Every year, Australians hold the Henley-on-Todd Regatta, in which wheels are disregarded, and contestants actually carry the boat to the finish line.

5. Shinty


A Game of Shinty (Image Credit: Bruiach1 [flickr])

Leave it to the Scots to make an already-violent game even more bloodthirsty. Similar to field hockey, the Scotland-born sport of shinty [wiki] involves two teams of players using curved sticks to knock a ball into the opponent’s goal. However, there’s no offside rule, meaning “accidental” run-ins with the goalie aren’t illegal. The sport thrives today in Scotland, where modern rules for the centuries-old game were first established in 1879. Surprisingly, neither skirts nor kilts are part of the uniform.

6. Tug-of-War


Tug of War competition from Charles Lucas, The Olympic Games 1904. St. Louis, MO: Woodward and Tiernan, 1905 (Library of Congress Collections).

Tug-of-war [wiki] is so old that it might date back to the first time Cain and Abel wanted to wear the same fig leaf. Regardless, we do know it was used on occasion to solve disputes between villages or peoples and was a prominent feature in the ancient Olympic games.

The modern Games included the sport as well, until it was discontinued in 1920. (Hey, something had to be sacrificed to make way for race walking). Still, tug-of-war remains a competitive sport throughout most of the world. Today, 30 countries belong to the Tug-of-War International Federation, and an international competition still occurs every four years.

7. Unicycle Hockey


Unicycle Hockey (Image Credit: Sixball [flickr])

Sometimes, games involving large, toothless Canadians armed with wooden sticks can seem a bit too easy. So how do you make ice hockey more difficult? Play it on unicycles! Following the same basic rules as ice hockey, “uni-hockey” enjoyed scattered success for nearly 25 years in America, Europe, and Asia. Leagues even formed in Germany and Great Britain. Then the new millennium arrived, complete with plenty of flashing lights and pretty zeroes. Distracted by all the excitement, the few remaining enthusiasts climbed aboard their one-wheel chariots and rode off into the sunset.

8. Bandy


Bandy, the gentler brother of hockey. (Image Credit: dapeel [flickr])

If unicycle hockey is ice hockey’s more challenging cousin, then think of bandy [wiki] as its kinder, gentler big brother. Bandy originated in 18th-century England (before ice hockey, which uses a smaller skating surface), and it’s played with a ball, not a puck. Also, to avoid all that unpleasant fighting and bodychecking players do in ice hockey, bandy teams are confined to designated half of the playing field. These days, the sport is most popular in Scandinavia, the Baltics, and mainland Asia.

9. Korfball


Korfball (Image Credit: robw1882 [flickr])

Have you ever been bored to tears watching an NBA game and thought, “if only this were a co-ed sport without all that distracting dribbling and running.” Well, Nico Broekhuysen read your mind.

In 1901, the Dutch school teacher invented Korfball [wiki], a game in which two teams attempt to score points by passing a ball through a basket at either end of the court. The trick? Players are confined to a particular zone (either attack or defense) on the field and can’t run when they’re holding the ball, meaning they have to pass the ball to have any shot at advancing.

The Netherlands quickly caught korfball fever, and enthusiasts there formed the first league in 1903. Today, the International Korfball Association serves teams in more than 30 member countries.

10. Bog Snorkeling


See this excellent slideshow on the bizarre sport of bog snorkeling: Link

Late each August on Summer Bank Holiday in the U.K., you can travel to the quaint Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells for the World Bog Snorkeling Championship. Sponsored by Ben and Jerry’s ice cream (yeah, we don’t know why either), bog snorkeling [wiki] requires competitors to swim a today of 120 yards through muddy, peat-filled waters armed with only a snorkel, fins, and the recommended – though not required – wetsuit.

The slimy sport was conceived by hotel manager Gordon Green, who – incidentally – is the same man responsible for the annual Man-Versus-Horse Marathon, the Real Ale Ramble (a pub crawl, only more cardiovascular), and the even more challenging World Mountain Bike Bog Snorkeling Championship.

Green’s scheme? Create wacky sporting events to bring visitors to Llanwrtyd Wells (and his hotel), which is the smallest town in Britain. His reward? A 2001 MBE medal for his “services to tourism in Mid-Wales.”

The article above was written by Laurel Mills and published in the March – April 2006 issue of mental_floss magazine, reprinted on Neatorama with permission.

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A Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead.

Here's a clever mashup of the Beatles and .. a zombie movie! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Miss Cellania


9 Bad Boys of Philosophy

You’d think that a philosopher could reason out the best way to behave, right? But you’d be wrong, very wrong.

1. Socrates, the Barefoot Bum

Notoriously ugly, clad in one coat long beyond its years, and always shoeless, yet possessed of charisma that made the youth swoon, Socrates was a fixture in the marketplace of Athens.

There he would engage people with the Socratic method, beginning with a question that seemed straightforward and easy enough to answer, such as, What is virtue? Never content with the first answer, his irony and follow-up questions would inevitably lead to contradictions or admissions of ignorance on the part of his interlocutors.

Socrates rubbed some people the wrong way, though, and was brought to trial on trumpeted charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. Defiant to the end, Socrates suggested that the proper sentence for his “crimes” would be free meals at the public expense, as he had done the city good. The jury gave him a hemlock cocktail instead.

2. Diogenes, a Cynic’s Cynic

Always suspicious of society and philosophers, Diogenes (died ca. 320 BCE) would stop at nothing to make a point. He once ripped the feathers out of a live chicken to disprove Plato’s account of human beings as the only featherless biped. Asked once what wine he liked best, his cynical response was “other peoples’.”

Alexander the Great, intrigued by stories about Diogenes, sought him out and announced, “I am Alexander the Great. What can I do for you?” “Stand back – you block my light” was Diogenes’ response. While the ordinary person would have lost his head after such an insult, Diogenes was admired all the more, as the great conqueror said, “If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.”

3. Peter Abelard (1079-1144), the Castrated Cleric

Sex scandals are nothing new to the Catholic Church. Take the case of Abelard, the influential medieval philosopher who, ironically, did important work in ethics and logic. The young cleric fell in love with a beautiful young girl named Héloïse, whom he was supposed to be tutoring, and they married secretly, though they lived apart.

