What Would Jimmy Do?

A few days ago President Biden indicated that he was going to have a ”come to Jesus” meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. When asked, Biden said that the expression “come to Jesus” was one that is commonly used in southern Delaware and that it means a “serious meeting.”

The phrase isn’t just common to southern Delaware — I think it’s pretty universal. I’ve heard it as long as I can remember and I grew up in Oklahoma. When I was young and my mother took me to the Baptist Church in Maysville, every church service ended with a “come to Jesus” moment. They always ended the service singing songs and the minister asking people accept Jesus and be “saved.” I think he was, in fact, asking them to “come to Jesus.”

I have a suspicion that the phrase originated from those kinds of religious services or activities — religions pushing for personal conversions to save their souls by turning away from the devil and coming to Jesus.

But today, the “religious” aspect of the phrase has gotten lost. People that say “we need to have a “come to Jesus” meeting are not just serious, but they’re really, really, really, serious. It’s meant to convey the importance of a meeting where some crisis is finally going to be addressed. 

I think it’s interesting that this phrase must have originated in the Christian community — I don’t ever remember hearing of a “come to Allah” meeting or “come to Buddha” meeting…..
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All my life I’ve heard about people that supposedly “spontaneously combust.” I always put that in the category of old wives tales, or more recently fake news. But I ran across something interesting a few days ago that “appears” to be true. It was an article about Jacqueline Prietman, a British woman, that constantly produces ten times the static electricity of a normal human being.

The lady, who ironically married an electrician before she knew about her strange condition, grew up with no more than the usual mild electromagnetic field that surrounds everyone. But when she turned 22 years old, she noticed that her mere touch would cause ordinary household appliances to short out and “fizzle.”When others used the same appliances, they worked normally. Apparently she could also change the channels on her TV by just going near it. Priestman had to buy at least 30 new vacuum cleaners in her married life, plus five irons and several washing machines.

She was studied by Michael Shallis, a former astrophysicist, at Oxford University. He said that she was actually able to transmit tiny bolts of “lightening” that could affect any electrical system nearby.
He couldn’t come up with an explanation for the phenomenon, but he did say that most similar cases he had investigated involved women.
After studying more than 600 people with Pressman’s condition, he wrote a book called The Electrical Connection. 

There is a name for people like Priestman. Because people with abnormal amounts of static electricity often cause streetlights to flicker when they pass by, scientists call the strange disorder Street Light Interference, or SLI. People with the condition are called SLI-ders or Sliders. (I’m not making this up.)
I guess people like this lend a whole new meaning to “getting a charge out of life.”
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We’ve had a couple of nice days lately and in the afternoons, I’ve spent some time reading on the patio. We live in a very nice housing development, or “village.” There are quite a few kids in the neighborhood. But while I was sitting out enjoying the great weather, It occurred to me that I didn’t see any of those kids. If fact, I almost never see any kids — occasionally, you’ll see one walking to the bus stop or maybe home from the bus stop. But you never see them outside playing.

I don’t remember the last time I saw any kid, or group of kids, playing outside. I’m not sure when this all happened, but I just noticed it. Of course you know where this is leading — some extensive research. I really was curious and I discovered it wasn’t just my imagination — kids really don’t seem to play outside much anymore.

Here’s some “facts” that I found interesting:
Only 6 percent of American children, ages 9-13, play outside unsupervised.
A 2004 survey found that 71 percent of American mothers said they played outdoors every day as children, but only 26 percent of them said their kids played outdoors daily.
A 2005 study indicated that 71 percent of adults reported that they walked or biked to school when they were children, but in 2005, only about 20 percent of children did. 

But my question remains…. why?
My guess is that fear may be maybe the most important reason. We obviously live in a more fearful society these days. Parents have a lot to worry about, some of the things are real, some are exaggerated, some are imagined — traffic, strangers, crime, bug bites, skin cancer, injuries, animals, etc. 
And a lot of kids don’t want to go outside — they’d rather watch the screen of their iPads, or TV, or some video game. 
A lot (most?) kids are raised in an overly structured lifestyle. They’re involved in sports teams, indoor play centers, and other extracurricular activities. And some schools seem to assign an excessive amount of homework.

