(Roughly) Daily

From Foreign Policy, “Even Better Than the Real Thing: The 10 best fake Twitter feeds on global politics.”

@KermlinRussia

The bizarro-world Dmitry Medvedev (in Russian)

“Governors need to have more children so that the country will have more successful young entrepreneurs.”

As we grab our laughs in 140-character hunks, we might recall that it was on this date in 1930 that news flew (by radio and cable) around the world that astronomer Clyde Tombaugh had discovered (what was then considered) the ninth planet in our solar system.  The Lowell Observatory, Tombaugh’s site, had naming rights– and received over 1,000 recommendations.  They finally settled on “Pluto,” the suggestion of an eleven-year-old school girl from Oxford, Venetia Burney, who proposed the name of the god of the underworld (as appropriate to such a cold, dark place) to her grandfather, Falconer Madan, Librarian at the Bodleian Library; Madan passed it on to Professor Herbert Hall Turner, who in turn cabled it to colleagues in the U.S.  It was formally adopted on March 24…  each member of the Observatory staff voted on a list of three finalists:  Minerva (which was already the name of an asteroid), Cronus (which suffered for being the nominee of the unpopular astronomer Thomas Jefferson Jackson See), and Pluto. Pluto received every vote.

 Clyde Tombaugh (source)

 Venetia Burney (source)

 Pluto (source)

A portrait series by by Tim Mantoani features now-famous photographers holding the iconic photos that made them famous: “Behind Photographs.”  See the behind-the-scenes video; page through the series in a photo book.

[TotH to Laughing Squid]

As we frame our thoughts, we might recall the cautionary tale of Ruth Pierce (of whom there is no photo):

On Thursday the 25th of January 1753, Ruth Pierce of Potterne in this County, agreed with three other women to buy a sack of wheat in the market, each paying her due proportion towards the same. One of these women, in collecting the several quotas of money, discovered a deficiency, and demanded of Ruth Pierce the sum which was wanting to make good the amount. Ruth Pierce protested that she had paid her share, and said, “She wished she might drop down dead if she had not.” She rashly repeated this awful wish; when to the consternation and terror of the surrounding multitude, she instantly fell down and expired, having the money concealed in her hand.

- Inscribed on the Market Cross in Devizes (England), the site of a grain exchange in Ruth’s time

The Market Cross in Devizes (source)

More Animals in Midlife Crises at Rumpus (a site well worth poking around)…

As we help our therapists pay for those third homes, we might send deeply analyzed birthday greetings to Italian sociologist, criminologist, and statistician Alfredo Niceforo; he was born on this date in 1876.  Niceforo theorized that every person has a “deep ego” of subconscious antisocial impulses that represent a throwback to pre-civilized existence.  Counterbalancing this ego, and attempting to keep its latent delinquency in check, he posited, is a “superior ego,” a product of man’s social interaction.  Niceforo’s theory, which he published in 1902, clearly resembles– and seems to anticipate– the “id, ego, and super-ego” construction with which Freud replaced his original concept of the Unconscious. (Id, ego , and super-ego first appear in Freud’s work in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, 1920.)

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From Scientific American, “Duh! 11 Obvious Science Findings of 2011“… including such gems as:

Image: Flickr/Judy van der Velden

Pigs love mud
Turns out pigs aren’t just putting on a show when they haul butt around their muddy quarters, diving into the muck. They actually like it. While mud baths keep pigs cool, a review of research reported in 2011 found wallowing may also be a swine sign of well-being. While the review found the strongest reason noted in the past studies for wallowing was to keep cool, the pigs kept it up through winter months.

See them all– smoking pot and driving isn’t safe!  unsafe sex is more likely after drinking!  plus another eight– here.  (And then check out “Doh! Top Science Journal Retractions of 2011“… turns out, for instance, that the MMR vaccine [for measles, mumps and rubella] wasn’t linked to autism after all, and that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome wasn’t demonstrated to be the result of a retrovirus…)

As we polish our paradigms, we might recall that it was on this date in 1863 that Thomas Crapper demonstrated the one-piece pedestal flushing toilet that still bears his name in many parts of the English-speaking world.

The flushing toilet was invented by John Harrington in 1596; Joseph Bramah patented the first practical water closet in England in 1778; then in 1852, George Jennings received a patent for the flush-out toilet.  Crapper’s  contribution was promotional:  In a time when bathroom fixtures were barely mentionable, Crapper, who was trained as a plumber, set himself up as a “sanitary engineer”; he heavily promoted “sanitary” plumbing and pioneered the concept of the bathroom fittings showroom.  His efforts were hugely successful; he scored a series of Royal Warrants (providing lavatories for Prince, then King Edward, and for George V) and enjoyed huge commercial success.

source (book available here)

To my darling Husband -
We have now been married for 6 very special months. Enjoy memories of our wonderful Honeymoon as you read this
Anita XXX

As he explains in The Guardian, Wayne Gooderham was inspired by a passage in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca…

I picked up the book again, and this time it opened at the title-page, and I read the dedication. ‘Max – from Rebecca. 17 May,’ written in a curious slanting hand. A little blob of ink marred the white page opposite, as though the writer, in impatience, had shaken her pen to make the ink flow freely. And then as it bubbled through the nib, it came a little thick, so that the name Rebecca stood out black and strong, the tall and sloping R dwarfing the other letters… I could see her turning to that first white page, smiling as she wrote, and shaking the bent nib. Max from Rebecca. It must have been his birthday, and she had put it amongst her other presents on the breakfast table. And they had laughed together as he tore off the paper and string. She leant, perhaps, over his shoulder, while he read. Max. She called him Max. It was familiar, gay, and easy on the tongue. The family could call him Maxim if they liked. Grandmothers and aunts. And people like myself, quiet and dull and youthful, who did not matter. Max was her choice, the word was her possession; she had written it with so great a confidence on the fly-leaf of that book. That bold slanting hand, stabbing the white paper, the symbol of herself, so certain, so assured.

…to begin collecting the inscriptions he found in used books– “the secret history of second-hand books.”  From the warm-and-heartfelt to the ironic (intentional and otherwise), it’s all at Book Dedications.

Sept. ’73
For mummy –
may you read it all – clearly and without prejudice – right to the end!
 Lots of love
 Hetty xxx

As we recap our pens, we might send sturdily-bound birthday greetings to publishing pioneer Frank Nelson Doubleday; he was born on this date in 1862.  Doubleday began his career at Charles Scribner’s Sons, rising to become publisher of their magazine.  But after falling out with Blair Scribner, Doubleday  recruited Samuel S. McClure, publisher of McClure’s Magazine, to form Doubleday & McClure Co.– soon known simply as Doubleday, the company grew organically and through acquisition until 1986, when it was acquired by Bertlesmann.

Frank was a hands-on owner:  he had close working friendships with the likes of James Barrie, Andrew Carnegie, Alfred Harcourt, Edward Mandell House, Rudyard Kipling, T. E. Lawrence, Christopher Morley, Mark Twain and John D. Rockefeller (whose autobiography Doubleday edited– and may have ghost-written).  His nickname, “Effendi,” was bestowed on him by Kipling (who derived it from his initials, F.N.D.).

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