Héloïse’s uncle, however, mistakenly thought Abelard had discarded Héloïse by placing her in a convent, and he took revenge by having servants castrate Abelard in his sleep. Abelard woke up and things were never the same between him and Héloïse (needless to say, things were never the same between his legs either).

The ill-fated pair were, however, reunited in death, buried together at Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris and immortalized in song by Cole Porter: “As Abelard said to Eloise, ‘Don’t forget to drop a line to me, please’” (from “Just One of Those Things”).

4. Marx: Big Heart, Skinny Wallet

Unable to find work as philosophy professor, Karl Marx (1818-1883) plotted a revolution. Working intermittently as journalist and largely relying on the charity of friends, Marx lost many apartments and even some children for lack of financial resources.

Declaring religion “the opiate of the masses,” Marx found no solace in a better world to come, but instead sought to change the one he inhabited. “A specter is haunting Europe,“ he said, “the specter of communism. The workers of the world have nothing to lose but their chains.”

History revealed Marx didn’t adequately anticipate capitalism’s ability to shift and change to avoid the revolution, as later workers’ movement won concessions in the form of labor laws, the welfare state, and five-day work week. So, the next time you sleep late on a Saturday, make sure to give props to the man who made the dream of the weekend off a reality.

5. Arthur Schopenhauer, Poodle-Loving Pessimist

The ultimate pessimist, Schopenhauer (1788-1860) viewed reality as a malicious trap, believing we live in the worst of all possible worlds. A notorious misogynist, Schopenhauer once pushed a woman down a flight of stairs. Grudgingly, he paid her regular restitution for her injuries until her death, when he recorded in his journal, “The old woman dies, the burden is lifted.”

Schopenhauer despised noise but inexplicably had a fondness for something more odious, poodles. A series of disposable poodles were his constant companions for most of his life.

Not a pleasant academic colleague, Schopenhauer resented the success of Hegel, whose philosophy he thought was the worst kind of nonsense. Perhaps planning to undo Hegel, Schopenhauer scheduled his course lectures at the same time as Hegel’s. The result, however, was an early retirement for Arthur.

6. Nietzsche: A Bad Boy Who Wasn’t

One might think he railed against the corrupting influence of Christianity and declared “God is dead,” because of his own misery (Nietzsche suffered from migraine headaches and poor digestion, topped off with bouts of insomnia). But the guy whose autobiographical Ecce Homo includes such chapters as “Why I Am So Wise,” “Why I Am So Clever,” and “Why I Write Such Good Books” was actually an unassuming, mild-mannered man. His belief in “the will to power” as the most basic human drive finds little reflection in his own life outside his fantasies.

Though he fancied himself a warrior and a ladies’ man, Nietzsche’s military service was brief and unspectacular, and he never had a lover. As a bad boy in college, he may have visited a brothel or two, though. One theory suggests that the insanity that cut his career short and institutionalized him for the last 11 years of his life was the result of untreated syphilis.

7. Heidegger, Nazi Sympathizer

Though he originally planned to become a Catholic priest, this philosopher of being was far from holy. He carried on an extramarital affair with his gifted student Hannah Arendt, who later fled Germany to avoid persecution as a Jew. This might seem a peccadillo, except that Martin Heidegger was an anti-Semite who embraced the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich.

Notoriously, Heidegger had his dictation dedication page in his Being and Time removed in subsequent printings of the book, as it paid homage to Edmund Husserl, his former teacher, a Jew. At a time when intellectuals should have risen up, Heidegger sank to the lowest common denominator. What’s worse, he never recanted or apologized.

8. Bertrand Russell, Cambridge Casanova

An innovator in mathematics and logic, and one of the founders of analytic philosophy, at first blush Russell sounds like a dry guy. Yet his life was anything but dull. Plagued by bouts of terrible depression as a young man, Russell learned to cultivate a zest for life. This heavy-drinking, pipe-smoking professor was notorious for having affairs with his friends’ wives. He rejected organized religion with his famous essay “Why I Am Not a Christian,” but nonetheless had a passion for social justice, flirting with runs for political office and doing jail time for political protest, that last time at age 94. Notably, Russell was a leading intellectual voice against the war in Vietnam.

9. Michel Foucault, the Marilyn Manson of Philosophy

Always the outsider, Foucault (1926-1984) was the voice of the marginalized and oppressed, notably as a supporter of an inspiration for the Paris student uprisings of 1968.

Making use of Nietzsche’s insights on the nature of power and the method of historical investigation and exposure known as genealogy, Foucault challenged the legitimacy of dominant cultural structures. Suspicious of institutions, in works such as Madness and Civilization, The Birth of the Clinic, and Discipline and Punish, Foucault called for the abolition of prisons and asylums.

Himself a homosexual, Foucault challenged our idea of what is normal in The History of Sexuality. As a visiting professor at Berkeley, Foucault frequented the San Francisco bathhouses and developed a passion for S&M. Though he kept his disease a private matter, he was the first (and to date only) major philosopher to die of AIDS.

Bonus: Pure Genius – Thales of Miletus

Thales of Miletus (ca. 624-546 BCE), the first Western philosopher, set the standard for absentminded professors to come. Lost in thought, gazing at the sky, Thales fell into a well.

Ridiculed as an impractical dreamer, Thales set out to show that philosophers could do anything they set their minds to, including amassing wealth. One winter, using his knowledge of meteorology and astronomy, Thales predicted a bumper olive crop for the coming season. He cornered the market on olive presses in Miletus and made a fortune when the olive harvest met his expectations.

Remarkably, Thales predicted the solar eclipse of 585 BCE. He also measured the height of the Egyptian pyramids using their shadows. Thales is perhaps best known for arguing that water is the basic source element, that ultimately all things are made of water. He also argued that “all things are full of gods and have a share of soul,” a poetic rendering of the insight confirmed by much later science that all matter is always in motion.

From mental_floss' book Condensed Knowledge: A deliciously Irreverent Guide to Feeling Smart Again, published in Neatorama with permission. Original article "Behind the Philosophy: Bad Boys of Thought" written by William Irwin, associate professor of philosophy at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, PA.