Anyhow, I think it’s a shame — apparently parents have come to the conclusion that all these “threats”  are real and organized activities are better for their kids than the goof-around, footloose time I had when I was a kid.
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While going through some of our old books to donate to a book sale, I ran across one about Robert Louis Stevenson — it contained an interesting story about his short story The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We all know that it’s a tale about a respected physician that transforms into a deranged and dangerous criminal. It turns out that Stevenson got the inspiration for his story that explored man’s darker side from a real-life, respected Scotsman by the name of William Brodie.

William Brodie was born into a prominent 18th century Edinburgh family and grew up as the model of respectability. He followed his father into the cabinetmaking profession, and by his mid-twenties had established himself as a part of the upper crust of Scottish society. He had also become the deacon of the local chapter of the Mason’s Guild and an Edinburgh city councilor.

But Brodie loved to gamble — and — he had ongoing relationships with two prostitutes. As one might expect, the gambling debts started to pile up and, when his two mistresses had offspring, he found himself in desperate straits. 
His legitimate day job of cabinetmaking allowed him to visit his rich clients in their homes. He started making wax impressions of the house keys he came across, and checking out the houses for items of interest — then, he’d return in the evenings to gather up the goods. His life of crime was a solution to his money worries, but he also like the thrill of it all.

Bodie teamed up with a locksmith by the name of George Smith and together they stole everything they could in Edinburgh. Unlike Bodie, who was elegant and cultured, Smith was a small time crook with just about no redeeming qualities. After a while, Bodie and Smith recruited two more local criminals into their gang that were pretty much copies of Smith. 

The gang’s most daring job — an attack on the headquarters of the Scottish Customs and Excise — was kind of a fiasco. Brodie dressed in black and stood guard outside with Smith as the other two made their way inside. Smith got cold feet and Brodie canceled the job. 
But the attempt didn’t sit well with the authorities and a large reward was offered for the capture of those who been so bold as to even try to seal from the Scottish taxpayer. One of the gang decided to turn King’s evidence. He told the authorities that the man behind the raid was the highly regarded Deacon William Brodie. The police didn’t believe him. But they dispatched a team to Brodie’s apartment, mainly so they could officially discount the preposterous suggestion that he could be involved in such a scheme.

But what they found substantiated the claim — skeleton keys, a burglar’s black suit, and several pistols were cataloged  and taken for further examination. Bodie himself, however, was nowhere to be found. He’d fled to Holland, with the intention to set sail for America. When he attempted to board the ship, wearing top hat and tails, he was apprehended by two Dutch police officers. They escorted him off the ship and extradited him back to Edinburgh to face charges. 
At his trial, he dressed in a three-piece suit and top hat. He answered questions with a “haughty carelessness.” He didn’t seem troubled at all by the fate that awaited him — death by hanging. 

He was found guilty and as he stood on the gallows that he (in his role as city councilor) had designed, he offered up a prayer and then beckoned for the hangman to perform his task. He breathed his last on October 1, 1788.
When I was in Edinburgh there was a pub named Deacon Brodie’s — it had been there a long time. I don’t know if it’s still there……
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I’ve always heard that the Titanic  was advertised as “unsinkable.” But I ran across an article the other day that indicated that the story of the ship that was billed as unsinkable going down on her maiden voyage isn’t exactly true. 

The White Star Line never advertised that the Titanic — or her sister ship Olympic — were unsinkable. They promoted the ships by claiming that the two ships were the “largest and finest steamers in the world.” Apparently the supposed advertising of the Titanic as unsinkable was the work of a reporter after the Titanic sank. I guess a story like that sold more newspapers…..
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While cleaning out our library, I ran across an interesting little book about Florence Nightingale. Not sure where it came from, but there were only about 10 or 12 pages, so I read through it. Here’s some interesting things that I didn’t know….

