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by Charles Glazer
A few years ago I noted that emergency-room physicians were seeing a plethora (that's a lot) of injuries related to people cutting bagels improperly. Now, from Britain, comes the latest in stupid and avoidable injuries: drinking and frying. Authorities estimate that about 4,600 people are injured each year using home fryers to cook up french fries, which Britons, of course, call "chips," you know, because of that whole British-French thing, even though chips are really the things you lose in Vegas or behind the couch cushions during the football game. Of course, a football game in Britain is really a soccer game, but that's another story altogether, and quite a dull one at that.
In addition, tests in Kent County (which, of course, would be County Kent if it were in Ireland, or Kent Parish if it were in Louisiana—oh, man, I need to get more sleep) indicate that half of the people who died in house fires had blood-alcohol levels over twice the legal limit for driving, although I'd love to know what percentage of people in Kent County have blood-alcohol levels over twice the legal limit even when their houses don't burn down. Also, 30 percent of injuries caused by frying-pan fires happen between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.
"Chip-pan fires are the single largest cause of casualties in house fires," according to Home Secretary Jack Straw. That quote really doesn't add anything to what I've already said; I just used it because the guy has such a cool name. And the Straw man should know; his chip pan caught fire 15 years ago at his home, though he swears he was sober at the time.
The government has been fighting this problem with an ad campaign telling people to use less oil, to make sure food is not left unattended, to avoid putting food in a pan that's smoking (as you know, smoking is also a leading cause of death) or to "have a sandwich instead." I have no doubt the ad campaign is financed by the powerful British sandwich lobby.
In the course of my travels, I picked up some literature about the Radiation and Public Health Project, which includes a study of the amount of radioactive Strontium 90 that has ended up in teeth since 1970. The literature came with an envelope you can use to send your child's baby teeth to the researchers, along with information about where they grew up, where their water came from and whether or not they had used nuclear fuel rods as teething rings.
I found this kind of interesting. I wonder if these guys are looking for other body parts as well. You could send them your appendix when it's removed or, if you're even more scientifically inclined, you could send them your gall bladder, or a lung, or a leg or something. Of course, you'd need a bigger envelope. And a cane.
Somebody who needs to get out more sent me some interesting mathematics-related quotes (the first and, hopefully, last time I use the words "interesting" and "mathematics" in the same sentence). There were some other quotes as well, but let's do the math ones first, as I recall that when I was in college, Calculus was only offered at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., and the 8 a.m. class was much preferable, as by 4 p.m. I just couldn't summon any enthusiasm for Calculus, while at 8 a.m. the instructor was able to sneak it past me before I realized what had happened.
From St. Augustine: "The good Christian should beware of mathematics and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell." Whoa, Gus, lighten up. Although I gotta tell you, the difference between an 8 a.m. Calc class and the bonds of Hell often seemed pretty slim.
Writer Calvin Trillin: "Math was always my bad subject. I couldn't convince my teachers that many of my answers were meant ironically." Now there's my kind of guy.
And, finally, Andrew Lang: "He used statistics the way a drunkard uses lampposts—for support, not illumination."
So much for this week's math murder. Join me next week to delve into the hilarity of particle acceleration.
(Count on News You Can't Use to sum up the world's divisions weekly. It's easy—like rolling of a logarithm.)
by Nessa Flax
For most of us, Labor Day has simply become the end-of-summer marker. The holiday is that last long weekend opportunity for picnics and family outings. But a more meaningful history for this day is buried in barbeque sauce, for which some paid with their lives.
According to some records, it was Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, who first proposed the holiday for workers. In surprisingly poetic language, McGuire called for a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”
Recent research, however, seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. Subsequently, the union celebrated the first Labor Day in New York City that year.
Although the day gained acceptance throughout the country in the years following, it was not until 1894 that it was declared a national holiday by President Grover Cleveland. It was a move that was solely an election year attempt at political damage control. The bill was signed just six days after Cleveland had called out 12,000 troops to put down a strike by the American Railway Union at the Pullman Company in Chicago.
Cleveland’s action resulted in the deaths of 34 workers. Despite enacting the holiday, Cleveland was not reelected.
In 1898, Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of Labor, called it a workers’ day “when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed,” when they “may not only lay down their tools for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it.”
Original Labor Day celebrations included demonstrations highlighting speakers addressing worker issues. To be fair to our present-day party spirit, those more serious elements of the day were followed by a “festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families” according to the original designs for the observance.
The holiday holds a unique place among holidays. Gompers said, “Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country. All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day…is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.”
Amidst the hot dogs and hamburgers at summer’s-end celebrations, perhaps we could take a moment to chew on the history of Labor Day. Membership in labor unions in the United States reached an all-time high in the 1950s. Then, about forty percent of the work force belonged to unions. Today, union membership is held by about fourteen percent of the working population.
It seems worth asking whether this decrease has served the interests of workers well, or if, in fact, the increasing gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is partly due to the loss of workers’ advocates.
Judson S. Peck of Topsham will attend Bates College this fall. Peck is a 2006 graduate of Kodaikanal International School. He is the son of Bruce and Ann Peck of Topsham.
Military updates
Air Force Tech. Sgt. Robert S. Bogie has arrived for duty at Whiteman Air Force Base in Knob Noster, MO. Bogie, an aircraft structural maintenance craftsman, is assigned to the 509th Maintenance Squadron. He is the son of Calvin S. and Darlene E. Bogie of East Ryegate. The sergeant is a 1995 graduate of Blue Mountain High School in Wells River.
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