William Irwin is the editor of The Matrix and Philosophy, The Simpsons and Philosophy, Seinfeld and Philosophy, and The Death and Resurrection of the Author? He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation and the coauthor of Critical Thinking.

Be sure to visit mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog!



What's the Difference: Shia vs. Sunni


Image credit: Indi.ca article "Who Will Rule Iraq? (Iraqi Power Players)"


[Update 3/14/07: Distribution of Sunni and Shia in the world. Larger pic: Wikimedia - Thanks Jonathan Soeder!]

The Dilemma: Despite hearing news about the Middle East every day, you still don't know Shia from shinola.

People You Can Impress: Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Jordanians, and TV talking heads.

The Quick Trick: The Shia believe that the early succession of power should have gone like the name of a very famous boxer: 1) Muhammad, 2) Ali.

The Explanation: Like Christianity, Islam is home to a spectrum of sects espousing different beliefs and practices. And just as Christianity can be divided into two large groups - Catholic and Protestant - from which other subsects have emerged, so too with Islam: Shia and Sunni.

Unlike Christianity, whose major split wouldn't occur for nearly sixteen centuries, Islam split almost immediately after the death of its founder, the Prophet Muhammad (circa 570 - 632 CE). The rift stems from a disagreement among Muslims over who was the rightful successor to Muhammad.

After the prophet's death on June 8, 632, a gathering of his followers met at Medina and proclaimed Abu Bakr (kinsman, companion, and early convert of Muhammad) caliph, or political leader. The claim stemmed from his close relationship with Muhammad, and the fact that Muhammad had asked Abu Bakr to lead prayers when too ill to do so himself. Those who recognize Abu Bakr and his three immediate successors, called the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs, are referred to as Sunni Muslims, and today almost 90 percent of Muslims worldwide fall into this category.

One group of followers, however, refused to accept Abu Bakr. These Rafidi ("Refusers") supported the claim of Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad's cousin (and son-in-law). The claim is based on a sermon the Prophet had given at Ghadir Khum, in which Muhammad referred to Ali as mawla, which some translate as "master." Ali's supporter called themselves Shiat Ali (the Party of Ali), though today they are known as simply Shia. Ali did eventually ascend as the fourth caliph. To Sunni, he is the last of the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs. But to Shias, he is the first caliph and, more important, the first Imam - a word Shia Muslims use to refer to the person chosen leader of all the faithful.

While they and the Sunnis both revere the Koran, they accept different hadiths (oral traditions), so their laws are different. Many Shias, for example, allow temporary marriage. Shias also recognize esteemed imams as supreme expert on Islamic law, called Ayatollahs or, for the really big guys, Grand Ayatollahs. As for the locations where Shias have a significant Muslim majority, there are really only two: Iraq and Iran.

Much is made of the differences between Shias and Sunnis, but almost all the violence between them in the past 50 years has been caused, directly or indirectly, by Saddam Hussein - a nominal Sunni who by his own admission was never religious.

The article above was reprinted from the mental_floss book "What's the Difference?" with permission.

Monet? Manet? Who can even tell the difference? Well, with the help of the newest mental_floss tome, you can! ... mental_floss gives you all the tips and tricks to have you sounding like a genius.


K-I-S-S-I-N-G: Tidbits from the History of Kissing


The Kiss (c. 1907) by Gustav Klimt

No one really knows where the first smooch came from. One less-than-romantic theory suggests it began with ancient mothers passing chewed-up food to babies, which is 1) not sexy, and 2) gross. And kissing isn’t universal: People in Japan and Siberia only started kissing relatively recently, and some sub-Saharan African societies still don’t do it.

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A thousand years ago, ceremonial kisses were much more common than today. There was the holy kiss of peace, exchanged to symbolize unity in Christ; the kiss of veneration, bestowed on holy objects; you even got a kiss when you received an academic degree. By 18th century, however, much of that ceremonial pecking had been replaced by handshakes, oaths, and written documents. One ritual kiss is still as popular as ever: that of couples sealing their marriage vows.

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The erotic significance of the kiss didn’t come dominant in Europe until the 17th century. Not coincidentally, that was around the same time that dentists in France first promoted the use of toothbrushes. (Yes, the French were on the cutting edge of dental hygiene!) Before toothbrushes, the average European mouth was such a grim place that 16th-century maids often carried clove-studded apples when courting, insisting their suitors take a bite before attempting a kiss.

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German psychology professor Onur Güntürkün spent two years watching people make out in public parks and airports, eventually observing 124 “scientifically valid” kisses. He concluded that people are twice as likely to tilt their heads to the right when kissing than to the left. What’s the deal? Turns out our kissing proclivities are determined way in advance of the junior prom: According to Güntürkün, the direction you turn your head while in the womb will likely be the direction you tilt your head when kissing.

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Kissing has been banned repeatedly. Roman emperor Tiberius outlawed kissing in public ceremonies, hoping it would help curb the spread of herpes. In 16th-century Naples kissing was punishable by death, and in 1439 Henry VI banned it to combat the plague.

In 2004, Indonesia passed laws that ban not only public nudity, erotic dancing, and “sex parties,” but also punish public kissing with up to five years in prison. Flashing carries a stiff penalty, too: “I see London, I see France …” but if Indonesian police see your underpants, you could be fined up to $25,000 …

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Behind the Kiss: Famous Silver Screen Smooches Revealed

Gone with the Wind
While it’s probably the most famous kiss in movie history – Rhett kisses Scarlett fiercely, then carries her, protesting, up a grand staircase to bed – Vivien Leigh’s ability to keep it together was astounding. According to Hollywood insiders, Clark Gable’s halitosis on the set was so bad, Leigh didn’t want to kiss him at all!

You’re in the Army Now
Not to be confused with the 1994 Pauly Shore film of similar name, this 1941 flick holds the record for the longest unbroken kiss in Hollywood history. So, how long is almost too long for Hollywood? Jane Wyman and Regis Toomey locked lips for a good three minutes and five seconds.

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At 48 minutes, Andy Warhol’s experimental film is easily the longest picture about kissing: It consists of one static shot, twelve real-life couples, four minutes each. And while Warhol’s weird, obsessive focus is almost unwatchable, we’re still waiting for his sequel, Second Base.