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820 in Florence, Italy — she was named for that city.
In 1854, she led a group of 38 nurses to care for British soldiers wounded in the Crimean War. 
She is best known as the founder of modern nursing. Before Florence came along, the female nurses in British hospitals were mostly Roman Catholic nuns or prostitutes. Florence gets credit for making it a safe and respectable profession for women. 

Her parents opposed her desire to be a nurse, but they made sure she got an education. Florence and her sister were tutored in Italian, Latin, history, Greek, and mathematics. 
Mostly because of her family’s opposition to her career choice, and her inability to make a decision about a long-standing marriage proposal, she suffered a short-lived mental breakdown.

She pioneered the use of graphs for statistical representation. Her work showed, for the first time, that social events could be objectively measured and subjected to mathematical analysis.
Among her hospital innovations were hot water piped to all floors, the installation of dumbwaiters to bring patients’ food, and bells for patients to call nurses. 
The small booklet she wrote, Notes on Nursing, published in 1861, was a multi-million-copy bestseller.

After returning from the Crimean War, Florence was plagued with illness — and post traumatic  stress disorder. She spent most of the rest of her life confined to bed.
Even though her father objected to Florence going into nursing, he never rejected her after she became a nurse. William Nightingale provided an income of 500 pounds a year for her — the equivalent of around $50,000 today.
She was uninterested in her celebrity status and refused photographs and interviews, and never appeared at public functions — even those given in her honor. She was such a recluse, in fact, a lot of people thought she was dead long before her actual time of passing.
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Back in my working days, there was about a two year period that I spent a lot of my time in the San Francisco area. There was a lot I liked about the area and the city itself. One of the attractions that always fascinated me was the cable cars.

While continuing the process of de-cluttering and cleaning out things that have outlived their usefulness, I ran across a pamphlet that I had apparently picked up years ago. The pamphlet gave a brief history of the cable cars and it brought back some fond memories of my time in the “city by the bay.”

Back in 1869, Andrew S. Hallidie watched as four horses struggled to pull a streetcar up one of San Francisco’s steepest hills. About halfway to the top, one of the horses slipped on the wet cobblestones. The driver applied the brakes, but the chain snapped and the car slid backwards down the hill, dragging the poor horses with it. The horses didn’t survive and when Hallidie saw that, he decided to so something about it.

Andrew Hallidie’s father was an inventor that held a number of patents for “wire rope,” the forerunner of wire cable. Andrew had inherited his father’s inventiveness and his sense of adventure brought him from England to California, where he prospected for gold for a few relatively unsuccessful years. He tried blacksmithing, and then turned to building bridges — the suspension kind that used lots of his father’s wire rope.

Hallidie held a patent on the “Hillidie Ropeway,” a steam-powered cable line he’d invented while working in the gold territory. The ropeway, also called a tramway, transported cars full of ore across mountainous areas on a wire rope that had a tensile strength of 160,000 pounds per square inch. At the time of the streetcar accident that killed the horses, Hallidie lived in San Francisco and owned a company that manufactured….. wire rope!

His idea for a cable-operated streetcar started with laying a moving cable in a groove in the street. He attached a grip to the cable — when it grabbed the cable, the car would move forward. When it released, the car would stop. He spent the next couple of years trying to drum up financial backing and the project became known as “Halidie’s folly.” But he finally managed to raise enough money to build an experimental line. 

On August 2, 1873, Hallidie and some of his engineers gathered for the first trial run — at 4 a.m. He chose the very early hour to minimize his embarrassment if it didn’t work. The driver, known as a grip man, climbed onto the car, but when he looked down and saw the bottom of the hill far below, he stepped down and said, “I have a wife and kids at home,” and walked away.
No one else volunteered, so Hallidie climbed into the car and took hold of the levers that operated the grip. The car glided smoothly down the hill and when it reached the bottom, he turned the car around and made it back up the hill — all without mishap.