The article above, from mental_floss' book Scatterbrained. is published in Neatorama with permission.

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Twinkies Fun Facts.

Twinkies [wiki], and American icon, and for some, the symbol of junk food, is the snack food that people love (or love to hate). Today, the "golden sponge cake with creamy filling" snack is ubiquitous: it's virtually in every supermarket, gas station, and snack vending machine - but how much do you really know about Twinkies?

Here're some fun facts to ponder while you munch on one of America's favorite snacks:

The History of Twinkies

Twinkies were invented in 1930, at the beginning of the Great Depression by James A. Dewar, a plant manager at Continental Baking Company (Hostess' parent company). At the time, Continental was a relatively new company and Dewar was worried that the company might not survive the hard economic times. He noticed that the company had lots of expensive equipments dedicated to baking “Little Short Cake Fingers,” which was baked for only six weeks a year during the strawberry season. During the rest of the year, the equipment laid idle. Dewar thought that the company can make, and sell, shortcake fingers all year long if they only use a different kind of filling. So he mixed a banana-flavored crème and injected it into the shortcake using three syringe-like injection tubes. And so, a new snack was born.

But what to name it? Dewar was having trouble coming up with a name until he drove past a billboard for the Twinkle Toes Shoes factory in St. Louis. A friend suggested the name “Twinkle Fingers” for the snack, and Dewar shortened it to Twinkies.

Remember that banana-flavored filling? During World War II, there was a shortage of banana, so the filling was switched to vanilla.

Twinkies were first sold in packs of two for 5 cents. Now, they still sell ‘em in packs of two, but for more money.

Twinkies Production

There are 17 Hostess bakeries across the countries cranking out 500 million Twinkies every year. It takes 40,000 miles of plastic wrap a year to package them. At 150 Calorie a piece, all those Twinkies have the energy equivalent to nearly 51,500 barrels of crude oil.

If you want to know, that comes out to be about 1,000 Twinkies a minute or 16 a second.

There are 39 ingredients in a Twinkie: yes, there are flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, water, and "trace" of egg. The rest of the ingredient list is, shall we say, less natural.

Twinkies and the Law

In 1986, Twinkies were a central figure in a political scandal known as “Twinkiegate“. 71-year-old George Belair, a Minneapolis City Council candidate was indicted for serving coffee, Kool-Aid, Twinkies and other sweets to court the senior citizen votes. This led to the passage of the Minnesota Campaign Act, more commonly known as Twinkies Law. Belair lost the election, and the charges against him were later dropped.

After San Francisco supervisor Dan White killed the city’s mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk at City Hall in 1978, he argued during his trial of diminished capacity after eating too much junk food. This strategy, dubbed the “Twinkie defense [wiki],” apparently didn’t work - he was found to be guilty.

Twinkies and Science


Twinkie with Digital Multimeter, at the T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. website

In 1995 a now legendary project called Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes in Extreme Situations (or T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S.), Rice University scientists Christopher Scott Gouge and Todd William Stadler conducted a series of experiments to determine the physical properties of a Twinkie.

Gouge and Stadler subjected the snack food to the forces of gravity (Gravitational Response Test), electricity (Resistivity Test), water (Solubility test), flame (Rapid Oxidation Test), and radiation. There was even a Turing test, which concluded that “Twinkies are not sentient in any way we can understand.”

Roger Bennatti, a teacher at the George Stevens Academy, wanted to find out the shelf life of a Twinkie, so he hung a pack on the edge of his blackboard (later on joined by a pack of Fig Newtons). That was some 30 years ago "It's rather brittle, but if you dusted it off, it's probably still edible," Bennatti said. "It never spoiled."

The actual shelf life of a Twinkie is 25 days, which is still long for a "baked" product (baked is in quotation marks because Hostess actually never revealed how Twinkies are made ;) ).

It takes 45 seconds to explode a Twinkie in a microwave. It takes only a second for your mom to get mad over the mess you're making by doing so. In cases where the Twinkie doesn't explode, it will emit a burnt plastic smell instead. Either way, your mom will get mad for sure.

Twinkies: an American Icon.

In 1947, Hostess introduced Twinkie the Kid, a Western cowboy cartoon to sell the snack.

Archie Bunker, a character of the 1970s sitcom All in the Family, loved Twinkies. He even called it “the white man’s soul food.” Twinkies have also made appearances in countless Hollywood movies, like Ghostbusters, Grease, and Die Hard.

Americans love Twinkies, too. In 2005 alone, they spent $47 million on the stuff. Actually, most of 'em probably live in Chicago: they eat more Twinkies per capita than anywhere else, earning Chicago the title of “Twinkie Capital of the World.”

The White House put a Twinkie in their time capsule for the new millennium, as “an object of enduring American symbolism.”

Twinkies: a Healthy Food?

Before he died in 1985, Dewar said that Twinkies was “the best darn-tootin’ idea I ever had.” He said that the key to his long life (Dewar lived to a ripe old age of 88) is to “eat Twinkies every day and smoke a pack of cigarettes.”

Maybe eating Twinkies does lead to a long life: another guy that really likes Twinkies is Lewis Browning. The 89-year-old retired milk-truck driver is the undisputed "Twinkie King of the World" for eating at least one Twinkie every day for 64 years! By rough calculation, he has eaten more than 22,000 Twinkies so far. He now has a lifetime supply of Twinkies from Hostess.

Deep fried Twinkies, invented by Christopher Sell and popularized by Chris Mullen, on the other hand, is definitely not healthy. It is made by freezing a Twinkie, then dipping it into a batter and deep frying it.


What's the Difference: i.e. vs. e.g.

The Dilemma: You're reading a document that's riddled with needless, pretentious Latin abbreviations (a legal brief, e.g., or mental_floss's exploration of differences, i.e., this book), but your year of high school Latin has been obscured by the fog of memory.

People You Can Impress: Roman emperors, lawyers, and grammar nerds.

The Quick Trick: E.g. means "for example"; i.e. means "that is." We at mental_floss remember this simply by employing Valley Girl speak. Where a fancypants Latinist would use e.g., a Valley Girl would use "like." And where the Latinist uses i.e., the Valley girl goes with "I mean." Like: "I love going out with Todd. He has, like, a really nice car. I mean, it cost a lot of money."

The Explanation: We will never understand why English abbreviations like BRB and LOL are derided as lazy, while Latin abbreviations are seen as the height of class. But now and again, it just sounds better to spice things up with a little dead language, and since Greek and Sanskrit both use unfamiliar alphabets, Latin's your best bet.

E.g. is short for exempli gratia, which literally means "by grace of example." I.e. is more straightforward: id est means "that is." The confusion stems from the fact that both abbreviations seek to clarify or focus a broad proposition, but e.g. is followed by a specific example, whereas i.e. is followed by a restatement.

Now that you know your i.e. from your e.g., we hereby provide a guide to other Latin abbreviations and phrases that some people use, even though the English language has already stolen all the Latin words it needs.

Other Helpful Latin Abbreviations:

C.f.: Often misused to mean "see, for instance," c.f. is actually short for confer. Confer is the imperative of conferre and means "compare" in Latin even though it means no such thing in English. Just remember c.f. should be used in English only to mean "compare with."

Etc.: Literally, "and the rest," etc. (the abbreviation of etcetera) indicates that the list it follows is a partial. For that reason, it's redundant, and therefore poor grammar, to say, "I love hair metal; e.g. Whitesnake, Poison, Damn Yankees, etc.," since the "for example" immediately makes it clear that the list is partial.

QED: An abbreviation for quod erat demonstradum that means "which was to be demonstrated." These days, QED generally means "Look, Mom, I proved it!" Mathematicians sometimes still end their proofs with "QED," and you sometimes hear lawyers say it, because laywers will say absolutely anything in Latin.

The article above was reprinted from the mental_floss book "What's the Difference?" with permission.

Monet? Manet? Who can even tell the difference? Well, with the help of the newest mental_floss tome, you can! ... mental_floss gives you all the tips and tricks to have you sounding like a genius.


Oscar Fun Facts.

Every year since 1929, the Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences [wiki], an organization of actors and film professionals, has been giving the Academy Awards [wiki] or popularly known as the Oscars to acknowledge the year's best movies.

Tonight, when you watch the 79th Academy Awards tonight, remember these fun facts about the Oscars:

The Statuette

The famous golden statuette, formally named the Academy Award of Merit, got its more popular moniker "Oscar" when Academy librarian Margaret Herrick said that it resembled her Uncle Oscar. Before this name stuck, other people had tried to call it "the golden trophy," "the statue of merit," and "the iron man."

Actually, there's another story about how the statuette got its name. When Bette Davis got her first Academy Award in 1936, she remarked how the statuette looked just like her ex-husband, Harmon "Oscar" Nelson, especially its butt!

The Oscar statuette isn't made of gold - it's made from an alloy called Britannia [wiki], which is 93% tin, 5% antimony, and 2% copper. It is only plated with gold.

To conserve metal during World War II, the Oscars were made of plaster. The winners could then exchange them for the shiny statuettes after the war was over.

Until the 1950s, child actors who won the Oscars were given miniature statuettes instead.

When ventriloquist Edgar Bergen [wiki] and his dummy Charlie McCarthy got an honorary Oscar in 1938, he was given a wooden Oscar statuette with a movable mouth.

In 1939, Walt Disney got an honorary Oscar for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - he got one regular full-sized and seven miniature statuettes. Disney also held the record for most Oscar nominations (48), won (22) and honorary given (4).

Saying no to the Oscar

To date (before tonight), 2,622 Oscars were presented to winners. So far, only 3 people have refused the Oscars. George C. Scott who won in 1971 for his portrayal of General Patton, said that the politics surrounding the award was "demeaning" and that the Oscar ceremony was "a two-hour meat parade."

Marlon Brando [wiki], who won in 1972 for his role in The Godfather, also refused his Oscar based on the poor depiction of Native Americans by Hollywood.

The first man to refuse the Oscar, however, was not an actor. In 1935, a writer named Dudley Nichols [wiki] refused it (for The Informer) because at the time, Writers Guild was on strike against the movie studios.

The Winners Agreement

If you won an Oscar, the Academy wouldn't just give it to you - you'd have to sign a winners agreement not to sell the award without first offering to sell it back to the Academy for $1. This makes sure that no award would be sold to private collectors. If you refused, then the Academy would keep the statuette (even after you won the award!)

This, however, doesn't mean that people don't try to sell their Oscars for lots of money. Director Steven Spielberg bought two Oscars (well, technically they were given before the winner's agreement came into being) - a Bette Davis' 1938 Best Actress Award for Jezebel and Clark Gable's 1934 Best Actor Award for It Happened One Night - and gave them back to the Academy.

Need A Replacement Oscar?

The Academy has reissued Oscars for extenuating circumstances. Gene Kelly was reissued one after his original Oscar was burnt down in a fire. Jack Lemmon got a new one after his old one rusted.

Hattie McDaniel [wiki] was the first African-American to receive an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress playing the maid Mammy in Gone with the Winds (1939). When she died, McDaniel willed her Oscar to Howard University, a predominantly black school. Problem was, the Oscar had gone missing during racial unrest on campus in the 1960s. So far, the Academy has refused to reissue the Oscar to the University.

In 2000, 55 Oscar statuettes were stolen en route to the Award show. Fifty two were recovered next to a trash bin and one was found years later in a drug bust but two are still missing. Willie Fulgear, the guy who found and turned in the Oscars, was given $50,000 and two tickets to the show. Ironically, burglars broke into his flat afterwards and stole most of his prize money.

Several Oscar winners had their statuettes stolen: Whoopi Goldberg, William Hurt, and Orson Welles. Margaret O'Brien got her stolen statue back after it went missing for 20 years.

Oscar Stunt

In 1974, Robert Opel [wiki] got backstage by posing as a journalist. When host David Niven was introducing Elizabeth Taylor, Opel ran naked across the stage flashing a peace sign. Niven, ever the quick wit, remarked "Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?"

Oscar Winners

Playwright George Bernard Shaw was the only Nobel Laureate (1924 for Literature) who also won an Oscar (1938 for Pygmalion).