Later that day, it seemed like the whole town turned out for the first public run. And even before waiting to see if it worked, 90 fearless San Franciscans climbed into the car that was built to hold 26 passengers. Many of them took the first official ride perched on the roof and hanging off the side of “Halidie’s folly.” For many, many years, San Franciscans rode the cable cars to and from work and shopping.  Today it’s one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. And — it has the distinction of being an official National Historic Landmark.
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I was in China in 1972. Since the revolution in 1949, China was led by Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. When I arrived, the country had been “closed” for more than 20 years. During my time there, I became friends with a couple of “old” Chinese workers that remembered what it was like before Chairman Mao cane into power — and they had lots of stories, some of which were about Chairman Mao. One of my favorites is about the Chinese Steel Industry……
(Disclaimer: I have to admit this is one of my favorite stories very much because of the gentleman that told it to me and the way in which he told it.)

In the mid 1950s Mao Tse-Tung realized that he was the leader of a backward country. He was aware that Britain, America, France and the Soviet Union were all ahead of China in steel production — a long way ahead. He knew that if China was to become a modern country, it needed to start producing as much steel as possible. Back in the 1950s Chinese people didn’t know much about science or technology, and that included Chairman Mao. So he consulted his advisers, and one of them came up with a brilliant idea. It was proposed that they would build small blast furnaces in every village — then the peasants could convert their iron plows and sickles into high-quality steel that could be used to build bridges, factories and warships. Mao was told that within 15 years, steel production would equal that of the United States. 

Well, of course, the peasants didn’t know much about science and technology either, but they did what they were told. Soon every village square had a tall, conical “blast furnace.” Tons of fuel was used to melt good tools into useless black lumps of slag. 

According to my friend, Chairman Mao spent most of his time at his luxury villa, reading and lounging by his swimming pool. But every so often, he would travel by his special train to inspect the progress of the steel production at one of the provincial villages. No one wanted to tell him that his great plan wasn’t working, so they sent another train ahead, loaded with imported steel girders. They’d stack the girders up in the village square before Mao arrived and tell all the villagers to pose proudly beside the pile. Mao was very please with the progress his country was making. He’d take a quick look around, congratulate everyone on how well it was going, and get back on his train.

But when harvest time came around, all the tools had been melted down and the best the Chinese could do after spending so much time on steel production duty was to try pulling plants up with their hands. Most of the crops rotted in the fields and caused a famine that lasted until 1960 and killed an estimated 30 million people. 

Mao eventually realized there was no steel — and — no food or agricultural tools either. It’s interesting that Chairman Mao called China’s entry into the steel business the “Great Leap Forward.”
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Don’t know if everyone has realized it yet, but today is a special day. 
Six months from today is Christmas — so I guess the countdown has begun and I imagine the stores will begin decorating in the next few days.
And — today is also Dave and Chassie’s birthday.
Happy Birthday to two great kids!!!
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Dr. Anthony Fauci recently wrote a book (On Call) describing, in part, his time fighting COVID. I remember all the controversy surrounding the development of the vaccines. I wonder how Edward Jenner would have handled that situation….

Smallpox was mentioned by the Chinese as far back as the twelfth century B.C. and by the eighteenth century A.D. it was still one of the world’s most dreaded diseases — it left scars, and its victims could be left blind or even die. 

In the 1770s, in England, the only people who would care for smallpox patents were those who’d survived the disease and couldn’t catch it again. A surgeon’s apprentice, Edward Jenner, found out that a woman that was nursing one of his patents was also his milkmaid. She told him that even though she’d never had smallpox, she was immune to it because she’d had cowpox. Cowpox affected cows and sheep — it also made people sick, but it was a mild disease compared to smallpox. Jenner told the surgeon he worked for about the woman, but the surgeon told him not to listen to worthless old wives’ tales.

But Jenner started to keep track of what happened to people who’d recovered from cowpox and were later exposed to smallpox. Turns out that the milkmaid was right. Edward Jenner eventually published a pamphlet stating that inoculations with cowpox would save people from dying of smallpox. After years of ridicule, his idea was accepted. Jenner is now known as the inventor of vaccinations. Smallpox has pretty much been wiped out, and countless lives have been saved with vaccinations — a word that’s derived from the Latin word “vacua.” It means “cow.”
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