The youngest Oscar winner was Shirley Temple when she was only 6 years old (1934 Special Award). Tatum O'Neal was the youngest winner of a competitive Oscar when she won Best Supporting Actress in Paper Moon in 1974. She was 10 years old. The oldest winner of a competitive Oscar was Jessica Tandy, who was 80 years old when she won Best Actress in 1989 for Driving Miss Daisy.

The shortest Oscar-winning performances belong to Anthony Quinn [wiki], who won Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Paul Gauguin in Lust for Life (1956), and Judi Dench, who won Best Supporting Actress for playing Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1999). They were actually on screen for only 8 minutes each.

Maggie Smith [wiki] is the only actress to ever win an Oscar (for 1978 Best Supporting Actress in California Suite) by playing an Oscar-losing actress!

Midnight Cowboy [wiki] was the only X-rated movie (for graphic sex scene) to ever win the Academy Award for Best Pictures.

After Marisa Tomei [wiki] won Best Supporting Actress in 1992 for her role in the comedy My Cousin Vinny, there was a rumor that presenter Jack Palance had called out the wrong name, and that the error was too embarrassing to correct. This was because Tomei beat out "heavyweights" like Vanessa Redgrave, Joan Plowright, Miranda Richardson and Judy Davis. Later, it was revealed that the votes were so split between the more renowned actress that Tomei was able to sneak through, a phenomenon the experts now call "the Marisa Tomei Factor."

Oscar Losers

It's important to keep your cool when you don't win - When Samuel L. Jackson didn't win Best Supporting Actor for Pulp Fiction in 1995, he was caught on camera muttering the "S" word. We were disappointed that Samel L. Jackson didn't use his signature "M" curse word instead.

Martin Scorsese [wiki] has been nominated 6 times for Best Director without winning a single Oscar. He's actually in good company: other great directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, Stanley Kubric, and Orson Welles never got competitive Oscars (they won honorary ones). Maybe tonight's the night for Scorsese (The Departed is a favorite to win). [Update 2/25/07: Scorsese won.]

Last but not least, sound technician Kevin O'Connell has earned 19 Oscar nominations over the years for his work on movies like The Rock, Pearl Harbor, and Spider-Man, but has never won, thus making him the biggest Oscar loser. This year, he's up for his work on Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, but said "I'm not really anticipating a win this year." Ironically, by not winning, O'Connell had become somewhat of a celebrity! We're rootin' for you Kevin! [Update 2/25/07: Kevin didn't win. Again. Better luck next year! If Susan Lucci can pull it off, you can too Kevin!]


The Secret Lives of Supreme Court Justices

William Rehnquist: And the Chief Justice Rules in Favor of … Mischief
(Supreme Gavel-Flinging: 1972-2005)

Despite all outward late-in-life appearances, Rehnquist had a notorious wily streak. In his early days on the Court, he used to sport some serious chops to go along with his flashy ties, and he liked to egg on his clerks to mock his predecessor, Chief Justice Warren Burger, whom he found utterly pompous. Actually, his tight-knit clerk relationships are legendary. One of them remembers playing charades at Rehnquist’s house one night, mystified to behold “the chief act out ‘Saving Private Ryan’ crawling under his coffee table, pointing his fingers like a gun, and mouthing ‘pow, pow!’” Of course, in light of new FBI reports that described the drug-addicted justice running around Ricky Bobby-style in pajamas and screaming about a CIA plot, the charades thing doesn’t seem so strange.

Thurgood Marshall: Proof that Smarts Don’t Equal Good Taste
(Supreme Gavel-Flinging: 1967-1991)

The first African-American justice on the Court, Marshall is one of the most important Civil Rights figures of the 20th century. His lengthy resumes includes: attending university with Langston Hughes and Cab Calloway (at Lincoln University in Pa.), successfully arguing Brown v. Board of Education before the Supremes, and generally chipping away at the bogus “separate but equal” clause in Plessy v. Ferguson. Then again, Marshall was also an incorrigible “Days of Our Lives” junkie, known to take an hour’s break to watch it.

William O. Douglass: Take My Fourth Wife. Please.
(Supreme Gavel-Flinging: 1939-1975)

William Douglas is undoubtedly the high court’s greatest scoundrel. He worked his way through four wives (the last three young enough to be his daughters) and a great many other women (he had a particular fancy for flight attendants). One time, he even had to stuff his not-yet fourth wife into the closet of his Supreme Court office when his third wife unexpectedly showed up, suspecting foul play. Oh, and Congress tried to impeach Douglas on four separate occasions using an array of charges, citing everything from shady business dealings to senility.

Sandra Day O’Connor: Ride ‘em, Cowgirl!
(Supreme Gavel-Flinging: 1981-2006)

Now that the first female Court member (who briefly dated William Rehnquist at Stanford Law) is retired, she has plenty of time for her other hobbies. For instance, she can drive her car (license plate: USSC102, since she’s the U.S. Supreme Court’s 102nd member) to Jazzercise class (she used to run a course for clerks at the Supreme Court gym) or to the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas, where she was inducted in 2002. Beats reviewing cert memos.

Hugo Black: Klansman with a Heart of Gold
(Supreme Gavel-Flinging: 1937-1971)

History seems to have forgiven Black his early dalliances with the KKK. As a member of the Klan between 1923 and 1926, it’s said that Black, being from Alabama, needed the group’s support for his law practice and Senate run. And while some fuss was rightfully kicked up over this fact, Black ended up being a truly courageous Supreme Court jurist, supporting Brown v. Board of Education and serving as a champion of pro-Civil Rights legislation. Further complicating his legacy, however: He ordered the destruction of his court papers, in a move his wife called “Operation Frustrate the Historians.”








The article above is reprinted from the March - April 2007 issue of mental_floss magazine (excellent issue! Get it at the bookstore), featured on Neatorama in partnership with mental_floss.

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The World's Shortest and Longest Wars


The Harem and Palace of Zanzibar were destroyed in the Anglo-Zanzibar war of 1896. The Palace was never rebuilt, but the Harem (of course) was later rebuilt.

The World's Shortest War

The Anglo-Zanzibar war, also known as the world's shortest war, was over in under 45 minutes. The exact length of time is actually debatable - some had put it as short as 38 minutes - anyways, it was a very, very short war.

The whole thing started when the Sultan of Zanzibar, who had willingly cooperated with the British, died on August 25, 1896, and his nephew Khalid bin Bargash seized power in a coup. Thinking that another candidate would be easier to deal with, the British delivered an ultimatum to force the Bargash to abdicate.

Bargash refused the ultimatum and assembled a navy in form of the ex-Sultan's yacht, the HHS Glasgow and fortified the palace. The British, on the other hand, assembled 5 modern warships in the harbor in front of the palace and landed two battalions of army. Bargash tried a last-ditch negotiation effort through the US Embassy, but time soon ran out.

At 9:02 AM on August 27, 1896, when the ultimatum ran out, the British navy sank the Sultan's fleet (yes, that one yacht), shelled and destroyed the palace completely. About 500 people, mostly Bargash's soliders, died. Bargash ran and hid at the German Embassy, where he was later granted asylum. Depending on who you ask, the world's shortest war was over at 9:40 AM or so.

The World's Longest War

The world's longest war, on the other hand, spanned 355 335 years without a single shot fired. That war, between the United Provinces of Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly, got started in 1651 and the story goes as follows:

During the English Civil War (1642 - 1651), the Parliamentarians beat the Royalists further and further away from London, until it was forced to retreat to the Isles of Scilly off the Cornish coast. The Netherlands, which sided with the Parliamentarians, sent the Dutch Navy to fight the Royalist fleet.

The Dutch Navy was so badly beaten that the Netherlands decided to declare war. However, they couldn't blame England, since it was the Royalists in Scilly that caused them so much problem - so they declared war on the Isles in 1651 instead. Later that year, the Isles of Scilly fell to the Parliamentarians and the Dutch forgot all about the war (that is, until they fought the Brits again and again in the Anglo-Dutch War, the first of which started just 1 year later!)

In 1985, a local historian and Chairman of the Isles of Scilly Council Roy Duncan decided to look into the rumor that the Isles were still at war with the Netherlands. When the Dutch Embassy in London confirmed that there was an actual declaration of war and everything, Duncan invited the Dutch ambassador Jonkheer Huydecoper to Scilly to sign a peace treaty.

The peace treaty was signed on April 17, 1986, thus officially ending the war between the Netherlands and Isles of Scilly 335 years after it was declared!

Sources:
The Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 at BBC h2g2, Wikipedia
Zanzibar Courage at Global Frontiers
335 Year War at Scilly News, Wikipedia
Dutch Proclaim End of War Against Britain's Scilly Isles at NY Times

Quibbles?
Supposedly, an even longer war between Rome and Carthage, which started in 264 BC with the outbreak of the Punic Wars, "ended" with a peace treaty signed in 1985. That would've made it a 2,248-year war, except Carthage was completely destroyed by the Romans and its territory completely annexed. In 146 BC, Carthage's existence as a independent state was over.


Before They Were Despots: Dictators and Their Old Jobs

In the dreary monotony of daily life, the best most of us can hope for is a promotion and a 3% raise. But a small subset of the human population dreams big – of bloody coups and secret torture chambers, personality cults and absolute power. Frankly, it’s enough to turn us off ambition entirely. Just imagine if Idi Amin had remained an assistant cook in the British colonial army. Or if these folks hadn’t thought to quit their day jobs.

1. Pol Pot, the Frustrated Teacher

Before he became a world-famous war criminal, Pol Pot was named Saloth Sar. As a young man, Sar studied carpentry and radio engineering, but proved a poor student so he became – what else? – a teacher. (And you thought your classrooms were scary.) From 1954 to 1963, Sar taught at a private school in Phnom Penh before being forced out because of ties to communism.

Ever fond of alliteration, Saloth Sar became Pol Pot and devoted himself full-time to Cambodia’s Communist Party, eventually becoming the party’s leader, and by 1975, his Khmer Rouge guerrilla army had overthrown the same government that once fired him.

In his four years of rule, Pot killed more than a million Cambodians. When the Vietnamese came to the rescue and invaded Cambodia in 1979, Pot retreated to the jungle, though he continued to orchestrate guerilla attacks until his arrest in 1997.

2. Hitler, the Frustrated Painter

As a child, Adolf Hitler attended a monastery school and harbored dreams of becoming a priest, but he dropped out after his father’s death in 1903.

By then, Hitler had a new career in mind: professional artist. And though the Führer’s precise but emotionless landscapes showed moderate promise, he was rejected twice from Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts. Bitter, poor, and lonely, young Adolf moved between boardinghouses and hostels, earning a meager living painting postcards.

Oddly enough, he might have been just another failed artist had it not been for World War I. Turning in his paintbrush for a pistol, Hitler volunteered as a runner for the German army. Turns out he enjoyed that world war so much that, a few decades later, he decided to start another one.

3. Mussolini, the Frustrated Author

Many dictators were also authors. Stalin wrote scintillating screeds like Building Collective Farms; Mao’s Little Red Book is considered to be the second-best-selling book of all time; and Hitler’s Mein Kampf made him a millionaire. Even Saddam Hussein found a little time to pen two horrible bodice-rippers while performing his duties as president of Iraq.

But the most famous dictatorial romance is The Cardinal’s Mistress, written by Benito Mussolini. Before becoming the world’s first fascist dictator, Mussolini worked for a socialist paper, Il Popolo d’Italia, for which he wrote a serial later published as a novel.

The Cardinal’s Mistress tells the tragic story of, you guessed it, a 17th-century cardinal and his mistress. And boy is it bad. It’s the sort of book where “terrible groan[s] burst forth from” characters’ breasts, and characters ask one another to “cast a ray of your light into my darkened soul.” No wonder Il Duce gave up his day job.

4. Papa Doc, the Frustrated Doctor

Unlike Doc Holliday (brilliant gunfighter and amateur dentist) and Elmer Fudd (inept gunfighter known to Bugs Bunny as Doc), François “Papa Doc” Duvalier was, in fact, a doctor – although we can only imagine his bedside manner.

Favoring hypocrisy to the Hippocratic Oath, the dangerous dictator was first a physician in Port-au-Prince for nearly a decade before immersing himself in politics full-time in 1943.

Even more surprising, he actually rose to power in a legitimately democratic election. And though he was voted in as president in 1957, Duvalier promptly showed his gratitude to the Haitian nation by killing anyone who expressed the slightest opposition to his government. By the mid-1960s, Duvalier had established himself not only as President for Life but also as a quasi-divine manifestation of Haiti’s greatest (he claimed to have supernatural powers; Papa Doc even said he placed a curse on John F. Kennedy that resulted in Kennedy’s assassination).

Incidentally, his son, “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who ruled from Papa Doc’s death in 1971 until 1986, was not a doctor. Just a dictator.

5. Castro, the Angry Ballplayer?

Persistent rumors would have you believe that old Fidel was a talented baseball player who once tried out for a major-league team in America … which is completely untrue.

The fact is, Castro did play a little ball back in school: he seems to have been the losing pitcher in a 1946 intramural game between the University of Havana’s business and law schools. But the point there is that he was in law school not so much to win ball games as to study law.

Castro graduated and practiced in Havana between 1950 and 1952, when he failed miserably in his first attempted coup d’état. After a brief stint in prison and a few years exiled in Mexico and the United States, Castro and his family finally took control of Cuba in 1959. Just goes to show you, there’s more to life than sports!

From mental_floss' book Forbidden Knowledge: A Wickedly Smart Guide to History's Naughtiest Bits, published in Neatorama with permission.

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The Naked Truth: Authors Who Write in the Buff

Writing takes a lot of focus - here are a few authors who got rid of all sorts of distractions, including their clothes, while writing:

When Victor Hugo [wiki], the famous author of great tomes such as Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, ran into a writer's block, he concocted a unique scheme to force himself to write: he had his servant take all of his clothes away for the day and leave his own nude self with only pen and paper, so he'd have nothing to do but sit down and write.

Ernest Hemingway [wiki] did not only write A Farewell to Arms, he also said farewell to clothes! The inside dirt is that Hemingway wrote nude, standing up, with his typewriter about waist level. Indeed, there might be a nudist streak in the Hemingway genes: Ernest's cousin Edward Hemingway opened Britain's oldest nudist colony, a nine-bedroom chateau called Metherell Towers, back in the 1930s!
Perhaps it's not so surprising that D.H. Lawrence [wiki], who wrote the controversial (and censored) erotic book Lady Chatterley's Lover, liked to climb mulberry trees, in the nude, before coming down to write.
James Whitcomb Riley [wiki], America's "Hoosier Poet," had his friends lock him up in a hotel room to write, naked, so he wouldn't be tempted to go down to the bar for a drink.
French poet and author Edmond Rostand [wiki], who is best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac, was so sick of being interrupted by his friends that he took up working naked in his bathtub.
Apparently Rostand wasn't the only one with this bright idea - Benjamin Franklin [wiki] also liked to take baths. In fact, he liked to take "air baths," where he sit around naked in a cold room for an hour or so while he wrote.

Mystery writer Agatha Christie [wiki], whose books have been translated in 40 languages and outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare, liked to write anywhere, including in the bathtub!

Sources: A Blank Page by Sam Elmore, In The Nude by So Many Books, Literary Life and Other Curiosities by Robert Hendrickson, Dressing to Write by Bibi's Beat.


The Original Rock Music: Stones That Sing!

The Musical Stones of Skiddaw.

On display at the Keswick Museum and Art Gallery in Cumbria, England is a unique musical instrument that looks like a xylophone - but instead of metal or wood, the notes are made from stones! This is the Musical Stones of Skiddaw [wiki], a type of lithophone [wiki] (music instrument made of rocks and stones) created by Joseph Richardson in 1840.

Selecting and shaping the stones for their musical properties turned out to be quite a task. Richardson spent 13 years (many of which in abject poverty) to collect and shape individual stones around Keswick to create a musical instrument with an eight-octave range.


Richardson and sons, with their musical rock.

Richardson went on to create the first rock band in history: Richardson & Sons, Rock, Bell and Steel Band, which even played for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Buckingham Palace in 1848!

There's even a video clip of the famous Musical Stones in concert:






YouTube Link

Ringing Rocks: Rocks That Ring Like a Bell.

In Ringing Rocks Park [wiki] near Bridgeton, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, there are curious boulders that ring like a bell when struck with a hammer!






YouTube Link

Apparently, on any given day, you'd see fellow hikers trudging toward the boulder field with hammers in hand! I wonder if you can play Jingle Bell Rock there ...

Gong Rock of the Serengeti

In the Serengeti plains of Kenya Tanzania, there is a large boulder called the Gong Rock that reverberates when hit with a small rock. The pitted surface of the Gong Rock is testament to its use by the Maasai tribe to send sound messages across the vast distance of the African savannah since ancient times.

The Great Stalacpipe Organ

The Luray Caverns [official website | wiki] in Virginia is famous for having the world's largest musical instrument: stalactites of varying sizes that can be played with rubber-tipped mallets attached to solenoids (and connected to an organ console).


Organ and Chimes - Caverns of Luray, Va. 1906 postcard

The Great Stalacpipe Organ [wiki] was created in the 1950s by Leland W. Sprinkle. Supposedly, he got the idea when his son Robert struck his head on a stalactite, producing a musical tone! Sprinkle spent over 3 years finding and shaving stalactites to produce specific notes - all in all, the stalactites he chose are distributed over 3.5 acres of the caverns.

On tours, you even get to hear it play:






YouTube Link

Pyeongyeong and Bianqing

The Pyeongyeong is a rare musical instrument from the ancient Korea circa 1100 AD, consisting of 16 L-shaped jade-stone slab hanging from a wooden frame (resting on two white geese!). The tone varies depending on the thickness of the slabs.


Bianqing photo from Chinese University of Hong Kong

The pyeongyeong was actually derived from an even older Chinese version called the bianqing. The oldest bianqing was excavated from the ruins of the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1776 BC - 1050 BC) and was made from smooth stones with intricate carvings.

Stone Marimbas

Will Menter in North Wales built a marimba with sound bars made from slate. It must have been a good idea, because Jim Doble of Elemental Design in Maine also built one!


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